So as I mentioned before, I have been listening to self-talk scripts that I recorded a while back. Most of the ones I used came from the "What to say when you talk to yourself" book. The idea of listening to the talks is that it helps re-wire your brain to think differently.
One of the talks is about problem-solving and I got an idea of how much it may be helping me this past Saturday. As most of you know, I am diabetic. I realized Saturday morning that I had forgotten to pack an extra insulin pen. I had it sitting out and completely forgot to put it in my purse or my bag. If I had been coming home Sunday, I would have been fine. But I wasn't coming home until Monday evening. Instead of freaking out and spiraling-which let's face it; I had every right to do. I mean, hello? Insulin? Kind of important. Instead, I thought about what I could do to deal with the problem. Get someone to bring me some? I was in the Lawton area so really too far to ask anyone to do that. Ration what I had left? Not a great idea. Wait! Certain insulins are available over the counter. The main issue would be whether I could also get the syringes I needed. In the OKC area, you can only buy syringes if you have a prescription for them. I was teaching in Duncan on Saturday so I called the Wal-Mart there during one of our breaks and they had insulin in stock and it was no problem for me to buy it and the syringes I needed. Crisis averted. Phew! What a relief!
Oh and I edited this to add, I also did not beat myself up for making a mistake! I just thought about how to solve it. That is HUGE for me. Before I would have been calling myself all kinds of names and berating myself and beating myself up. I am not saying that I will be this calm every time I have a problem, but it was nice to handle this one well and feel good about myself and how I handled it.