I appreciate the suggestion. I'll check it out. Yes - I do feel like there's a bit to undo. As db speaks of folks who have been around the market for a while - I know that I'm damaged. I don't seem to the steps to take to heal the damage.
Not necessarily, though possible. One is about ego. The other is about living in a box under a bridge.
Its best to try to change the conception you have of yourself. Even moving from "I'm damaged" to "I have damage" is a good first step. Words have power and we are constantly re-enforcing our self-image. " I'm damaged" implies permanence. "I have damage" changes that idea to something you possess. What we are cannot be cast off but what we possess can be. It might seem like semantics but the subconscious is a pretty literal interpreter.
I suppose re-languageing had something to do with it. What green is referring to. I'll see if I can find something in my computer. I wrote a bunch about the "mind game" about twenty years ago.
Either way you put it you are being honest. One just gives your subconscious an escape hatch. DBP probably hasn't had to work on this in 20 years but I need constant reminding. Denial ain't just a river in Africa.
This may be a start. I wrote it many moons ago: Iyanla Vanzant is a writer, philosopher, poet. I first became aware of her through In The Meantime, described by Amazon as follows: According to author and inspirational speaker Iyanla Vanzant, being in the "meantime" means being in a state of limbo. "When you are not happy where you are and you are not quite sure if you want to leave or how to leave, you are in the meantime," she explains. Rather than wallow in confusion, Vanzant encourages you to use the meantime as an opportunity to prepare yourself for true love. The first order of business is to clean house, starting with the basement--the place in the psyche where you store your most destructive thoughts. Room by room, Vanzant takes you through a metaphorical cleaning of the soul. This way, when your meantime days are over and love finally comes knocking on the front door, you'll have a clean house to welcome love into. Even though this is directed toward those with relationship problems, I saw that this had to do with far more than relationships with others, that it also had to do with the relationship with the self and with reality. Reality is what one perceives it to be, and one's self is also what one perceives it to be. Since our perceptions are affected to an enormous degree by the language we use to describe them, our success in negotiating our way through the world depends on the language we use. For example, if we use the language of failure, incompetence, futility, stupidity, worthlessness to describe ourselves, we will then fail, behave incompetently, etc. If we use the language of hostility, selfishness, anger, depravity to describe the world and those who inhabit it, then that is the world we will find. In order to change himself, the individual must change the language he uses to describe himself. In order to change the way he interacts with the world around him, he must change the language he uses to describe that world. The message for traders is clear. If one wishes to be successful, he must use the language of success. He must not, for example, review the day's work in order to drive home all the many ways in which he failed but rather to detail -- objectively and unemotionally -- all mistakes and successes with the goal of determining why the mistakes were made and why the successes were successes, the goal being to repeat those behaviors which were successful and extinguish those that were not. The language one uses is based on "I can do this", not on "Here I Go Again" (for the latter, see Eric Berne and Games People Play). If this is not yet clear, substitute the word "success" for the word "love" in the above description of the book. "Lessons are repeated until they are learned" is the response given whenever someone begins yet again to repeat the same old destructive thoughts. For instance, the question "why do I keep dating losers" elicits this response. A trader, on the other hand, might ask "why do I keep buying the wrong stocks at the wrong time". Answer: lessons are repeated until they are learned; that is, when one stops buying the wrong stocks at the wrong time, the lesson will have been learned and it won't likely have to be learned again; until then, the lesson will have to be learned again and again and again. And it may never be learned. The truly clueless may go bankrupt first. But until the lesson is learned, the behavior will continue. There's a lot more to it than this, of course. If you're really interested in it, you could take the philosophical course and look at it in terms of perception and reality, theories of knowledge and existence, and so on. Or you could take the psychological course and read up on autism, phobia, schizophrenia. Easier, though, is to buy In The Meantime and substitute "trader", "success", "stock" and so forth for the relationship words used in the book.
Today is one of those days that everyone hopes for - lots of movement. For me today was a good one. Did I get all the points - hell no. But I got quite a few and made some progress on my mental situation. Trusting myself, the lines and my ability to see what's happening in price. I did pretty well. From the jobs report at 0830, price formed a hinge. It broke out to the upside at the open and then started to cascade down. Based on SLA, you're to look for a RET. There weren't any solid RETs (based on a 1-min chart) but right tick 'pauses' can be viewed as a RET. I got in at about the worst time you could - right before a visible RET. Well hell - I was going to hold through it and see what happened. It was barely a 3-min situation and price quickly resumed its drop. From that point on, the SL wasn't even remotely tested for 20 minutes. When it was crossed (1) and price went above the LSH (2), I exited. I have a tendency to jump into the next trade without thinking - and often erase all the profits I've acquired so far in my trading session. I sat out the up move but should have entered at the green diamond. Could have been a few points, but I'm getting better at the sitting out part. Plus, this isn't CWS it's what I did, not what I wished I had done. I did take the first short after the DL was broken and it worked out well for me again. Round 2 of a long I also sat out. In this instance, I was glad that I did. At about this time, I realized that price was forming a hinge. I'm not comfortable with the behavior that creates them, so noticing behaviors that are going to end them isn't my forte. Once the previous LL was broken, I felt comfortable looking for a short. I got one and went short again with 2. I created a SL that sort of rode the gist of the market movement. Nothing was tested for a while. Once it was, I exited 1. 2nd time, I exited the other.