Who should I be today? Psychotherapy tips for every day stress
We live in a society that doesn’t tolerate fear, anger or uncertainty very well. And it is supported by our language! People want to be rock stars, masters of the universe and goddesses. With so much expectation I am surprised I roll out of bed in the morning. I have clients that tell me they are depressed or anxious or they need anger management. We use these terms off handedly without realizing the impact of what we are saying. What if you aren’t depressed? How about you are feeling sad? Then what do you do? Or what if you are nervous and you decide it must be an anxiety attack? How do you get through it? This is what you do.
• You look at it
• You feel it
• You notice why you are sad
• You notice where it hits you in your body
• Can it be changed? What can you do
• It cannot be changed?
• Then you need to go back and let the feeling flow through you
You may wonder how this is different than feeling sad. The difference is you are actively looking at your feelings. As soon as you do you are no longer simply reacting. You are becoming aware or present. As soon as you shift this awareness you have gone from unconscious to conscious living. We try to ignore and press feelings down and they come right back up when we least expect it. When I was 24 I was at my fiancées wake. I didn’t cry I stood tall and got through it without flinching. Until eight months later when I couldn’t open a door with a key. It was cold and I was outside in the snow. I was trying to open the door to get into my college work study job and I was soundly sobbing in the snow. I felt shattered and foolish as a friend quickly mumbled he could try to open the door. Grief is very patient it can wait for a long time but it will catch up with you. It would have been easier to cry at his wake. As much as I didn’t want to grieve I had to grieve. It was an unwelcome feeling but choosing not to feel it never works.
I often find when people come to me for anger management that they are not the raging person they imagine. Very often the person is generous. So generous that they give and allow much more than they can tolerate. It builds up to a point that they explode. It looks impulsive and unpredictable to the outside world but is it really? Again, their feelings got squashed and came back up with a vengeance!
Fear is my favorite. The new-fangled fear is now called anxiety. We medicate it mostly. But what if that did not have to be the answer? Consider this you have a thought and then you feel it churning in your body. You get an upset stomach or a headache. So what do you do? You learn how to question the reality of that thought. And physically you learn how to ride the wave. You notice what your body is doing and you can learn how to calm the body again. Learning this is important. If you let fear dictate your life your world will become very small. It can be fear of success or fear of failure both can be equally destructive. Fear /anxiety is about the future which may or may not happen. When you lose sight of that you lose sight of yourself. Too often we forget that we have a body and it communicates with us daily.
People forget that when someone has courage they are usually scared but they take action anyway. Anger Fear and sadness are things that we all go through at some point in our lives. Maybe the answer is to let them be and let them happen. If you are interested in learning more call me for a free consultation at (917) 456-4127.