Monthly Archives: June 2018

Jun28

Thoughtful Thursday #218 Processing Feelings

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This is a hard one. Childhood Emotional Neglect blog has a realistic answer. 10 Rules Emotions Follow:

# 9 Sitting with a powerful emotion and letting yourself feel it while thinking about it to understand why you’re having it, what it means, and what it’s telling you, is called “processing it.”

#10 Your feelings are valuable messages from your deepest self. When you follow Rule 9, you are listening to the messages, honoring yourself, and making use of this valuable resource from within.

We all have feelings and some are unexplainable and that is OK because your feelings come from your subconscious. When strong feelings come up, follow rule #9 and #10.

It won’t be easy to sit with uncomfortable feelings but you will come out on the other side feeling quite different knowing there was a shift in your mind and that is all you need to facilitate healing.

Jun21

Thoughtful Thursday #217 – Bullying

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No one wants to be bullied and as we know the objective is to oppress, torment, intimidate and browbeat someone into submission.

Bullying is easily recognized if we are observing it in real-time. But do we recognize bullying when we do it to ourselves? Probably not, here are some signals you are bullying yourself.

  1. your inner critic has a field day beating you up by noticing everything that you do wrong.
  2. your inner critic says unkind, mean things to you.
  3. some believe that the inner critic is a motivator to do better, this is completely false.
  4. anxiety, image issues, social anxiety can be the inner critic hounding you with negativity.
  5. watching TV shows that are violent and traumatize you with fear. (I binge watch crime shows.)

You can’t completely get rid of the inner critic however you can arrest its relentlessness and power with a these few tips.

  1. pay attention to your thoughts.
  2. don’t beat yourself up about these thoughts.
  3. notice what your triggers are.
  4. respond to yourself with kindness.
  5. speak to yourself with compassion.
  6. turn off your TV for a while and limit the shows that are violent. (I’m watching more happy programs.)
  7. redirect your thoughts and actions to something happy.

Being mindful, kind and compassionate to yourself is an important skill to learn and takes some time.

Instead, you want caring, reassuring, encouraging and supportive words and actions towards yourself.

You are so worth the time and effort.

Jun17

Hope VS Hopelessness

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Hope-a feeling of trust, a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen and thinking it could happen.  A feeling that something good will happen or be true.

Hopelessness-a feeling of despair, without hope, downhearted, having no expectation of good or success, incapable of redemption or improvement. Feeling dreadful, horrible, terrible and useless.

When we are triggered we can swing between both of these feelings; here are a few suggestions on how to remain hopeful in the face of hopelessness.

  1. Take a walk in nature.
  2. If you are into prayer or mediation, indulge in it.
  3. Listen to music.
  4. Reach out and talk to someone.
  5. Write your guts out.
  6. Exercise
  7. Get enough sleep.
  8. Drink water.
  9. Don’t isolate.
  10. Be kind to yourself and others.
  11. Know that you will come out on the other side.

The feeling of hope is light; the feeling of hopelessness is heavy.

Hope is uplifting; hopelessness is oppressive.

You will know the difference immediately if you pay attention.

 

Jun16

Understand This

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Here’s a quote from Yolo Akili’s book:  Dear Universe; Letters of Affirmation and Empowerment – For All Of Us –

Principles of Human Communication:

#5 Understand that everyone interprets the world through their own ideas, past experience, psychological framework, social location and pain. You see the world based on where you have been. You see the world based on who you are, based on how you are perceived and how you perceive others. Those perceptions are not absolute. They are not the only truth, and they are not the only way of knowing things. Understand this.

The author is pointing out that in order to have effective communication with other humans we must put aside our own beliefs.  By putting aside our own beliefs we will better understand where the other human is coming from. As a result you will have a clearer, more truthful communication.

Jun14

Thoughtful Thursday #127 – Lies

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Honesty is very important to me. If I find out someone has deliberately lied they are no longer significant in my life.

I am not talking about little white lies but lies that are deliberately meant of mislead, hurt or deceive me.

Lying, slander, tall tale, backbiting, intentional, callous, uncaring, bullying, mean and violent assaults are done to create nothing but hurt.

There are many reasons why some people can be so emotionally damaging. Perhaps addiction, childhood issues, and other brutal influences. Unfortunately those who lash out are only interested in hurting because they are hurt. They are not even aware of their own motives, it’s very sad.

There is no one way to protect yourself from this kind onslaught, you must figure out a way that suits your situation.

Some of the most popular suggestions are:

Put up strong boundaries, expect to be challenged. Your emotions will go from high to low many times, create a strong support system, call the authorities if necessary, you are not alone, it’s not your fault, reach out for help.

Chronic lying is just the tip of the iceberg, lying is usually a ruse to keep something else secret.

You are important, very important, and you do not deserve to be lied to. It’s as simple as that. Do what you have to do to protect yourself. You are deserving of a safe, calm, and peaceful life.

Jun10

Solitude Is Great Until It Turns To Isolation.

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I cherish alone time, lots of it, but I can take it to the extreme until it becomes isolation.

We are social creatures by nature and without being social we can lose self-esteem, and self-confidence.

Isolation has a way of creeping up on us and separating us from friends, real world interactions, causes anxiety, you feel like you are in captivity in a cage, and detached from any healthy interactions.

Social media does not help, it lends itself into isolating us even more, plus it encourages the feelings of exclusion and an unrealistic idea that others lives are better than yours. Isolation also causes social anxiety. There is hope. Change is always possible.

Here are some suggestions to cure isolation:

Talk to everyone you meet.

Accept invitations even if you don’t think you want to go.

Build relationships.

Spend less time on social media.

Reach out and have an actual phone conversation instead of just social media.

Leave the house.

With a little bit of discipline and investment of your time you can get out of isolation and back into life. And if life is too much you can always go back to solitude but this time without the isolation.

 

Jun7

Thoughtful Thursday #216 – Reparenting Yourself

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You grew up in a dysfunctional family, your self esteem is shot, your squirming over an embarrassing action, you want to disappear, you feel rejected at every turn. Sounds like your hurt inner child is expressing itself.

Then you probably need to reparent yourself.

Many of us have grown up in chaos, we have no recollection of who our true self is. That is OK. Of course you don’t know who you are in your core, it is impossible to know if you grew up with chaos and confusion. This is where you can learn to be your own best parent.

Will it be easy, probably not, your tip is the child within feels your feelings, the hurt child within acts those feeling out inappropriately. Here is where reparenting comes in. If you can give space to those trapped feelings, both good and bad, your parent self can step in and stop any extreme behavior, or at least give a time out.

There is much written about reparenting, here are a few resources:

Adult Children of Alcoholics

Strengthening My Recovery (Book)

Alcoholics Anonymous

Taming Your Outer Child (Book)

How to Reparent Yourself (Youtube video)

Google “Reparenting Yourself”

https://www.healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.com/inner-child-healing (Website)

beatingtrauma.com (website of Elisabeth Corey, trauma survivor and life coach)

http://pete-walker.com (Therapist and trauma survivor)

You are worth the effort and can bear the temporary, uncomfortable feelings of doing this important inner work. Give it a try.

 

 

 

Jun5

Dissociative Amnesia

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Here are bits and pieces of an article about Dissociative Amnesia from the blog: TraumaDissociation.com.

 

3 Types of Dissociative Amnesia - localized, selective and generalized

 

Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative amnesia is the most common Dissociative Disorder. There are several different types of amnesia, and many different causes. Dissociative Amnesia is not caused by head injuries or physical damage to the brain, it is amnesia which has a psychological cause. It can occur as part of a number of other mental health conditions, including posttraumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder, dissociative identity disorder, somatoform disorder, and anxiety disorders, [3]:298, [7] in any of those cases it would not be classed as a separate disorder. Dissociation Amnesia can last for between a few days to a few years, but is typically less than a week.[4] The period of time which cannot be remembered can range from minutes to decades. Read more: http://traumadissociation.com/dissociativeamnesia

Because there is no neurobiological damage or toxicity, and the difficulties are in retrieving a memory which was successfully stored, the amnesia is always “potentially reversible”. [3]:298-299, [7] Neurocognitive disorders involving memory loss usually include cognitive (thinking) and intellectual impairments in memory, these are not present in people Dissociative Amnesia. [3]:300-301 Dissociative amnesia is more likely in people with a history of multiple adverse childhood experiences (especially if they include physical or sexual abuse), people who have experienced interpersonal violence (for example, domestic violence or physical assaults), and the risk increases with the “severity, frequency, and violence of the trauma”. [3]:298-299 Clinical interviews to diagnose Dissociative Amnesia include the SCID-D (revised) by Dr Marlene Steinberg, and the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule (DDIS). Both of these are capable of diagnosing any dissociative disorder and a number of other disorders as well. [1]:124 Read more: http://traumadissociation.com/dissociativeamnesia

The three common types of dissociative amnesia are localized amnesia, selective amnesia (which may occur along with localized amnesia), and generalized amnesia. Generalized amnesia may involve the complete loss of a person’s identity, in addition to all memories of their past. Other forms of dissociative amnesia can also occur; people with generalized amnesia (the most severe type) may also lose semantic knowledge (previous knowledge about the world) and procedural knowledge (forgetting well-learned skills). [3]:298-299 Systematized amnesia is amnesia for a category of information (e.g., no memory of family, no memory of a specific person, or childhood sexual abuse). Continuous amnesia is unable to form new memories. [3]:298-299 Micro-amnesias are also typical in dissociative disorders, the amnesia is for very, very brief periods of time. The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation gives the example of forgetting the contents of a conversation from one moment to the next. The person may struggle to work out what was discussed while trying to avoid the other person realizing this. [7] Dissociative Amnesia has been previously known as Psychogenic Amnesia, and Hysterical Amnesia. Read more: http://traumadissociation.com/dissociativeamnesia

Dissociative amnesia occurring with fugue should be treated as soon as possible; psychotherapy is the recommended treatment. This should involve a safe environment for therapy and a strong therapeutic alliance. Treatment goals include the recovery of the person’s identity, identifying the triggers linked to the start of the fugue, and working through the traumatic material. Medication given during interviews, and hypnosis may be also help.[7] Recovery is often rapid. [8] When memories begin to return a person often experiences emotions such as grief, rage, shame, guilt, depression and inner turmoil. Many people with Dissociative Amnesia develop Posttraumatic Stress Disorder at some point in their lives. [3]:302 Read more: http://traumadissociation.com/dissociativeamnesia

Jun3

The Universe Doesn’t Like You

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Both writer Steven Pressfield and Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker have stated in their writings that there is a quality of life that really doesn’t care about us. Namely the Universe at large.

Steven Pressfield calls it “Resistance” in his book The War of Art. Resistance is always there and never goes away and completely impersonal and out to get you.

In the interview with Steven Pinker on Think Big ” Is Human Nature Evil” says the Universe leans toward destruction and chaos rather than out to help you.

I believe both of them.  Both also give an antidote for the unknown, chaos and unpredictability of outcomes in our lives.

  1. Don’t live isolated lives, disorder and chaos automatically increase unless we use our energy to get the information we need to create a purposeful life.
  2. We must use our own intelligence and energy and effort to make things work out.
  3. Expect that things will go wrong and keep persisting in your path.
  4. Life is an uphill battle.

It’s hard to not feel victimized by some of the dumb stuff that hurts you deeply. However, these statements are some of the hard realities in front of us.

Most people will do anything not to look at some of the harsher realities but in my opinion the hard realities are easier to take in very small doses.

So be gentle with yourself and take a step back. You will succeed in creating a wonderful life.

 

 

 

Jun2

Crying

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We cry in response to emotions like sadness, anger, grief,  frustration,  even happiness and joy.

There’s wailing, weeping, blubbering, lamenting, whimpering, all out bawling to the point of throwing up.

I have a hard time crying in front of others, however, in private I can really let it out. After crying I feel exhausted yet empty.

There is a soothing effect to crying, and can elicit support from others, relieve stress, restore emotional balance, and helps recover from grief.

No matter what you have heard or what you believe about crying: it’s perfectly OK to cry for as long as you want in any way that you want and you will not fall apart, you are not weak or defective.

I guarantee that even if the problem that causes you to cry persists, crying when you need it, will restore your balance.

Take that moment you need to deeply feel what is causing you to cry. You deserve to be relieved of pain.