Day 1080: Antidotes

Not since my first few months of daily blogging — almost three years ago  — have I used the word “Antidotes” in a post title.

If you have a burning curiosity to read those two early “Antidotes” posts, the antidotes for that are here and here.

I find it odd that I’ve not referenced “Antidotes” more in my blog titles, since antidotes are

• so helpful for letting go of unhelpful and automatic thoughts (also called “cognitive distortions”),
• a major focus of my psychotherapy practice, and
• things we could all use, according to this online definition:

1.a medicine or other remedy for counteracting the effects of poison, disease, etc.
2.something that prevents or counteracts injurious or unwanted effects.

Yesterday, in individual and group therapy sessions, people came up with several valuable antidotes, including:

•  realizing that a worst fear is often unlikely to come true, since we are consciously and unconsciously working to prevent that,
• increasing self-esteem by seeing oneself through the eyes of a beloved pet,
• letting go of internalized harsh judgments about personal appearance,
• imagining anxiety-provoking thoughts and images attached to balloons that float away,
• affirmations of self-worth, and
• realizing that traumas of the past are in the past and NOT in the here and now.

I wonder if the thirteen photos I snapped yesterday are antidotes for anything.

Here’s a possible antidote for my nervousness about trying out for The Voice in February: “singing” is the only antidote that appears twice in the lists of “What Helps” on the walls of my office.

What antidotes do you find helpful?

Here’s an all-purpose antidote for what ails us:  gratitude. Thanks to all who helped me create this post and to you — of course! — for reading it.