Saturday, February 1, 2014

Car troubles--not a reason to panic

Talk about a frustrating week.

On Sunday I went to start my car, but all I heard were a series of clicks. The next day I was flying out of town for business, so I had to arrange a ride to the airport and a tow truck to take the car to the repair shop. The tow truck dropped off the car across the street from the repair shop; I had to call back and have it towed across the street for $45. Turns out it was the battery. A couple hundred dollars later, I discovered when I returned home that my muffler was hanging low—my muffler brackets had snapped. What I thought might be a quick weld repair turned into a much more expensive job.

Argh.

Throughout the entire experience, I remained relatively calm. Before Recovery, I would have been in a full-blown panic. With my Recovery training, however, I’ve become much more of a realist. Cars break down. Multiple things can go wrong. These sort of problems are average for an older vehicle.

And among all of the things that can go wrong in daily life, this is certainly a triviality—an expensive triviality to be sure, but not something to risk my mental health.

Among the tools Recovery teaches its members is the mantra, “Expect frustrations every five minutes and you won’t be disappointed.” To someone not trained in Recovery language, this may seem pessimistic. Yet when experiencing a series of unfortunate events, such thoughts help keep me grounded and in control of my emotions.

14 comments:

azil said...

'Recovery' is a new thing for me but I'm interested in learning more. Thanks for sharing! :)

Unknown said...

The person becomes nervous , he is subjected to unpleasent feelings. Fear and anxiety are not the same thing. Fear is something which is realistic but anxiety is a feeling of different emotions like fear, uneasiness and other negative emotions.

Anxiety recovery program

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Letters to my Bipolar Mom said...

Thanks for sharing. Recovery is my goal and now I continue to use humor in certain situations.

Tim said...

fear of fear is so devastating. Challenging your thoughts will help.

Unknown said...

Hi Doug! My name is Cameron and I was wondering if you'd be willing to answer a quick question I have about your blog! I can be reached at cvonstjames AT gmail DOT com - Thanks, I hope to hear from you soon! :)

Doug said...

Thank you everyone for your comments.

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for such a great blog.
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Unknown said...

How's your car now, Doug? Keeping one's calm while facing such inconvenience is not an easy thing to do. Kudos to you for being cool with things. Replacing a dead battery is rather easy; however, your muffler is a different story. I hope you consider bringing in your car to trusted car repair shops at least once a month to maintain its optimum performance.

Nannette Henriquez

Unknown said...

How's your car now, Doug? Keeping one's calm while facing such inconvenience is not an easy thing to do. Kudos to you for being cool with things. Replacing a dead battery is rather easy; however, your muffler is a different story. I hope you consider bringing in your car to trusted car repair shops at least once a month to maintain its optimum performance.

Nannette Henriquez

Unknown said...

Hello,

It is apleasure to contact you.

I have a wife who has been having depression for over 20 years. She has been usinf EFFEXOR for over a year now and with little improvement.

Now i want her to do Acupunture and use Chinese herbs too. She seems not ready to do treatments now again.

Please how can i help her ,toconvince her to do the treatment?

Please i need your help

GID

Philip said...

Hi.
It is nice to here from somebody who is taking on board what they are being taught in recovery training and can accept that the training is working.Yes you will come across constant hurdles in life that you will have to jump but as long as you keep on jumping you will be OK.

Keep up the good work.

naser said...

thax for this articales