Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill3
In this case you can still observe any unwanted behaviors and nonjudgmentally say to yourself, "This is what I need to stop doing" and think nonjudgmentally about the moment where you went off course, and how you wish you had handled things at that moment (like a curious scientist, without judging yourself).
Also, you could ask yourself "What feelings might I have been having at that moment where I went off course?" eskielover's idea can be really helpful, a list of emotions to consider might help you discern what you were feeling in that moment.
If not, so be it, don't judge yourself, just continue to nonjudgmentally observe your behavior. Each time you observe unwanted behavior, identify the moment you went off course, figure out what you could have done differently, and try to identify what you were feeling in that moment (using eskielover's list idea).
Once you have identified relevant feelings, then you can start to be on the lookout for them, as in my previous post.
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Thanks for your reply. Well in my case the behaviour is a lack of behaviour, i.e complete shutdown when the emotions are so repressed. It's kind of hard to observe anything about that.
And it does cause issues when I'm unable to function due to it.
Instead, what I'm trying to observe really is my insides, so it's about internal observations on the emotions inside me, really. If you have suggestions for that type of observing, I would be very interested.
But. I was reading a book today on trauma - Victoria M. Follette PhD, Josef I. Ruzek PhD: Cognitive-behavioral therapies for trauma. I do recommend this to people. It has good, clear explanations of CBT ideas, reasonings, illustrations, case studies, real discussions with patients.
CBT is something that comes easily to me but with the problematic things, my brain is unable to send the rational thoughts to my repressed emotions so what I tried to do was, I picked up a few more CBT techniques from this book and then I tried to be like, imagining that I am reassuring those repressed emotions by showing them these CBT techniques, because some of the stuff I read in the book (patient examples) was very validating, and then I was able to be like... maybe I had the nonjudgmental mindfulness again in the way I interpret it. And then I was able to get more communication working with the emotional side of my brain... I processed more.
I have such a hard time with CBT though when it comes to these repressed emotions because I don't even have ANTs, I repress the emotions so much, and CBT is based on ANTs. Ie. the automatic negative thoughts that are emotion based and not rational thinking.
So, it's really tricky to get all that working. The communication between rational and emotional side, or something like that.
But this thread helped me to reflect on it all more.
So yes, what I did today was, I tried to find more ways of working with my own emotions. I tried to initiate this with this idea of mindfulness/nonjudgmentality. And then I try to work with myself on extracting the negative emotions and the messages, beliefs, then find the positive messages in a catharsis while doing CBT. And while trying to keep up emotional imagination as well (hard for me). And then I can base more of the rational thinking on that...
I don't know, this probably is a very personal technique to try and work with emotions. But the book is good
Quote:
Originally Posted by TishaBuv
This is great advice and I am going to try to do it more. I recently had success with a situation where someone was attempting to manipulate me. My h helped by telling me to pause by saying I’d call back later, we were ‘busy’. I then reflected on the emotions I was feeling. I was able to respond ‘no’ in a healthy boundary way without falling into the usual trap. Although the incident was handled well and I am proud, though, I still had an emotional downward spiral the next day. But, I have been experiencing some severe stuff and don’t let me dissuade you, OP. . But, like Bill says, each time things will get easier. This is encouraging. |
Yes. You describe all this so well. Yes, you can still have a downward spiral like that but with practice, it can last less and less and you can come back up from it sooner and sooner. I wish you luck with it.