Yesterday was not a good day for me emotionally. I didn’t get great sleep the night before, which I’m sure had a significant impact on my feelings. On my drive to work, my mind spiraled with negative thoughts about my performance at work, my significance to others regarding friendships and relationships, my workout life, and my writing. Just about anything that I involve myself in, I had some negative commentary going on in my head. The longer I drove, the more I spiraled downward. I did pull myself together so that I could be congenial with my colleagues, but on the inside, I was still very upset.
Fortunately, I had an appointment with my therapist, so I was able to talk things out with him. He was able to reset my perspective and help me to realize that I’m just really hard on myself. Also, he made me (really forced me!) to talk through a different frame of mind. I was able to reason out, very reluctantly, how I need to give myself a break when it comes to the gym. Some days are good, some days are not so good, but overall, I’m consistent and disciplined, and that is what is important. When it comes to relationships, I have to realize that I’m not the only one who is busy, and I need to give myself and others grace when it comes to how I view myself in relationships. All in all, I was able to walk away from the appointment feeling incredibly better because I learned some tools on how to self-regulate without medication.
And that was the most important thing for me to do, how to self-regulate without medication! I sometimes can’t control the events of my day. My brain is sometimes going to react to those events in a way that I don’t want it too, but because of my past, it’s a reflection of my survival response that I learned and is embedded within my behavioral patterns. And all of that is ok. But what I need to remember is how to talk myself back into a state of reality and facts. I was able to acknowledge that I don’t have control of events and that sometimes my response to those events isn’t always rational. But if I talk myself through a different perspective, over and over again, I can retrain those behavioral patterns into a healthier view of myself.
It’s important for us, as survivors, to be able to do that, view ourselves in a more positive and healthy way. Our past and our response to that has probably dictated our present for a long time. And the survival skills we learned, no matter how unhealthy they might have been, were adequate enough for us to get us through some very dark times. But now that we are in a safe and secure place, it’s time to replace those skills with better ones that will help us thrive in our new environment. It’s not easy, but no process ever is.
Harry L. Estes 