"crave certainty and control because I was bullied a lot and put into situations a lot that I didnt want to be in."
And our subconcious still keeps pushing that child - it knows no time - no understanding that you are now an adult, and so you must deal with subconcious rage - for which you've given many reasons to be rageful, and accept that you feel this way deep down. Then you slowly bring to light your current adult hood, and that you don't consciously live in that childhood world where you feel powerless and at everyone elses mercy. Dan teaches how to feel empowered by reflecting on what he calls the "false narratives" (old beliefs etc) that we hold, and how to build new ones (stepping into our power). It helps us grow into emotional maturity.
You don't have to worry about doing "the work" here. Just open the book and begin your columns a little bit everyday while you also find things, as Ellen says, to live your life. You need to get out of worrying about how to "do" this all the time and just do it for about an hour a day and the rest of your day find something other than TMS to "do". Not only can focusing on the symptoms become and obsession but things like gathering information, trying to figure things out etc. also become obsessions. You break the obsessions by doing the work and turning your mind (however difficult and uncomfortable it might be at first) to other things. If you look through the forum posts in the last few months, people have posted about the things they also engage in: fiction and non-fiction, knitting, crochet, writing books, exercising etc. Those things can help you re-focus.
