Author Topic: a successful thought intervention  (Read 2974 times)

Iphi

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a successful thought intervention
« on: March 16, 2008, 11:15:52 PM »
This week we've all had a nasty stomach virus at our house.  I wanted to share with the board something that happened.

When I am getting sick, one of the first things that happens is that really negative thoughts and feelings start to barrage me.  I start thinking of all the mistakes I've made or thoughtless, insensitive things I've done, feeling intense remorse, recalling people who dislike me, incidents that were unpleasant or abusive.  This happens to me so often, maybe every time, when I get sick and it happens early, before other symptoms.  I don't know why this happens and can't tell if getting sick makes me feel bad first, or if negative thoughts at the wrong time lower/undermine the immune system - I don't know.

So this time my 1-yr-old came down with the virus first (so we had a little warning) and 2 days later in the midst of caring for him the barrage of intense negativity began in my mind and I felt its effects emotionally - cringing inside and feeling terrible, sick with remorse and shame and burning humiliation.  But this time it was different.  This time I realized that I was getting sick and having the influx of negative thoughts and feelings.  And this time, I said "this is just the usual process and I don't have to pay attention to any of these things.   I am a good person, not a perfect one and have always sincerely learned from my mistakes and errors and have always felt remorse for them."  And then I decided I could support and care for myself while being ill.

And the negativity went away.

And I still became awfully ill - vomiting and diarrhea and it was wretched as anybody who has had that knows!  But it was a real change - a really important change!  Physically I was wretched, but only physically.

After things calmed down, I realized that my awareness has been changing, is changing as I become so much more informed and sensitive and come to grips with reality about what I've been through, where I am who I am.  But none of that is in a vacuum and it has everything to do with everyone here.  The topics people bring forward to post, the discussions and the sharing.  These things help me every day, though often these days and weeks I have no time to really post much substantive.  But there is so much knowledge and hard-won experience here.  Learning from you is changing my life in ways it never occurred to me it could change.

Thank you, each of you.  You are helping me so much.  I owe you so much.  I hope I can help you too.
Character, which has nothing to do with intellect or skill, can evolve only by increasing our capacity to love, and to become lovable. - Joan Grant

teartracks

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2008, 12:24:54 AM »




Hi Iphi,

You said that with such strength and beauty.  I am very happy for your new awareness.  That you made it work while having that awful stomach virus is pretty amazing.   Hope you're feeling better physically too.

tt

Hopalong

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2008, 12:27:20 AM »
Iphi,
In spite of the illness, what a beautiful thing to share.
I've got a smile right now, realizing you had a realization.

That's big an it's beautiful.

You just did something wonderful. You somehow made room for a shift in awareness,
and something opened. You made room for something new.

Thanks for the inspiration, Iphi.

love
Hops
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Leah

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2008, 07:18:00 AM »

Dear Iphi,

Thank you for sharing, and I sincerely hope, you and your dear family, regain strength and vitality, in wellness from that awful virus.

I resonate with your thoughts and feelings during sickness, and do think, it may indeed, have something to do with ones weakened immune system, at the time.

Love, Leah
Jun 2006 voiceless seeking

April 2008 - "The Gaslight Effect" How to Spot & Survive by Dr. Robin Stern - freedom of understanding!

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Ami

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2008, 07:51:57 AM »
Dear Iphi,
 That is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read,on the board. I can see and feel your "healing. I agree that the board ,now, is wonderfully healing. I am experiencing the same type of deep healing. IMO,Papillion had a strong enough voice to set a new standard for the board. Much of the frivolous BS that we endured,previously, would not fly now.It simply would be squashed.
 Iphi, I had a shift, too.
 It started with the Alice Miller thread and ended with my beginning to love myself,honor myself and see my worth..
 You(and I) are giving" back" the lies and distortions to the people who gave them to us.WE don't need to own them ,any more. They were never ours ,to begin with.
 I gave them back,literally AND figuratively. You, as I understand your F, would not receive them,literally, so you can give them back,in your psyche.
 Iphi, your healing shows the strength and power of the board, when it operates on a higher 'ground". I am so, so happy for you. I hope you will be posting more b/c you always have so much to share.      Love   Ami
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

axa

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2008, 09:52:53 AM »
Iphi,

Thank you for sharing this.  I found it so uplifting.  I am also working on not attending to negative thoughts and your post was so affirming.  My strategy is becoming aware of the negative thought, which is rarely based in reality, observing it like a cartoon character, you know with bubbles going up to the image and saying the word, THINKING then I take myself back to the present moment, often the thought will come back over and over again but the challenge is to keep acknowledging it and returning to the present.

Great to hear such positive news.

axa

Certain Hope

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2008, 11:47:58 AM »
Iphi,

Do you think that maybe the cycle of negativity and shaming is triggered by some subconscious notion that getting sick is a form of punishment upon you?
As though... "if I were a better person, this wouldn't be happening to me and I'd feel good all the time" ...?

Something similar happens to me when my children or husband are under the weather. It's like I kick into a different gear - a sort of endurance-mode - which lowers my resistance and can allow all sorts of dark influences to work their diry business on my mind and emotions. Maybe that's a remnant of that old sense of being responsible for the protection and sustenance of every thing and every one... not sure.

Hope you and your family are on the mend now!

Carolyn

Iphi

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2008, 10:46:05 PM »
Thanks teartracks, Hops, LeahsRainbow, Ami, axa and CH for your kind replies.  It's such a relief to change in ways I never knew I could change.  I didn't know I had a choice about the pattern I described, you know?  Didn't know I had the power, much less how to use it. 

Axa,  I hear you - returning to the present moment and dropping other stuff.  I am reading and thinking a great deal about how to do that and other techniques of skillful use of the mind - lot of meditation and yoga books but also Tolle talks about the same things.  Some things seem to take so long to sink in, for me at least.  Still, there's no deadline!

Wish I could say I was better, but as soon as the stomach virus left, a hideous, streaming cold moved in and I stayed prostrate on the sofa coughing and blowing my nose all day, too listless to do more than channel surf.  Actually kind of a nice change of pace from the life of a working mom.  Feeling rather better this evening.

I want to say that I am so glad that I was able to change the pattern in the way I described, but also right now in other ways I see that many of my dysfunctional relation patterns are coming up, much more than they did in the past.  I think this is because I am now a mom.  The family responsibilities trigger me a lot more often than I was in my life before children.  It's very challenging for me and I am seeing inside a lot of cognitive errors, habits of assumptions that aren't true, poor ways of relating, messed up ways of dealing with anger (P/A sometimes, sometimes petulant stuff).  Lots of issues.  I get so twisted up worried about being dysfunctional as a wife and mom.  I'm 110% committed to learning and growing in every way to life to the fullest in the most appreciative and earnestly learning-oriented way.  But a lot of times right now I am seeing lots of problems and behaviors that need to evolve - seeing a lot of work lined up for the present and future. 

Just this morning I felt like work I have been doing in the marriage had been going unnoticed.  Me and the H talked about it and, in all truth, this was all in my head.  The situation of having so much work to do as everyone was sick this week, totally triggered me to feeling like Cinderella all over again.  In truth, I really am appreciated and also I am by far not the only person who is working hard and needs to be appreciated.  My perceptions can be so messed up sometimes.

CH, your post prompted me to think about what I think the negative thoughts context is.  For me, I think that getting sick was a time of great self loathing and self hatred for me for years as I grew up.  The sick person who needed help in our house was my dad.  His MS is like a permanent state of crisis and red alert.  It's hard for me to find the words to describe this.  It was a terrible, selfish thing for me to be sick because my purpose was to be useful for my dad.  So being sick was taking from him, like taking the focus and upsetting the order of things, but also it was being unable to give to him and so it was terrible in that way too. 

I always felt as if I somehow did it (became ill) on purpose to be intransigent, and so I felt guilty and ashamed and like I had failed in my responsibility and also failed to stifle myself for the greater purpose of the more worthy person.  I was always extremely sensitive to the great sacrifice my dad was making as a single father too.  Of course, we clashed too and I would lose my temper/or composure (i.e. I would cry which he despises and/or feels superior to) with him - but that just boomeranged into more self-loathing and self-flagellation on my own head - how could I do that to the sainted noble martyr who is ill?  Sometimes my dad actually treated me in this way - that my being sick was inconvenient, irritating, as if I did it on purpose.  But other times he didn't seem to mind or care at all, which was a relief to me and felt as if I had passed a gauntlet - my sickness was 'legit.'  And other times he was even kind (although I could not say nurturing) and has patted my back while I heaved with a long ago tummy virus.

Also, I had to 'prove' an illness.  I had to show illness by a temperature or by actually vomiting or else it was minimized.  But even when I was obviously ill, sometimes my dad hugely minimized it.  One time I broke out in really monstrous hives - it was an allergic reaction to penicillin for strep.  My dad was completely disinterested - not his problem.  I had to solve that myself.  And I was terrified - I didn't know what the hives were and was scared, getting teary and hysterical.  He was like, checking his watch, rolling his eyes.  So yeah I have often felt a sense of, as if I am faking it or as if even if really sick, somehow me being sick is not at all important.

He always, always, always minimized concerns of my safety and wellbeing.
Character, which has nothing to do with intellect or skill, can evolve only by increasing our capacity to love, and to become lovable. - Joan Grant

Certain Hope

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2008, 11:25:30 PM »
Quote
Just this morning I felt like work I have been doing in the marriage had been going unnoticed.  Me and the H talked about it and, in all truth, this was all in my head.  The situation of having so much work to do as everyone was sick this week, totally triggered me to feeling like Cinderella all over again.  In truth, I really am appreciated and also I am by far not the only person who is working hard and needs to be appreciated.  My perceptions can be so messed up sometimes.

Just wanted to say... I struggle with these misperceptions too, Iphi... regularly.

Will return to the rest of your post when it's quieter here, tomorrow (I hope). Thanks for writing... now I have a better understanding of all that you've overcome in being able to silence the old shameful negativity.

Carolyn

James

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #9 on: March 18, 2008, 03:02:11 PM »
Iphi.....i read what you wrote and you showed up for my yesterday and it helped. Thanks. I was also giving thought to your  illness. It makes a lot of sense to me, keeping in mind the body and our brains' ability to store early memories. The  experience you describe in my thinking might be the body as its beginning to be traumatized by a virus,for instance, may trigger old memories of an emotional sort that then are inadvertantly processed by the triggering effect of a natural illness and then coming forth and creating confusion and hence the fearful confusion of childhood and its associated feelings reappear and play havoc with our emotions. I hope this makes sense if it doesn't ill re-write it differently.     James

Iphi

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #10 on: March 18, 2008, 04:38:48 PM »
Thanks CH and James.  I'm glad my thoughts were helpful James!  Is it like you are saying there is a feedback loop happening back and forth between body and mind, if I read you right.  I think so.  The physical illness beginning, the associations it brings up, the thought patterns recur and distress me emotionally, adding to the physical stress on the body.  Whew.  I'm telling you - when you are puking and ummm the other end also sometimes it seems one can go no lower - it's like 'wow it could be worse - I could also be self-loathing right now!'

CH thank you so much for saying how you also struggle with misperceptions.  I feel so heartened to have company in the struggle.  I think we will be okay.

My T always said that no problem can be solved until it is in awareness.  So awareness is already a part of the solution.
Character, which has nothing to do with intellect or skill, can evolve only by increasing our capacity to love, and to become lovable. - Joan Grant

James

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #11 on: March 18, 2008, 05:18:00 PM »
Iphi....yes its true, the body is a brain of sorts. I am begining to believe every cell is alive with memory including those of trauma....james

Hopalong

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #12 on: March 22, 2008, 12:22:11 PM »
Quote
the body is a brain of sorts

I agree James!
That's also why people with heart transplants carry feelings of their donors, as well as even personality quirks.

Maybe that's also why time in nature, with animals, and exercise, are healing.

xo
Hops
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James

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #13 on: March 22, 2008, 12:31:08 PM »
Hops.....i never thought about that, but it makes perfect sense.     james

SilverLining

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Re: a successful thought intervention
« Reply #14 on: March 22, 2008, 01:28:29 PM »


When I am getting sick, one of the first things that happens is that really negative thoughts and feelings start to barrage me.  I start thinking of all the mistakes I've made or thoughtless, insensitive things I've done, feeling intense remorse, recalling people who dislike me, incidents that were unpleasant or abusive.  This happens to me so often, maybe every time, when I get sick and it happens early, before other symptoms.  I don't know why this happens and can't tell if getting sick makes me feel bad first, or if negative thoughts at the wrong time lower/undermine the immune system - I don't know.

So this time my 1-yr-old came down with the virus first (so we had a little warning) and 2 days later in the midst of caring for him the barrage of intense negativity began in my mind and I felt its effects emotionally - cringing inside and feeling terrible, sick with remorse and shame and burning humiliation.  But this time it was different.  This time I realized that I was getting sick and having the influx of negative thoughts and feelings.  And this time, I said "this is just the usual process and I don't have to pay attention to any of these things.   I am a good person, not a perfect one and have always sincerely learned from my mistakes and errors and have always felt remorse for them."  And then I decided I could support and care for myself while being ill.

And the negativity went away.



It's a wonderful realization and an inspiring explanation of the process.  The negative thoughts come up and invite us down into the depths, but we don't have to go...  I've been working along this line for a couple of years.  It's been a challenge because I was so good at tagging along with the negative thoughts wherever they might want to take me.