WRACKED WITH WORRY

Dear Anxiety, 

With you around, receiving a text message saying “Hey” with a full stop at the end gets me panicking that there is a bitter undertone I’m meant to decode. With you, one simple “Hey” isn’t a greeting; it’s a matter of life and death.- Alicia Gillman

With stress we know what's stressing us but this is not always true with anxiety. Anxiety comes with a sense of helplessness. 

- Linsey Holmes (Huffington Post)

We all worry. Whether it is a small problem or a psychological disorder, the steps to overcome faulty beliefs and develop healthy patterns of thinking are the same.

A = Activity, Event vs Intrusive Thought or Urge e.g. not a ‘What if ?’ but a plan of action.

B = Faulty Belief About the Intrusive Thought e.g. Jumping to conclusions

C = Emotional Consequences: Anxiety, Doubt and Worry e.g. Overthinking, Catastrophizing

D = Neutralizing Ritual vs Avoidance e.g. Calming ritual

~Bruce M. Hyman, Ph.D. and Cherry Pedrick, RN

WE ALL TALK TO OURSELVES 

No one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you as much as you talk to yourself.

You need a "Time Out"! Sit down and write out the accusations and questions around the subject you are worrying about. Look at each one and acknowledge what is true and what is false/a lie. Accept what is true and discard what is not.

We need to re-attribute and refocus our thoughts onto what is pure and true.

Here are some probing questions from Paul Tripp:

Would you be comfortable with someone listening to a recording of your internal conversation?

What are some things you say to yourself that stimulates hope, faith and confidence?

What are some things you say to yourself that stimulates fear, anxiety and discouragement?

Remember this from someone who had reason to worry as Nazi soldiers searched her home, 

Corrie Ten Boom, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”

LOGOTHERAPY - A SPIRITUAL RESPONSE

" We do not live our lives based on the bare facts of our existence; we live our lives according to our interpretation of those facts."

~Paul David Tripp 

Everyday we read of suffering in our world and I would like to explore the possibility that it is the Interpretation of that suffering that will lead to a response and eventually to a redemptive solution. 

Viktor Frankl's Existential Theory

Viktor Frankl's psychological theory is celebrated due to the fact that he personally experienced a Nazi concentration camp as a prisoner during the war. The suffering he experienced and saw, led him to his form of therapy, logotherapy.

Logotherapy asserts "a will to meaning." If we can find meaning in our suffering, healing is fast-tracked. Meaning is like laughter, Frankl says:  "You cannot force someone to laugh, you must tell him a joke!  Meaning is something to discover rather than to invent."  

So how do we find meaning? 

According to Frankl, there are three approaches:

1.   Through experiential values i.e. by experiencing something or someone we value e.g. Art, music, relationships. Self- sacrificial love being above all else.

2.   Through creative values, by “doing a deed" e.g. Helping others through projects or living your own life well.

3.   Through attitudinal values e.g. compassion, bravery, a good sense of humour etc.

BUT Frankl is most famous for his understanding of achieving meaning by way of suffering!! 

He believes that 'Suffering can be experienced with dignity if there is meaning in it' e.g. seriously ill people, if given an opportunity to suffer bravely, can thereby retain some dignity.  

How do we experience this?

Events in life lead to an ‘interpretation’ of that event which then leads to a response.

EVENT -> INTERPRETATION -> RESPONSE

An example from my own life:

Event : I was divorced after 25 years of marriage

Interpretation : I will never be happy again

Response: Hopelessness

OR

Event: I was divorced after 25 years of marriage

Interpretation: It was the worst thing to ever happen to me

Response: I want to help other women who have to deal with such an event (Creative Value)

Frankl is different to any other psychologist in that experiential, creative and attitudinal values are merely surface manifestations of something much more fundamental, which he calls supra-meaning.

  

Supra-meaning is the idea that there is ultimate meaning in life, meaning that is not dependent on others, on our projects or even on our dignity.  It is a reference to God and spiritual meaning. A Redemptive God.

My project to help other women really does impact and enable my healing, but I have found that there is ultimate meaning in my life; my God of my heart turned out to be my redemption.

We have a choice in our response to events in our lives, choose wisely.

Resource:

LOVE IS MORE THAN A MANY- SPLENDOURED THING

The time of the year has come again…we love it or we love to hate it! Valentine's Day has become so commercialised and so "in your face" for those who are not in a loving relationship. 

What is love?

My emphasis today is not on an "ooey, gooey, what we see on TV" kind of love. It is a search for that elusive love from the standpoint of "I've been hurt so much", how will I even recognise love when it comes along?"

Albert Einstein asked, "How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"

Why are we drawn to certain people and not others? What makes us fall in love and stay in love? Poets delve into the mystery of love with beautiful sonnets, musicians seek to capture its subtle essence in song and many others feel that their love is divinely inspired.

But at ground level here are some psychological facts to begin our research:

Men in love are extremely visual beasts.

The brains of men in love show greater activity in the visual cortex than women’s brains. Add this to the fact that men seem to be more visually stimulated than women in general.

Women in love remember the details.

The brains of women in love show greater activity in the hippocampus—a brain region associated with memory—than do men’s brains. Women remember everything.

(David DiSalvo)

How is that helpful in identifying love?

My hero in this field is Robert Sternberg.

Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love (2004) notes that the 3 components of love are Intimacy, Passion and Commitment. The relative emphasis of each component on love changes over time as an adult romantic relationship develops.

Intimacy – The friendship or specialness of the relationship.  The feelings of closeness, bondedness, connectedness, trust and friendship in the relationship.

Passion – The excitement or energy of the relationship.  The feelings of physical attraction, romance, and arousal (particularly sexual arousal) in the relationship.

Commitment – The “business aspect” of the relationship.  This includes all the shared investments or the “history,” of the relationship, such as decisions, experiences and adjustments.

From these 3 components we can pinpoint a combination of 8 types of love.

1. “Liking" ~ Intimacy Only (No Passion or Commitment) – Can be summed up as having intimacy with one another, feeling close  & trusting one another.

2. “Infatuated love" ~ Passion Only (No Intimacy or Commitment) – This tends to be a superficial relationship that is one-sided, where the couple are temporarily ga-ga over one another.  In Hollywood, this is known as a “whirlwind romance.”

3. “Empty Love” ~ Commitment Only (No Passion or Intimacy) – This is most often an older relationship where the passion and intimacy have died…like “falling out of love.”

4. “Romantic Love” ~ Intimacy & Passion (No Commitment) – This can be a blossoming relationship where the couple feel like best friends (“friends with benefits”).  As experiences grow with one another, this type of love may develop Commitment.

5. “Companionate Love” ~ Intimacy & Commitment (No Passion) – Again, this usually occurs in older relationships where the couple remain best friends, but no longer feel passion for one another. This type of love can still be very satisfying and long-lasting.

6. “Fatuous Love” ~ Passion & Commitment (No Intimacy) – This is a feeling of love because the couple wants to be in love…but they really have little in common.

7. “Non-Love” ~ All Sides Absent (No Passion, Intimacy or Commitment) – Basically, this type of relationship is of just an acquaintance.

8. “Complete or Consummate Love” ~ (All Sides Present) – The best of all types, the “ideal relationship,” that all couples would like to achieve.

(Dr David S Kantra)

Don't you just love this theory, it gives us space to work out just what we have in a love relationship and identify what we don't want!

Let's go out seeking love with our minds as well as our hearts so that we can make an exciting as well as a  "forever" choice.

Resource:

Sternberg, R. J. (1986) A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93, 119-135.

BURNT BUT NOT BITTER!

Every journey begins with a single step...

 “Bitterness feeds on the carcasses of festering memories.” - P.Michelson

No one wants to be bitter.  It sneaks up on us.  Bitterness is unforgiveness which has fermented over time. The more we hold onto past hurts, the more we become drunk on our pain, making poor choices and speaking badly of others. 

Bitterness will always chase away love in your heart and your life.  

While the original fault lies elsewhere, that person or persons may not change. You are responsible for your life and happiness now, and you need to let go of the bitterness.

Even if you feel you have grieved the losses that led to your bitterness:

1. Stop and spend some time grieving again.

2. Make a conscious effort to stop the ruminations and expressions of bitterness in your life. Don't give these thoughts the space.

3. Forgive. The therapeutic concept of forgiveness is to recognize injustice, then let go of the anger and resentment. This type of forgiveness will not affect the right/wrong elements of your issues. Forgive for your sake. We are the wire and God is the current.

According to St. Augustine, forgiveness is simply the act of surrendering our desire for revenge; that is, our desire to hurt someone for having hurt us.

4. Recognize  and develop an attitude of gratefulness. Our lives did not stop at the point of our hurt; we have life, now choose it!

Our past with certain people whether ex- spouses, estranged brothers, sisters or parents can create a core of pain inside which we wrestle with in the course of life. 

We will often react as we have always done and that is not always a good thing. The cycle needs to be broken and it is our recognition of our own bitterness that will stop it.

An old man once said, " My experience has shown me that I all too often tend to deny that which lies behind. But I still believe, that which is denied cannot be healed." 

I do not want these to be words I utter in old age. Let us look back and deal with our root of bitterness. 

Buechner said it best:

"I am inclined to believe that God's chief purpose in giving us memory is to enable us to go back in time so that if we didn't play those roles right the first time round, we can still have another go at it now. Memory makes it possible for us to both bless the past, even those parts of it that we have felt cursed by."

Joy is what happens when you let go of bitterness.

Burnt but not bitter.

Resources :

Popcak, G . Overcoming Bitterness, 2013

Phillips, B. Another Toxic Emotion : Bitterness. 2013