Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: lighter on February 26, 2008, 09:40:14 AM
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Has anyone learned any new tools or made some realizations about their ability to cope better, since we last discussed this?
One thing I learned years ago, was that things would be OK, even if they weren't ok.
Faith.
Yes, it's a spiritual thing for me.
I've had many opportunities to watch myself experience this over the last year, with more detail and understanding.
I accept the fact that I will experience great sadness and anxiety as a matter of course.... and it always passes, leaving relief and energy in it's wake.
I trust that it will pass with more certainty.... even if it's still a very messy thing... always will be a messy thing.
It never gets any prettier, I'm afraid.
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Please.... help the rest of us understand when you finally figure it out: )
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I've been working on letting others help me and graciously accepting both help and compliments. It's harder than it sounds.
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I am working on enjoying life to its fullest when there are no negative behaviors happening.
And when there are, I'm trying to let go of black and white thinking and think less of "my life sucks" and more of "this shall pass".
I also was enmeshed with someone for so long (like his mini-me! He's a workaholic and I am looking around and seeing I am, too. this needs to change. I just told him I am taking a day off every week! I have literally not had a day off since the week of Christmas when I went to a funeral). so I'm trying to define my own wants and get some hobbies! I bought myself an electric violin and I'm learning to play.
Dandylife
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From experience.... I know I have to think about something that's bo9thering me, before I speak... or I never get my thoughts out the way I want to.
I used to sit and write page after page, read it then write it over again, until it was reduced down to the truth and I had it internalized to the point I could discuss it without fear of being sidetracked or confused.
Very time consuming, but necessary, when all else fails, IME.
It sounds like you';re working on incorporating a form of this tool in a very economic user friendly daily living mindfulness, that fits in your hand at all times.
I hadn't thougth about it that way.
More likely to become a habit, then part of us, whe we can access our tools easily, at any time.
If we to hole up for 12 hours with pen and paper..... and a quart of Haagen Daaz.... it's not user friendly, is it?
Culling out the negative coping strategies that don't work for us any longer, and replacing them with tools that help us grow and mature.
Yes yes yes: )
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Disciplining the mind...... very tai chi: )
Again, part of the equation is not letting ourselves react to people who are obviously yanking our chains.
Or situations, that yank our chains..... trigger us.
If I have to hear "you're problem is that you're reacting to A B C" from someone with a clear uncluttered unthreatened vantage point.... I think I'll scream.
I'm aware of that fact, thanks.
I know this but I haven't been able to UN learn the response yet. Rise above..... detach on command.
Or better yet..... not react at all.
Do something else instead.
Breath.....
maybe.
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You know sometimes when you don't know what to do, speaking it aloud helps.
When you're angry with someone: "I'm feeling angry and upset and I'm not sure precisely why. Did you intend to criticize me? (or whatever)."
or when you've got that racing heart feeling, but not sure why you're even triggered - "Wow, that makes me feel upset for some reason. I need to step back and figure this out."
Sometimes speaking it aloud sort of defuses - or begins the process of allowing your body to begin to calm itself.
Dr. John Gottman calls this feeling "flooded".
It takes at LEAST 20 mins to begin recovery. I saw this happen with myself. (In therapy he hooked up sensors so you could read your actual heart rate, respirations, etc. during flooding.)
I thought I was a person who recovered quickly from flooding, but this experience proved it took 30 mins. for me to recover bodily.
He also recommended not trying to converse about it until you are recovered physically.
Dandylife
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Dandylife:
That explains a lot about the way I have to cycle through a crisis phase.
No matter what I do..... there I am.
No matter what I think.... there I am.
There's no escaping it, I usually sink into it with the firm knowledge that I'll be released soon enough.
And I'm never quire sure why I was released until your post.
That helps a lot.
Thanks.
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lighter,
Your appeal has caused me to do a review of where I am this week and the tried and true's that I've let slip through the cracks. My effort will be to reintroduce them into my day with a deeper appreciation for them than I had when they simply slipped through the cracks.
tt
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Thanks Amber, tay, dandy and tt.
Sometimes it's SO SO hard just to take a complement of allow someone to help us, Tay. I recognize that one too.
Appreciating what's in front of us and counting our blessings, while working on everything else.... not so easy but it feels right when we can accomplish it.
::looking forward to more thoughts on the subject::
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Hi Lighter,
With respect for you I'd like to add my two cents from my highly stigmatized 12 step program AA:
My feeling is that if I can get rid of ego and self then I lose half of my problems (this is the best coping device I have ever found aside from denial :wink:) How do I lose myself without losing myself...
From The BB:
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Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kill us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help.
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I'm not familiar with the AA bible.... but I know many who attend the program and live their lives by it.
You stated that getting rid of the ego is half the problem.
What I thought when i read that was that N's have no ego, and that seems to be the basis for their problems.
Don't read anything too deep into that comment.
When I think of letting expectations of self and life go.... (for myself)in order to instill some balance and peace....
it's like stepping back and shattering the world (as I want it to be and hope it can become) in favor of just accepting what is and what comes, no matter how intolerable I find it (when I hold expectations.)
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it's like stepping back and shattering the world (as I want it to be and hope it can become) in favor of just accepting what is and what comes, no matter how intolerable I find it (when I hold expectations.)
Hi Lighter,
Yes, I like the line above you wrote. It really does come down to expectations. Here is another way of saying it.
"I spent most of my life doing the Serenity prayer backwards, that is, trying to change the external things over which I had no control - other people and life events mostly - and taking no responsibility (except shaming and blaming myself) for my own internal process - over which I can have some degree of control. Having some control is not a bad thing; trying to control something or somebody over which I have no control is what is dysfunctional."
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
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Dear PhoenixRising,
The book, "Destructive Emotions" focuses on that very few milliseconds you have upon being triggered and what happens from then on. Fascinating, illuminating book, if you haven't read it.
But, it talks about some buddhist monks who were proficient at meditating. They put them in a machine that does magnetic resonance + and they were able to "control their brain function" at an amazing rate.
Meditation will help you in controlling body functions, yes. Heart rate, respirations, even can help (IMO) with healing the body.
Dandylife
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Meditation will help you in controlling body functions, yes. Heart rate, respirations, even can help (IMO) with healing the body.
Thanks for this -- I needed to hear it today, hopefully it will inspire me to meditate more.
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It's been a while since I've been deeply invested in trying to change things overtly out of my control, Lis.
I think making peace with unfair things that should be in my control, but crazily are NOT, is valid.
Making peace with injustice and possibilites that are scary and threatening, too.
"If he wants you dead, you're going to be dead. Get used to it, point your toes and be pretty. Men don't like tense bitchy women, etc."
Accepting iinjustice and not caring that it's unfair.... our good friend, changing's, dissapearance for example.
I haven't tried to change a person or circumstances beyond my rational control lately, though I'll plead guilty to trying to be heard by people who can't or won't hear what I'm saying.
That's my problem, too.... not theirs.
There's a fine line between trying to control others and trying to control ourselves, IMO.
An even finer line between trying to understand someone when they don't understand us......
and
understanding someone then dismissing them (without prejudice) when they turn out to be incapable of considering anyone else's feelings but their own.
Letting go of the need to be heard or change them into people who can listen, etc.
Wasted time vs less wasted time.
Dismissal doesn't have to be violent, either, IMO. Or does it?
It can be withdrawl with love,
for our own good.
It can be a gentle turning away from them, into ourselves.
Right, lol?
It can also be us turning away over and over.... with them stabbing at us emotionally and legally and committing offenses again and again to regain our attention, too, I suppose.
We can't control them, only our responses to them.
Expectations have a lot to do with how we handle our emotions.... I'll agree with you there..
Our altitude is determined by our altitude and all that: /
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With out knowing I have started to recover faster. I used to dwel on a problem forever, and today I came home and I am having a more or less peaceful time at my home. I might even go out to walk in a little. Hope I can detach more easily.
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Hops had an interesting though on another thread.
She was saying that her body may have required a certain amount of time to get the old stuffed cellular level pain from her childhood.....
out.
And that she eventually did start feeling better.
Maybe it's got to work it's way out and, since it hurts so darned much, we're driven to educate ourselves and find ways to escape the pain as a by product?
I have no idea but it seems that there's always a certain distance to the void when I'm in it and I can't tell exactly when I'll be released or even why.... I just keep plugging along and trying to learn and add things that will help me feel better.
I'm glad you had a nice evening Lupe.
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Caution, Christian content ahead....
This thread is so awesome and full of good stuff for me.
Being new to the concepts of NPD, I am still very green about all the "Ns and outs" of my issues (ha ha, I made a funny....) with my Nmom. I have, however, been "in recovery" for a long time, if you count my faith journey as legitimate recovery.
I would like to share a little of it:
I remember some years ago when I read in the bible where it says to love others as yourself and I had the shocking awareness that I actually HATED myself! I remember thinking at the time that truly loving others must be contingent upon loving oneself. The realization was pretty overwhelming, I knew I had to learn how to love myself....
I remember maybe 3 or 4 years ago, sitting by myself and finally realizing and ADMITTING to myself that my own mother did not care about me, did not value me, did not cherish me, did not love me at all, and NEVER would, and how that realization led to such despairing rage and grief (it is so impossible to adequately portray FEELINGS sometimes, no?) and mourning; then subsequently (these things took a long, long time and I am still working on them) deeply grieving the loss of that mother I so desperately needed and wanted.
I distinctly remember the very moment the Jesus of the bible somehow spiritually made me aware that He did actually love me and cherish ME, that I had actual intrinsic value to Him just as I was, even if I was not doing something for someone. I finally saw what perhaps "normal" people have always known, the inherent right to take up space and breathe the air on the planet, without feeling guilty. I remember even in my very messed up condition, the actual rush of feeling that I WAS loved and unconditionally, more deeply than could be understood. I remember finally getting a taste of this "peace which passeth all understanding."
This was a very intensely personal and private experience for me and was not connected in any way with a church or organized religion situation, simply my exploring what the Bible has to say for me and talking privately with my God.... This was my very own experience.
Bringing you up to date with my current "tools": I just recently discovered NPD and found this board and the things I have begun applying in the past few weeks that have been helpful to me:
1. Practicing mindfulness and awareness of thoughts and behaviors; thinking things through before acting impulsively
2. Acceptance of my self and my stage in my journey, giving myself more patience, instead of feeling overwhelmed by what is facing me in this new awareness, stopping the dialog of self hate
3. Learning and learning about N. By studying and gaining more understanding of the grievous destruction Ns perpetrate on their victims, I am (hopefully) becoming much more gracious toward others and trying to let them voice whatever they have to say at whatever stage of recovery they are in, like I feel we all have a right to be wherever we are with our recovery at any given moment, even if I don't like or understand what someone is saying.
4. Learning to stop or at least override the Nmom's voice in my head that expects me to take care of her sick emotional needs for me to always fail, always be a loser, always be the bad kid.... This gives me such hope for a productive, healthy future.
Well, there is lots more but that will do for starters. I feel so overwhelmingly grateful for this board.... Love you guys, V
PS Here is one practical thing I do. Each day I open a Word document prior to coming and logging on to the board, that way I can cut and paste things as soon as I read something that resonates with my situation, or tips for dealing with certain issues, books to read, posts I like that are encouraging and healing, etc., etc. I am compiling quite a good resource notebook for myself....
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PS Here is one practical thing I do. Each day I open a Word document prior to coming and logging on to the board, that way I can cut and paste things as soon as I read something that resonates with my situation, or tips for dealing with certain issues, books to read, posts I like that are encouraging and healing, etc., etc. I am compiling quite a good resource notebook for myself....
Oh, ((( Violet )))
that's what I do, so much easier than writing in a journal.
I named my 'folder' ... "life guide"
Leah x
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Violet--YOU are my long lost sister. Oh, How I resonate with what you are saying. You have helped me so much ,today. I will write more later, after I have had time to think about your many pearls of wisdom. Thank you so, very,very much ,Violet, the beautiful flower! Love Ami
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((((((((((Ami))))))))) I feel so honored to be counted as your long lost sister!
((((((((((Leah)))))))) Yeah, I called my folder My Life. I am learning so much, it is so hard though to keep walking through all these painful emotions, no?
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Amber:
I think that I'm working on giving more energy and strength to the positives, while honoring and acknowedging.... owning and embracing the negatives.
I don't have the trauma in my childhood that some have.... but we all have painful emotions that must be processed in order for them not to keep tapping us on the shoulder.... waiting to be heard.
They do come out....
in all sorts of ways....
if we don't let them have their say.
So....
that said.
I have to re think the good cry (best had in the shower with the house empty) sinking into all the sad, lost, unfair feelings we keep inside that won't just go away...
vs the positive habit/thought/routine of self care and making better choices equation.
We can't just concentrate on one.... and experience balance.
I suppose we have to be aware of all aspects and honor the God's of Ying and Yang...... perhaps not equally.... but honored just the same.
I wonder if we can trace certain personality types/disorders/stuck places for us all, to particular imbalances in how we spend our energy?
Concentrating on the negative in negative angry ways.... say, by choosing partner that is just like an abusive parent..... falling into alcoholism/gambling/sex addictions..... abusing others, blaming only others and refusing to take stock of what is ours.
Concentrating on just the positive while refusing to acknowledge or listen to any of the negative. I guess this might look like a positive addiction of say.... working out or working or compulsively cleaning or dieting. Trying to control our lives and bring about apparent positive things but finding no balance, still.
Concentrating on the balance.... and this must be right.
Paying attention to all aspects of ourselves and accepting them, giving them voice, being whole enough to have that validation within ourselves be enough to quiet that part, then turn to more positive aspects of living. Making mindful choices that may not feel comfortable at first.... but we make them just the same.
It feels like facing more fear.... to say yes to something that's unfamiliar sometimes. Even if we know it's best for us.
I know I keep going over and over this but.... I'm trying to internalize it and experiencing a good deal of stress right now so..... sorry.
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I distinctly remember the very moment the Jesus of the bible somehow spiritually made me aware that He did actually love me and cherish ME, that I had actual intrinsic value to Him just as I was
Thank you for sharing dear (((( Violet ))))
When that happened to me, I wept uncontrollably, day after day, feeling for this first time in my whole life, of being loved, just as I am, and being accepted, into loving arms, that have held me, daily.
Leah was never loved ~ however she is loved by Jesus with the love and comfort of God through his Holy Spirit birth.
Bless you for sweet validation of a real love, my first and only love.
Love Leah
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Bless you for sweet validation of a real love, my first and only love.
Love Leah
Thanks!
It is so freeing! (((((((Leah)))))))
V
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Detachmetn is a good tool. Just learning how to get detached. When it hurts, it hurts.
Difficult to detach but little by little. It hurts less and is more tolerable.
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Leah, I meant to say "Thank You." My post got messed up! :) Violet
Lupita, could you write some more thoughts on
"detachment" if you have any inspiration? I am
interested in what this means and how you have
made it work? Violet
Sorry guys I have been sick all week, have had a fever
everyday for 5 days (flu?) and am pretty confused
mentally, if any of my posts sound weird, forgive....
V
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Dear ((((((( Violet ))))))))
The influenza virus knocks one for six and then afterwards it can take at least a couple of weeks to get over the virus, you have my sincere empathy, as whenever I have had an influenza virus, I have felt so tired and out of sorts for a time afterwards.
Rest, sleep, fresh air, and gentle home comforts, helps. :)
Warm thoughts,
Leah x
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Hey Violet, thank you for asking. I will do it this weekend. Thanks again for asking. That felt good.
Love to you.
God bless you all.