Napping on rainy days

Not what you'd call a day of achievement here at RTW.  Most of the day spent napping in bed, dipping into the Saturday paper, and catching up with the kittens.  I needed rest and quiet after a difficult couple of weeks, including being sick, but I think staying in bed 'til 5pm is taking it a bit far.  Ended up feeling anxious and fending off negative thoughts - you know, just the usual, 'why aren't I..', 'why did they...', 'when will I...', 'I should...', covering a whole range of topics.  Not useful.  But I grasped anew what psychologists say about thinking and feeling: thoughts create feelings, feelings lead to behaviour.  The negative thoughts began swirling, and I started to feel unhappy.  Rationally, nothing about my siutation had changed, other than how I thought (and so felt) about it.  In trying to find a link to this (though I know it's pretty basic), I came across a link to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.  It's very good.  Something I should put into practice, as I've read quite a bit about it, including The Happiness Trap, by Dr Russ Harris.  Russ has a website, http://www.actmindfully.com/.  I recommend his work.  Time I put some effort into practising!

So, takeaway for dinner, and a night of TV.  I'm watching Durham County at the moment, series one.  It's a creepy show, very well done.  Have you seen it?  The casting is excellent, the performances bring characters to life.  The lead is a very flawed good guy.  His nemesis, a very nasty piece of work.  The cinematography and locations are just right - an unfinished house, beside ominous power lines, betrayal, deceit, manipulation.  It's all there.  A Canadian production - I had thought it was set in Los Angeles.  Spooky and superb.

I have two kittens beside me on the couch - the two boys seem to like curling up together.  Now they do napping during the day very well!

I'm still working my way through A Life At Work. In the meantime, I'm finding interesting things to read around the place, such as this blog, and in particular, a post on 'reframing your lawyer life' and gratitude.  How about that?  Lisa from Of all the liars regularly posts her Daily 5, a list of things for which she's grateful.  It's a good practice and it works.  I first did it on the suggestion of a counsellor, when I was in the depths of depression, and I can still remember the day when I was walking down the street, the sun was shining, and for the first time in months, I felt a moment of joy.  A list of three things, every day, was one of the things that lifted me out of the grey depths.  The first paragraph of that post spoke to me straight away:

One of the keys to happiness, in life and career, is valuing what you have. Everyone in our society forgets this from time to time, but lawyers do seem to have a special knack for it. That’s because we lawyers are trained to deconstruct, to find the flaw, to figure out what is wrong.

'Trained to deconstruct, to find the flaw, to figure out what's wrong.'  Yes, and it's a habit that can spread, until the whole of life is viewed through that prism.