“Be mindful of your goals in each situation and do what is necessary to achieve them.” Pa Kou Vue, Fresno, CA therapist
I had an interesting conversation with my mother this morning. I told her, “I’m becoming myself.” She replied, “When were you ever yourself?” I nodded. She is correct. Childhood trauma caused me to adopt coping mechanisms for survival, and one of those was hiding my true self. I became someone I am not. I don’t remember making that choice. I was a mere toddler when my uncle began abusing me.
Dissociation helped me muddle my way through childhood. It propelled me to keep living out of my false self as an adult. At this point in my life, it is ineffective and holds me back from recovery. Living effectively is a skill. It is the latest one I learned about in therapy this week. Merriam-Webster defines effective as “producing a decided, decisive, or desired effect.”
To leave the false self behind, we have to fight the urges to use our ineffective coping mechanisms. Once we are far enough down the healing path, we can use the tools we picked up along the way. For example, tapping, meditation, deep breathing, and prayer are the tools I use to rewire my brain. I am picking up new skills through therapy. My therapist told me to ask myself if a particular thought or action would help me reach my goals. If not, practice urge surfing. Ride the waves of the urge. I put that into practice daily as I let go of binge eating. It has been around a month since I last binged.
Letting go
“Let go of willfulness,” my therapist said. I quickly scribbled the words in the notebook I carry to each therapy session. I acknowledged to myself that I can be very willful at times. I am stubborn and come from a long line of stubborn people. My forebears' stubbornness helped them survive pogroms in Russia and genocides in Armenia and the U.S. Being stubborn helped me survive sexual abuse as a young child. However, it does not serve me now. It keeps me stuck like a car trapped in the mud.
Willfulness is doing the opposite of what works. It is continuing to do the same behaviors that no longer serve me. Willfulness says, “I am fine where I am.” The opposite of it is flexibility. Recovery stretches us. We become elastic if we keep going down the path. Leaving the only way we know how to be and live requires tremendous flexibility. It will feel intensely uncomfortable, just as it can when we stretch our bodies. In those moments, we can take deep breaths and center ourselves, asking God to give us the strength we need.
“Perhaps we all need from time to time to dump out all that doesn’t stick, to let God like a great wind rim our head like an empty bowl.” Mark Nepo
Are you ready to embrace flexibility? Drop a comment and let me know.
Image by Omar Medina from Pixabay
Resources
The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo
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Absolutely letting go has been important for my recovery
So thankful for you dear Gina. Letting go is essential on this healing journey of life. Love you <3