It was interesting for me to see that my issues with religion are still coming up in the group settings. It came up for me on many occasions in my other group experiences. I was thinking about it a lot over the rest of Monday night and throughout the day on Tuesday. I think what comes up for me is that I’ve never been able to fit that cookie cutter LDS stereotype that is somewhat encouraged in the LDS society. As a teenager, I felt like I made some great decisions and that I would be “blessed” for following the doctrine I bought into. When I feel triggered in a group setting about religion, it often comes up for me when I sense negative energy towards my beliefs. What I think I need in regards to religious views is mutual respect for my choices to believe in the LDS church. I feel disrespected and labeled when people slam the church. I can think to myself, “How do I know if they are really being negative towards the church?” I’m putting my perspective on what they’re thinking. I guess I really wanted to believe that I could be that cookie cutter LDS woman, but through life experience I’ve been awaken to reality and that sometimes that stereotype absolutely doesn’t fit. I’m just not sure why I choose to personalize when people bring up religion? It’s possible that I’m playing out my inner sentence when I feel triggered during group about that subject.

What could I work on in group? What specific goal would I want to work on? I would like to work on my harsh tone & my empathy levels. I've had feedback from my sister, Steffanie, my employee, Ali, and from other various sources that I have a "tone" that is maladaptive. I'm not sure what I can do in a group setting to work on this, but I think it would be beneficial since it hasn't gone away after these many years. I get it when I start getting irritated or frustrated or basically can't get things to go "right".

Last night was a bit uncomfortable for me in my psychotherapy class. I volunteered to have a mini-individual therapy session. I felt awkward and silly. However, it was probably useful for the fact that I realized that I still occasionally slip into that old inner sentence of sacrificing to be of worth. I found that as I'm about to go move into an apartment and rent out my house I'm feeling like I'm sacrificing my house and everything that I've worked so hard for. I thought it was cool that with my body language I was doing a downward scooping to say that I was downgrading, but that when I scooped down I aslo scooped back up a little bit. Thank you to Sheryl for picking that out! I guess it's a pattern I go through in life. I get in a sad situation for a while, but then I pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again. I'm like a pheonix yet again in my life experience. This will be cool to see as it progresses.