Focus in Transition

VIRGO HOROSCOPE

NOVEMBER 30, 2016

Personal issues can interfere with your ability to fulfill your obligations today if you allow the stress caused by these issues to impact your ability to concentrate. Challenges linked to your domestic life can prevent you from achieving your professional goals, and work-related tension can make maintaining relationships difficult. Preventing this type of crossover contamination can be as easy as endeavoring to live in the moment. Your ability to shift your focus depending on your circumstances can help you maintain your peace of mind. The discomfort in heart and mind you may feel in one situation will likely not follow you into the next when your awareness is trained on the task at hand. Consider that few incidents you encounter today will require your immediate emotional attention. 

Keeping the mind in the moment allows us to move from situation to situation without becoming distracted by our feelings regarding a single event or circumstance. Strong emotional reactions related to one area of our lives have the power to cripple our ability to function in other areas. The ability to compartmentalize those responses helps us perform our duties and maintain a fully developed awareness without repressing our feelings. We acknowledge our emotions while also recognizing that the complexity of the average human existence demands that we be able to transition our focus between disparate circumstances. Discomfort cannot keep us from realizing our ambitions. Your willingness to turn your attention to the task at hand today will help you contain unsettled feelings until a more appropriate time. 

How to Cope with Intrusive Thoughts

·         Recognize that you may have had worry thoughts before becoming highly anxious, but they now have a magnified meaning because of your anxiety. Accept this.

·         Learn all about how adrenaline affects your anxious state. To understand is half the battle.

·         Look on this as nothing more than anxiety trickery or the bluff of anxiety.

·         Change your reaction to “no reaction”, not in the fearful sense at least. As ridiculous as it sounds, try to learn to smile at these thoughts. Know that to give them no importance can break the chain of producing yet more adrenaline, by way of the anxiety they produce.

·         Don’t fight the thoughts. Let them be there, quietly and with as much nonchalance as you can muster. Accept willingly and give them permission to be there.

·         Engage in normal activity as much as possible when you have accepted the thought. Distraction will not work alone but will merely put off the inevitably of repetition. A nod of acceptance and then moving on with activity is the best way forward. Only you will know if you are truly accepting.

·         Tell yourself that you are in control and your intrusive thoughts only mean something if you give them importance.

Helpful Reminders for Managing Panic Attacks

1. Anxiety is often driven by anticipation. Try not to indulge thoughts about what could happen. Allow your thoughts to focus on what you are doing now or where you are now. Stay out of the past and out of the future. If you "stay in the now," your anxiety level will come down. If you are anticipating upset, planning your escape, checking your watch or thinking about past "failures," your anxiety level will go up. Focus on your immediate surroundings to help you stay in the present, (e.g., colors, textures, the details of a conversation, etc.). Tell yourself: "Stay in the here-and-now." "Keep your feet on the floor." "Keep your mind where your body is." "What am I doing now? What do I need to do now?" "I'll deal with that when the time comes."

2. Accept your "first feelings" of anxiety. Don't try to fight off, control or ignore these initial feelings. You cannot make them go away and trying to do so will only make your anxiety get worse. Rate your anxiety from 1 (none) to 10 (panic) and observe that it fluctuates up and down. If you find yourself rushing, slow down. Tell yourself: "Accept--don't fight." "I can be anxious and still do this." "I will accept this anxiety and continue doing what I must." "It is okay to be anxious. It is okay not to feel in control."

3. Don't add "second fear." This is the fear associated with your anxiety, like the fear of dying, fainting, going crazy, losing control or embarrassing yourself. It often starts with sudden thoughts like "What if...?"/"Suppose...?"/"If I don't get out of here soon, I'm going to..." If you tell yourself you are in danger, your body will dutifully react as if you really are in danger and it will scare you more. Sometimes thoughts are so automatic or feelings follow them so quickly that you won't see the connections, but look for them. In time, you will become more skilled at seeing and interrupting such connections. Tell youself: "It's just what-ifing!" "I've felt like this before and the worst didn't happen." "I'm not going to (die, faint, go crazy, etc.). This is still just anxiety." "This is very uncomfortable, but it is not dangerous."

4. Accept panic when it happens. If you are having a panic attack, label it as such and remind yourself that it is self-limiting. That is, it will pass shortly on its own if you don't add second fear, don't fight it or don't try to make it go away. Try to bring on a panic attack or try to make your symptoms worse. This is the paradox: You can't do either by willing it. Truly trying to do so is a move toward acceptance and will help the feeling pass. Try to make your symptoms worse: If your heart is beating fast, make it beat faster. If your legs are weak and shaky, make them feel weaker and shakier. If your hands are sweating, make them sweat more. Tell yourself: "If I'm going to have a panic attack, let's go ahead and have it right here and now." "It is an adrenalin surge. It will pass--just accept." "Even with panic, I can do what I need to do." "What I resist persists."

5. Strive not to escape or avoid. To do so only reinforces the idea that there is something genuinely dangerous about your feelings. Always stop and consider your options, rather than making decisions based only on how you feel. Remember that it is not the place, but rather your catastrophic thought that makes you anxious. Each time you face your fears and accept your feelings is a step forward. Each time you escape or avoid is one less opportunity to take a step forward. If something you are avoiding seems too big, try to break it up into steps you can do. Remember that your recovery lies in the places, situations and anxious feelings you have fearfully avoided. Tell yourself: "It's not the place, it's the thought." "I can be here (or do this) even with panic." "I will not run or avoid--that only causes more problems." "Face the fear and the fear will disappear."  In general, be willing to have symptoms and be willing to do the opposite of what the symptoms demand of you.

6. Practice diaphragmatic breathing but take smaller breaths. To practice, lie on your back, with one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly. Observe the movement of your two hands as you breathe regularly. Now try to focus your breathing in your belly so that hand moves while the one on your chest stays virtually still. Allow your breathing to be calm and rhythmic rather than hurried or forced. As you breathe in this manner, allow relaxation to flow into your muscles throughout your body. Instead of "taking deep breaths" as commonly advised, try to take smaller breaths--you will still get enough oxygen and it will help to counteract the symptoms of hyperventilation that can compound panic. Once you have developed some skill with this method of breathing, try it in other positions, such as sitting or walking. Try it while you're in a conversation with someone. Eventually, practice your abdominal breathing skills when you feel anxious. Although such breathing skills usually help anxiety, the goal of such breathing is not to get rid of your symptoms. Such breathing activates the part of your nervous system that counteracts panic, may directly reduce any symptoms due to hyperventilation, gives you something to do rather than catastrophize or flee, and encourages willing acceptance of symptoms. Tell yourself: "Breathe low and slow." "Small breaths." "Breathe and accept."

7. Practice and be patient. Remember that recovery lies in changing your relationship with your anxiety and panic symptoms rather than in making them go away. Oddly, you have to be entirely willing to have them before they can begin to subside. Consider your options for practice every day. Be committed to recovery, but don't be rigid and perfectionistic. It's okay not to be perfect. Give yourself credit for small successes--don't diminish them with thoughts like "Yes, but I used to..." or "So what, anybody can..." There will be times when you feel you are no better--you may even fear that you are getting worse. Remind yourself to be patient and not to be too harsh in your judgments at any given point in time. Strive for a sense of perspective about progress over time. Recovery is accomplished in thousands of small steps, one step at a time. Do not try to control things outside yourself that are beyond your control. Nothing in your future is prevented by worry. Tell yourself: "It took time to get this way. It will take time to recover." "Each time I face the fear, I learn that I can see it through by accepting the anxiety." "It's okay to make mistakes. I'll just try not to make the same mistakes repeatedly." "I do not have to judge my progress by how bad I feel today." "I can recover just as others before me have recovered." "The more willing I am to have symptoms, the more the symptoms will subside and the more I'll get my life back."

Let me give you an analogy. Imagine your feelings are like a radio station – call it EMOTIONS 101.9. This station is rather annoying – sometimes you have depression come on, sometimes anxiety, sometimes anger or shame. So, most of the time, you don’t want to listen to it. Let me ask you – do you think this radio station has an off and on button? (At this point, most clients will say yes). Well, actually it does not. Not only does it not have an off/on button, it never did – so it’s not like it broke off – it was never there in the first place. And that is exactly what we know about emotions now – that they come and go as they please, and you cannot turn them on or off. So, with that said, the question here is: are you going to spend your time fiddling with the radio station trying to turn it off, even though it does not have an “off” button while you miss out everything that is going on around you …. Or are you going to let it play in the background while you focus on other things in your life?

What’s also interesting, is that if you do this – focus on things in your life rather then try to turn this radio station off, you’ll find that many of these emotions fade out on their own.

The other interesting thing about this analogy is this: many people get upset at themselves for feeling a certain way – for example, being mad that you let some one get to you, or feeling ashamed for being angry. Well, if your feelings are a radio have no off/on button, is there any reason to feel mad at yourself for getting mad, for example, or judging your feelings at all? If there is no “on” button, you could not have created these feelings in the first place – right?

Willingness

o    Willingness simply refers to how open you are to experiencing your own experience as

it happens – without trying to avoid it, escape it, or change it

o     It is allowing yourself to be ok with what you are feeling – because, really – what’s the alternative? First, there’s a saying: “if you are not willing to have it, you’ve got it”. Second, if you ARE willing to have a certain feeling, there’s less of a chance of you feeling bad about having this feeling (for example, getting mad at yourself for letting something get to you).

o     In fact, willingness may actually help you feel less overwhelmed, and lessen suffering because being unwilling to have our feelings, attempting to control and/or avoid them, can actually make us feel worse and increase our distress

o     Let me give you another analogy. Have you ever swam in the ocean? Well, what do you think you should do if you get caught in a riptide? (Let participants struggle with this one for a second, make a few guesses). Well, do you think you should try to swim out of it? Most people here will say yes. Well, actually, if you try to fight a riptide and try to swim out of it, you are going to drown – because you are basically remaining in the same place and wasting your energy. What you are actually supposed to do is swim into it, and let it carry you out beyond its reach. Well, feelings are like that – if you fight feelings, you will basically be remaining in the same place, but if you “swim into them” then time itself will carry out of them.

o        So, the take-home message for the entire lesson is “It is ok to FEEL your emotions – but it is not healthy to ACT on them”. Write this down on an index card and have patient carry this around. You can put this in your pocket to remind you to use willingness.

o        So, your homework will be to practice willingness as much as you can. Think about it this way – willingness is your hammer, and every situation is a nail. Record how you practice it and how successful you are on the practice sheet (show clients practice sheet). 

How to Cope with Anxiety, Remember A-W-A-R-E

The key to switching out of an anxiety state is to accept it fully. Remaining in the present and accepting your anxiety cause it to disappear.

*A:* *Accept the anxiety. *Welcome it. Don’t fight it. Replace your rejection, anger, and hatred of it with acceptance. By resisting, you’re prolonging the unpleasantness of it. Instead, flow with it. Don’t make it responsible for how you think, feel, and act.

*W:* *Watch your anxiety.* Look at it without judgment – not good, not bad. Rate it on a 0-to-10 scale and watch it go up and down.* *Be detached. Remember, you’re not your anxiety. The more you can separate yourself from the experience, the* *more you can just watch it.

*A:* *Act with the anxiety.* Act as if you aren’t anxious. Function with it. Slow down if you have to, but keep going. Breathe slowly and normally. If you run from the situation your anxiety will go down, but your fear will go up. If you stay, both your anxiety and your fear will go down.

*R:* * Repeat the steps.* Continue to accept your anxiety, watch it, and act with it until it goes down to a comfortable level. And it will. Just keep repeating these three steps: accept, watch, and act with it.

*E:* *Expect the best. *What you fear the most rarely happens. Recognize that a certain amount of anxiety is normal. By expecting future anxiety you’re putting yourself in a good position to accept it when it comes again.

*Adapted from: Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective, by Aaron Beck and Gary Emery*

Little-Known Secrets to Conquering your Fears and Worries

If you avoid something that makes you afraid, would that not take care of the problem?  On the contrary, avoidance fuels anxiety and obsessions. That’s because when you avoid something you fear, you do not give yourself the chance to verify if the fear is justified or unwarranted.  And yet, in the moment, avoiding or escaping from the fear is just so much easier. This is the first and most important secret to know: Avoidance fuels a vicious cycle of anxiety or fear. 

In order to overcome your fear, you must face your fear.  If you want to break the vicious cycle of anxiety, you must expose yourself to your fears.

Exposure

Exposure refers to being exposed to or facing fears to test their reality. It involves purposeful and conscious confrontation of fears. Exposure allows people to discover that their fears are usually false alarms. When the expected disastrous consequences do not materialize, the person’s belief about the fear begins to change. It is important to note the difference between facing fears and fighting fears; facing involves confronting, whereas fighting implies combat and resistance. Children may be confused when they are told to “fight” anxiety because it suggests that they should resist it with all their might. The emotional energy consumed in fighting and resisting may actually intensify anxiety. In a paradoxical way, one has to stop struggling with fears to make them go away. To understand how exposure works, one must first understand habituation.

Habituation: Natural and Automatic

Exposure has a lot in common with jumping into a cold swimming pool, turning off the lights at night or walking into a noisy train station. Sounds a bit far-fetched? Not really, because what they have in common is a process known as habituation, which is the body’s way of accommodating to new sensations. When we initially encounter a sound, heat or cold, light or dark, we experience it in all its magnitude. Over time, the sensation becomes imperceptible as our body adapts to it. We experience habituation numerous times every day without so much as a second thought. We get used to cold water, bright lights, the roar of jet planes and the rumble of trains with little conscious effort.

Contrary to popular knowledge, our bodies can habituate to anxiety, in much the same way as they do to smell, light, heat, cold or noise. We can get used to anxiety until it fades from our awareness. Habituation is a natural biological phenomenon that takes place automatically because our bodies are designed to return to equilibrium. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for preparing the body to react to threat and danger and the parasympathetic system subsequently restores it to normal resting state. In other words, anxiety simply cannot continue forever, although it may feel that way. If we did not have a built-in mechanism for resetting to equilibrium, how could we handle the cumulative effects of thousands of new threats over time?

We routinely experience habituation to anxiety, although we might not be aware of it. For example, any of us can relate to the anxiety that precedes an important meeting that is potentially unpleasant. We have experienced the desire to avoid it, because it made us uneasy, nervous or tense. Yet, the uneasiness subsided once the meeting was underway. Anxiety habituates rapidly when we confront the anxiety-provoking situation.

Relapse Prevention

·         The best way to prevent a lapse is to keep practicing your CBT skills! If you are regularly practicing, you will be in good shape to handle whatever situations you are faced with.

·         Know your red flag early warning signs. Watch for times when you feel more stressed too or when things happen in your life. I shared mine with my wife and she sometimes notices before me and reminds me to look through my toolkit.

·         Use your action plan even if you are feeling well. It really reminded me to set aside time to look after myself.

·         Put your review day on the calendar each month in a colored pen so you know it is your review time, or leave a post it note on the fridge or kettle.

·         Be compassionate to yourself, we all have negative thoughts or times when we don’t feel like doing things, remember it is doing the opposite that helps. When I noticed I may not be feeling like something, like going to see a friend, I make sure I go.

·         Focus on the present moment. If you notice you are having worrying thoughts, or going over things again and again in your mind, the best thing to do is an activity that focuses your attention. It helps to stop you ruminating or worrying and making yourself feel worse.

·         Think about small changes you can make that add up to big changes you may still want to do. Think of the big change as like the end destination you put in your sat nav. Even when it feels far off, there are little directions you can take to get nearer to where you want to be and that make sure you are still heading in the right direction.

·         Reflect on how far you have come rather than just the things you may still want to do or improve.

·         Don’t get too over focused on reviewing your mood, use your toolkit as often as you need to and with a weekly or monthly review day that you stick to. It does not have to be every day and remember that your mood will fluctuate up and down at times and that is normal and OK!

1. Mindful response

• Moving towards situations rather than away from them

• Focusing on the world as a whole, not just on anxious symptoms

• A calm, wise approach to difficulties

• Accepting physical sensations as they are

• Seeing thoughts as just thoughts

• Being grounded in the present

• Putting effort into what really matters

• Being compassionate with your experience

Result:

• Letting go of the struggle with experience

• Focusing instead on living as you would really like to

So  maybe  there  is  a  way  to  stop  treating  anxiety,  sadness  and  other  difficulties as problems that need to be controlled or solved. Our habitual ways of trying to fix such problems often make them worse. Instead, willingness to be with painful thoughts,  feelings,  urges  or  sensations,  without  trying  to  change,  escape  from or  avoid  them,  allows  us  to  be  more  psychologically  flexible.  This can make a profound difference to our effectiveness, vitality and contentment

2. Automatic ‘fight or flight’ reaction

• Avoiding situations, hiding away

• Checking anxiously

• Being on the alert

• Endlessly seeking reassurance

• Focusing obsessively on physical sensations 

• Anxious thoughts are big and ‘true’

• Getting tangled up in thoughts, eg ‘What if…?’, ‘I can’t …’

• Worrying

• Distracted - dwelling in the future

• Beating yourself up for being anxious or ‘weak

Result:

• Impulsive behaviors

• Constant struggle

• Exhaustion

• Narrowing of life         

                               

Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to our experience in a particular way. It means:

• ‘just noticing’ thoughts, feelings and physical sensations

• experiencing them for what they are, rather than getting wrapped  up in them or trying to change them 

• letting go of judgments and evaluations about thoughts, feelings and physical sensations

• and as a result really dwelling in the present moment rather than in the past or future.

So anxious thoughts are not pleasant thoughts. And they are usually accompanied by physical sensations of anxiety, which will compound the discomfort. It’s all the more understandable, then, that we get caught up in these thoughts big time, and wrestle with them

                               

It’s very easy, when we are engaged fully in the struggle with anxiety, to lose a sense of perspective. Sometimes it seems as if we are putting all our energies into the struggle, and all we can see is the struggle. When we start to drop the struggle, though, and step back from our thoughts and feelings, we can get a much wider view. And this view is important – it’s the view of where we really want to go. After all, what do we want our lives to stand for? Do we want to be remembered for having gone into battle with anxiety? (And lost.) Instead, can we courageously take our anxiety with us in valued directions in life?

There is such a deeply rooted belief that we must do something with intense surges of feeling and emotion as they wash through: understand them, determine their cause, link them to some life circumstance or person, transform them, transmute them, or even “heal” them.

The pathways of abandonment are many, and were weaved into our sensitive little nervous systems as young children who did not have the capacity to metabolize the intensity in an environment of presence. Out of the very intelligent need to escape, we unfolded unique strategies of fight/ flight/ freeze, to take us out of dysregulating states of intense vulnerability and groundlessness, and away from the overwhelming aliveness of the somatic and emotional worlds.

But what if for just one moment, you did absolutely nothing in response to the arising of emotional intensity? If you neither repressed nor denied it, nor acted it out or sought to discharge the energy as it surges? What if the most wise, loving, attuned response was to take no action? Not some sort of cold, detached, uncaring, resigned “nothing,” but one that was filled with warmth, holding, and a relentless sort of self-care? To make a commitment to no longer abandon the uninvited ones as they erupt, seeking holding?
And discover, finally, if your heartbreak must be mended, if the sadness must be transformed into happiness, if the fear must be sent away, if the anger must be abandoned, and if you must turn from the fire as it rages. This is a “doing nothing” that is the doorway into the sacred world, to reuniting with the orphaned ones of your inner family – not by fueling a story about what happened, who is to blame, and what the presence of these ones mean about your worth as a person. But through encoding new circuitry – guided by slowness, by love, by empathy, and by attunement.

These feelings and emotions are pure energy flow and information. They are not enemies or obstacles on your path, but are the very path itself. They have not come to harm you but only to be allowed back in to the majestic vastness that you are. They are none other than Life itself, taking a wrathful appearance, longing to get your attention and to remind you of something you’ve forgotten. And to reveal that it is only in their abandonment, not in their nature, that suffering can take root and flower here.

This ‘doing nothing’ is not a cold, passive resignation, but is an alive, sacred activity, infused with the light of awareness and a wild, relentless sort of compassion. To do nothing in this way is a radical act of kindness and love, filled with qualities of earth and warmth, and a holy gift that you can offer yourself and others.

We need to be kinder to ourselves instead of punishing ourselves for feeling things, even if those feelings may not be convenient or “manly” or fall within any other self-imposed restrictions. Don’t be down on yourself for feeling those inconvenient emotions; give yourself credit for handling them. Forgive yourself for feeling in a way that isn’t helpful or for being imperfect. Instead of fighting them, work with them.

10 Self Defeating Patterns

1. Conflict Phobia
You are afraid of angry feelings or conflicts with people. You may believe that people with good relationships should not engage in verbal “fights” or intense arguments. In addition, you may believe that disclosing your thoughts and feelings to those you care about would result in their rejection of you. This is sometimes referred to as the “ostrich phenomenon” — burying your head in the sand instead of addressing relationship problems.

2. Emotional Perfectionism
You believe that you should not have feelings such as anger, jealousy, depression, or anxiety. You think you should always be rational and in control of your emotions. You are afraid of being exposed as weak and vulnerable. You believe that people will belittle or reject you if they know how you really feel.

3. Fear of Disapproval and Rejection
You are so terrified by rejection and ending up alone that you would rather swallow your feelings and put up with some abuse than take the chance of making anyone mad at you. You feel an excessive need to please people and to meet what you perceive to be their expectations. You are afraid that people would not like you if you expressed your thoughts and feelings.

4. Passive-Aggressive Behavior
You pout and hold your hurt or angry feelings inside instead of disclosing what you feel. You give others the silent treatment, which is inappropriate, and a common strategy to elicit feelings of guilt (on their part).

5. Hopelessness
You are convinced that your relationship cannot improve no matter what you do. You may feel that you have already tried everything and nothing works. You may believe that your spouse (or partner) is just too stubborn and insensitive to be able to change. These positions represent a self-fulfilling prophecy–once you give up, an established position of hopelessness supports your predicted outcome.

6. Low Self-Esteem
You believe that you are not entitled to express your feelings or to ask others for what you want. You think you should always please other people and meet their expectations.

7. Spontaneity
You believe that you have the right to say what you think and feel when you are upset. (Generally, feelings are best expressed during a calm and structured or semi-structured exchange.) Structuring your communication does not result in a perception that you are “faking” or attempting to inappropriately manipulate others.

8. Mind Reading
You believe that others should know how you feel and what you need (although you have not disclosed what you need). The position that individuals close to you can “divine” what you need provides an excuse to engage in non-disclosure, and thereafter, to feel resentful because people do not appear to care about your needs.

9. Martyrdom
You are afraid to admit that you are angry, hurt, or resentful because you do not want to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that her or his behavior is unacceptable. Taking pride in controlling your emotions and experiencing hurt or resentment does not support clear and functional communication.

10. Need to Solve Problems
When you have a conflict with an individual (i.e., your needs are not being met), avoiding the associated issues is not a functional solution. Disclosing your feelings and being willing to listen without judgment to the other is constructive.

Conflict

It strikes me that you may actually love conflict, just a different sort than you mention. Hasn't your habit of avoidance and capitulation caused a conflict within yourself? Aren't you at conflict with the world (as it really is, not how you hope it is) and yourself by trying to avoid conflict? Who created this inner conflict? You did, with your actions and beliefs! This might seem perverse to you, you might respond by saying that conflict is only painful when it is between you and other people, but this conflict within yourself causes you suffering. You suffer with outer conflict and you suffer with inner conflict. By getting along with other people, you aren't getting along with yourself. Try to love yourself so that you realize you are currently depriving the world of your opinions, spirit and light.

In music, the same note twice isn't called harmony, it's called unison. Harmony is two different notes existing together, merging their frequencies to make something new. You exist, your "frequencies" exist, but by hiding your light under a bushel, you are striving for unison, not harmony.

Stop Mind Reading

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE9cTS4LMho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRsTYMWyvdc

Stop trying to read minds.

Most relationship problems and associated social anxieties start with bad communication, which in turn leads to attempted mind reading.  Mind reading occurs when two people assume that they know what the other is thinking when they don’t.  This process of wondering and trying to guess what someone is thinking is a rapid route to feelings of insecurity and stress.

If someone says one thing, don’t assume they mean something else.  If they say nothing at all, don’t assume their silence has some hidden, negative connotation.  Likewise, don’t make the people in your life try to read your mind.  Say what you mean and mean what you say.  Give the people in your life the information they need, rather than expecting them to know the unknowable.

It’s also important to remember that you aren’t supposed to know every little thing going on in the minds of others, even the people closest to you.  When you stop trying to read their minds, you really begin to respect their right to privacy.  Everyone deserves the right to think private thoughts.  Constantly asking, “What are you thinking?” can provoke a person to withdraw from a relationship to find space.  

Exercise:

ASK PERMISSION “Can I check out an assumption I have?”

ASK “I think that you think…. Is that correct?”

Dangers of Mind Reading:

• Telling ourselves stories about others that aren’t true.

• Making assumptions without checking them out damages relationships

Interdependent Couples

What makes interconnections healthy is interdependency, not codependency. Paradoxically, interdependency requires two people capable of autonomy (the ability to function independently). When couples love each other, it’s normal to feel attached, to desire closeness, to be concerned for each another, and to depend upon each other. Their lives are intertwined, and they’re affected by and need each other. However, they share power equally and take responsibility for their own feelings, actions, and contributions to the relationship. Because they have self-esteem, they can manage their thoughts and feelings on their own and don’t have to control someone else to feel okay. They can allow for each other’s differences and honor each another’s separateness. Thus, they’re not afraid to be honest. They can listen to their partner’s feelings and needs without feeling guilty or becoming defensive. Since their self-esteem doesn’t depend upon their partner, they don’t fear intimacy, and independence doesn’t threaten the relationship. In fact, the relationship gives them each more freedom. There’s mutual respect and support for each other’s personal goals, but both are committed to the relationship.

Healing Hyper-vigilance and Learning Peace

Oh noze! What's that noise?

Those who grow up in an environment that is not safe (whether physically or emotionally) develop a heightened sense of threat. They learn to scan the environment for potential danger, and react defensively.

As an adult, this can continue as a chronic sense of fear and a predisposition to overreact and take things personally, especially in intimate relationships. We carry the war with us.

 

We Make Up Stories That Make Things Worse

A new friend cancels your plans to meet for lunch. You start wondering why. You scan over your last few interactions. You start obsessing. Pretty soon you are convinced that she is judging you.

Taking things personally can be very painful. If we already believe that people might reject us, or we believe we have certain flaws, others words and actions can seem to confirm them. Because we are prepped to hear slights or blame, we react as if it is true and as if it is truly threatening.

In reality, either your friend is judging you or not. You can ask and find out. But even if they are, it is not as life-threatening as it can feel.

We Are Still Seeing Out of a Child’s Eyes

As a child, emotional hurt like being judged or blamed signals a threat of abandonment. Because children cannot fend for themselves, their systems take it as a threat to their life. It’s serious.

As an adult, we can learn that others opinions of us will not kill us. Their moods, their judgments, their feelings and thoughts are their own. They don’t literally threaten us.

The perspective of a child to a threat is different than the perspective of an adult to that same threat. The threat is smaller as we are larger. What is stuck is our perception of the prospective hurt. Yes, it is painful when we hear judgement or blame. But it no longer has to threaten our very well-being.

Relaxing Hyper-vigilance Takes Time

You won’t magically stop caring what people think, and then breeze through all your relationships. It’s not as simple as knowing that the threat isn’t real.

It takes time and persistence to retrain your brain to perceive input differently. Because the threats were very real at one time, your brain grooved those pathways in to protect you. So give yourself a break. Expect slow and steady progress instead of overnight transformation.

Affirmations and Self-Talk Can Rewire the Brain

These aren’t affirmations to make you feel better or more powerful. They are grounding statements designed to correct a tendency for your brain to misinterpret data.

When you feel yourself start to analyze, obsess, worry, defend, attack back, retreat, or make escape plans, try these statements out.

·         My feelings are not always in proportion to the situation. So I might be making a bigger deal out of this than I need to.

·         Others actions are probably more about them than me.

·         I’m actually OK. I’m not in danger here.

Questions can also help invoke the adult self.

·         What is feeling threatening here?

·         What do I need—what would help me feel safe and OK right now?

As you talk to yourself and work to mentally re-assess the situation with a clearer perspective, take deep breathes. Engage your body in a way that helps you relax and release stress and anxiety. Take a walk, talk a bath. Do something that makes you feel safe and warm and cozy. Remind your body that you are actually safe now.

Working with the body is essential because fear and emotional responses are stored in the body. It’s not enough to tell yourself you are OK—you need to start having new experiences that overwrite the old ones.

We Can Survive Our Own Feelings

The hardest thing about healing is learning to manage overwhelming feelings.

“Manage” is a complex word. A good manager provides boundaries and structures, but does not control or force those who work under her. Similarly, to manage our feelings we need a gentle but firm hand. We need to keep the wider perspective in mind while attending to the needs of the moment. We need to be a great parent to our own small selves.

We do this by developing a part of ourselves that can watch over the emotional self as it goes through its ups and downs. This “Witness Self” can be objective and neutral, and provide a supportive voice and compassionate presence to ourselves when we encounter situations that trigger us.

We Can Learn to Find Peace In Any Situation

As children, we yearned to feel a relaxed sense of feeling safe, loved, and cared for.

As adults, we still seek this. But we often find that we are blocking it ourselves. After searching and searching for people to love us the right way and say (or not say) the right things, we find that we have built a small world to live in—a world that we can control.

To expand that world and create true freedom requires us to become OK with more circumstances. Instead of wanting the world to conform to our wishes and never threaten us, we have to learn to become resilient and not be blown about by every wind. We need to adjust our threat-meters and realize that even though many people make mistakes and accidentally say things that hurt us, they are not out to make us feel helpless or powerless. They are just doing the best they can, and so are we.

The final step to peace is realizing that the war is over; we can create a life we enjoy now.

The key to breaking this polarization is by becoming conscious of our needs and feelings, and risking what we fear most. It requires awareness of our coping behaviors and resisting the impulse to withdraw or pursue. It takes tremendous courage not to run when we feel too close, and not to pursue when we feel abandoned, but instead, learn to acknowledge and tolerate the emotions that arise. This may trigger very early feelings of shame, terror, grief, emptiness, despair, and rage. With the help of a therapist, these feelings can be separated from the present circumstance, in which as adults our survival is no long at stake. As the feelings are worked through, a less reactive, stronger sense of self develops, one that is not easily threatened or overwhelmed.

Mindfulness and ACT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwxXdVxPBf4

Mindfulness is a state of being aware, open and focused. When you are in the state of mindfulness, you become completely focused on whatever it is that you are doing. You are able to let go of unhelpful thoughts and not be controlled by your emotions.  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy enables people to spend more times enjoying their life instead of getting caught up in their head.

Mind is the great story teller. Our mind just loves to keep busy. It is in the constant state of talking to us, telling us things. Mind loves to be negative. It loves to criticize, judge, tell us the things that we are not doing right, comparing ourselves to others. It’s doing it all the time. It’s not about that you are negative, but the fact that our mind evolved to think that way.

Back in the day, mind helped to keep us safe. Back in the day, there we a lot of dangers to our survival and mind evolved to be negative. But now, we are spending way too much time caught up in our thoughts. Naturally, negative thoughts are able to grab our attention over positive thoughts and lift us out of being in the present. 47% of our time is spent caught up in the thoughts. Most of these thoughts are negative and they don’t help us move closer to living that rich and meaningful life that we want and they don’t leave us feeling positive, inspired and motivated to do amazing things.

Mindfulness is leading us to get out of our heads and into our lives, by not getting caught up in that negative story all the time. Negative thoughts are not the problem, the fact that we are getting these negative thoughts is not the problem but it is more of what we do with them and how much we buy into their story. It’s when we are hearing these thoughts and treating them as gospel. When we completely believe that they are true or we are fighting with them, getting caught up, we are letting them to take control over us and tell us what to do. That’s when thoughts become a problem.

Cognitive Fusion is a technical term for the process of us completely entangled with our thoughts. And when we are in that state is when they completely take over our lives.  De-fusion is the opposite of Fusion. In Cognitive De-fusion we are capable of letting our thoughts come and go, so that we are able to be mindful that they are there but not let them have control over us. It’s almost like taking the step back and being with peace and accepting of those thoughts being there. It’s not like meeting and greeting, bearing it “Argghhh, I know that you are there, but I hate that you are there”.  It is saying “I accept that you are there but it is my choice whether I want to engage with you”. To think “Is that thought helpful?” “Is that helping me live rich and meaningful life?” and if it is not, letting it go. Bring into your mind a thought “I am blah”, something that really hooks you, something that has a tendency to come back over and over. When it comes to your mind, completely believe that thought. Let your mind go wherever it wants to go and just marinate in that thought.  Notice how you are feeling. Now, take that exact same thought and in front of it just state “My mind is having the thought that I am blah”. Now you feel lighter. You got more space. It provides some distance between yourself and a thought. It enables you to start to realize that they are just thoughts and feeling and words. So they are just thoughts, which are not you and whether they are true or not is not important any more. Start to be more aware of the thoughts you are thinking throughout the day. When you are engaging with that thought too much, just take a step back and say to yourself “Hang on a second. My mind is having a thought that blah.” Start to experience distance between yourself and that thought.