Say Yes To You

Written By Drew Coverdale

Words Of Encouragement

Here are some words of encouragement after a call with a client. The themes might be relevant to others, so I'm sharing.......

You've had a tough time over the past 18 months and even before that, but what shines through is your ability to recover.

You need to create the opportunity for that to happen again, and although you still have some current family stressors, if you could carve out some calmer moments for yourself, you'll see that recovery appears again.

Notice The Challenge

Rest, digest, feed and breed vs fight, flight, freeze and fawn.

Notice when you eat food, rest with your husband as he reads a book, or listen to calm music or yoga how that momentary calm lessens the symptoms.

These are unexpected things you notice, but you have to focus on things which consciously make those moments.

So yes, you can care for family members in your life and attend to them then, but outside those times, you have to commit to controlling any compulsion to give attention to those things when you're no longer there.

Easier Said Than Done

It's easier said than done because if you recognise the personality traits of hypervigilance, these provide behaviours of comfort and safety and are the quickest we tend to access when some sense of internal soothing is required.

These were the behaviours of protection often wired in childhood and played out exponentially in later life at other stressful times.

This means the intensity with which they are used eventually brings pain from overuse.

Why Pain Appears Where It Does

Why pain or symptoms appear where they do is a mystery but usually relates to a metaphor, an old injury, a repeated ailment or learned behaviour.

It's an expression of stress wired so that when the original stressor ends, it may still be triggered by other events with similar emotional charges.

A burning mouth or sore throat could well relate to not feeling able to speak or express yourself, and you indeed described how you felt the need to protect others in your family by not saying some of the things you wanted to say.

Reversing The Process

That doesn't mean you must dash around and tell everyone what you want to say.

Still, you must commit to expressing the emotion should that situation appear again and regulate your nervous system in a way that allows you to express how you feel healthily.

It doesn't have to be in the moment, but if not at the moment, you must metabolise that stress before suppression becomes embodied as it appears to have been in the past.

Healthy expression comes through how you think, breathe, move and feel.

Use Your Body As A Tool

You explained how your physical health is good, and that's an opportunity to use your body as a tool of expression.

You also experienced breathing today and could sense stress. The breath gives you a tool to use before, during, and after events. The thinking element is the rationale for creating time for yourself or the words you choose to say back to yourself.

That leaves the 'feel' section, and if blocking emotion and the expression of it has been a default, then you could see it as not unreasonable to allow yourself some words of kindness, at least as a start.

Kind Words Are Healthy

Saying kind words to yourself or talking about how you feel, at least to your husband or a friend, would also be a healthy outlet.

You don't need to talk about the past if you don't want to, and as it is the past and you've not been helped in doing that previously, it can be challenging to revisit.

The skill to develop is a mechanism where you speak what you feel; if that's hard, you could write what you think and rip that up. It's journaling called free writing, and you scribble anything that comes to mind about your feelings.

Make Recovery Fun

Make it as fun as possible if you want to use your voice and hear yourself speak when you usually don't.

Sing, put on the music that you felt was relaxing and hum to it.

Dance around the house in your pyjamas and scream ABBA to your heart's desires or ACDC, but allow yourself a voice.

Any or all of what I've listed may help, but it's your job and duty to feel free of the pressures you've put yourself under.

A Stressful Addiction

It's easy to say it's this thing or that thing which causes stress, but often it's the addiction to the stress chemical as a quick way to feel better internally; that means whenever a stressful event ends, the brain goes looking for another to take its place soon after.

Tracing that craving back to the reactions covering up thoughts, covering up that childhood sense of unease of not feeling enoughness, means the whole process is distilled down to attending to that internal sense of unease with love.

Say Yes To Attending To You

Yes, take care of and from others, but primarily and most importantly, take care of yourself.

You deserve it, you are worth it, and all that's left for you to do is say it.

The defining line from our chat today is what you need to do.

'If I could talk about it, I'd feel better.'

So talk about it, and I look forward to hearing how you get on.

What’s next?
Take Your First Step to Recovery.

Drew Coverdale
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