A Crying “Do”

done

Goethe wrote about crying, “It’s not the tears we cry that hurt us, but the one’s we struggle not to cry for they drip within our sad and weary hearts.”

Here’s a “Do” for crying.

Believe It Or Not: Feeling Sorry for Your Self is a Good Thing

“I don’t want to feel sorry for myself.” I so often hear clients tell me, when they are sad, discouraged or hurt. If they have sorrow for themselves, they will often next feel guilt or shame. Sometimes they will go on to have absolute contempt for themselves and call their sorrow for themselves having a “pity-party.”

When I ask them how they would feel if the same thing happened to a friend or a child who was hurt, sad, discouraged or distressed, there are two general responses.  Some people would feel compassion for the friend or child, but would feel guilty for feeling compassion for themselves. Anything ’selfish’ is bad for themselves. They apply kinder rules to others.

Other people would condemn the friend or child for feeling sorry. They judge the friend as selfish and negative. They also believe that acknowledging feelings “doesn’t do any good.” These people apply the same harsh rule to others that they apply to themselves.

So many limiting beliefs are embedded in the desire not to feel sorrow for oneself. Some of the beliefs may be:
1. It is “weak” to accept or have kind feelings towards a person not in a “powerful” state or feeling. “Vulnerability” is bad.
2. If one doesn’t condemn the vulnerable feelings, they will grow and grow. (The “Spare the rod, spoil the child” mentality.)
3. One may get “stuck” in the shameful feelings.
4. One will not be able to feel powerful again.
5. One is being “negative” and therefore “bad.”

But the irony is that anytime we condemn ourselves for how we are feeling, that is when we are weakening ourselves. The way to ’strength’ is to validate ourselves for how we are feeling. The root of the word ‘validate’ means to strengthen. To in-validate is to weaken.

To validate ourselves, we need to let ourselves know that it makes sense to feel however we feel. We need to let ourselves know that we can understand ourselves. This may take as little as a few seconds.

THEN, and only then, can we work at shifting and improving our state of mind.

There are so many ways we can work at regulating and adjusting our feelings. But shaming ourselves for how we feel only makes it take longer. So I say, have compassion for yourself. By all means work towards joy and zest.

I believe that in the words of the song, “There’s A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” So when you are feeling sad, first feel sorry for yourself.

Using Voice Recognition Software: Challenging Panic Inducing Voices

Peace At Last

A client I will call “Joanne” * described how recognizing her inner voices has helped rid herself of panic attacks. Perhaps her recognition will inspire others to separate themselves from the shaming and suppressing voices that we all experience from time to time.

“When something GOOD happened, I used to get panicky. I used to think- or again- hear the voice that would say, ‘Something bad is going to happen now!’ Then I would freak out.

“Once I recognized that voice and could see it was not really ME, I could ask it, ‘What makes you say that?’ Or ‘What do you think is going to happen? Death, famine? What?’ The voice was then stumped and I could see that it didn’t really know about something awful about to happen. it was not an omniscient being.  It didn’t even make any sense. What a relief. I feel so grateful.”

So my hope is that we all continue to upgrade our voice recognition software.

* Therapists change the name and other identifying information so that a client’s confidentiality can be maintained

My Shrink Says … Blog!

By Jessica Bennett | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Jun 30, 2008

Why do people write confessional blogs? It’s a creative outlet. It’s a forum to vent. It’s an exercise in exhibitionism. To mental-health experts, though, it’s more than that: a blog is medicine. Psychiatrists are starting to tout the therapeutic power of blogging, and many have begun incorporating it into patient treatment. A forthcoming study in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior even suggests that bloggers might be happier than nonbloggers.

Mental-health experts say blogs are a step up from plain old diaries, chiefly because of the built-in audience. As kids, we learn that if we air our problems, we get help. We associate communication with consolation, particularly when the going gets tough. Blogging fulfills that primal need for sympathy. “Writing is an effort of the brain to communicate for comfort,” says Harvard neurologist Alice Flaherty. “Diaries are a form of that communication, but removed. Blogging gets you closer to that sympathetic audience, and that’s what makes it therapeutic.” According to psychologist John Suler, the anonymity of blogging provides another therapeutic boost: it’s high intimacy with low vulnerability. But blogger beware. “Revealing too much,” says Suler, “can cause shame or guilt.” So blog to your heart’s content, but leave some things to the imagination.