Dr. Phil's Insights

Dr. Phil's book "Self Matters" mattered a great deal for me to learn more about myself.

I started reading his book in 2008, when I was trying to figure out everything that I had not learned from my parents at home, which I discovered was more than I realized, and thus I realized that there was so much more to learn.

Dr. Phil talked about the traumas, the tapes, and the fixed ideas that we have in our lives.

He posed a very interesting set of challenges, a set of lessons to his readers.

Take a little notepad and write down the thoughts that come to mind.

I noticed indeed that much of  my thinking was quite negative, fighting old battles which no one can win.

I have since realized how much time and energy I have spent in this life trying to fix my feelings, making sure that I was thinking and feeling a certain way.

I often troubled myself with questions like "What should I be thinking right now?"

I was more aware than ever how often I brooded over past wrong-doings, convicted for so long that when bad things happened to me in this life, it was my fault for bringing those disastrous consequences on myself, or it was my fault for not doing something about it.

Dr. Phil also touched on this issue of "identity", who I am on the inside. I had spent so much time defining who I was by what other people said or thought or did to me or for me.

A lot of protection from making my own choices certainly played into this sense of "learned helplessness." At various stages of my life, I found that I never really knew what I wanted to do in this life. I never really had a source of unconditional acceptance, either.

The stability of knowing who you are and where you can rest no matter what happens, this elements is key and crucial. Do  you know where you stand, even when you fall? Do you know how to sit even in the midst of desolation and desecration?

If we are looking to our own thoughts and feelings for this stability, we can be nothing but depressed and disappointed.

Dr. Phil forced everyone of us to look at our automatic thoughts. How did we respond to challenges? How did we feel at certain points of the day? Honestly, I spent much of my inner life either suppressing or refining my feelings. It was only recently that I learned, oh so recently, that my feelings merely reflect what I am thinking. Furthermore, I did not have to shame myself for whatever went through my mind, nor did I have to "watch myself"

The all too pervasive question of "what will I do" or "what have I do" was all encompassing. Neither lingering in the past nor louring over the future, we are called to rest and receive the present.

For too long, I assumed that "now" as much as "forever" lived and thrived depending on what I was doing, how I was feeling.

Dr. Phil outlined the problems, my thinking, the untruth in my cogitations. Christ removed the limitations by granting me His life.