I really had to give my hurting self a huge hug today, as well as the encouragement to get up and keep living and fighting.. I just read a post on being our own hero by The Written Addiction and it really resonated.. It also dovetailed with the chapters I was reading in Russ Harris’s book The Happiness Trap which lies in accepting that negative or unhelpful thoughts are bascially just dialogue and learning neither to reject them nor believe them. I am sure you all know the kinds of inner voices “I am worthless”, “I am a mistake”, “life is too tough”, “I can’t bear this pain”. “Things will never get better.”
Our thoughts do dictate our lives and we can be influenced by the thoughts and opinions of others as well, some of us can get caught up in them to our detriment.. Harris advises asking yourself if the thoughts you are thinking are harmful or helpful, are they actually getting you anywhere or just taking you into a downward spiral? Are your thoughts opening you up to new life. hope, positive action and possiblities or are they keeping you trapped? And most of all can you learn from your mistakes, rather than beating yourself up for them? Can you find ways to make amends both to yourself or others?
Today I am asking myself what the best use of my time and energy is and one answer is that ruminating on the past is not much use if I can’t let go of what happened then and escape its power and influence. For example I cannot change the fact that feeling lonely I reached out to be connected and then fell for lies of someone and took the risk over time to ‘lend’ them a lot of money. I know its just not something I am going to be doing again. And each morning I wake up with the memories of all he said and promised over more than 2 years and it seems ridiculous I kept falling for it..which then causes me both pain and anger (which are legitimate emotions.. so I let myself feel them. but only for so long). I realise now the mistake of looking in the wrong direction (towards another person) to make my life better and feel more connected. I now see that was a bigm mistake and yet, I also learned lessons.
I was reading a post a moment before the earlier one mentioned on trauma and attachment relationships. It spoke of those who, due to unavailable bonding in early years have a pit of hunger which makes them more vulnerable to seek a kind of ‘filling’ or connecting that may prove to be damaging or detrimental in later life, and it seemed to describe me.. I had no power over those affects in my life and they played out in this last scenario as well as many others throughout my life, so right now I just need to take it on the chin as a learning and put my focus on what I can do today that is helpful to make my life more meaningful and connected.
Having the capacity to think about our thinking is most important, understanding, too, how we react from such thoughts and being less reactive at times may save our bacon. We do have the power to notice that thoughts we entertain are so very often NOT the reality of life at all, just stories we are telling ourselves. And even when it come to real pain done to us in the past, only we can embrace that and know there was nothing wrong with us for feeling the impact, and it is a learning that evil can exist in a world that so often doesn’t really give a shit about us, to be blatantly honest..
Harris says a good way to take the sting out of or defuse negative thoughts is to imagine a cartoon character saying them to you in their cartoon voice.. alternatively you could imagine a popular figure from a film saying the words to you.. The point is to notice your thoughts but not be so pulled around by your thoughts and not to allow anxious thought to stop you from taking positive actions to help yourself and bring good things into your life..
That said it is also kind to let yourself rest a bit and let go, if you are anything like me and tend to do too much, or take on so much at times its kinder not to let those compulsive energies drive you endlessly, nor force you to take unnecessary or counterproductive actions. I wrote a post on rest yesterday I didn’t post after reading a few blogs by people in recovery who seemed to be unnecessarily pushing their bodies too hard. It is something I need to be aware of. My traumatised anxious ‘feeling perpetually unsafe or in fear of attack’ body/mind needs rest and it cannot get it if thoughts driven by fear/flight/fight CPTSD responses drive me endlessly.. At times feeling safe in a body is so hard for us trauma and neglect survivors so we drive ourselves mercilessly.. I just do not want to be that driven by fear, pain and discomfort in my life anymore.
Emerging From The Dark Night 