Self Compassion – PLC Blog

Grief Is A Change You Didn’t Want

Heartbreak is there in grief.

This is because when a person you love dies you are heartbroken.

When a person you love leaves you and rejects you and continues to reject you, then you are heartbroken.

Which pain is worse?

The worst pain is the pain you are experiencing.

Heartbreak

Heartbreak is always present in grief. It is heartbreak at the loss of the future with that person, whether they are alive or dead. Now you must face a future you did not plan and may not even like.

Heartbreak can occur through other life events. Losing a job, not getting the job you really wanted, not getting into the university course you wanted, not getting the marks in an exam you wanted, losing out on the house you wanted to buy, losing the house you can no longer afford to pay the loan on, your car being stolen, your house broken into, the end of a relationship, losing your pet, losing your country.

The really important thing to remember is your pain is always worse for you. There is no comparison. Just because someone else is hurting, it doesn’t mean their pain is worse. Comparisons just can’t be made when it comes to grief.

Heartbreak is not logical

It is always important to remember that the act of making a comparison is one that uses your mind. But when you are heartbroken and suffering grief, those are emotions you are feeling. They are not logical, they are not of the mind. They are the emotions of heartbreak.

Be careful, because grief that isn’t attended to doesn’t just go away. It stays there, unattended, and trips you up when something reminds you of it.

Questions to ask yourself

Ask yourself the question. What heartbreak, what grief, what disappointments in your life have you not attended to?

Once you have the answer ask yourself. Why don’t you attend to it?

The answer is most likely that it is difficult, painful even, to confront that pain.

It is so easy to run from pain. Pain hurts.

The realness of emotional pain

Did you know that physical pain and emotional pain are registered in the same part of the brain?

All these years people’s emotional pain has been dismissed as being nothing, yet it is as painful as physical pain.

The metaphor of the Buffalo

Grief expert David Kessler uses the metaphor of a buffalo turning to face a storm and walk into it. The buffalo knows it will get through the storm faster if it does this. But humans try to stay away from the storm. They try to keep a metre or so away. This way they remain in the storm a long time.

Instead of facing the storm, humans stay close to it and try to numb themselves, try to move away, but not far away, or try to avoid any triggering memories. Humans may even run away.

Substituting One Emotion For Another

One way of avoiding the storm is to go to another emotion that feels more comfortable.

What emotions might that be?

The most common one to go after is anger.

If you explore what is under your anger you will often find it is sadness, grief or fear.

There is a very real fear that once you give in to the pain of grief you will never be able to stop crying.

But you will stop crying in time.

Self Compassion Is The Best Treatment

When you allow yourself to enter the storm and feel your emotions deeply. When you allow yourself to engage with the emotions, then you are caring for yourself. You are showing up for yourself. Allowing yourself to feel these emotions is the way you can be there for you. It is an opportunity to show self compassion.

Self compassion only works if you pay attention to your emotions.

To show self compassion you have to be able to accept that this horrible thing happened. You have to be allowed to feel sorry for yourself, for the pain you are experiencing and have experienced.

Our society tells us it is wrong to feel sorry for yourself. But that is wrong. It is not wrong to feel sorry for yourself. It is not wrong to feel for what you have been through. To acknowledge that what you have been through was horrible.

When others try to shut you down over this it is because they feel uncomfortable and don’t want to be exposed to that discomfort.

Beware The Failure To Own Your Problems

Refusing to be accountable for what you have done in your life and refusing to own your problems causes difficulties around feeling sorry for yourself.

If you feel sorry for yourself and get stuck in that place, constantly seeking those who will affirm your pain but never doing anything to get out of that pain, then you are failing to understand your own problems and find ways to resolve them.

The Importance of Being Seen

It is important to feel seen, to have your pain acknowledged. But sometimes you are the one who is going to see you, who will acknowledge your pain.

Being seen is empowering. Seeing yourself is as empowering as being seen by someone else.

Tara Brach PhD, a leading western teacher of Buddhist meditation, emotional healing and spiritual awakening, talks about the importance of putting your hand over your heart centre and saying “Ouch, that hurts” as a way to acknowledge the pain you are feeling and give yourself self compassion. Try it sometime, you will most likely find it helps a lot.

In Summary

The worst abandonment is when you abandon yourself

In your pain do not fail to acknowledge to yourself the pain you are in.

Don’t fail to show compassion to yourself.

Stop judging yourself, shaming yourself, criticising yourself, telling yourself you are bad or unworthy, failing to defend yourself.

Make sure you recognise your own pain. Remember “Ouch it hurts” is very important.

Sit with your pain and acknowledge it. Comfort yourself.

Advice To The Recently Bereaved

I often have recently bereaved people visit me. Their bereavement is so recent they haven’t even had the funeral yet. One of the things I tell them in that first session is to be kind to themselves, to be okay to not look after other people at the funeral. To let others care for them. To absent themselves from the post funeral get together if they need to. To cry, be unstable, not want to talk, not want to socialise, not look after others are all permissible and necessary self care actions.

Grief Forces Change

I model for the recently bereaved how to speak kindly to yourself, how to be caring and compassionate to yourself, how to be there for yourself.

It is scary to be placed in the position where you have to grow and change. But grief puts you there and there is only one way out and that is to walk through the storm.

You are going to have to learn the new way to be. You will not know it immediately, but you will learn over time and self compassion is your best ally in this learning.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief and heartbreak please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

10 ways to fit self-care into your day

Self-care is something you often hear people talking about. A whole industry has arisen around self-care. There is no shortage of retreats, classes, books, podcasts, YouTube videos and so on to help with that.

Self-care is important. It is not an option. Without self-care you are at risk of burnout and overwhelm. Self-care is essential for you to be able to function day to day, manage your work, and cope with unexpected crises.

Yet self-care remains something that many people know they need, but just can’t find the time, or money, to do.

But self-care does not have to involve large chunks of your time. It doesn’t have to look like a retreat, yoga class, hour at the gym, hour of anything.

Self-care also does not require money. You don’t have to go to retreats, classes, the gym. Self-care can be done without any expenditure.

Self-care can be small chunks of time. All those small chunks of time can build up and amount to a powerful amount of self-care. And that self-care can give you strength, resilience and confidence that equips you to resolve the challenges in life more easily.

When I teach mindfulness, a great self-care practice, I teach to spend 5 minutes a day being mindful.

I suggest that during the day, when waiting for things, you can also practice mindfulness. When at traffic lights, when waiting in a queue, while waiting for the kettle to boil, when waiting to pick your children up from school, these are all times you can fit in micro moments of self-care in the form of mindfulness.

Those tiny moments of self-care – time for yourself – can reset your mental state, boost your energy, alleviate stress and promote happiness.

10 things you can do for micro moments of self-care:

• 5 minute mindfulness. Set a timer for 5 minutes. Sit comfortably, allow your eyes to close or soften your focus. Breathe in deeply and slowly and let your breath out gently. Focus on the in and out breath. If any thoughts come into your mind, just acknowledge them and let them go. It is like someone coming into a waiting room, you notice they are there then you go back to what you were doing when they came in. At the end of the 5 minutes return to normal activities.
Practice this every day so that it becomes something you easily do.

• Make yourself a cup of tea/coffee/other warm drink. Sit somewhere away from your desk, somewhere where you will not be interrupted. Hold the cup in your hands. Feel its warmth. Breathe in the steam. Smell the drink. Take gentle sips. Savour them. When you are finished go back to your normal activities.

• Stand outside in the fresh air, preferably where you can see vegetation. If you can lean against a tree it is even better. Research has shown the calming effect of vegetation lowers blood pressure and helps regulate emotions.
If you can’t see vegetation then look up at the sky. Notice if there are clouds, birds, colours in the sky.
Doing this allows you to reset your mind and inject some calm into your day.

• On the way to work/doing chores take the time to notice the sky, to notice bird sounds, wind through the trees, water lapping, and so on. Look for things around you that are pleasing to look at and take a moment to acknowledge them. Even watching a happy dog smiling at its owner on its morning walk is pleasing for many people. Or seeing a small child excitedly skip along a footpath. There are myriad things you can notice if you look for them.

• Spend 5 minutes doing star jumps, running on the spot, stretches – any physical activity that you enjoy.

• Dance to a song you hear on the radio.

• Laugh at things you find funny.

• Hug a friend.

• Say hello to the person you buy your coffee from, or the cashier at the supermarket, or someone waiting for the bus with you. Admire a cute dog or a happy baby in a pram. Look for opportunities to interact with another person.

• Take the time to sit down and eat a meal. No rushing, no running off to attend to something. Just you and the meal. If you eat it with others enjoy their company. Just be there with your meal.

Set reminders on your phone and in your calendar to make those micro moments and make them count.

Self-care is about loving and honouring yourself. Remember, if you don’t take the time to care for yourself you are not going to be able to care for others.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with reducing your stress and improving your self-care, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

You Are Unique And Your Way Of Responding To Life Events Is Unique Too

One of the biggest worries that is presented to me in sessions is the feeling of having reacted to something the wrong way.

This is so common I thought I would write about it today.

Have you had this happen to you?

Something happens and you feel strong emotions and respond based on those emotions. But then others judge you because they don’t agree with your response. And you feel you were wrong and judge your feelings as being irrational and incorrect.

It is always important in these moments to remember that you are hearing another person’s individual response. It is unique to them and is obviously different to your response.

Even if the other person is backed up in judging your response, it does not make you wrong.

Who you are, and your view of the world, is based on what you have experienced in life. Your authentic reaction to something is correct for you. No two people will react to an event in the same way.

Some people are frightened when people react to things differently to them. They may feel frightened and want to dampen their response. If you don’t do that their fear may drive them to judge you and tell you that you were wrong. That is fear talking, not a judgement on you.

All reactions to events are valid.

Obviously, some reactions are morally wrong and even may be illegal. Assaulting someone is not the right thing. But being angry at them can be valid.

Allow those events where you feel you reacted differently to others to be opportunities for reflection. You can reflect on your feelings and how you reacted. If you were angry with someone you can congratulate yourself on not hitting them but reacting in a more productive way. Just because another person chose to retreat and avoid addressing the situation does not make you wrong. All it does is make you different and unique.

Remember to not take on board other people’s issues. If someone judges you for the way you respond to a situation, don’t take that on board. Don’t own their stuff. It is theirs, give it back to them. Own your stuff because it does belong to you.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with understanding yourself and being okay with yourself, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

5 Steps To Calm Down When You Are Feeling Overwhelmed

It is really hard to manage life when things happen that make you feel overwhelmed.

Maybe you are running late and encountering things that slow you down. You can feel the sensation of panic rising and feel anxious. You may even start to feel angry and feel like acting out that anger.

Maybe you are in a situation where your have someone else demanding answers from you. They may also be forceful in their conversation, or angry. Or it may just be they are being forceful in what they are saying and their expectation you give an answer now.

You may find yourself in a situation where you are being yelled at and you are feeling overwhelmed and frightened.

Or you may be in any number of situations where you feel overwhelmed and unable to cope.

What Happens When You Are Overwhelmed

When you encounter a situation like one of the ones described above, your brain interprets it as a threat and your defence strategies kick in. Overwhelm is a form of fight or flight response.

You are in a situation where you feel you have to fight or flee.

When you are running late you may be feeling desperate to get to your destination on time. You have no control over the situation. If you did, you would not be running late. Everything that happens to slow you down is another thing that you have no control over. The situation feels unsafe and your brain takes you into a form of panic that is part of the fight/flight response.

When you feel you are being threatened by another person’s insistence you answer, that is an unsafe situation. You definitely want to run or fight that one. The feelings of overwhelm are enhanced by the feeling you are not safe and maybe have limited control over the situation.

It is the same with you feeling overwhelmed and frightened by someone yelling at you.

Other people may not perceive the situation as threatening. But you do and that is what your brain responds to.

It Is Okay To Feel Overwhelmed.

It is not wrong to feel threatened so be kind to yourself.

I am going to teach you a mindfulness exercise that, if practised regularly, can be helpful when used in a situation of overwhelm.

If you can get away somewhere to take a few moments to calm, then do. If not do this on the spot.

It is helpful of you practice this exercise every day so that you are able to use it to its maximum benefit when you are needing to calm yourself.

The Calming Exercise.

1. If you can go somewhere quiet, then do that. Otherwise just turn your thoughts into yourself. You need to feel safe and this is where practising this exercise daily can help you to feel safe even when in a stressful situation.

Tell yourself you are going to calm down now. This is known as setting an intention.

Take three deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. You can slightly open your lips and breathe out through your mouth without it being obvious.

Just allow the air to flow out without forcing it.

After three deep breaths breathe naturally.

Now focus on your face. As you breathe, feel your forehead relax, then your eyes, your jaw, the rest of your face. Imagine that as you breathe out you are breathing out tension in your face.

Now focus on releasing the tension in your neck, shoulders, chest and belly.
Picture a beautiful, welcoming light pouring out of your heart. Imagine you are surrounded and protected by this light.
Say to yourself the following intentions:

a. May I be free from suffering

b. May I find peace and joy
Now picture someone you know but don’t get along very well with. Do not picture an abuser or bully who is really frightening. That is overwhelming. Just picture someone you don’t particularly get along with.

Consider that person has their own issues and like you wants to feel safe.

Say the following intentions for them:

a. May you be free from suffering

b. May you find peace and joy.
Now pay attention to your breathing, your body and your thoughts. Do you feel calmer now?

The purpose of this exercise is to deepen your breathing to reset your brain to calm down. Then you consciously release tension held in your body. After that you set intentions for you that are safe and calming. Then you look outside yourself to someone else and with them well. This helps to make the situation you are in more objective so that it feels more manageable and less stressful.

As I said earlier, practise this exercise every day so that it will be second nature when you really need it and will work much better to help you calm down.

Can I Help?

If you would like to learn more about how to calm down when overwhelmed and how to release the triggers that lead to your overwhelm, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

Suppressing Your Thoughts And Feelings Seems Right, But It Isn’t.

In the current world there is a general belief that if an emotion is too hard you just suppress it. Force it under.

One of the main styles of therapy that is presented as “the correct way” to be and to operate tells you that these uncomfortable thoughts and emotions are faulty and wrong. You just have to work harder. You have to will harder. You can over come this.

But the truth is all the will in the world will not heal those uncomfortable thoughts and emotions.

I Failed Magic Wand Class

I see a lot of people who come to me for that style of therapy. They think it will be like a magic wand that I wave and in a few sessions they will be all fixed.

If only it were so.

The Myth Of Instant Gratification

We all want things to be achieved instantly.

Instead of working hard at following a correct diet and activity regime, we want to take a pill to lose weight.

Instead of working through those uncomfortable emotions. Instead of allowing time for those emotions to heal. Instead of allowing time for our brains to make the necessary changes to heal. Instead of doing all this we want it to be better instantly.

Having to work at something is hard and in this modern world with instant everything working at something is not what we have been taught to expect or have to do.

So maybe you come to me expecting instant results.

The Reality Of Healing

Sometimes the difficulty you are experiencing can be resolved with one or two counselling sessions.

Other times the difficulty will need longer.

Maybe your expectations have been raised by the passion for “the correct way”. You expect I will tell you what is wrong with you and you will do some homework and exercises and keep them up and you will be all better.

After all, it is so much easier to push things down and pretend they don’t exist than deal with them.

Isn’t it?

The Lure Of Running From Those Uncomfortable Feelings

So you run from those uncomfortable feelings. But they come after you.

So you run from them with alcohol, or cigarettes, or drugs or other addictions.

That works for a while, until the effects wear off. Then what do you do?

Running Is Like The Scab Over A Cut

As a former Registered Nurse, I liken the suppressing of uncomfortable thoughts and feelings to a scab that has formed over a cut.

You cut yourself, it hurts and it bleeds. Your body starts work immediately, defending from infection and commencing healing. First you will see a scab form. Ah! Its getting better.

But is it?

If all goes well, the scab forms, healing occurs underneath and the scab eventually falls off to reveal healed skin underneath.

But it doesn’t always go well.

Under that scab there is an infection. Pus forms and is trapped underneath the scab. That cut hurts. That cut is not healing as you thought it should.

The pus builds up. The cut hurts more.

I watched a colleague once remove the scab on a man’s leg. Her comment is so relevant here.

“I never trust a scab. It hides things that shouldn’t be there.”

She had noticed the signs of infection under the scab.

Scab removed, the cut was able to be cleaned and the infection cleared up. Not overnight, but over a matter of days with continued cleansing until the infection was cleared.

Counselling is like that.

Healing Requires Work and Time

If you want to resolve those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings you need to work at them.

I am not going to tell you that your thoughts are “faulty”. They aren’t.

I am not going to instruct you to not think about them. I will help you examine them to find what lies underneath them.

I may not seem to be “working” with you, but I am.

I Trust You To Be Able To Heal, Maybe With Help

I trust you as a person to have the ability to heal those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings with my assistance.

By assistance I mean that I will help you identify what is actually going on. I will tell you that what you are experiencing is a normal way for your brain to respond to your circumstances. Then I will help you work with your brain as it heals.

I will help you understand the unconscious parts of your brain that you cannot control consciously. I will help you heal those, which will often involve feeling into your body as well as allowing your brain to express itself through art, sand play, movement or other expressive methods.

I will tell you that things take time. Because your brain can’t rebuild new neural circuits overnight. Expect a few months at least.

I Don’t Use A Magic Wand

Whatever you do, don’t be like the people who come expecting me to wave my magic wand and make you all better in one session. See the start of progress, no matter how slight, as the wonderful evidence that healing has started.

And don’t tell your children they just need some “strategies” to cope with those painful thoughts and emotions when what they actually need is compassion and understanding that what is happening in their life hurts and it is okay to hurt.

Soldiering On Doesn’t Work

Wanting to be able to just “soldier on” was a wonderful marketing ploy for a drug company selling cold and flu tablets. We apply solider on to everything, including emotional pain. But there is no instant fix and even the “soldier on” message has been shown to be the worst treatment for those colds and flu.

Allow time. If you need to see a counsellor expect it to not be instant and be very wary of someone who tells you your thoughts are “faulty”.

In The Next Blog

I mentioned the pain of dealing with painful thoughts and emotions.

In the past few weeks I have seen a lot of people who have struggled with other people inadvertently causing them pain through their questions.

How are you? To the person struggling to cope with the death of their partner.

What is your job? To the person just made redundant.

What do your parents do? To the teenager who is grieving the death of their father.

These seemingly innocent comments can cause a lot of pain. So what can you do to avoid those foot in mouth blunders?

I will talk more about this in my next blog.t

Can I Help?

In the meantime, if you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with managing your thoughts and feelings, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

Love And Accepting The Rites Of Grief

“My grief says that I dared to love, that I allowed another to enter the very core of my being and find a home in my heart. Grief is akin to praise; it is how the soul recounts the depth to which someone has touched our lives. To love is to accept the rites of grief.” ~ Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

We lose so much in our lives. There is the obvious death of loved ones, of pets, of dear friends. There is also the loss of homes, jobs, health, fitness, for some, their country.

There are also the losses of dreams, community, nature.

There are too many losses in life to mention them all.

They all have something in common. You need to grieve for them.

The Unspoken Emptiness Inside

If you don’t grieve for the losses then you always have unprocessed grief, an emptiness, inside.

So many people have an unspoken emptiness inside. There is a hole there that you struggle to fill. The emptiness if the hole of unprocessed grief. It is a constant pain, sometimes sharp, but mostly dull. You try to push it aside, but it continues to gnaw at you and hide under the surface, waiting for an opportunity to resurface.

There are many in the field of unresolved grief research who believe that the desire for more in our society has its roots in unresolved grief.

People try to fill the hole by being busy, by frenetic activity, by buying more and more things, by wanting bigger houses and plenty of storage to hold the things that are accumulated.

People also try to control the external environment. Maybe you do that too. An obsession with bodily perfection, with having the perfect house, the nicest car, the picture perfect family, the right friends, the perfect kids, the helicopter cotton wool parent, the hothoused child.

The Myth Of Being Able To Control Your Life To Fill The Emptiness

All this is an attempt to control your life. It is a cover for the emptiness and feeling of being out of control inside. But controlling your external life does not fix the emptiness inside.

All that focus on external things does is deny you the necessary processing of your losses.

Losses are a core part of being human. Running away from the things that frighten you doesn’t make them go away. It makes them grow and become more problematic.

Gratitude, Humility and Reverence for Human Life

Instead you need to allow the pain. Be courageous and sit with that pain. You will find that the pain isn’t as large and insurmountable as you thought it would be. In fact, allowing yourself to feel the pain allows you to access great skills that help you heal.

These skills are gratitude, humility and reverence for human life.

This may sound very airy, but it isn’t.

Gratitude

Gratitude allows you to see those things in your day that you can be grateful for. Even on the worst days there is something to be grateful for. You don’t need to acknowledge gratitude through gritted teeth.

Sometimes the fact that you are alive is gratitude. Even when life seems too miserable to be alive there is still gratitude for that. Gratitude can be about people who in your day did something nice to you. The person who held a door open for you, the driver who let you out into the traffic when you were struggling to get out of a side street, the person who smiled at you and acknowledged your existence. These are just some examples of things you can be grateful for. You can also be grateful that you are breathing, that your heart is beating, that you can think, that you can explore things in your life to be grateful for.

Gratitude means looking for the good and not focusing on the negative.

Turning your attention to positive things is a great help in processing your grief.

Humility

Humility removes the sense of entitlement we all suffer from occasionally. The one that says bad things shouldn’t happen to us. The one that protests at the bad thing that has happened. When you humbly acknowledge that loss is part of being human you remove a burden caused by resisting what has happened and open the way to grieve and process the loss.

Humility doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be angry at what has happened. Far from it. If you are angry then honour that and allow yourself to acknowledge the anger. But allow that anger to dissipate when it is ready to go.

Do the same with other feelings you are experiencing. If you want to cry, then cry. Acknowledge what you are feeling and allow it be there.

Humility means you accept you are human. You accept that something has happened that you are upset about. That you have lost something that mattered to you. Humility means you accept that you are hurt and this is going to require some attention to allow yourself to feel and release the pain.

Reverence

Reverence for human life is important. All life is important and deserving of honour. You are important and deserving of honour. You deserve to be shown kindness. And the person to give that kindness to you is you.

Other people are not always available to give you kindness. If they are, then their kindness is like a cherry on top of a beautiful cake. But your kindness is the beautiful cake. It is the comfort and support available to you all the time. Make sure you show reverence for your own life and give yourself the kindness you need and deserve.

Can I Help?

Sometimes you need help with the grief you are feeling and the pain. It can be difficult trying to find gratitude, humility and reverence for yourself and others. You may need to talk through all the emotions you are experiencing.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your rites of grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

I didn’t think I had an abusive childhood, but now I realise I did

Do you need other people to validate the things you do?

Do you need the approval of others?

Do you find it hard making decisions for yourself?

Do you find it hard feeling self-reliant?

Do you find it hard to regulate your emotions?

Are you really hard on yourself?

Do you feel you have little or no worth?

Do you do things to numb your emotional pain?

Are you frightened of rejection and abandonment?

Do you feel you are stuck in angry mode?

Do you find it hard to feel joy or peace?

Do you find it hard to get close to other people?

Do you feel lonely and seek out others to compensate for your loneliness?

Do you feel lost, misunderstood or that you don’t fit in and others are judging you for that?

Do you frequently feel anxious or depressed?

Are you frightened of social situations and fear being rejected.

Do you feel others judge you as not being good enough?

Do you feel empowered in your life?

How childhood experiences can impact you as an adult

Did you know that trauma in childhood has a significant impact on your self-worth?

If your sense of safety and belonging in childhood was damaged you are likely to have developed skills to keep you safe in that situation. As you grew up you may never have unlearned those skills, so they trap you in patterns that don’t serve you in adulthood.

Also, poor attachment between your parents and you puts you at risk of suffering from loneliness in adulthood.

Traumatic experiences in your childhood disrupt how you see your self as a person and affect your ability to regulate your emotions. All this impacts on the quality of the interpersonal relationships you have later in life.

My parents didn’t physically or sexually abuse me. I can’t have suffered trauma.

It can be hard to understand you have been traumatised in childhood. The usual picture of trauma is that of being hit or sexually abused. But trauma covers much more than just that. In fact, the worst traumas are emotional and psychological.

Neglect

Neglect is a trauma that is often overlooked. With neglect the child’s physical and emotional needs are frequently overlooked. It may involve not receiving regular meals, not having clean clothes to wear, not having your emotional needs for comfort and support met. A parent who rarely interacts or shows an interest in you is also neglectful.

Neglectful parents are also unlikely to be there to teach you skills of emotional regulation. They may not teach you how to wash yourself, how often to change your clothes.

It is unlikely a neglectful parent will see you and spend time connecting to you. This is known as attunement. A child who is not seen is a child who is not safe. Not being safe is extremely traumatic.

The clear message in this situation is that you have no worth or value. After all, you are not worth having any time or attention given to you.

Narcissistic Parent

Narcissistic parents are also very destructive of a child’s sense of self-worth.

Such a parent depends on the child to make them feel good. The child gets positive attention when they do things that serve the parent. The trouble is, there are no clear guidelines as to what the child needs to do to serve the parent. Consequently, the child lives life second guessing the parent in order to feel that the parent will care for them and they will be safe.

Narcissistic parents will also often shame their children in front of others. They will expect their child to meet their needs, to do things to make them proud. They will never teach their child any skills that will equip them for adulthood and self-reliance.

Narcissistic parents will often hold the child close to serve their needs. They want the child to stay dependent on them because the child is there to serve their needs and that is why they had them.

One classic example is of a woman who would take her child to school. The child would happily run into the classroom and greet her friends. The mother would call her back and make a fuss of her, stating it was okay for mummy to leave now and she would be okay. The child would go back to her friends and be happily talking with them. Again, the mother would call her back. This would continue until the child’s resolve was broken and she would wail and beg her mother not to leave her.

A narcissistic parent is one of the most destructive types of parent and sentence their children to mental poor health and a dependence on validation from others in adulthood.

Complex PTSD and Borderline personality disorder

These conditions develop because of chronic trauma experienced in childhood. The type of trauma most associated with these conditions is emotional abuse and invalidation. It can happen if you are neglected or have a narcissistic parent. It can also happen from other types of abuse and invalidation.

Sometimes parents are not aware that their behaviour towards their children is invalidating and can be surprised when their child develops this disorder in adulthood.

When a parent is emotionally abusive or invalidating during a child’s early years it impacts on the child’s sense of self and the child can struggle to have a strong sense of self.

You may develop self-defeating attitudes and beliefs around yourself and the trustworthiness of the world.

When raised in such an environment it is also difficult to learn to regulate your emotions. This is often due to your parents being unable to regulate their emotions. How can you teach another person how to regulate their emotions if you can’t do it yourself.

For this reason, I encourage people who had difficult childhoods to seek counselling from a trauma trained professional before having children. Many parents who were emotionally abused as children are determined their own children will never have to go through that. But sometimes things your children do can trigger reactions in you that you can’t control and don’t like doing. If you find raising your children triggers behaviours you struggle to control then seek counselling. Seeking help makes you a good parent.

Unstable and intense relationships

If you find that any type of relationship you have with others tends to be intense and over time unstable then you may be experiencing the impacts of chronic trauma in childhood. Sometimes these relationships happen because you are uncomfortable being alone and seek out anyone who looks willing to be in a relationship with you. This can result in you unconsciously choosing the wrong type of person to have a relationship with.

Sometimes when you are in a relationship you can sabotage it by clinging to the person and unwittingly pushing them away.

I think you are the best, I hate you patterns

Another impact of childhood trauma can be seen in meeting someone new and idealising them. This continues for some time then you start devaluing them and finding things wrong with them.

You are too hard on yourself

One of the saddest impacts of childhood trauma is the lack of self-worth and lack of self-compassion.

It is not surprising that children develop these beliefs. When a parent is abusive, or expects you to jump over hoops to gain their approval, the natural response is to believe this is because you are a bad person. If your parent constantly tells you that you are bad then this belief is reinforced.

The reality is that a child is just a child learning how to live life. There is no inherent badness in a child. Sadly a child doesn’t know that. Shame becomes a big part of the life of an abused child.

Ways to dull the pain

If you never learned how to regulate your emotions, and you believe you are a bad person, then you feel great pain that you don’t know how to soothe.

Many people turn to behaviours that numb the pain. These behaviours may be dangerous. A good example of this is children who steal cars then drive them dangerously at high speed. The risk and dangers inherent in this activity help to suppress their pain.

Other things people do include addictions such as substance abuse, smoking or vaping, gambling, compulsive shopping, sex addiction, exercise addiction and eating disorders.

I am lonely

If you don’t feel you are worth anything then you may not feel you are likeable. The result is that you may avoid getting close to others so that they can’t reject you.

Getting close to another person means exposing yourself to the rejection of your parents. If they rejected you, then other people will too.

When you do form relationships with others you may be frightened of expressing your needs or asking for help because your parents failed to meet those needs when you were a child. So you may feel even lonelier because you can’t turn to someone for help.

Many people who suffered trauma in childhood report feeling lonely.

Depression and Anxiety

It is very common for someone traumatised as a child to be anxious. Your childhood was an anxious time of never being sure when you would receive support, or whether you may be abused. Abusers are rarely predictable so hypervigilance was an essential part of childhood.

Hypervigilance leads to anxiety. There is the need to be constantly on your guard because you never know what is going to happen in the next minute. You never know when things will suddenly become dangerous and frightening.

When you grow up and things become safer the fear doesn’t go away because your brain has developed neural pathways that constantly scan for danger. This is why anxiety is a constant companion of the traumatised child.

Depression is another consequence of this type of childhood. Many people report feeling depressed from childhood. The sense of not being good enough, the lack of self-worth, being emotionally worn down with anxiety and fear, the rejection and abandonment of parents and the sense of never being safe all contribute to feeling overwhelmed and hopeless and lead into depression.

I constantly feel on edge

The environment of neglect and emotional abuse is a highly stressful environment. Children in this situation are being impacted regularly by the release of stress hormones in the body. This has an impact on the developing brain and will often result in an adult who is highly sensitive to stress hormones.

The result is that your brain is in a constant state of defending yourself. In other words the fight/flight/freeze response.

It is very difficult to cope with life if your brain is constantly seeing danger and you spend a lot of time with your brain taking over your life and deciding whether you are to fight, run away, or freeze.

When this defence mechanism takes over, your thinking brain switches off. You can’t control your reactions. Sadly, very few people understand this and you may find yourself judged when you get stuck in this defence response.

It is for this reason that it is important to seek counselling from a qualified trauma counsellor.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your childhood trauma, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

The End of a Relationship: An often ignored grief

When someone dies, the living relationship you had with them dies also.

The person you love is no longer in your life and what also dies is the hope of ever seeing them again.

That is incredibly hard, but it is final.

Gone but not dead

When a relationship you are in ends and you part company with someone, they are no longer in your life. However, there is always that small hope that you will see them again.

There is therefore no finality in that relationship.

Often when a relationship ends, there is hurt and acrimony left. So that any time you may see that person it is not the same.

How do you grieve a relationship that has had no finality?

If you add to this the complication of dividing up property and child custody and access arrangements, it gets even more difficult.

The difference between losing someone to death and losing them to a relationship end

There are similarities between losing someone through death and losing someone through the end of a relationship, but there are also differences.

For anyone who has lost a relationship, whether to death or a break up, life has to continue. You still have to go out there and work.

There are still bills to pay. If you have children, there are still their needs to attend to. You can’t just lock yourself away from the world until you feel better.

As I already mentioned, the death of someone involves the death of hope that you will ever see them again. But when your relationship has ended, that hope is still there. If the relationship has become acrimonious, the pain of seeing that person again is compounded.

The hope is there but you hope for the old relationship, not what has now developed. It is like twisting the knife.

It is okay for the bereaved to grieve. But what about those whose relationship has ended?

Another difference between the death of a loved one and the end of a relationship is the recognition given to the pain of bereavement and not to the end of a relationship.

People understand that initially you will feel hurt, but the support you will receive is likely to fade away faster than if you were bereaved.

Plus there are other things to grieve for as well as the end of the relationship.

Am I defective or unloveable?

If someone stops loving you, what does that say about you as a person? Does that mean you are unloveable? Does that mean you are defective? If the other person left you for someone else does that mean you are not worth having a relationship with? Even if you are the one to end it, what does it say to you about your romantic choices?

In a close relationship you define yourself through the relationship. When that relationship is gone, then your definition of self is damaged.

If the relationship end is acrimonious and there are nasty things being said, particularly about you and your parenting ability, it is hard for you to see yourself as worthwhile.

My idea of being a parent just disintegrated

There is also grief at the end of your picture of parenting. You are likely facing co-parenting. No matter how well you and your ex handle that, your picture of what being a parent was has disintegrated. Maybe in time you will build a new picture, but for now that hasn’t happened.

I have to leave my dream home

You are quite likely going to have to leave your family home. If you own it, selling it becomes part of the property settlement. If you are renting, you may not be able to afford to continue to pay that rent on your own.

I struggle financially now

Your financial situation may deteriorate as well. When there are two incomes, then you can often live comfortably. With one income it becomes a lot more difficult.

Grieving the end of a relationship – a summary

When a relationship ends you have many things to grieve:

• The person you loved is no longer in your life.

• You may continue to see them, but the relationship has changed, so there are constant reminders of what was and what you cannot
have any more.

• Where there was love, there may be hurt and acrimony.

• They may start another relationship.

• Your picture of how you would parent your children has disintegrated.

• Your sense of yourself as being a good and loveable person is damaged.

• Your financial status is reduced.

• You may lose your home.

• And so many more losses not listed here.

What can I do about this?

One of the most important things to do is to love yourself. Surround yourself as much as possible with people who will hold you in their love and support you.

Never forget you are wanted. You are lovable. You are not defective.

Remember, emotional pain is processed in the same part of the brain as physical pain. Don’t dismiss your emotional pain. You don’t dismiss physical pain and emotional pain is just as real as physical pain.

Be kind to yourself

You are grieving.

You have lost a relationship, your future dreams, your financial security, your sense of safety in the world.

You spent a lot of time with this person you loved. They occupied your time and your emotions. Their departure leaves a large gap in your life.

Just as with the death of a loved one, your brain has to rearrange its neural networks to adjust to the loss of this person from your life.

Be kind to yourself. Allow yourself time to grieve. Allow yourself days to be upset and not cope well.

Grief takes time, so be patient.

Remember you are grieving and it is okay for you to grieve.

Grief takes time. It must run its course. Things may seem hard right now, but there will be a day when it will feel easier.

Give yourself permission to cry, scream, lock yourself away for a short time.

Be okay with hating your ex, with being angry, with being sad, with frustration and confusion.

To heal, you must first grieve. There is no way of skipping the grief step.

Give yourself some slack to have bad days.

If it gets too difficult to manage then seek help from a counsellor.

The way of the Triskelion

A few years ago I read about applying the idea of an ancient symbol, the triskelion, to your situation.

This ancient symbol has been used in many cultures for thousands of years. In our world the Celtic interpretation of this symbol is
often applied.

For the Celts the Triskelion had many meanings.

One was that it represented birth, death and rebirth. In terms of your recovery from the end of a relationship that has died there is
the rebirth that will come later.

It is also considered that the Triskelion revolves around strength, progress and the ability to move forward and overcome extreme adversity. These can all be goals to aim for as you allow yourself to grieve.

The path of rebirth

As you work your way through your grief don’t expect to find the type of closure you get with death. In death there is an end to things and eventually a sense of meaning.

With relationship endings it is not possible to end things. You have to find your own resolution and your own meaning in the uncertainty of the end of a relationship.

Over time you will heal and be able to remember the good times and process the bad times.

It will be scary, but you can continue to live after the end of a relationship.

In time you may find another relationship. Or maybe you won’t.

The important thing is that you have survived grief. There will always be that pain, but you will be able to live a happy and productive life.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your relationship grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

The Myth of Passive Aggressive Behaviour

There is a lot of misinformation about behaviour and its causes in the general community.

This leads to many terrible things being done to people who should be given understanding.

One popular thing to accuse people of is being Passive Aggressive. The label is freely applied to people but there is extremely limited understanding of what passive aggressive behaviour actually is.

The source of the myth

This myth is not helped by the fact that there used to be a “personality disorder” listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). This “disorder” labelled Passive Aggressive was dropped 20 years ago.

Despite this no longer being accepted as a disorder, the community persists in applying this label to people. People who exhibit this behaviour have had trauma in their pasts and need understanding, not misguided judgement.

What behaviour you may see in someone labelled as Passive Aggressive

• Often a perfectionist with very high standards of their own behaviour.

• Difficulty identifying what they want.

• Difficulty asking for help.

• Difficulty setting boundaries and saying no.

• Low Self Esteem.

• Sensitive to criticism.

• People pleaser who seeks to accommodate other people’s wants.

• Hates to disappoint people and can become very distressed when think they will.

• Frightened of taking initiative in relationships.

• Finds it hard to say no so will instead say yes but try to communicate no by hints or cancelling at last minute, often in great distress.

• Withdraws when someone is angry with them.

• Doesn’t make feelings, needs and wants known to others.

• Saying no leads to feelings of guilt and great anxiety that have upset other person and that they will be rejected for that.

• Expresses feelings through behaviour rather than words.

• Seek to avoid conflict at all costs.

• Taken advantage of by others.

• Feels like a victim.

• Often unaware of feelings. Can be angry and not aware of it.

• May resort to more subtle behaviours to communicate message such as being sarcastic or even fantasising about getting revenge.

• Often feels resentful.

• Can’t understand why others can’t see their needs. Desperately wants other to see them because it is not safe to express them.

• May sub consciously adopt “unhappy” behaviour as non verbal communication.

• Procrastination, inefficiency, stubborness and sullenness are some behaviours that may be used.

Dispelling the myth: what passive aggressive behaviour is actually about

When a child is unable to express their needs safely they will adopt other ways to communicate their needs. This is not a deliberate thing. It comes about because their brain seeks ways to communicate that are safe.

One way to do this is through non verbal communication.

So you may see “unhappy” behaviour, sullenness, procrastination as behaviours that communicate unhappiness. These are not adopted deliberately.

When it is not safe to express needs openly, then passive aggressive behaviours become a safer way to express those needs. That is why you will notice people dropping hints, or being reluctant to do what you ask, or looking sullen.

Have you been accused of passive aggressive behaviour?

When you have learned it is not safe to express your needs you will frequently feel you do not have the right to have needs. This is why you will struggle to set boundaries and say no.

You will also notice you seek to avoid conflict. But underneath you may feel great distress at the way things are happening.

Internally, you may find it hard to even acknowledge what you are feeling. You may feel you are judged by others for the way you feel. In fact, you are judged because of ignorance about your behaviour.

The pressure cooker of denied needs

You may have learned as a child to push down your feelings. In adulthood you continue to do this. Over time this pushing down creates a pressure cooker situation where your feelings will explode and you may express them in a number of ways. For example by being angry, or bursting into tears, or running away.

How to be less passive aggressive

Ultimately you need to be honest with youself about your feelings and learn to express them more assertively. It is important to be aware that not everyone will accept you being more assertive. When that happens the other person is acting out their own insecurities. This doesn’t make you wrong. But it will feel uncomfortable.

Be honest about your feelings.

Learn to express yourself. This will help prevent misunderstandings, hurt feelings and resentment.

Do you need help?

It is not easy to learn to feel safe expressing your needs. Healing the past and learning to let go of the protective behaviours that kept you safe, but no longer serve you, is hard.

It is particularly hard to do on your own.

This is where counselling can help.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you to learn how to effectively meet your needs please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

4 ways to feel so you can heal

When people come to see me about the difficulties in their lives I teach them to be more aware of their own thoughts, emotions, reactions and body sensations that occur when they encounter difficulties.

There is a reason for this.

Many years ago, John Bradshaw wrote that you cannot heal what you cannot feel.

Many have sought to debunk this statement, but the reality is that pushing the difficult feelings down so you think you aren’t aware of feeling them, does not allow healing.

The difficult feelings are still there, even when you can’t consciously feel them. And those difficult feelings have a massive impact on your behaviour and reaction to things.

DO YOU WANT TO BE FREE OF THESE REACTIONS TO THINGS THAT YOU CAN’T CONTROL?

Here is what I teach you to do. It is based on the RAIN meditation as taught by Tara Brach.

Recognise or become aware of your emotions. This includes being aware of what is happening in your body. a. What sensations can you feel? b. Where do you feel them? c. What do they feel like? d. What are the thoughts in your mind?
Acknowledge and name what you are feeling. This is important as you cannot address the emotions if you aren’t able to identify them. Also, naming your emotions helps you to separate them from you personally.
Investigate or explore those feelings. This is important to understand where they come from. It is helpful to consider how old the one expressing the thoughts is. Reactions to things come from past events when a difficult incident has become embedded unresolved in your memory. When incidents occur that are similar to the original incident you react according to that unresolved memory.
Nurture yourself. Offer yourself compassion and kind words of comfort.

Let me share this in a more expanded form.

PROTEST OR TRANSFORM?

Becoming aware of your emotions is important. So often you may feel upset, uncomfortable, angry and not know why. Your rational brain may be telling yourself you are being silly. You may feel alarm because in the past these feelings have led you to behave in ways that have damaged relationships.

I have been taught that when I face difficulties in life there are two choices:

• Protest and push through

• Transform and stop to explore what I am feeling.

Protesting means you just push forward and push the emotions down. You may react in ways you wish you hadn’t. You just push forward and keep going. And this situation repeats and repeats until you do something to get help.

RAIN

Transforming means you stop. You allow yourself time to explore what is happening for you.

You follow the path of RAIN.

RECOGNISE WHAT YOU ARE FEELING

You seek to become aware of what you are feeling. You become aware of the sensations in your body, their location, the type of sensation they are, the words or phrases running through your mind. All these are valuable for you to understand what is happening.

If you take the time, you will realise what you are actually feeling.

Don’t be afraid of those feelings. All feelings are okay. They are vital clues to what is happening for you. They are clues to unresolved issues from the past. Issues that continue to influence the way you react to things.

ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR FEELINGS

Now you have taken the time to identify your feelings you can name them.

This naming is not a shameful or condemning thing to do. It is about recognising without judgement that perfectly understandable feelings you are experiencing.

You may be feeling angry, hurt, confused, shame, fear and so on.

INVESTIGATE YOUR FEELINGS

You have named your feelings, now you are going to investigate them further.

• Where did those feelings come from?

• Are there any memories that come to mind when you investigate those feelings?

• What do those phrases in your head say?

You have found a memory – now it is time to go deeper and explore more of that memory.

• How old were you?

• What was happening for you?

• What were you feeling then?

• Is it reasonable to judge yourself at that age, circumstance?

AN EXPLORATION INTO THE PAST

Often when you explore the source of feelings you find their source is an incident from your childhood.

Looking back now you can realise the child’s feelings and experience were normal for a child of that age and developmental stage. You can see the child you were as a small child who needed support and understanding. You can see that you can’t judge them from an adult perspective, because they were a child. You can recognise that the thoughts the child had are based on the child’s limited understanding of the world. As an adult you can give a different interpretation to the situation and not judge the child for what happened.

NOW YOU UNDERSTAND YOU CAN COMFORT

The natural thing to do now is the offer comfort to that small child. You are the adult looking back at an incident in your childhood. You can recognise that truth of the situation and that the child needed an adult to offer support and love.

You are the adult. It is time for you to comfort the child.

So offer them words of love and support.

“My darling that was so scary.”

“you were so confused.”

“it’s okay now. I am here. I’ve got this.”

THERE ARE MANY WAYS YOU CAN CALM YOURSELF

Comforting yourself as I described above is a really great way to calm yourself.

Mediation can really help to. Guided ones are great ways to start.

Learning Mindfulness is important to help you be able to recognise what is going on in your body. You can also meditate using Mindfulness. At the end of this post I have a link to sign up for my newsletter. Signing up gives you access to a quick mindfulness meditation you may like to try.

You can also try painting. I don’t mean painting some masterpiece. I just mean putting your feelings on to paper. You can swirl paint around. You can paint lines, dots, circles, squiggles, cover the page with paint, mix it all together into a muddy clump. You can use your fingers. Just allow yourself to put on the page what you need to let go of. Remember, if you feel like painting figures, stick figures are fantastic.

Journalling can be another outlet as well.

EXERCISE AND FUN ARE IMPORTANT TOO

You may find taking a walk calming, especially if you walk amongst the trees or on a beach.

Swimming, any form of exercise, yoga, stretches. There are myriad ways you can move.

Remember the importance of just having fun. Laughing with friends or family, throwing a ball around, trying to ride a unicycle!, anything that is fun. Just being able to forget your worries and responsibilities and have fun with others.

WATCHING YOUR DIET

Making sure you eat foods low in sugar is important. As is avoiding too many take aways. Add lots of vegetables into your diet. The healthier your diet, the better you feel.

Restricting sugary drinks and not drinking excessive amounts of alcohol are also helpful.

When your body is trying to cope with excess amount of sugar, too much alcohol for your liver to comfortably process and foods that your body struggles to process and dispose of the waste from, you will not feel well.

Increasingly research is demonstrating a link between your bowel and your brain. The quality of your diet has a massive impact on how you are feeling emotionally.

HOW COUNSELLING CAN HELP

When things in your life have been overwhelming and leave you struggling, it can be hard to recover without specialised help.

Seeing a counsellor specialised in treating these difficulties, which are all referred to as trauma, is important. Do check that the person you want to see is trained in treating trauma. You can’t just repeat sentences every day and hope the trauma can go away.

You don’t have faulty schemas in your head that need correcting. You have painful memories that need to be allowed to be expressed and healed. This does not mean you have to revisit painful memories, just that you need to be able to access the memories stored in your body and release them.

A properly trained counsellor can help you to learn how to calm yourself and feel safe.

When you are able to feel safe you can then learn how to safely heal those difficult memories.

BLUE KNOT FOUNDATION

The Blue Knot Foundation in Australia is the peak body on childhood trauma and runs training for mental health practitioners. Their training and the practice guidelines they have written are internationally renowned.

I have completed many years of Blue Knot Training and follow their practice guidelines in my work.

CAN I HELP?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your trauma, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au