12 Things I Learned from My Therapist | World of Psychology

12 Things I Learned from My Therapist | World of Psychology

I’ve spent more time in therapy than I care to think about. More hours on that bloody couch than I’ve spent in the shower, brushing my teeth, or on the phone with telemarketers, because let’s face it, when I’m home, there really are no decision makers at my house. If I calculate one hour a week for 12 years, that’s 600 hours, which is 25 DAYS. What do I have to show for it? Lots of wisdom and advice. Journals and journals of it. But for your sake, I’ll just list 12. And after you get done reading my shrink insights, I want you to tell me yours, because I’m compiling such pearls for a writing project.

1. Know your triggers.

From the first year of therapy: know your triggers. If a conversation about global warming, consumerism, or the trash crisis in the U.S. is overwhelming you, simply excuse yourself. If you’re noise-sensitive and the scene at Toys-R-Us makes you want to throw whistling Elmo and his buddies across the store, tell your kids you need a time-out. (Bring along your husband or a friend so you can leave them safely, if need be.) For me it’s best if I don’t hang out in a bar with a crowd of drinkers, you know, if I don’t want to drink myself.

2. Count to four.

I can’t remember if I learned this pearl in therapy or in first grade. All I know is that breathing is the foundation of sanity, because it is the way we provide our brain and every other vital organ in our body with the oxygen needed for us to survive. Breathing also eliminates toxins from our systems.

Years ago, I learned the “Four Square” method of breathing to reduce anxiety:

•Breathe in slowly to a count of four.

•Hold the breath for a count of four.

•Exhale slowly through pursed lips to a count of four.

•Rest for a count of four (without taking any breaths).

•Take two normal breaths.

•Start over again with number one.
3. Hunt down unrealistic expectations.

Yep, I identify those bad boys every week. I record them on a sheet of paper or (on a good day) in my head and then revise them about 2,035 times during the day. Cataloged are things like: “penning a New York Times bestseller in my half-hour of free time in the evening,” “being homeroom mom to 31 kids and chaperoning every field trip,” and “training for a triathlon with a busted hip.” Listing the more realistic possibilities of actions I can take to inch toward my broad goals (being a good mom, an adequate blogger, and a healthy person) can be extremely liberating.

4. Celebrate your mistakes.

Alright, celebrate is an awfully strong word. Start, then, with accept your mistakes. But I do think each big blunder deserves a round of toasts. Because almost all of them teach us precious, rare lessons that can’t be acquired by success. Nope, the embarrassment, humiliation, self-disgust … all those are tools with which to unearth the gold. Just like Leonard Cohen writes in his song, “Anthem” that a friend of mine tapes to his computer as a reminder to ignore the perfectionist in him:

Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.

5. Add some color.

My therapist often points out that I am color blind. I see the world in black and white. Example: either I am the best blogger in the entire blogosphere or I should throw my iMac into the Chesapeake Bay and become a water taxi driver. Either I am the most involved mom in David’s school or I am a slacker parent who should let a more capable mom adopt her son. Does this kind of thinking sound familiar? In order to get a pair of glasses on my inner zebra, then, my therapist helps me add a few hues to every relationship, event, and goal so that I become a tad more tolerant of life’s messiness, unresolved issues, and complicated situations that can’t be neatly boxed up.

6. Believe in redemption.

Redemption is an odd thing. Because identifying the broken places in your heart and in your life can be one of the scariest exercises you ever do, and yet only then can you recognize the grace that comes buried with every hole. If the journey to the Black Hole of despair and back has taught me anything, it’s this: everything is made whole in time … if you can just hang on to the faith, hope, and love in the people and places around you long enough to see the sun rise yourself. Absolutely nothing is forsaken, not even those relationships and memories and persons that you think are lost forever. Most things are made right in time. So you don’t always have to get it right on the first try.

7. Compare and despair.

The last thing you should do when you’re stressed–which I always do when I’m stressed–is start looking around at other people’s package (job, family support, balanced brain) and pine for some of that. I grow especially jealous of non-addict friends who can enjoy a glass of wine with dinner or those with moms nearby that offer to take the kids for sleepovers. But I don’t have all the information. The mom who takes the kids for the night might also have an opinion for every piece of furniture in your house and her own spare key to your home so she can pop in whenever. So comparing my insides to someone else’s outsides is a fruitless and dangerous game to play, especially when I’m stressed.

8. Learn how to recharge.

Many folks know how to have fun and recharge their batteries. Mentally-ill addicts like myself have to learn this from scratch. With the help of their therapist. After some experimentation I know that spending quiet time by the water (kayaking, running, biking in warmer months), reading spiritual literature, and watching a movie with a friend are all ways that will nurture me so that I can better tolerate stress.

9. Team up.

Think of the buddy system from Boy Scouts. Teaming up with someone means that you have to be accountable. You have to report to someone. Which brings down your percentage of cheating by 60 percent, or something like that. Especially if you’re a people-pleaser like me. You want to be good, and get an A, so make sure someone is passing out such reviews.

Also, there is power in numbers, which is why the pairing system is used in many different capacities today: in the workplace, to insure quality control and promote better morale; in twelve-step groups to foster support and mentorship; in exercise programs to get your butt outside on a dark, wintry morning when you’d rather enjoy coffee and sweet rolls with your walking partner.

10. Categorize your problems.

My therapist is an organizer, so she likes to sort my problems into categories. The effect is fascinating: you feel like you have less of them. When we agree to tackle a class of problems—say “boundaries issues”—then a few tweaks here or there can be applied to a variety of situations. I don’t have to spent time with each hiccup along the way.

11. Make a self-esteem file and read it.

It was my therapist who first told me to ask some friends to list some positive qualities about me, and to keep those lists in a folder that I could read when my self-esteem was below sea-level. Today that folder is the first thing I’d grab in a fire (alright, after the kids). It serves as my security blanket on many afternoons.

12. Look backwards.

Another great exercise my therapist taught me is to look backwards and cull from my past the strengths I used in certain situations. This means that on the afternoons my depressed brain believes death is preferable to life, I say to myself something like: “Self, you have been sober for 20 years!! Weaklings can’t pull off a stunt like that. You’ve got the right stuff, girlfriend. Just hold on.” (The soundtrack to “Rocky” is playing in the background, of course.)

What have you learned?

The last feelings and thoughts of 2009

Well here, it is the end of 2009. The beginning of a new decade is going to start in approximately 30 minutes. As the end of this decade, ends there are many regrets I sit here thinking about within. Today as my mom drove away from her visit here, I wanted to go home with her. I wanted just for someone to want me around and for me to feel truly loved by my family but instead I felt the same as I always have.

I felt unloved and not wanted. I felt I did not matter. Then as I began, thinking about this last year of the decade I remembered how close I came to the end of my life at my own hands. I realized how even when all is going well I still feel empty. I have no one in my life who has ever really just wanted me for who I am no matter who that may be or what I may do. I never really have been accepted unless someone needed something or wanted something from me. Then when they were done with me, I did not matter anymore.

I lost a friend that I really tried hard to keep. She was a good friend for the most part but we all have faults and some of the issues I had with our friendship I allowed to get too far and began to resent the friendship rather than openly talking and working on the things that were too much for me. Well that friendship ended and a new one began. Well I thought two new ones began. but I feel as if I need to just be too myself as much as they are great people and I have no issues with them currently they are just 2 good of people to be around me and my miserable world.

They deserve better friendship than what I will ever be able to give them and they do not need any more distress from me in their lives. I know I sometimes am too much and my hopelessness and despair is frustrating for others. So then, why do I continue to express these things to others rather than just keep them inside? I never can really keep good friends around as these things interfere in the relationship or becomes too much for people who I thought were my friends to handle and understand truly.

My mother and sister left today and I cried as they drove away. I cried because I feel as if I will never be truly, honestly loved by anyone. My family never loved me but they continue to control my life for the most part. I let my life be controlled by others and by my misery. I never will be able to obtain an achievable desired level of happiness within myself to be able to enjoy life and face it as others do. I just want it all to stop and for my life to normalize enough for me to be happy and satisfied with what I have, what I can give, and how I survive.

I want to help others without fucking things up more for them. It seems every time I try to help someone and do as much as I can they end up in a worse situation than they were in before I bothered. So then, why do I bother? Why do I keep thinking I can help and make things better for others? Why is it I think I can do any good for anyone when I have always done nothing but failed?

Alternate Rebellion

Alternate Rebellion: "Give an honest response instead of a polite one
Speak out rather than staying quiet
Dress in a countercultural style
Challenge statements when you disagree
Choose mediocrity rather than drama
Drop out of things that are not effective
Follow your passion rather than your expectation
Wallow in creativity
Give yourself time to play
Explore
Say no to family when they ask for a favor
Leave the light on all day
Get a butterfly tattoo
Write a letter to the editor
Run instead of walking
Turn up the volume
Food fight
Roll down all the windows
Play a different style of music
Leave things out of place
Shout or scream alone
Cheat on a food plan
Kiss your dog on the lips
Wear clothes that don't fit right
Express unpopular political views
Sleep late on Saturday
Wear jeans to church
Throw out plastic containers
Get your ears pierced
Fly a gyrocopter
Turn up the bass on rap music
Look into alternative religions
Buy something impractical
Break out of roles expected of you
Change your color preference of clothing
Do things out of order
Do things out of character
Seek your own interests
Don't cook
Don't clean house
Buy a bird
Go against a suggestion from another
Be yourself with an attitude of 'if you don't like it, don't look.'
Print a slogan on a T-shirt
Buy a bumper sticker
Develop your own web page
Express a diversified viewpoint
Make up your own. . . ."

DBT Skills List

DBT Skills List: "Learning to be mindful, to focus, to breathe will help make the application of the modules be more effective. It is paramount to your success in reducing stress and coping.

Remember: Sometimes the skills will not work. This is when you need to quickly go to the Distress Tolerance module and take taking a vacation from the situation that you are in, practice radical acceptance, do a lot of self soothe, and distract activities.

The key to success is the practice of DBT skills."

DBT Skills List

DBT Skills List: "Using Objectiveness effectiveness: (Dear Man)
D Describe
E Express
A Assert
R Reinforce
M Mindful
A Appear Confident
N Negotiate

Using Relationship Effectiveness: (Give)
G Gentle
I Interested
V Validate
E Easy Manner

Self-respect effectiveness: (Fast)
F Fair
A Apologies (no Apologies)
S Stick to value
T Truthful"

DBT Skills List

DBT Skills List: "Using the What Skills:
Observe
Describe
Participate

Using the How Skills:
Non-judgmentally
One-mindfully
Effectively"

DBT Skills List

DBT Skills List: "Using Crisis Survival: Distraction with Wise Mind Accepts
A Activities
C Contributing
C Comparisons
E Emotions - use opposite
P Pushing Away
T Thoughts
S Sensations

Using Self Soothe with five senses:
Taste
Smell
See
Hear
Touch

Using Improve the moment:
I Imagery
M Meaning
P Prayer
R Relaxation
O One thing at a time
V Vacation
E Encouragement

Using Pros and Cons

Using Accepting Reality:

Willingness

Turning your mind

Radical Acceptance"

DBT Skills List

DBT Skills List: "Using Reduce Vulnerability: (Please)
P & L Treat Physical Illness
E eating
A Altering Drugs (no drugs unless it is medication to be taken as prescribed by your doctor)
S Sleep
E Exercise

Using Build Mastery

Build Positive experiences

Be mindful of current emotion

Opposite to emotion action"

IE Handout 10

IE Handout 10: "1. Be Fair
This means being fair to yourself and the other person in your attempts to meet your objectives. The idea here is that it is hard to like yourself in the long haul if you consistently take advantage of the other person.


2. No Apologies
Apologize when apologies are warranted. No overly apologetic behavior. No apologizing for being alive. No apologizing for making the request. No apologizing for having an opinion. No apologizing for disagreeing.
Apologizing implies that you are in the wrong...Apologizing when you do not believe you are in the wrong will reduce your sense of effectiveness over time. Being able to apologize is a very important skill, and is important for maintaining relationships, however, it gets on people's nerves and can reduce relationships effectiveness


3. Stick to Values
Don't sell out your values or integrity, just to get what you want or keep the other person liking you. Be clear on what, in your opinion, is the moral or valued way of thinking and acting. However, in dire situations, or where lives are at stake, people may decide to give up their values.


4. Be Truthful
Don't lie or act helpless when you are not. Don't exaggerate.
A pattern of dishonesty over time erodes your self respect. One instance of dishonesty may not hurt, but dishonesty as your usual pattern over time erodes your self-respect. Acting helpless is the opposite of building mastery. Sometimes being honest may actually reduce relationship effectiveness. The little white lie was invented for this reason. However, if you are going to lie it should be done mindfully, rather that habitually.
Important notes about self respect effectiveness."

ER Handout 9

ER Handout 9: "Mindfulness of Your Current Emotion


OBSERVE YOUR EMOTION
NOTE its presence
Step BACK
Get UNSTUCK from the emotion


EXPERIENCE YOUR EMOTION
As a WAVE, coming and going
Try not to BLOCK emotion
Try not to SUPPRESS emotion
Don't try to GET RID of emotion
Don't PUSH it away
Don't try to KEEP emotion around
Don't HOLD ON to it
Don't AMPLIFY it


REMEMBER YOU ARE NOT YOUR EMOTION
Do not necessarily ACT on your emotion.
Remember times when you have felt DIFFERENT


PRACTICE LOVING YOUR EMOTION
Don't JUDGE your emotion. Practice WILLINGNESS
Radically ACCEPT your emotion"

DT Handout 5

DT Handout 5: "WILLINGNESS
Cultivate a WILLING response to each situation
Willingness is doing just what is needed in each situation, in an unpretentious way. It is focusing on effectiveness.
Willingness is listening very carefully to your WISE MIND, acting from your inner self.
Willingness is becoming aware of your connection to the universe - to the earth, to the floor you are standing on, to the chair you are sitting on, to the person you are talking to.
Ask yourself, in 5 years from now, will the situation that causes the distress matter?


WILLFULNESS
Willfulness is like sitting on your hands when action is needed, refusing to make changes that are needed.
Willfulness causes you to fight any suggestions that will improve the distress and thus make it more tolerable.
Willfulness is giving up.
It is the opposite of doing what works, of being effective. Willfulness is trying to fix every situation or refusing to tolerate the distressful moment."

DT Handout 5

DT Handout 5: "RADICAL ACCEPTANCE
Freedom from suffering requires ACCEPTANCE FROM DEEP WITHIN.
It is allowing yourself to go completely with whatever the situation is. Let go of fighting reality.
ACCEPTANCE IS THE ONLY WAY OUT OF HELL WHICH MUST NOT BE INTERPRETED AS APPROVAL OF THE DISTRESSFUL SITUATION
Pain creates suffering only when you refuse to ACCEPT the pain.
Deciding to tolerate the moment is ACCEPTANCE.
ACCEPTANCE is acknowledging what is.
To accept something is not the same as judging it to be good.
By stopping your self from fighting, the rage or anger you feel will dissipate as long as you continue to accept your condition or your faulty perceptions to events or interpersonal communications difficulties. You will be amazed at how much better you will feel when you are able to accept."

Mf Handout 1

Mf Handout 1: "Reason Mind


This is your rational, thinking, logical mind
It plans and evaluates things logically.
It is your 'cool' part.
Reasonable Mind can be very beneficial.
It is easier to be in Reasonable Mind when you feel good.
It is much harder to be in Reasonable Mind when you don't feel good.
You Would Use Your Reasonable Mind To:
Build a bridge
Figure out how to double a recipe
Balance your checkbook
Figure out the fastest way from point 'A' to point 'B'"

Mf Handout 1

Mf Handout 1: "Reason Mind


States of Mind
Reason Mind


This is your rational, thinking, logical mind
It plans and evaluates things logically.
It is your "cool" part.
Reasonable Mind can be very beneficial.
It is easier to be in Reasonable Mind when you feel good.
It is much harder to be in Reasonable Mind when you don't feel good.
You Would Use Your Reasonable Mind To:
Build a bridge
Figure out how to double a recipe
Balance your checkbook
Figure out the fastest way from point "A" to point "B"

Emotion Mind


This describes times when your emotions are out of control -- times when emotions are what influence or control your thinking and behavior.
Emotional Mind can also be very beneficial.
Emotions are what motivate us to action.
Emotions are what keep us attached to others and building relationships.
Emotion Mind can be aggravated by:
Illness, Lack Of Sleep, Tiredness, Drugs, Alcohol, Hungry, Bloating, Overeating, Poor nutrition and/or lack of exercise, Environmental stress and threats
Both Emotion and Reasonable Mind Are Equally Important And Valuable
Reasonable mind gives you a way to solve your problems.
Emotion mind gives you a reason (motivation) to want to solve them.

Wise Mind


Wise mind is the integration of emotional and reasonable mind.
You cannot overcome or control emotional mind with reasonable mind.
You cannot create emotion mind with reason.
You must go within and integrate these two states of mind.
Wise mind is that part of each person that can know and experience truth.
It is where the person knows something to be true or valid.
It is where the person knows something in a centered (balanced) way.
It is almost always quiet and calm in this part of the mind.
Wise Mind - An Analogy for Wise Mind is like a deep well in the ground. The water is at the bottom of the well. The entire underground is an ocean called Wise Mind. But on the way down, there are often trap doors that stop progress. Sometimes the trap doors are so cleverly built that you actually believe that there is no water at the bottom of the well. The trap door may look like the bottom of the well. Perhaps it is locked and you need a key. Perhaps it is nailed shut and you need a hammer. Perhaps it is glued shut and you need a chisel.
Everyone Has A Wise Mind!
Some people have simply never experienced it.
No one is in Wise Mind all of the time.
Emotion and Wise Mind; Confusing The Two
Emotional mind and Wise mind both have a quality of "feeling" something to be true.
Intense emotions can generate feelings of certainty that mimic the Wise mind.
Like in a well, after a heavy storm, water can collect on a trap door within the well. You may then confuse the still water on the trap door with the deep ocean at the bottom of the well.
Wise mind is in your heart (emotions) and in you head (reason). Certainty comes from both.

update

Recently I been having a lot of life changes including losing a friend I had been having difficulties with but yet was unable to be assertive enough and stick up for myself with her because I was afraid to lose her as I did not really have any local friends that were healthy for me mentally. Well now, that friendship is gone. However, I have gained new friends and I think that was part of losing the old one, as she may have been jealous since I was not spending all my time with her. Nevertheless, anyways my new friends have been great. They have helped me emotionally and allow me someone to vent to. It is difficult though since many of the issues I am having are with people who also are their friends and my family. Therefore, it is difficult for my new friends to really comment because they do not want to be in the middle of family issues or drama. I hate being involved with drama and feel it is complicating and overly distressing to be involved in. I try to be a good friend to people and try to help whoever I can but it is difficult since the person I try to help just uses me in my opinion but because they married into the family I feel obligated to help and help and help even when it seems they do not appreciate anything I do and only want to cause trouble and drama. I hate my situation right now but feel my hands are tied. I feel as if I am going to break down but I am trying to stay strong and just deal with the shit because the person is young and needs a chance to grow up on her own but I feel she acts entitled to my kindness and does not really care how her actions affect me. Therefore, why do I continue to allow this I am not sure but I feel it is coming to a breaking point? When I lose my new friends over this, I know I will snap. I also cannot stand feeling trapped and unable to say anything to get support and that is how I feel lately because I am not sure who I can trust and who is really out to hurt me and bring me down. Sending me right into the hospital and lose my son forever. Well this is what is happening most recently. Feedback is welcome as I am looking for some help and suggestions.