Author: drglenndoyle

 

Are you weak? 

Because guess what: I am. 

Sometimes, anyway. 

I’m willing to bet sometimes you’re weak, too. Assuming you’re a human being, that is— or any living, breathing being reading these words, for that matter. 

We are weak sometimes. 

Isn’t it crazy (and I’m a psychologist, I don’t throw around that word lightly) how phobic we are of that word, let alone that concept, of “weakness?” 

So many of us have been conditioned, over and over and over again, to hide our “weakness” from the world. 

We’ve been conditioned, over and over again, that if we let anyone see that we’re “weak,” at some times, in some ways, that we’ll not be respected. 

Because who do we respect in our culture? We respect STRENGTH, dammit!

Every single day I watch people struggle to hide and minimize their “weakness.” 

People don’t admit to feeling bad because they don’t want to appear mentally or emotionally “weak.” 

People hide relapses, either of symptomatology or behavior, because they don’t want to seem “weak.” 

And, of course, the big one: people don’t ask for help, because they don’t want to look “weak.” 

Let me tell you something, as a marathon runner: completing a long race is ENTIRELY about managing your weakness. 

There are times during a marathon— and DEFINITELY after a marathon— when my legs and core feel weak. By which I mean they feel drained, sore, depleted, shaky. Unable to keep going. 

If my goal is to successfully cross the finish line, I need to be realistic with myself about when and where I am feeling weak. 

Marathons have no patience for playing make believe when it comes to the subjects of strength and weakness. 

You don’t need to pretend you’re not “weak” at times. 

Being objectively weak at certain times and in certain ways does not make you “weak” as a person. 

People are comparatively weak when they are exhausted— and you might well be exhausted. 

People are comparatively weak when they are scared— and you might well be scared. 

People are comparatively weak when they are discouraged— and you might well be discouraged. 

The only way to effectively deal with “weakness” is to admit when we’re feeling, well, weak. 

“Weakness” is not a defect of character. 

It’s what happens when we’ve expended a ton of effort, or when we’ve been asked to do things we weren’t conditioned or equipped to do. 

If someone asked me to lift a heavy weight right now, I might be able to do it, with a great deal of effort— but you betcha my muscles would be sore and weak for quite awhile afterwards. 

I am over people being brainwashed into thinking they have to hide their areas of “weakness,” because our culture only respects “strength.” 

If we’re going to recover, we need to value honesty— with ourselves and our support systems— over the illusion of always being “strong.” 

Own your weakness. 

Embrace it. 

Don’t try to deny it, disown it, ignore it, or shame yourself for it. 

When we fully accept what we can— and can’t— do at a particular moment…that’s when we open ourselves up to developing real strength. 

I’ll bet sometimes you’re weak. 

But I’ll bet you’re also hella strong, too. 

In fact, I know you are— because you’ve survived this long, and you’re reading these words. 

You’re a rock star. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. 

 

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Sometimes, you’ll be doing well…and then you’ll be doing not so well. 

We often expect relapse— that is, an unplanned deviation from our recovery plan, whether we’re recovering from trauma, addiction, depression, or anything else— in the early stages of our recovery. 

It makes sense that when we’re new to using tools and skills, that those tools and skills will be tougher to use and yield less consistent results. We get that. 

But when we have a significant amount of time in recovery— years, for example— and we experience a relapse, it can really shake us up. 

We don’t expect relapse after we’ve been in recovery for a meaningful period of time. 

It surprises us. 

It discourages us. 

It triggers thoughts, such as “I obviously wasn’t doing as well as I thought I was doing…was I doing well at ALL?” 

Yes. Yes you were. Relapse doesn’t take away the positive steps you took. 

It triggers thoughts such as, “Will I ALWAYS be just on the cusp of relapsing, no matter how much successful recovery time I get?” 

No, you won’t— but that’s a more complicated question. People who have experienced trauma or who are vulnerable to depression or addiction ARE always at a heightened risk for relapse…but that DOESN’T mean you’re always just on the cusp of a nosedive. 

Relapse happens. 

It’s nobody’s fault. It doesn’t mean you did something “wrong.” It doesn’t mean your progress was “phony.” 

What does it mean, then? Well, it could mean lots of things. 

It could mean you encountered a trigger that you didn’t expect, didn’t know was a trigger, or were underprepared for. 

It could mean that because you’ve achieved a certain level of symptomatic stability, your brain considers it “safe” to let you remember things you’d previously been dissociating— and the shock of that switch threw you for a loop. 

It could mean that you had a stressful life event that temporarily overwhelmed your ability to cope. 

It could mean that you just underestimated your ability to withstand a specific stressor or trigger that, on paper, you thought you had licked. 

There are a lot of reasons why we might relapse after a period of stability or recovery— even a long period of stability or recovery. 

The key, as always, is not to let a relapse freak us out. 

The key is to remember that, once we relapse, we can’t take it back— it happened. 

The key is to pick ourselves up as soon as we can, and start employing the tools and skills we can remember. 

And above all, the key is not to let a relapse convince us of things that are not true. 

Because a relapse is not the end of the world. 

It is a bump in the road. 

it might be a painful, jarring, even damaging bump in the road— but it does not have to flip the car over. 

Think of it this way: when you’re in a fender bender after years of safe driving, do you then pull the car over and set fire to it? 

No. That’d be an overreaction. 

It’s the same with relapse. A fender bender— or even a worse accident— is no fun, and we do everything we can to avoid having them. But when accidents do happen, regardless of why they happen, regardless of how irritated we are that they happened, regardless of how damaged the fender is…we take the car into the shop to get it fixed. 

Easy does it. 

A relapse does not invalidate you or your recovery. 

Just do the next right thing. 

 

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The other day, I posted a simple statement: “The world is better with you here— and it would miss you if you weren’t.” 

And something happened in response to that post that I think we all need to pay attention to. 

Many people responded by saying “thank you.” 

But others responded by objecting to the premise of the post. 

They said that they doubted that anyone would miss them if they weren’t here. 

They said they doubted the world was better for their continued existence. 

Their responses to that post demonstrate how cruel we can be to ourselves. 

They demonstrate how thoroughly we can buy into old programming. 

And maybe most importantly, they demonstrate why we cannot always trust our feelings…because feelings are not facts. 

There are times you may feel worthless. 

There are times you may feel like you do not contribute to the world. 

There may even be times when you feel the world would be better off without you. 

Those are not facts. 

Everyone deserves to be here— whether they feel that way or not. 

Everyone makes a contribution to the world— whether they feel that they do or not. 

Feelings are not facts. 

The problem with some feelings is that they are based on old conditioning. 

They are based on the feedback we got, often when we were young, from people who didn’t realize what they were programming into our brains…or maybe they did, but they didn’t have our best interests (or even the truth) in mind. 

It was, and is, heartbreaking to me that someone, anyone, feels like they do not “deserve” to continue existing. 

And even beyond that: it makes me angry. 

Not at anyone who thinks they don’t contribute to the world, mind you. Nobody asked for that programming. 

It makes me angry at the people who were SUPPOSED to nurture and support them. 

It makes me angry at the people who were either so careless or so mean in what they said and did, that a kid grew up to be an adult who believed they were born to suffer. 

It makes me angry that there are people out there who have to fight, every single day, against the programming they received when they were young. 

It isn’t right. 

It isn’t fair. 

What I want is a world in which people can truly accept that because they feel something, doesn’t make it so. 

Feelings are one source of information— but they are not an infallible guide to what’s real. 

And feelings are DEFINITELY not a reliable guide to what’s real when you’ve grown up without the support that human beings need to function well. 

Please do not believe the voice in your head that questions your worth or your right to exist. 

It is the voice of old programming. And it is lying to you. 

 

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We are not “creating drama” when we set boundaries. 

In fact, setting boundaries is an effort to head off drama. 

Real drama— that is, unnecessary, unpredictable, turbulent ups and downs— is nurtured by the absence of boundaries and accountability. 

A lot of people are uncomfortable with boundaries and accountability. 

To them, boundaries and accountability are concepts that smack of restriction and punitiveness. 

And they are right, to a certain extent. 

When we set boundaries with and insist on accountability from the people in our lives, we ARE placing restrictions on them…that is if they want to be in our lives. 

We are saying to them, “if you want to be in my life, there are some things you cannot do.” 

If that is a statement that rubs somebody the wrong way, or if that is a statement that someone cannot live with…it may not be the worst thing to not have them in our lives. 

Many of us, in our modern world, have become kind of addicted to drama. 

There’s a part of many of us that actually LIKES the dramatic ups and downs. 

There’s a part of many of us that likes the unpredictability. 

When you ask people to describe their ideal relationship, many of them will include among those descriptions that their ideal relationship would be “exciting.” 

If you look to our popular entertainment, you’ll see that for centuries, humans have loved stories of complicated relationships that are not infrequently as painful as they are nurturing. 

For a long time, many peoples’ description of ideal love has been one in which the other person fulfills a ridiculous number of idealized roles in someone’s life. 

Conversely, when you ask many people what they want to avoid in their relationships, a common answer is they want to avoid being “bored.” 

Popular entertainment and social media seem to compound these instincts, and glorify versions of relationships and “love” that are, above all…dramatic. 

Don’t get me wrong: relationships are complicated enough by nature. 

Human beings are complicated enough by nature. 

I’m not saying that all complicated relationship dynamics are a result of humans’ unhealthy, unnecessary appetite for drama. 

But I do think that many people underestimate the extent to which they invite unnecessary, painful drama into their lives by how they conceptualize their own lives and how they think about their relationship needs and preferences. 

If you think of your life an epic poem…don’t be shocked when ogres appear in it. 

If you think of your ideal relationship as a potential fairy tale…don’t be shocked when dragons and witches appear in your life as frequently as knights. 

How can we avoid veering toward the unnecessarily dramatic when thinking about our lives and relationships? 

First thing’s first: we need to think about what we need in our lives in practical, everyday terms. 

Our lives are not epic poems or fairy tales. 

We need things other than passion and hyper-connection in our relationships. 

The relationship that may be healthiest for us probably won’t be perfect. It might not always be exciting. It certainly will not fulfill every one of our needs at all times. 

And that’s okay. 

Cutting down on the drama in our lives by setting boundaries, expecting accountability, and revising our romantic thinking about relationships is not always fun. 

But it is the pathway to less anxiety, more productivity, and ultimately more peace and energy. 

It’s a tradeoff that is worth it. 

 

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If we are going to win at life— if we are truly going to achieve meaningful goals and live well considered values— then we need to submit. 

We need to play by certain rules. 

We need to be accountable— to ourselves, and likely to another person as well. 

Those who are categorically unwilling to submit rarely achieve their goals— if ever. 

Achieving goals isn’t peripherally about discipline— it’s entirely about discipline. 

We only ever achieve goals if we’re willing to regularly do things that we’d maybe prefer not to do. 

When we’re melting down, we don’t FEEL like using our tools and skills. 

When we’re presented with a pleasurable activity, we often don’t FEEL like passing it up in order to do the thing that will nudge us toward our goals. 

When we’re tired, we often don’t FEEL like pressing on. 

When we do the things we need to do to achieve our goals and live our values DESPITE the fact that we don’t feel like doing them— when we submit to the necessity of doing those things regardless of whatever we’re feeling in the moment— that’s when, paradoxically, we achieve freedom. 

The only way to achieve meaningful freedom is through submission— but not just any submission. 

For submission and discipline to be empowering tools for us, they must be thoughtful. 

They must be intentional. 

They must be chosen from a place of autonomy and personal power— not forced on us by someone trying to coerce or bully or exploit us. 

Many of us have complicated histories with the concepts of submission and discipline. 

For many of us, especially those who survived trauma or abuse, those words trigger old feelings and reactions linked to times in the past when certain people tried to manipulate, smother, or use us. 

Many trauma survivors then grow up to decide that, because unchosen submission and discipline were used to harm them in the past, that they’re not going to allow those concepts anywhere near their lives as adults. 

It’s a survival impulse— and a very understandable one, at that. 

Sometimes some people express frustration at how “stubborn” trauma survivors are? This is one of the reasons why. They’re not trying to frustrate the people around them; they’re reacting to what they went through at the hands of monsters in their past. 

Part of reclaiming your life, is reclaiming your right— and your responsibility— to choose how submission and discipline are going to function in your life. 

You’re an autonomous adult now. 

You get to CHOOSE who or what gets your submission now. 

You get to CHOOSE how the tools of discipline and accountability are going to function in your life. 

Submission, when it is not chosen, can be poisonous. It can psychologically cripple a person. It’s what the condition “complex post traumatic stress disorder” is all about. 

In order to recover, we must make peace with the concepts of submission, discipline, and accountability. 

We need to reclaim those concepts from our pasts. 

We need to recognize these tools as the fundamental tools for personal development that they are— when they are chosen and engaged thoughtfully, intentionally, and congruently with one’s core values. 

In order to live the life we want to live, we really have to submit. We really do have to play by the rules. 

But we get to choose what outcomes are worth making those sacrifices for. 

We get to choose if and how we’re going to value something enough to submit. 

We get to choose to whom and how to be accountable. 

Thoughtful, intentional, values-driven submission is the opposite of slavery. 

It’s the only thing that truly sets us free. 

 

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It’s true that we very often have to make poor decisions, and work through the consequences of those decisions, before we have the data and the experience to make better decisions. 

It’s true that, as the saying goes, good judgment is the result of experience, and experience is often he result of bad judgment. 

But that doesn’t mean we should head out TRYING to make poor decisions just for the sake of the “experience.” 

That doesn’t mean our decision making should be impulsive or half baked. 

There is a certain kind of motivational speaker who really wants us to believe that “leaders make quick decisions,” even with “incomplete information.” 

That “leaders” can afford to make and act on these quick decisions, because they are also committed to assessing the consequences of their decisions, making adjustments, and making better decisions. 

Supposedly this mindset is the antidote to the paralyzed overthinker, who never makes a true decision because they’re worried about risk. 

Every single time I see this viewpoint advocated in self-help circles, I want to ask the person who is promoting it: “Do you really think it’s that simple?” 

I do not happen to think it’s that simple. 

I do not think more damage is done by people taking an extra breath, taking some extra time, and being more thoughtful about their decisions. 

I do not think that most people suffer more from the paralysis of overthinking, than they do from the consequences of impulsive, half-baked, emotionally driven decision making. 

The fact is, MOST people make MOST of their decisions fairly impulsively. 

They do this because they don’t feel like our modern world gives them a chance to breathe, let alone do serious, nuanced thinking (let alone soul searching!) about their decisions. 

Most people face a great deal of pressure every day. 

Pressure to “be” a certain person. 

Pressure to achieve certain things. 

Pressure to make a certain amount of money. 

Pressure to weigh a certain amount or fit into certain sizes of clothing. 

Most people live in a pressure cooker…and that pressure cooker does NOT lend itself to reflective, focused, values-driven decision making. 

Thus it baffles me that motivational speakers— especially those who do not have training in the behavioral sciences— think that most peoples’ problem is that they’re being TOO deliberate in their decision making. 

A big part of my job is to get people to be MORE thoughtful, MORE nuanced, and MORE deliberate in their decision making. 

If you’re reading this, you’ve likely felt a great deal of pressure throughout your life. 

You’ve maybe developed a lot of defense mechanisms to cope with that pressure— some of which have served you well, some of which may have created more problems than they’ve solved. 

What I want you to know is that you can develop the skill of slowing down. 

You can develop the skill of pushing the pause button. 

You can develop the skill of stepping away from the pressure cooker. 

It’s not easy, especially in our culture, and no one’s saying it is. 

But do NOT fall into the trap of believing that your desire to pause, to think, to consider, to check in with your goals and values and experiences, are actually part of the problem. 

Those instincts are not part of the problem. 

They are, quite literally, the solution.  

 

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Grieving takes as long as it takes, and it’s as hard as it is. 

We can’t rush grieving. 

Many people try to rush it. They think they can wait grief out by refusing to acknowledge it. 

Not acknowledging grief does nothing but prolong it. 

We grieve when we lose people. 

We grieve when we lose pets. 

We grieve when we lose well-established relationships or experience changes in well-entrenched life patterns. 

Grief is the mind’s and the body’s way of processing loss. 

When we lose things that are important to us, we’re not just sad that those things are no longer there. 

Loss forces us to look, squarely in the eye, the reality of the passage of time. 

The reality that everything is temporary. 

The reality that we will never be able to settle into a routine indefinitely, because the only fundamental constant in the world really is change. 

Loss reminds us of dreams and ambitions and plans we once had. 

Loss reminds us of relationships and bonds we once had. 

Loss reminds us of past times, both good and bad…but which are gone forever. 

Grief is how we try to deal with being reminded of all of those things…and how we begin to accept the loss of those things. 

Our brains struggle with the concept of “acceptance.” 

When we experience something that is painful, we’re not great at accepting the reality that that painful thing even exists. Our first instinct is to reject the reality of that thing, in a futile hope that our rejection of it may cause it to not exist. 

Things exist whether or not we accept them. 

Loss definitely exists whether or not we accept its reality. 

Grief is a series of emotional reactions that help us bridge that gap between wanting to deny that loss exists, or that loss is painful…and the reality of needing to accept that loss simply is. 

Refusing to let yourself grieve, because you fear the pain involved, is a cruel thing to do to yourself. 

The pain of loss exists whether or not you allow yourself to grieve. 

But trying to deny and disown that pain leaves you feeling fundamentally unseen and unheard. 

If we are to consider ourselves important, we need to consider all parts of us important— including our pain. 

If we are to build self-esteem, we need to listen to ourselves. 

We need to console ourselves. 

We need to honor our pain— which is different from celebrating or glorifying our pain. 

Grief will not kill you. 

But trying to hold back your grief— your true feelings— for a prolonged period of time will do violence to your emotional health. 

It’s impossible to be at peace with yourself, or the world, if you’re actively trying to deny and disown an experience as powerful as grief. 

Loss is hard to accept. 

But trying to ignore the feelings it causes is not an option. 

Part of you carries that pain, whether you acknowledge it or not. 

And not acknowledging the pain of loss is an excellent way to develop a relationship with yourself that involves a lot of resentment and distrust. 

Be kind to yourself. Be compassionate toward yourself. 

Acknowledge your grief. 

Give yourself what you need to grieve. 

Take the time you need to grieve. 

 

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If your plan for building a life of happiness and satisfaction is to please everyone else— or, at least, avoid displeasing everyone else— there are a few things you should know. 

One, it’s not going to work. 

And two, you really will lose yourself in that project. 

Building a large chunk of your identity on making other people happy just doesn’t work, for a variety of reasons. 

For starters, what pleases other people tends to change and vary. Often unpredictably. 

What pleased someone one day, may not please them the next day. 

And what pleases one important person in your life, may not please another. 

Your very best case scenario is that you’re constantly left trying to shift back and forth, frantically trying to adapt to what you think will please most of the people in your life, most of the time…and never fully succeeding, due to the impossible, futile nature of the task. 

Not to mention, you’ll only ever be kind of guessing at what pleases others, anyway. 

You can’t read other peoples’ minds. All you really can do is try to discern their likes and dislikes from the feedback they give you…and even then you’re still operating at a disadvantage. 

Basing your personal identity on guesswork and projection is a bad idea. Not to mention an exhausting and depressing idea. 

And all that is aside from the fact that you really will lose your sense of personal identity and integrity if you build your life around trying to build other people. 

Self-esteem is literally the esteem in which we hold ourselves. It involves our own perception of our ability to accomplish things in the world (self-efficacy), and our own perception of whether we deserve good things to happen to us (self-worth). 

If you’re out there trying to please everybody, all the time, your self-esteem is going to crumble. 

Your sense of self-efficacy will take a hit, because you simply won’t be able to please enough people, enough of the time, to scratch the itch you’re trying to scratch. 

Your sense of self-worth will take a hit, because it will begin to feel very conditional— i.e., you won’t feel as if you’re worthy of happiness unless you can make other people happy. 

Trying to please everyone else, as a life strategy, is just an unworkable proposition from front to back. 

I know, you may feel you NEED to please everyone else. 

You may feel the only way to stay SAFE is to try to please everyone else. 

You may even feel pressure from other people to devote your life to pleasing everyone else. 

But building real self-esteem— and the real capacity for satisfaction and enjoyment in your life— is going to mean giving up your addiction to the approval of others. 

Like every addictive substance, approval is a drug that can turn deadly if it becomes your only way to feel good. 

Like every addictive substance, approval can rob you of options in your life. 

Like every addictive substance, approval makes false promises about what it means and what its value is. 

When you feel the obsessive pull to please others, get in the habit of pushing the pause button. 

Get some breathing room. Take a moment. 

Get some space between stimulus and response. 

And, if necessary in that moment, go back and read this blog entry from the top. 

Remind yourself of why people-pleasing, in the end, doesn’t work as a life strategy. 

Pushing that pause button within yourself, and reminding yourself of the real factors involved, is a skill. 

Use it. As often as you need to. 

 

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You don’t need to “decide” how you feel in any given circumstance. 

Many people put pressure on themselves to “make up their minds” about how they feel. 

They’ve been convinced that they only get to feel one way or another about a person or a situation. 

That if they’re angry, that means they can’t also feel sad. 

Or if they’re sad, they can’t also feel grateful. 

Or if they’re grateful, they can’t also feel annoyed. 

So they try really hard to figure out how they “should” feel about something or in a given situation, and then they do everything they can to deny, disown, or limit their awareness of any other feelings they might have. 

The thing is: emotions don’t like to be denied or disowned. 

They exist for a reason: to be felt, and sometimes expressed. 

And if we’re consciously trying to deny them the opportunity to be felt or expressed, because we’ve decided we “shouldn’t” be feeling them…they WILL find a way to make themselves “heard.” 

People who have Dissociative Identity Disorder know firsthand how this works. They’ve unconsciously sequestered certain feelings and memories into different “parts” of themselves, which they then go out of their way to not acknowledge. 

(They don’t do this on purpose; it’s a process that happens instinctively, because certain feelings and memories are too overwhelming for their conscious minds to deal with.) 

The way people with DID get better is by learning what they’ve unconsciously sequestered away in their “parts,” and developing the coping tools and skills necessary to handle those feelings and memories (i.e., without having to hide them away in their “parts”). 

People with DID get better to the extent that they accept that denying and disowning their feelings and memories is no longer an option— that if they truly want to function without their “parts” screaming for attention from the inside, they need to acknowledge and communicate with the “parts” of themselves that may feel, remember, and “hold” a variety of intense, perhaps painful things.

This same process— of acknowledging and accepting everything we’re feeling and experiencing, regardless of whether it’s the “right” thing to feel at a given moment— is something we all need to get good at. 

Different parts of us are going to feel different things. 

It doesn’t mean we’re crazy. 

We can’t treat our mixed feelings as if they are crazy. 

We need to acknowledge and accept everything we’re experiencing and feeling with compassion and care— even if we don’t quite understand it, or even if we’re not thrilled with it.

Denying and disowning feelings and experiences is a surefire way to make sure they will not leave us alone. 

It’s important for everybody reading this to realize that there is no rule that says you HAVE to feel only ONE thing about a situation or a person. 

Human beings are complex. Situations are complex. You are complex. 

Your past is complex, and your future likely will be as well. 

We need to get used to the idea that we’re going to be of different minds about many things…and that we can accept and get curious about those different minds, without the pressure to “decide” what we feel. 

All the “parts” of you have something valuable and important to say. 

They all need your attention. 

They all need your care. 

They need your time, and they need your patience. 

To the extent that you can manage the anxiety that comes with not feeling one “correct” feeling about every situation or person, and instead listen to what ALL of your parts have to say, you’re not going to have to worry about the “parts” of you clawing their way into your awareness. 

Your “parts” will come to trust you and wait their turn…if you give them reason to trust you. 

Listen to them, respect them, and communicate with them. 

They want to help. 

But they’re really hard to manage if they feel neglected or ignored. 

 

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You don’t have to LIKE doing the things you need to do in therapy or recovery. 

You don’t need to find them EASY. 

You don’t need to find them interesting, exciting, or fun. 

You just need to do them- and do them consistently. 

The fact is, therapy and recovery (recovery from addiction, trauma, depression, anxiety, or anything else) will probably ask you to do some things that don’t come naturally to you. 

If you’re recovering from depression, therapy will ask you to put the brakes on your self-downing internal dialogue and reality test your distorted cognitions. 

People who are suffering from depression usually don’t WANT to do these things. 

Not only do they take effort— and depressed people very often don’t have physical or emotional energy to spare— but they also ask a depressed person to consider the idea that what they’re thinking and telling themselves isn’t accurate. 

No one likes to swim upstream against the current of their own thinking, even if it IS distorted and contributing to depression in the moment. 

But that’s the thing: if you’re depressed, you don’t have to LIKE talking back to your self-downing and distorted thoughts. 

You just have to DO it. 

If you’re recovering from trauma, therapy will ask you to take a step back from the overwhelming things you’re feeling, and use certain skills and tools to make sure you’re fully present instead of dissociating. 

People who have been traumatized often don’t WANT to be present— and who can blame them? MOST people would choose to float away via dissociation rather than stay present with painful memories and wounded parts of themselves. 

But, again, that’s the thing: if you’ve been traumatized, you don’t have to LIKE using tools and skills to stay grounded and manage the various parts of yourself who hold those painful memories. 

You just have to DO it. 

Understand: when I say that people who are depressed or traumatized don’t WANT to do the things that will ultimately help them feel better, I’m not at all saying they’re just being oppositional or “difficult.” 

I think people don’t WANT to do the things therapy and recovery ask of them because those things can be scary. 

They can seem like HUGE, exhausting, intimidating tasks. 

If the tasks of therapy and recovery were EASY, most people would be doing them already. They wouldn’t need a therapist or a support network or recovery system. 

That is to say: I don’t blame anyone for not WANTING to do the things recovery asks. 

But I can also assure you: unless you’re willing to risk doing things in therapy and recovery that don’t come natural, that seem intimidating, or that feel tiring…you’re going to have a hard time making progress. 

The good news is: once you START doing these things? They actually get easier. 

You get better at them. 

And, as the tools and skills start to work, you begin to feel better— which, in turn, makes it easier and easier to use those tools and skills. 

It can be a slow process, and a process that is awkward, tiring, and uncomfortable, especially at first. 

But the pain involved with doing therapy and recovery tasks, in the long run, is nothing compared to the pain of continuing to let trauma, depression, addiction, or anxiety beat you up. 

Take the risk of doing things you don’t want to do. Things that don’t come naturally. 

Risk it a little at a time.

Nudge forward. 

You don’t have to enjoy it. 

You just have to DO it. 

 

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