Tag Archives: choices

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Perspectives

Rockbiter vs the little guys (bat and snail riders) from the never-ending story (movie).

When they first meet and Rockbiter starts eating and dropping rock “crumbs” the little guys yell and dodge.

No one is doing anything bad or trying to be mean, they’re all just trying to live.

I keep thinking of it as a metaphor for certain conflicts. The first time the conflict happens is easy to forgive.

If it happens again, the little guys either have to assume Rockbiter didn’t hear them or isn’t capable of being careful/considerate while eating.

They can choose to keep risking their lives (not a good choice, but it’s an option), to try a different way to communicate their safety needs to Rockbiter or they can avoid Rockbiter.

If they confirm that Rockbiter heard and understood, then either he can agree to change his behavior or be direct that he won’t be able to.

Which goes back to either Rockbiter changes his behavior or the little guys need to avoid Rockbiter.

None of these choices are wrong or bad. There may be unpleasant consequences of the choices like the little guys getting hurt or Rockbiter ending up lonely.

The problem occurs when the little guys don’t realize that it’s ok to choose to avoid Rockbiter. Instead they may end up feeling trapped and attacked.

Or if Rockbiter didn’t hear and doesn’t understand why the little guys are avoiding him. So he doesn’t realize that he can try to change his behavior if he wants a different outcome. Whether that means trying to learn to eat without dropping things, or moving away to have more space to eat or just warning people when he is about to eat. He might feel confused, hurt, excluded and rejected and like he has no control over how others are responding to him.

So it comes down to directly teaching active listening.

You have to listen, paraphrase what you heard/understood and then confirm if that was correct.

And then you get your turn to share and be heard.

Otherwise you can get into all sorts of conflicts when the problem is just not hearing or a misunderstanding.

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Relationships

Everyone gets disregulated sometimes, and when we’re in a state of disregulation we are more likely to trigger old responses from Trauma or trauma.

When we’re in that state generally people can respond in one of three ways:

A supportive re-regulating way.

An unsupportive way that either doesn’t help or even worsens our disregulation.

They can get triggered too.

In a healthy relationship mostly the first happens.

The second can be dealt with by teaching new skills/responses.

The third one is the hardest to deal with. Both people need their own therapist and a couples therapist is needed to help re-regulate both during interactions. It’s a lot of painful work and most often is easier to end the relationship and find a less challenging pairing.

For those recovering from anything really, if someone doesn’t already have their own therapist/recovery group, that’s a huge red flag.

The two choices are they don’t need one, or they need one and don’t recognize it.

If they go to therapy for you instead of for themselves, that doesn’t really work.

The likelihood that they don’t need therapy is pretty slim, especially since we tend to be drawn to our counterparts or people who feel familiar. And if they are drawn to us, it’s probably the same for them.

So it’s pretty safe to assume that if they aren’t doing recovery work, that’s a huge red flag and we should run the other way and that we’re not passing up the magical unicorn that doesn’t need to do recovery work and is still interested in being our partner.

For more info read How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t With Your Kids or watch some School of Life or Heidi Priebe YouTube videos on trauma & relationships.

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Acceptance

Accepting that toxic love is not love to hold onto is where I found relief from pain.

It acceptance feels like being bathed in balm, so peaceful and calm and serene to no longer be clinging tight to pain. Letting go is terrifying, but the freefall of freedom and uncertainty can also feel like flying with the wind brushing past you.

Buddhism books:

ACT – Acceptance & Commitment Therapy: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/acceptance-and-commitment-therapy

The Serenity Prayer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

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Scheduling grief

I didn’t think to share this on my own, one of my wonderful friends suggested it.

I was reading a book in a waiting room and got triggered and was about to break down crying.

I took a deep breath and asked myself if I could wait until a better time. I thought through the day and figured out a time when I’d have more privacy and promised myself I would come back to this and allow myself to properly grieve and that I would do it today and not forget about it or stuff it down trying to ignore it. It was just a temporary pause for a better time.

And it worked, I was calm the rest of the day and when I sat down outside the library before my next appointment when I had about 20 minutes to spare, I asked myself what had triggered that moment originally. I remembered and was right back in it but this time I just curled over my knees and cried and let it out. I think I only cried for 5 or 10 minutes so I even had time to recover afterwards before walking to my appointment.

I’m sure this trick won’t always work, and it requires you trusting yourself (or your systems – like to do lists or alarms).

And when I say I ask myself, it’s more like I ask my inner parts. Something like “Hey gang, can we hold onto this until later today? I promise I won’t forget and just stuff it down.” That’ll be fore another post on IFS – Internal Family Systems.

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Choices

How do I make a choice? I identify the choices and pick one.

I choose to trust my self.

My self built a system.

Dec 18 Log: The system brought me back here, so the system says I need to document my choices and then pick one.

What were my choices? Use the system or not.

Dec 16 Log:

Every moment is a chance to make a choice.

Making choices takes practice. If we stop making choices, we stop living as humans and merely exist as animals running purely on habit.

I like Winnifred’s original version better:

Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.[5]

Serenity Prayer – Wikipedia

I would update it to say:

I can choose to act with bravery to change my understanding of myself, to accept with serenity that which I cannot change and the curiosity to drive the pursuit of knowledge to distinguish the two from each other.

Bravery is choosing to take action that you believe is right, rather than choosing to let fear control you.

If you don’t like any of your choices – it’s time to ask if those are really your choices. And if they are, then it’s time to slow down and back up – why are these your choices right now?

Right now I’m choosing to document my choices, so that the next time I end up with a choice I don’t like, I can trace back to the point of failure in the system and try a different choice.

Just now I chose to clean up after my child. I have already identified the problem – let’s see how far I can follow this thread before I decide another one is more important:

The problem is me. I have not taught my child how to clean up when finishing a task. Why?

I have not mastered that skill yet. Why? I have not practiced it enough. Why? Because I only realized recently that it was an important skill. Why? Because anything worth doing is worth doing well. Why? 1 To do something well I need to understand what I’m doing. Why? If I don’t understand what I’m doing, I might do more harm than good. (Road to hell)

Either I have the motivation to do something, or I have a system to help me do it. – Stub, had to stop here for self care. Dec. 17 7:45p

Log of prior answers before editing:

1 Because if I don’t have the motivation to do it well, I should be figuring out why, not doing it anyway. Why? If I don’t have the motivation, that’s a problem with my system. Why? If I understand myself. Why did I not? Because my parents didn’t teach me.

Coming from a place of pain, fear, confusion and darkness, where it feels like I’m trapped in a cage made of funhouse mirrors that distort every bit of in

Stub

Brain dump to help make choices:

Things pulling my attention:

Testing batteries

Testing the spaceship game

testing the cat treat dispenser

cleaning up the living room to remove distractions

documenting the system so that the system can work – if it’s worth doing, it’s worth documenting.

It’s 1:37, I have a body double available until 3.

Using the system and documenting the parts that aren’t yet and self care are the highest priorities.

First transition check.

Then use a time timer and headphones.