Squish

I gained more insight into my attitudes toward strength, bravery, and resilience this week. It comes down to stress balls and Silly Putty.

I still have difficulties seeing myself as strong, brave, or resilient. For example, throughout my life I have been victimized, bullied, and abused in some way or another. Bullies, predators, and people who need to diminish someone else in order to feel bigger have found me and made it their purpose to squash me. Other children, adults, coworkers, bosses, even friends: people of all sorts have seen me as weaker than them and gone on to prove it.

My fight or flight reflex? Permanently set to flight. When the group of friends I hung out with in my 20s would get too overbearing and downright mean, instead of standing up for myself, I would take a break from them until I felt recovered. One of them even went so far as to tell me I was like a soft, furry bunny — and he didn't mean it as a cute thing but as a nonthreatening prey object. (BTW: I stopped hanging out with those folks regularly in my late 20s.)

Even some of my well-meaning friends have diminished me. Because I ask other people's opinion, many of my friends and even my mother sometimes treated me as if I were unable to make my own decisions, as if I were not quite a responsible adult. Really, because I have been single and lived alone most of my adult life, I like to get second opinions and bounce my own off of other people from time to time. Some of my male friends think of me as delicate or fragile.

Epic

Gods, I'm still swimming through murk. Maybe I need to write or immerse myself in an epic fantasy where the heroine has to fight her way through unbelievable darkness before breaking into and winning the light. I am still in Mirkwood, or Mordor or something. I don't have a magical ring or a fellowship or a Gandalf. All I have is my little, barely functioning, broken self. I do have friends, but they aren't on this journey with me and I don't know how they can help.

What tools do I have? My ability to write: this blog, my novel, my journal, anything else that comes to mind. My ability to draw: sketch, color, illustrate whatever I see or think of. Cognitive therapy skills: I'm not sure how to use them on this, but this uncertainty could simply be a symptom of the depression, not letting me see how to use a powerful tool. Exercise: which I haven't been doing but which could change my brain chemistry at least for 15 minutes at a time. Medication: I really don't want to meddle with my meds right now.

What other resources do I have? I'm persistent like a kid sister. I'm brave, when I remember to be or don't notice. I'm stronger than I think. I'm smart, or used to be at any rate. I'm imaginative, creative, and articulate, which are the swords that cut in both directions. I have an intelligent and creative therapist. I have a stable home.

What are my hindrances? Years of being depressed and anxious. Years of being sedentary to the point of motionlessness. The helplessness that comes from long-term unemployment. Lethargy. Fear. Crumbling self-confidence. Years of giving in to the depression, lethargy, and shyness. The habit of hiding. I'm so the broken hero!

In an epic, I'd have to overcome all my personal hindrances, while battling the monsters as well, to get through the dark places and win the day. The unemployment is like the thousand-foot cataract: I have no control over the people who decide whether or not to pursue me after reading my resume. I can try to paddle to shore before the water falls over the cliff; I can grab onto a passing giant bird; I can hastily manufacture a parachute. Or I can simply go over the edge in my bark canoe and hope I don't drown or smash against the rocks at the bottom.

I like metaphors. I know this sort of thing doesn't work for everyone, but my imagination has in the past helped me through difficulties in my life. Maybe my not using it much for too many years has contributed to this morass I currently inhabit.

Perhaps I have my magic sword, my wand, my string of charms, my book of spells. Now I just need to figure out how to use it, whatever it is.

Powers of the Mind

Lately in therapy, my therapist has been guiding me through imagery scenarios to address specific emotional situations. They've been enormously helpful. She also helped me address the difficulty I've been having with using affirmations and creative visualization on my own.

The guided imagery we've been doing in sessions has taken me to where in my life it seems the feelings originated. Once there, she has led me through asking myself questions, connecting to feelings, connecting to myself at those ages, and providing myself with what I seem to need at that point. These sessions are very powerful emotionally and mentally — I usually need a long nap afterward! It's so different from the therapy that I did with Karen, and equally powerful.

The difficulties I've been having with affirmations and creative visualizations stem from the standard instructions for doing them: to say things like "I have a great job" when I know I am unemployed, for example. My rational mind cannot buy into the part where you feel like you have this thing NOW.

Michele offered me an excellent way to do this. "Imagine your life on a timeline," she told me. "Put yourself on the timeline in a past time when you felt confident and happy in your job and really be there, not just seeing yourself there. Add in as much sensory detail as you can. Then put yourself on the timeline in the near future, where you want to be, and imagine having the job, the living situation that you want. Be there completely. Feel everything." This sounded like something I could definitely work with.

Three times this past week I've done this visualization, with varying levels of success. I know that the varying levels are due to how distracted I am and that I need more practice, so I'm not letting them bother me. I feel each time has been successful. The scenarios I've started with are having a great job that I love and that pays me lots of money, and having a place to live that I like very much and making it be the home I want (including the living room furniture I found that I WANT!). It amazes me how real I can make these visualizations. I know I need to do the work, too (keep job hunting and networking, for example), but I feel that the visualizations add a great deal of power and energy toward getting me what I want and need, sooner rather than later.

I know the mind is very powerful. There are been many studies about the benefits of visualizing success in sports; professional athletes use this technique to increase their abilities along with doing physical practice. I think I remember reading about how many successful business people also use these techniques. So there is some strong science behind them. And doing them in a way that doesn't cause my literal mind to pop up and say "no" allows me to benefit from the techniques.

Obviously, you need to really, really want the thing you are visualizing yourself having. The strong emotional content is essential. I really, really, really want a good job that I love and a home that I enjoy living in. Really.

How about you? Do you use mental techniques to help you achieve things? What do you use?