NOT being any sort of mental health expert, except in that I have had to live with my head for 55 years (!), it seems important these days to focus on the cause and not the symtom - and, of course, that if you want something different to happen, then you have to do something different. My simple technique for this has seen me spend money on a mentor or guide to be accountable to.
Anyway, on the cause element, I have heard a few phrases or approaches recently, which have allowed me to feel better.
I similarly feel slightly guilty that I still carry all my childhood trauma wrapped around me like an uncomfortable cloak, but the phrase I heard just over the weekend, was that everyone's pain is a 10! Which is exactly right. We only know what we know. Have only felt what we have felt. Of course many have it worse, but they are not us. We should allow ourselves to accept that what happened hit our own 10! Having accepted that, perhaps we can start to move on.
These other points of FEAR and HALT are used in all sorts of phycho-analytical work, but I hadn't heard them until fairly recently. But I think they start to strip the symptom away and allow focus to be applied to the cause. Or maybe I mean that light can reach the cause, and we all know that shedding light on something can remove the worry.
False Evidence Appearing Real clearly speaks to the fallout of believing what was said or how one felt during the periods of pain that reached 10. But these don't have to define us. We know this, but it seems hard to believe yourself as you try to crawl out from under the weight of those beliefs. One step at a time, but we should keep questioning these bad thoughts and interrogate the FEAR and start building our own evidence supporting the thinking that we can do what we want or are better than we feel.
HALT is then the synonym that does seem to get to the heart of why we are taking our own pain out on ourselves. Taking a beat and asking ourselves why we are (again!!) taking these steps to sabotage ourselves is so easy with HALT. It has been amazing to me to realise that, more often than not, being Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired can really quickly identify the cause for the backstep and by addressing that, one can avoid the bad behaviour that is the symptom of the pain.
Anyway, perhaps all very phase 1 analysis, but it has changed much of what I am doing and allowed me to change some behaviours where I want to. And as we know, changing nothing changes nothing.
A few things spring to mind:
- Everyone's pain is a 10!
- FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real)
- HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired)
NOT being any sort of mental health expert, except in that I have had to live with my head for 55 years (!), it seems important these days to focus on the cause and not the symtom - and, of course, that if you want something different to happen, then you have to do something different. My simple technique for this has seen me spend money on a mentor or guide to be accountable to.
Anyway, on the cause element, I have heard a few phrases or approaches recently, which have allowed me to feel better.
I similarly feel slightly guilty that I still carry all my childhood trauma wrapped around me like an uncomfortable cloak, but the phrase I heard just over the weekend, was that everyone's pain is a 10! Which is exactly right. We only know what we know. Have only felt what we have felt. Of course many have it worse, but they are not us. We should allow ourselves to accept that what happened hit our own 10! Having accepted that, perhaps we can start to move on.
These other points of FEAR and HALT are used in all sorts of phycho-analytical work, but I hadn't heard them until fairly recently. But I think they start to strip the symptom away and allow focus to be applied to the cause. Or maybe I mean that light can reach the cause, and we all know that shedding light on something can remove the worry.
False Evidence Appearing Real clearly speaks to the fallout of believing what was said or how one felt during the periods of pain that reached 10. But these don't have to define us. We know this, but it seems hard to believe yourself as you try to crawl out from under the weight of those beliefs. One step at a time, but we should keep questioning these bad thoughts and interrogate the FEAR and start building our own evidence supporting the thinking that we can do what we want or are better than we feel.
HALT is then the synonym that does seem to get to the heart of why we are taking our own pain out on ourselves. Taking a beat and asking ourselves why we are (again!!) taking these steps to sabotage ourselves is so easy with HALT. It has been amazing to me to realise that, more often than not, being Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired can really quickly identify the cause for the backstep and by addressing that, one can avoid the bad behaviour that is the symptom of the pain.
Anyway, perhaps all very phase 1 analysis, but it has changed much of what I am doing and allowed me to change some behaviours where I want to. And as we know, changing nothing changes nothing.
J