SELF-THERAPY: WHAT I DO

 

So, this is Week 2 of therapizing myself.  I probably should just try to get an appointment with my real therapist, but I haven't seen her in 2 1/2 years and I don't feel that desperate. Besides, by the time I begged and cried and assumed my best "I'm a mess" voice to get the attention of the gal in the cubicle who schedules appointments, the first possible opening would still likely be 6 weeks out. I know a lot about therapy, psychology, personal growth and I have a GREAT stranger therapist I've never met, but who I follow by reading his books, listening to his podcast, and signing into his weekly meditation series.  I can do this.

It's snowboard season at my house.  Hub is gone a lot, "on tour".  He has a season pass this year that allows him access to like seven different resorts, and he's periodically traveling to most of them for multiple day stays. Last year he was away about 4 weeks, cumulatively, during snow season; almost as long this year.  Anyway, with him gone, I'm taking my own alone time to fix myself.

I've just come out of about a month-long depression.  I'm pissed about that.  I have not had serious depression in about, well,  2-1/2 years (per therapist reference above).  But the monster grabbed me after a couple of  unrelated to each other "trigger events" right around the holidays (not holiday related) and it sucked.  I was in a full-on self-loathing downward spiral that finally culminated in a week in mid-January with me declaring a "solo silent retreat" to hunker down alone, which I wrote about in a previous post (Connection Addict).  In the end, I felt rested and renewed and ready to move into Phase II: changing some ways of being that no longer serve me.

So this week, starting today, I'm on a quest to put to rest some old stories that are keeping me stuck.  You know what they say about modern day stress -- that our bodies respond to emotional threats in just the same way we responded to Saber Tooth Tiger threats back in the distant day.  We are hardwired for survival, constantly scanning for danger.  Often there really is no tiger, and it's all in our worrying minds. But sometimes, when you are just peacefully grazing on the savannah, a tiger does come sneaking out of the jungle and might even take a swipe at you, draw a little blood.  Yeah, so that happened about 3-1/2 years ago. 

Since then I've been scanning for danger and threat almost constantly, doing all I can think of to do to learn the tiger's ways to avoid any sneak attacks, to mitigate any surprises, to stay safe.  It's exhausting.  And unnecessary.  The origin event is now in the ever-increasingly distant past. The wound is no longer raw; even the scar is fading.  But, well, as a highly sensitive person (HSP, yes, it's a real thing) and a person for whom safety is Job One, the whole tiger thing is a scary "what if ?"every time I see something that even resembles a tiger.  But it's time....truly time to let go and get on with admitting these tiger attacks are rare and there is no reason to stay in fight or flight mode.

So my wonderful "he doesn't know me but I know him" therapist, Rick Hansen, PhD, has written a book called "Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness" and  this week I am working my way through it. He's teaching me to rewire my brain from negative thoughts to positive ones -- from fear to strength and resilience.  It's not about "the power of positive thinking" where one denies what is real.  

It is about mindfully "letting be" -- fully accepting what is real and observing the attendant emotions dispassionately.  I wrote pages of sentences beginning with "this is real and how I feel..." Then moving into a time of "letting go" -- doing what must be done to express and purge the negative and troubling thoughts and emotions. This may involve talking to someone,  but also may mean screaming, yelling, crying, smashing things...safely of course.  Cathartic.  Finally there is "letting in" -- realizing that even when negative experiences come to us there are also positive ones we just gloss over and barely notice due to our brain's "negativity bias" of focusing instead on the threatening event (evolutionarily useful to keep us scanning for danger in order to survive, but not so great for long-term well being).  Yesterday I did "let be"  and "let go".  Today I did "let in".  All of this is in service to our most basic needs:  for safety, satisfaction, and connection.  I'll be focusing on those, and more, in coming days.

But today I went for a walk.  On the waterfront. In the sunshine. I focused as completely as I could on the experience -- the blue sky, the warm sunshine, the tide receding, the cool breeze, the gulls calling overhead, the boats sailing on the bay, the people and their dogs on the path with me, the construction work on new restaurants, the buds forming on spring azaleas. I took it all in, using my senses to really ground in the experience, stopping to gaze and breathe. I acknowledged that yes, life is hard, it can hurt.  And it's also beautiful. The tiger stood in the shadows as the sunshine flooded the clearing. The sunshine persisted long after the tiger slunk away.  

I can't trust that he won't return, but I can trust, with time and practice, that I can teach my mind to rest in the good until, if, and when... secure in the knowledge that I've stored the energy it will take to fight back if I need to.  But it's also likely I won't.  I'm robbing myself of joy while remaining on high alert for a battle I may have already waged.

Does any of this make sense? This is me. This is what I do. I am proud of my ability to face hard things, to fall apart and put myself back together again, to seek and find resources and wisdom teachings, to keep going with hope and persistence, to learn and to grow. This is me. This is what I do.

At least, that's the view from here...©