The things that helped me most

About a year ago, my little sister was going through a difficult period in her life.  My heart ached for her, both because I hated to see her hurting and because I knew how she felt; I went through a very similar period in my own life several years ago.  I did all the normal things that sisters do in times like these - mostly just being there to talk and to listen - but I felt there should be something more I could do to help.  Ultimately, I decided the best way to help was to share with my sister what helped me in my own struggle.  To this end, I wrote her a letter.

I realize that just because something helped me doesn't mean it will help someone else.  But it might.  I'm not going to share the more personal tidbits of the letter I gave my sister, but I do want to share the strategies that helped me get through some pretty dark times.  So here goes:

A visual journal: I poured my heart and soul into visual journaling for about a year.  The art itself was at times mediocre; at times it was quite shitty.  The process of creating the art…it was amazing.  It was like I was literally pouring my emotions out.  They made so much more sense when I could see them on the outside (and not just inside of me, where they usually hang out).  I found a good article that explains the whole process.  Check it out:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-healing-arts/201006/cool-art-therapy-intervention-4-visual-journaling

Looking for patterns:  People tend to act out their unresolved psychological or emotional conflicts.  Look for patterns.  Look back over your life and identify any behavior or set of behaviors that have repeated themselves over and over again.  For me, this was repeatedly falling in love with emotionally unavailable, commitment phobic men.  There were all sorts of reasons for this, not all of which I have identified even now.  Still, it’s important to see the pattern and to think about what might be driving it. 

Identifying your emotional needs and not expecting one person to meet them all: I read this book once that completely blew my mind.  It was called “How to be an Adult in Relationships” by David Richo.  He says that we should not expect a partner to meet more than 25% of our emotional needs.  The rest we have to get met in other people (friends, family, coworkers, etc.) or activities (art, music, relaxation, etc.).  We also have to learn to meet some of them ourselves.  Briefly, the “5 A’s” are: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing (yourself and others to be as they are).  You should really read this book.

Pay attention to how you talk to yourself: Everybody talks to themselves, either out loud or in their heads.  When I first started working out, I remember “motivating” myself to push harder by telling myself, “Move your fat ass” or “Keep going bitch!”  I used to think to myself that maybe I was unlovable.  (I later learned that there is no such thing as unlovable, but more about that later).  Just thinking these things made me feel like shit.  Yet, I still didn’t understand why I didn’t like myself.  Here’s the deal: you have to treat yourself like you treat people you like.  You don’t go around calling your friends bitches or worthless and you shouldn’t do it to yourself.  If you want to learn to love yourself then the first thing you have to do is to be nice to yourself.  Don’t put yourself down.  (Tell yourself to shut up when you do put yourself down). 

Acceptance: Accept yourself as you are without wishing to be something or someone else.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t things you want to work on or goals you want to achieve.  It’s always good to work to become better; just don’t do it because you think you aren’t good enough as you are.  Accepting yourself as you are is not something you can just do once and be done with it.  (I wish it were that easy).  Self acceptance is something you have to do over and over again, every time you notice that you’re unhappy with how you are. The irony of self-acceptance is this: it is not until you accept yourself as you are that you are able to change.  If you always put off being happy with who you are – I’ll be happy when I get a good job, I’ll be happy when I get my own place, etc. – then you will always end up being disappointed. Acceptance – contentment – is something that happens right now, in the moment, or not at all. 

Self-compassion: Think about how you would feel if you see someone you love suffering.  You feel for that person and offer them love, warmth, and kindness.  You don’t judge him or say to him, “See, that’s what you get,” even if his suffering is the result of his own bad decisions.  “Everyone makes mistakes,” you tell him.  “Don’t beat yourself up.  You’re only human.”  You might go out of your way to check up on your loved one or to do something nice for him because you know he’s having a hard time. This is compassion.  Most of us have no problem offering compassion to other people.  Yet when faced with our own suffering, we tend to respond in ways that are decidedly un-compassionate. Take time to acknowledge when you are hurting; don’t try to ignore it or “suck it up” in hopes that it will eventually go away.  Recognize that you are going through a difficult time and think of ways to comfort yourself.  Give yourself extra attention.  Instead of judging or criticizing yourself, give yourself permission to be human.  Making a mistake or going through a hard time is part of being human.  You don’t have to beat yourself up for it.  Some people think, “If I’m not hard on myself then I won’t learn from my mistakes.”  This is not true.  Putting yourself down doesn’t teach you a lesson, it just makes you feel like shit.  It’s not helpful.

Core beliefs: These are the things our problems are made of.  Core beliefs typically operate on a subconscious level, so most of us are not really aware of them.  There is so much going on in our external environment at any given moment that there is no way our brain could take everything in.  Our brains use our core beliefs as filters.  Information that is consistent with what we believe about ourselves, other people, and the world is deemed important and is allowed into our conscious awareness.  Information that doesn’t fit with our core beliefs is deemed unimportant and is filtered out without ever reaching our conscious awareness.  In this way, our core beliefs influence how we perceive the world around us.

People need core beliefs; we can’t function effectively without them.  Sometimes, though, people have beliefs that are extreme and distorted.  This inevitably creates problems.  The core belief that created so many problems for me was, “I am unlovable.” 

Most people suffering with depression have at least one or two unrealistic core beliefs that are contributing to their negative emotions.  It is important to identify yours so that you can work to change them.

I hope this helps!

The Ego and Core Fears

I used to think I was unlovable.  It was one of those core beliefs that impacted my thoughts and feelings on a daily basis, even though it remained just outside of my conscious awareness.  I was full of self doubt and was severely lacking in confidence.  I was extremely sensitive to any perceived sign of rejection.  I frequently felt depressed and I found it difficult to like myself.  One of the reasons I wanted to go into the mental health profession (but certainly not the only reason -- there were many) was to better understand myself.  Actually, maybe that's not entirely accurate.  I think I wanted to figure out what was "wrong" with me so I could "fix" it.  That was my mindset at the age of 18 when I started college.

Anyway, I spent years working to change my belief that I was unlovable.  Today, I am absolutely certain I am lovable.  In fact, I believe that every human being is innately lovable, although many of us erect barriers that make it difficult for others to get close enough to love us.  I discovered over time that being lovable has nothing to do with having another person love me.  To be lovable I had to learn to love myself.  (I know that sounds cliche and trust me, it's easier to say than it was to do).

Last week, I wrote about "core fears."  Core fears are those that threaten our "ego," or our sense of self.  Core fears revolve around losing those things we believe are central to our identities; to lose them (or so we believe) is to lose our very selves.  When someone triggers a core fear our egos feel threatened; whenever the ego feels threatened it immediately acts to defend itself.  You can tell a core fear has been triggered by how upset you become.  Often you will find that the intensity of your emotion is disproportional to the event that triggered it (i.e., you get extremely upset when someone says or does something to you that doesn't seem to be quite as terrible as you are making it out to be).  When a core fear has been triggered we typically react by blaming the other person involved.  It's not that we are simply blaming the other person to avoid accepting responsibility for our own misdeeds; rather, we truly believe that the other person has wronged us.  This, however, is just our ego deceiving us in an effort to protect us from facing whatever fear has been activated. 

Ironically, as I was typing last week's post on my blog (I'd written it earlier that week) my husband and I got into an argument.  We started out with the best of intentions.  We were doing a communication exercise to address something I'd done that upset him.  We reached a point in the exercise where he was prompted to request that I make a specific change in my behavior.  I was expecting him to ask me to stop doing the thing that I'd done that upset him in the first place (and I was prepared to make this change).  Instead, he asked me to change something else entirely.  He thought the behavior he'd asked me to change was the underlying problem.  I thought he was asking me to change something that is fundamental to who I am.  Sense of self threatened; activate ego defenses.

I stormed off and went back to my computer to finish typing my blog post.  Oh the irony; I was writing about the very thing that was happening at that moment.  I told myself to pay attention to the words as I was writing.  I told myself to sit with my feelings, to observe them and to observe the suffering caused by my ego's insistence on blaming my husband.  I told myself a lot of things but I was too upset to take my own advice.

Against my better judgment (which had taken a leave of absence at that point), I tried to talk to my husband.  It wasn't the best idea but in doing so, my core fear was exposed.  "I don't think you love me," I accused him.  "I don't think you care about me at all!"  There it was: my core fear of being unlovable.

Fortunately, we resolved the issue.  In fact, I think seeing my vulnerability exposed softened my husband and allowed him to see the hurt underneath my anger.

I want to end with a message to my core fear.  Here it is:

So we meet again, Ms. "I'm Unlovable."  I thought I was done with you.  Haven't you realized that I don't believe your lies anymore?  I AM LOVABLE!  Why are you still here, lurking in the shadows?  Well you're not in the shadows anymore!  You've shown yourself.  Maybe I was naive to think I'd gotten rid of you completely.  From now on I will be more vigilant.  You will never occupy the place in my life you once held and never again will I allow you to control me.  You caught me off guard once but it won't happen again.  Now I know you're here and I'll be watching your every move.

Core Beliefs

I know I've talked a lot over time about how our subconscious beliefs influence our thoughts, our feelings, and our perception of reality.  Most people aren't aware those beliefs even exist - remember, they are subconscious.  Most of the time there's no real need to uncover them; they serve a valuable purpose (helping our brain to attend to important information and to filter out insignificant information).  However, sometimes these beliefs cause problems, such as low self esteem, anxiety, depression, chronic anger, interpersonal difficulties, etc.  When problems like these emerge in your life it is time for you to take a look at the underlying core beliefs that are driving them.

So how do you know when a problematic core belief is at work?  Look for strong emotional reactions.  Notice times when, for example, you become extremely distressed when a friend forgets that you'd agreed to get together and makes other plans or when you erupt with anger over something trivial.  When your emotional response seems to be more extreme than what the situation would warrant you know that a negative core belief has been triggered.

Here's an example from my own life.  I used to belief I was unlovable.  Now if you met me on the street of course I wouldn't say, "Hi, nice to meet you.  I'm unlovable."  Perhaps it is more accurate to say that I feared that I was unlovable.  A string of bad relationships caused me to worry that maybe something was wrong with me.  Maybe there was something about me that caused the men in my life to treat me badly or to completely disregard my feelings.  Maybe there was something inside me that made me inherently unlovable...

Anyway, this belief (or fear) led to a lot of suffering.  If a romantic interest didn't call me the day after a date I became first extremely anxious and then despondent.  I'd lay in bed sulking, unable to think of anything else.

It's obvious to me now that this was a rather extreme response.  A "natural" response would probably be to feel a little disappointed for a day or two before moving on.  The fact that I reacted so excessively was a sure sign that a negative core belief had been triggered.

When a potential love interest didn't call it triggered my belief that "I'm unlovable."  Subconsciously, I perceived the love interest not calling as evidence that he didn't like me.  This quickly led me to recall other relationships that ended with me feeling rejected.  This brought up fears about whether or not I would EVER find the "right" person.  What if there was no right person for me?  What if no one could ever love me because I was simply unlovable?

I share this example because I strongly believe in practicing what I preach.  I spend a lot of time with my patients identifying their negative core beliefs and talking about how to change them.  The first step in changing negative core beliefs is to recognize when they are at work.  If you can't recognize them then you can't change them.

I know it is possible to change negative core beliefs because I've done it myself.  First I started noticing when my belief had been triggered.  Then I identified and acknowledged how the belief made me feel.  I countered the negative belief with more balanced ones -- "Everyone deserves love, including me," or "You are a lovable person."  I also tried to make a more realistic appraisal of the situation that triggered the negative belief.  Sometimes that meant having to accept that the person was not interested in pursuing a relationship with me.  Sometimes it meant he was at work and just hadn't had a chance to call.  Either way, I realized, his actions said nothing about whether or not I was lovable.