Cognitive Restructuring

Today is day one of tackling my neurotic perfectionism. This is intense therapy to change my destructive perfectionist tendencies, which, apparently, have already been passed onto all three of my children.

Here is what I'm tackling today:

All-or-nothing thinking: I look at everything as extremes. Things are either good or bad, with NOTHING in between.

So when I find myself in the slowest line at Wal-mart (which always happens) and I say, "I always pick the wrong line," (because I always do) I am going to tell myself,

"How nice to have a few minutes with nothing to do and nobody bothering me. I think I'll read a magazine." And if anybody who knows me is standing around me they will fall over with disbelieve that I can be so upbeat about waiting in line. They will think that some alien has taken over my speech.

I may be sending Randy to the store from now on because I think he always picks the shortest line. Unless I am with him - then we are in the longest line.

Tomorrows therapy? Overgeneralization. This is when something bad happens, I conclude that it is one in a series of never ending miserable patterns in my life. This is also true.

I may skip to Should statements: I think my house should always be neat. Instead, I am supposed to say, "I like my house to be neat, but if it's not, it's no big deal. There are worse things in the world than a messy house."

This may be much harder than I anticipated.