When We Are Filled With Horror

One of the goals of therapy is to help you stay "in the zone" or in what clinician's call the Window of Tolerance.  This is where you feel calm and focused - or at least able to handle whatever difficulty you are facing.

Why we're not "in the zone"

After prolonged stress or trauma, our margins get smaller and smaller.  So does our Window of Tolerance.  When that happens, it's easy to get irritated or go numb when relatively minor things happen: someone cutting you off in traffic, losing your keys, someone appearing less interested in talking to you today, your child spilling their drink, etc.  They're small things - when you have enough margin, you are able to handle them with relative equanimity.  But when your margins are depleted, it's easy to get upset over small things.

That's been true for many of us due to the COVID-19 quarantine - it's prolonged stress that depletes our margins.  Systemic racism, abuse, and prolonged financial stress are also factors that reduce our margins.

How therapy helps

First, therapy helps you widen your Window of Tolerance.  It helps you increase your margins.  It doesn't mean you won't get upset in the future, but it means that usually you will be able to remain in the Window of Tolerance while you are upset.

Second, in therapy you can process the difficult things that would have sent you out of your Window of Tolerance in the past.  A common misconception of therapy is that you will have to re-live all the gruesome details of your painful experiences.  If that's what happens in therapy, of course you're not going to want to come to therapy.  Who wants to do that?

In therapy, you will probably have to face the difficult things you've experienced in order to heal, but it's different because the therapist is there to help you stay regulated you so you don't get flooded with emotion.  You also don't have to go into every detail.  The point is to reduce your emotional intensity around the trauma and change your view of yourself that has been negatively affected by the trauma.  Many therapists, such as myself, use techniques such as EMDR, that help your body remain calm while you're processing, so that you feel like you're able to face and clear out the painful things instead of getting lost in them or overwhelmed by them.  By clearing these out, you are widening your Window of Tolerance and reducing the power of the triggers that could send you into fight/flight/freeze mode.

When it's time for you to get counseling support, please have a conversation with your therapist about their philosophy and modes of intervention to clarify how they specifically help you stay in your Window of Tolerance.

If you'd like to learn more, please contact me.  I have a few more slots available for new patients.  I'd love to hear from you.

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We are all becoming familiar with loss in the era of the coronavirus pandemic. The loss of the trip you were looking forward to.  The loss of the marathon you finally signed up for.  The loss of community, of touch.  The loss of alone-time to process.  The loss of a loved one you couldn't say goodbye to in person.

You can't grieve discounted losses.  All the little things you have told yourself are not important enough to grieve.  All the compound losses that others invalidate because they're not "big" enough losses to count.  You can't grieve them until you name them.

Invalidating and discounting your losses will not help you get over them.  You have to go through them.  You have to name them, grieve them, and find space for gratitude and humor.  Grieving is not an obstacle to gratitude.  Grieving makes way for gratitude.

One of my major losses during the pandemic was the loss of any alone-time to process.  I have that back now that my daughter's daycare re-opened.  And now I have time to acknowledge my losses and grieve them.  As you have the space to do so, I invite you to do the same.  Name your losses.  Also name the things that are keeping you going.  You need both to be whole.

If you'd like to explore this further, you can listen to the podcast that inspired this post.  It's geared towards therapists but I think applies to all of us. If you'd like to process and name your losses in person, please contact me for a session.

We all want to feel more self-confident.  We do our best to face scary situations bravely whether we feel brave or not.   We try to be true to ourselves and trust our intuition.

I want to give you a way to open up, face life, and feel less afraid.  I want you to feel strong, to feel safe, and to face life with arms wide open.  We need times of retreat and comfort, but we also need times of reaching out to embrace all  life has to offer.

Today I am offering you a way to experience self-confidence on a bodily level.  A way to tune in to yourself.  A way to open your heart.

I first experienced the power of embodied confidence through a yoga class I attended years ago designed around the theme of heart-openers.  Just like our thoughts and beliefs affect our feelings and actions, our bodies also affect our feelings and actions.  It is the place we hold stress and trauma.  Trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has written about this in his book The Body Keeps the Score.  He talks about how body practices like yoga can release the trauma that's stored in the body.  You can listen to him talk more about this here.

Yoga is one tool for living more embodied lives.  And it is the tool we are using today to make confidence feel more real and alive to you.  Try them all out.  Then you can create your own sequence of your favorite poses or pick one favorite one to do each morning.  I hope you are able to experience an increased sense of confidence just as I did when I discovered these resources.

Some mantras you can think about while you do these poses include:

• I am strong
• I am whole
• I am enough
• I am loved
• I am confident
• I am brave

Heart-opener Poses for Self-Confidence

Thank you to therapist, yoga instructor, and wellness speaker, Melissa Garner, LMHC, RYT, at Self-Haven for collaborating with me on this post.  See is the one you will see in all the photographs below demonstrating the heart-opening poses.  Reminder before you try these poses: Only do poses that feel comfortable for your body and positive for you emotionally.  Let's get started.

Seated Poses

Spinal twist (do both sides)

Seated back bend

Reverse plank

Table-top

Kneeling Poses

Camel pose - variation

Camel pose

Gate pose

Standing Poses

Mountain Pose

Back bend

Low lunge with back bend - arms up

Low lunge with back bend - arms back

Humble warrior

Reverse warrior

Extended side angle

Extended side angle variation

Wild thing (From downward dog, lift one leg into 1-legged dog, then "flip your dog" by allowing that foot to open up and find the floor. Extended your free hand over your head.)

Dancer

Goddess

Child's pose

Child's pose

Child's pose - variation

Laying Poses

Cobra

Sphinx

Locust

Bow

Fish

Fish - legs raised

Bridge

Resting pose (with bolster perpendicular to body)

Resting pose (with bolster parallel with body)

Seated goddess

Seated Meditation

Mudra of unshakable trust (This mudra represents unshakeable self-confidence, inner strength, and faith in something greater.) Take a few minutes to be still, focus on your breath, and reflect on your inner strength. Thank yourself for taking the time to do this practice.

How do you feel?  What was this experience like for you?  Which poses were your favorite?  Choose some to do on a regular basis.  Also identify ones that you can use throughout the day to reset and tune in to your strength.  I'd love to hear your favorites and how they helped you.  You can reach me at catherine@cqcounseling.com.

If this was helpful and you want more options for yoga poses, you can access yoga poses for depression here.

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Do you find your self apologizing all the time - for things that you don't even need to apologize for?  Do you measure the validity of your actions by others' reactions?  Do you feel like you need to fix the problem even when you weren't the cause?

You're Not Alone

If you feel this way, you are not alone.  So many of us default to this pattern without even realizing it's happened.  I want you to think about whether you're happy with the status quo.  I invite you to think about what you gain and what you lose by living this way.  Take a minute to think about or jot down what you gain and what you lose before you continue reading.What did you discover?  How did examining this pattern affect your outlook on yourself and what you want in life?Here are some of my thoughts on what you might gain and lose by continuing this pattern:

What you might gain:

• Holding on to a relationship
• Avoiding conflict in an interaction
• Avoiding tension in a relationship
• Feeling like you've gained some control by taking on the responsibility

On the other hand, what have you lost?

• You don't know who you are anymore
• You're exhausted from trying to make things okay for everyone else
• You don't feel heard or valued
• It's hard to get your own needs met
• You feel resentful or trapped

We usually resist change until we discover that it feels like we're losing more than we're benefiting.  I invite you to consider empowering yourself by letting go of some of the responsibility.  You can be valued and heard.  Your opinion and voice matter just as much as someone else's.  It's not your job to make things okay for everyone else.  You can be nice and stand up for yourself.  They are not mutually exclusive.  It's not always your fault or your responsibility.  You have the power to be assertive.  You only need to take responsibility for your own feelings and actions.

When you're starting to make this shift, you can examine your thoughts and reactions to help you know where you are on the responsibility spectrum, then move yourself towards the middle where you are only taking responsibility for yourself.

You will be most likely to find yourself reverting to taking on all the responsibility when you are dealing with someone who wants to absolve themself of all responsibility and put it on you.  If you come in contact with someone like this frequently, it can be helpful to write down this person's common phrases, and think through what is really true and what you would want to tell yourself and them in those situations.  Some example statements that indicate the person you're talking to is in the "it's always your responsibility" camp:

• I wouldn't have been doing _______(insert relevant phrase: e.g. driving home drunk) if you had just ________(e.g. woken up at 3 a.m. to get me).
• If you had done ________ differently, I wouldn't have had to yell at you...
• It's not my fault. You know how I am.  If you had just _________, I wouldn't have done ________.

Now, review those statements and replace what's true - using the lens that you are only responsible for your own feelings and actions.  You can use this to not fall into the trap of making excuses for them and going along with their BS.  Make sure you're safe before you express this out loud to the person.  Evaluate whether it's worth staying in relationship with someone who is frequently trying to place all the blame and responsibility on you.

Next steps:

• Learn more about why you take on too much responsibility and what to do about it.
• Consider individual therapy if you would like support on your journey.  You can reach me at catherine@cqcounseling.com.  

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Up to that point, I had been trying to understand and fix my problems by trying harder, pushing myself harder, and trying to motivate myself by being really hard on myself.  That may sounds pretty familiar because there are a lot of us who have lived that way.  And if that's true, you probably already guessed what happened next - I reached a point where that stopped working.

Learning the Enneagram was like turning on a light switch.  I was able to see where I was in the endless cycle of going around and around in circles.  It opened a door to escape that unending hamster wheel.  The Enneagram was not the only tool that provided insight for me in that process, but it was one of the most impactful parts of my growth.  It gave me a new framework to understand myself and the world.

What is the Enneagram?

So, what is the Enneagram?  It's a framework of the 9 types of personalities we see in the world.  It's more than just a list of behaviors that people display in certain situations.  The Enneagram deals with the level of our deepest motivations, desires, and needs.  It helps you see clearly both your superpower and your Achilles heel, which are two sides of the same coin.  It helps you recognize the self-image that you have created for yourself - the one that brings you pride and protection, but at some point also begins to feel confining and limiting.

The Enneagram is not meant to put a label on or stereotype anyone.  It is for personal insight and growth.  As Enneagram teacher Ian Cron says, "The Enneagram doesn't put you in a box.  It shows you the box you're in."  And as I shared from my own experience, it shows you the way out of that box - out of the negative patterns.  It provides a level of understanding that makes all that effort you're putting into change effective.  The Enneagram teaches you how to counter the unhealthy tendencies of your personality so you can find a different way to fix the problem.

The Enneagram can also help you understand and connect better with others close to you. When you realize that maybe their underlying motivation and way of seeing the world is different from yours, you can find ways to benefit both parties involved. 

The Enneagram has so many amazing facets and layers of understanding. Here are some examples:

Basic Needs

As you may have gathered from previous posts, I am passionate about understanding your needs and meeting them.  The Enneagram provides another level of insight into our needs.  Once we can recognize our underlying needs, we can make choices about them instead of compulsively trying to meet them without realizing how they are affecting us.The core needs the Enneagram highlights are:

1. To be right or to be perfect
2. To help others and be seen as helpful and generous
3. To be successful (or to win) and recognized as successful (a winner)
4. To be unique/special and to be understood for who you are
5. To perceive/understand
6. To be loyal and do your duty
7. To be happy
8. To be strong and protected
9. To be content/at peace

Underlying Motivations

One of the gifts of the Enneagram is helping you understand your underlying motivations in life.  This is similar to our underlying unmet needs, but with a different twist.  Understanding underlying motivations is helpful for self-understanding and also compassion and understanding for others.  You can more easily meet the needs of yourself and others you're in contact with if you understand where you are both coming from, or at least recognize that the other person is seeing the world through a different lens and working to fulfill a different motivation.  For example, maybe your motivation is to get it right feels at odds with a coworker's motivation, which is to complete the task efficiently and move on.   Or you might see this in situations where one person's motivation is to have a harmonious team while another's motivation is to be as honest and upfront as possible.  If you have this perspective and insight, you can work together to fulfill both your motivations more effectively, or at least have an easier time finding compromise.

Ways of Relating with the World: Thinking, Feeling, Doing

We all think, feel, and act everyday of our lives.  But I would wager that one comes more naturally to you and feels like your sweet spot.  Once you know this, you can have understanding and compassion when someone wants to lean more heavily on a different way.  And you can balance each other out instead of leaving exasperated.

Orientation to Time: Past, Present, Future

Each of us is naturally more oriented to one of these timeframes.  If you are a "Just Do It!" kind of person, you might be in the future oriented triad.  If you are in the past orientation, for example, you may be trying to teach your child using only examples from the past and your child may have already figured out the problem and be ready to move on because they're in a different basic orientation to time. (Caveat: you may have theories about your child's Enneagram number, but only your child can say what number they are for sure, and their personality has only solidified enough by young adulthood to do this.)

Social Style: Aggressive, Dependent, Withdrawing

We each have a different ways we feel most comfortable relating with others.  This is the strategy we use in relating with others to get our needs met.  Some people focus their energy outward to set the tone of their environment and more forcefully demand what they want.  Some focus on being attuned to and responsive to others.  They are often focused on being of service to others.  And some pull back from stressful or taxing environments to evaluate or recharge.

Finding Balance

The Enneagram helps us find balance.  One of the ways it does this is by helping us understand what we need in order to deal effectively with stress and what we need in order to feel secure.  We actually take aspects from other types to help us find this balance.

Unconscious Messages from Childhood

We all have certain beliefs about ourselves that we formed in childhood.  Part of the way we form our personality is by reacting to these beliefs in such a way that we feel better about ourselves.  Here are the core wounding messages for each number and the lost messages that bring healing.

1. It's not okay to make mistakes > You are good
2. It's not okay to have your own needs > You are wanted
3. It's not okay to have your own feelings and identity > You are loved for yourself
4. It's not okay to be too functional or too happy > You are seen for who you are
5. It's not okay to be comfortable in the world > Your needs are not a problem
6. It's not okay to trust yourself > You are safe
7. It's not okay to depend on anyone for anything > You will be taken care of
8. It's not okay to be vulnerable or to trust anyone > You will not be betrayed
9. It's not okay to assert yourself > Your presence matters

(Riso and Hudson, The Wisdom of the Enneagram p. 31, 34)

How Do I Figure Out My Type?

There are lots of tests out there to help you figure out your dominant personality type, but I think the best way to learn your type is to read about it and see what fits.  The Honest Enneagram is the place I recommend starting.  You can read a short list of what it feels like to be each number and see which one feels like it fits the best.  Then read the chapter about that number more in depth.  Finding your core messages as listed above can be powerful indicators of which type you are.  The description where you feel most vulnerable is probably the best indication of which type you are dominant in.

Next Steps on Your Enneagram Journey

There are lots of great resources out there about the Enneagram.  On Instagram, check out Enneagram and Coffee with Sarajane Case.  For an Enneagram podcast, try Typology with Ian Morgan Cron or The Art of Growth.  And as I mentioned, my favorite book to start the journey is The Honest Enneagram.  If you have any favorites, I'd love to hear about them.

Because exploring the Enneagram unveils both your greatest strength and your shadow side, it can be a tender place of self-knowledge that leads to growth.  I recommend exploring this with lots of self-compassion and in a community that provides support.  Individual therapy or a supportive group environment might be helpful to you if you choose to journey down the path of Enneagram wisdom.  I will be leading an 8-week Enneagram growth group starting at the beginning of March 2020 in Pensacola, FL.  Now is the time to start booking your initial appointment before the group starts.  I am also available anytime for individual therapy sessions.  It would be a privilege to support you along this journey of healing and growth.

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