The Slippery Slope of the Mind
Part Two of Two — Managing Life During COVID
Disclosure: I am not a trained or educated mental health professional. This article represents my own personal journey as I healed from my own challenges. If you are under a doctor’s care, all decisions made for your personal health should be discussed with your medical or health practitioner. The exercises and the links provided are all non-invasive and have experiential examples of success for thousands of individuals. If you have or know of a friend or loved one who suffers from severe mental health issues, is suicidal in any way, or whose well-being is threatened by mental health please reach out to https://www.mhanational.org Mental Health America, https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help. You can also get immediate assistance through Suicide Prevention Lifeline https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ . Another option when in crisis is to text 741741, where a live, trained Crisis Counselor responds quickly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the United States.
Energy Medicine with Donna Eden
In 1977, Donna Eden reached a point of crisis in her life. She had two small children. At 27 she had already had a heart attack and had been diagnosed with MS. Her international work in Energy Medicine was born out of her deep desire to live a long productive life and be there for her daughters and her husband.
My experience using Energy Medicine was one of my first steps in transitioning to better physical wellness, a sense of health that also contributed to my peace of mind. While her methodologies may appear quite out of the box for some, my experience using her techniques taught me that our bodies are mechanical in nature and far more complex than I could understand. After a severe car accident in 2007, it was by practicing her techniques that I was able to recover from the soft tissue damage I experienced at the time and release the traumatic event of our car being t-boned in a freeway accident.
If you are simply feeling “not yourself” Eden offers a variety of different exercises to help with brain fog, anxiety, physical dexterity, and many other “offs” that can creep up on a person! https://bit.ly/3rW5zkG
She is, by nature, a very gentle person with an innocence that helps those who work with her or follow her feel safe and nurtured. For me, results were what mattered the most. I found her exercises brought balance back into my life, healing to my body. I understand any skepticism. We are not taught, nor are we often exposed, to different modalities of healing. There are times, unquestionably, when we do need the care of a physician or specialist. Energy medicine is something that can be used in conjunction with Western medicine and does not interfere with traditional medical techniques.
Always keep in mind to pay attention to the body’s messages. It’s the adage, “Hey doc, it hurts when I do this…” to which the doctor replies, “Well, don’t do it!”
Keys for Busting Out and Breathing Again
Let’s start with breath. Without breath the loop-d-loop continues regardless of all your efforts. According to www.stress.org, abdominal breathing for 20 to 30 minutes each day will reduce anxiety and reduce stress. Deep breathing increases the supply of oxygen to your brain and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes a state of calmness.
Be present. Place yourself in a safe space (it can be a walk in the backyard, a cushy chair in your home, a warm bath, a soft blanket in your bed, or a snuggle with your pet) and bring your thoughts back to where you are. Using affirmations like, “Right now, in this moment, I am safe. I have my home, and no one can bother me here. I have food in my belly and clothes to wear, right here, right now.” Be sure to affirm the truth. Hug yourself. Use warmth around your neck, a weighted blanket, or your favorite music (preferably relaxing music) and keep repeating words that affirm your positive place in space and time in that moment.
Track mental messages in a notebook. The purpose of this is to identify the messages your mind may be playing on your own loop-d-loop recorder. For instance, if you keep hearing your mind nagging with, “This is never going to end,” instead write in your mental log, “My mind thinks this will never end.” In time, you will begin to disassociate from your thoughts and become grounded in what is real in them moment.
Once you do write it down, do nothing with that thought and just observe the words. It’s all about awareness. Even mundane actions can be observed. If your mind says You need to the vacuum the house, write down in your journal, my mind thinks I need to vacuum the house. Then do nothing and wait. The truth is when there is true emergency to move, we rarely put a lot of thought into action, we just take care of business. That is the beauty of mental awareness and letting go of false narratives that keep us locked in fear.
As you write your thoughts down and do it enough times, you may discover answers that are perfect for you that have nothing to do with what you thought, you thought were the right answers. You will begin, perhaps for the first time, to trust yourself. Simply recognizing that your mind wants to tell you what to do all the time allows space for you to bring your attention back to the present moment, eventually freeing you to recognize what is profoundly important.
Affirmations — A Coin with Two Sides
I learned about affirmations in my 20’s when I was a single mother with no education and no job. I had little faith in my ability to choose, to make decisions, or to even begin to believe in myself as a woman, a mother, and a person. The mental messages that streamed through my sleepless nights were terrifying and kept me feeling small and helpless.
When I met affirmations as a tool, to me it was like water to a person dying from thirst. My experiences had left my life scorched, a field that had not received the grace of rain for years. Words do matter and the words we speak to ourselves in those quiet hours can heal or keep us feeling ill equipped for life. Rewriting our false loop-d-loops by using affirmations is powerful and too often disregarded as “whoo-hoo” thinking. Thoughts become the mental landscape that either distort a life or help us see and appreciate the unique value of personal strengths and blessings. It’s hard to rest safely and breath easily when we are lost to fearful anxiety … especially when we are, by all accounts, safe in the here and now.
Positive affirmations work because we generally live and breathe on negative affirmations. Over time I came to realize the affirmations I was repeating could be just as harmful if I kept repeating negative messages to myself. When the messages were positive, it was a way to reclaim my strength and vitality. When they were negative, I was in the very least worried and frightened. In the extreme, terrified. Positive affirmations that were true helped to combat the false shadows that contributed to my sense of helplessness.
For me, it was all about learning how to restate the affirmation.
Instead of I’ll never get a job to support me and my son, I changed it to I am capable and talented and will find a job to support me and my son. The second was far truer than the first. I was capable and determined and not taking care of us was never going to happen. It might seem like a small nuance, but while the second affirmation acknowledged the challenges I faced, it also affirmed I was strong enough to do the right thing by both of us.
To affirm means to make firm. To RE Affirm safety and our ability to care for ourselves in the middle of a pandemic can bring sanity and peace of mind. Caution is not the same as fear. Fear freezes us in our tracks, making every day a mine field we must navigate. Watch for mental messaging that only locks you in your own prison. In the words of Henry Ford, “Whether you believe you can or can’t, you’re right.”
We come to believe the things others say to us and/or what we say to ourselves repeatedly. We come to believe what we listen to repeatedly. Most of what we say is not original thought, nor are the thoughts even our own thoughts. Calmness during immediate or real-life danger grounds us, gives us a degree of clarity (as much as can be possible in the unknown) to get through the day. Trusting yourself, your instincts, your sources, has never been more important than right now.
Consider where you were a year ago and what you have come through. If you are reading this, you are here, now, in this present moment. Stop and acknowledge, affirmatively, that you have made it this far. For those who have lost loved ones, jobs, businesses, my heart goes out to you. I cannot deny those loses, nor the pain they caused. But what you say to yourself about the past year will matter for today and all your tomorrows.
Reach Out and Touch Someone — Virtually Can Work Too
Stay connected to friends and family who uplift you, that bring you a sense of well-being. Even in our differences, if those differences cannot be set aside, a trusted relationship can become toxic. Give things time but don’t engage until you feel confident you can stand firmly and comfortably in your own skin.
We can support those we love without agreeing with them. If you feel that someone in your inner circle does not support you when you are engaged with them, take a time out. It is okay to step back and nurture yourself and your well-being. If someone you reach out to takes advantage of your relationship and judges or shames you, this will not contribute to your mental health. Take care of yourself first; there may come a time when the relationship can be resumed. Just remember, now is what matters. The future will take care of itself if the present moment is given the importance it deserves.
Professional Therapy Using EMDR and EFT
If you have funding or insurance for counseling services, the following information may be helpful for you. Not everyone has the benefit of coverage for counseling. I truly feel mental health insurance should be provided in health insurance policies.
I was fortunate to have insurance coverage through work and then through my husband’s employment. As I sought help with my own mental fears and anxieties over the years, I was led to work with a psychologist who specialized in two areas, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy) and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), both effective treatments for trauma and post-traumatic stress disorders.
Whatever we think we should be capable of is an unrealistic expectation, especially given we have (as a global community) experienced trauma over the past year. Whatever our assumed “capability” might be, it has been compromised. The resulting fears that are present have a foundation based on real world, real time events. Some might experience it as a fear of death, while others may fear the loss of their freedom. Some may feel frozen in hopelessness and depression, unable to make any decision at all.
All these emotions settle into the body at a deep level. What EMDR and EFT propose is that by using these methodologies, the chemical reaction from “fight or flight” that becomes locked into our cells can be mitigated and even released. I equate using them as giving me the ability to take my foot off the gas pedal of my own mental/emotional process. There is not doubt I was stuck at times in a spiraling downward direction, and quickly. EFT and EMDR simply lifted me out of my own emotional tornado.
EMDR is generally conducted by an educated mental health professional trained in its techniques. As the traumatized person works through the process of releasing the emotional trauma, they also experience the release of the chemical reaction associated with it. This technique helps to bring a person back to emotional and mental stability as the person actively engages in self-care, doing what is necessary to allow the body to heal. Some counselors might recommend disengaging with smart devices for a day if possible. Other times, it might be giving yourself permission to have some space and time for your healing.
EFT (as described in the section on Tapping) can be used with or without a mental health professional. However, if any emotion or mental health trauma becomes overwhelming, it is important to reach out to someone and get help. There is no shame in asking for help. Consider employing a health professional in the same way you would hire a tour guide when visiting a foreign country for the first time. You just won’t get lost when someone who knows the landscape can help you see which way to turn. https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help Psychologists who specialize in these methods can be found through web searches, making sure you use your zip code or specify the area where you live.
Our Mental Health
There is no doubt that in the middle of a pandemic we worry for our physical health, even our life. This mix of pandemic soup we have all been swimming in for over a year has an impact on almost everyone’s mental and emotional health. We are not alone in this experience, but we can leave the pool of homogenized thinking and find peace, satisfaction, surprise, and success if we are willing to trust ourselves.
Without a clear way of navigating the many false fears and anxieties we have, the ones we think may or may not happen but are terrified will happen keeps us anxious and afraid. Our mental health suffers. What we tell ourselves about our circumstances does matter. Not the real-life threats (for instance, COVID symptoms such as fever, shortness of breath, coughing, etc.) but the nightmare mental scenerios we imagine. It is a long process to beat down the false negative affirmations that become a Stephen King novel in our minds. Leave the terror to his pen and write your own story. You can do this.
Awareness is the key, waiting is essential. You will know when the fear is real as you stay present in the life you are living each day.
Resources:
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ Suicide Prevention Lifeline
https://www.mhanational.org Mental Health America
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/emdr-what-is-it
https://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr/
https://www.thetappingsolution.com/what-is-eft-tapping/
https://bit.ly/2ONuatF (Calm)
https://bit.ly/2QkIJFG (Headspace)
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Candace George Conradi is a published author of inspirational books, articles, and poetry. She is a practitioner of Human Design, a system that offers its users a way to navigate and make decisions in life that support their unique path. As a Human Design certified Living Your Design guide, she helps others map out a clear path for living life authentically and without guilt. You can visit her page at www.lydlifemap.com or her author page at www.candaceconradi.com. For questions, please email her at candaceconradi@gmail.com.