Letting Your Past Experiences Rest in Peace

I was watching How I Met Your Mother tonight and one of the lines really hit me. One character, Ted, has a crush on another character, Robin, from the beginning of the show. Later in the series, Ted is forced to repress his feelings for her, and when they eventually resurface, someone suggests that the feelings had been 'buried in a shallow grave'.

Bare with me, the post ahead is rather abstract!

The line brought up images of our past feelings, thoughts and events living underground, buried in whichever way we choose to bury them. Whether it's in a shallow way through temporary means of burial, or deep underground, dispersed and digested to reduce their emotional blow.

Obviously the way we deal with our past experiences has a big effect on us. Traumas might be far from laid to rest. They could be buried so shallowly that their tentacles reach up above ground and affect our every decision.

Being deeply buried doesn't mean refusing to let it enter our lives. It might seem that saying things like 'no I don't care about that anymore. It means nothing to me' moves the experience so far away that it can't 'get you'. But really, in a traditional rom-com sense, 'I don't care', can mean the exact opposite. It's like trying to put a plaster on something that needs stitches.

So I've put together my thoughts on how a trauma we want to bury can be best put to rest:

• Feel the feelings.
  
  Sad? Try sitting with the sadness for an evening. Journal about it. Talk about it. Think about it. Cry about it. Drinking it away or eating food or sleeping a lot will only delay the feelings until later, when they inevitably resurface in perhaps in a more indirect way.
  
• Grieve.
  
  Bear with yourself. Grief is a long process which can take a long time. And your emotional needs don't just include grieving when someone passes away. Leaving your job is still a loss, even if you hated it! Changes require us to process them, and allowing yourself to do just that will stop the feelings being delayed or coming out sideways. See my post about grief here.
  
  It might take a long time, and going through the stages can feel never-ending, but when you get to the end and you are able to gently and acceptingly reflect on your experiences it is really rewarding.
  
• Be kind to yourself.
  
  There is no 'correct' way to deal with traumas, despite the things I've written here. It's different for everyone. On a wider scale, in some areas of the world grieving involves dancing and wailing. The only thing I think is 'right' is to be kind to yourself. Going on a night out and ending up crying to your friend at 1am eating chicken nuggets might not feel ideal, but try to be accepting of your behaviours. 

If you can keep yourself safe, be accepting of your feelings and sit with them, I believe that is the route to a deep burial of your difficult past experiences. The kind where they do not creep up on you and come out sideways. The peaceful kind.

Image from here

Four Life-Changing Attitudes We Can Learn From Mandela

Nelson Mandela, 18th July 1918 - 5th December 2013, is a household name around the world, due to his role in the South African anti-apartheid revolution and the ANC, his 27 years in prison and later, his 5 years of presidency in South Africa. He had a wide impact on tackling racism, and is well known for his quote in Long Walk to Freedom (Mandela, available here):

"No none is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite".

In 2014 I was lucky enough to take a trip to Robben Island, Cape Town, where I saw his prison cell. I also watched the film Long Walk to Freedom, which taught me about his values in such a way that when I entered the corridor of his cell, it was a sad but also greatly inspirational experience. This is what I will write about today as a tribute to Mandela Day (the anniversary of his birthday). 

Attitudes which stand out to me when I think about Mandela:

• Prompting change without causing bloodshed
  
  When we look around in the world nowadays, many people are trying to change it. Terrorists, for example, who are trying to make impact by killing people. Mandela realised that violence was not the answer to prompting the changes he and others wanted to see.
  
  Though violence or outburst can be tempting when we feel trapped or angry with how things are, Mandela was mindful of those feelings and tried to find the best way to communicate them for change. This is something that can help us to step back and observe before we act.

• Forgiveness
  
  Mandela was well known for forgiving others. He made friends with wardens, saying that 'courageous people do not fear forgiving', because he recognised that holding resentment towards people is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
  
  In other words, holding resentments only harms you and is counterproductive. Being able to forgive frees you to take any actions you need to and live more peacefully.
  
• Faith
  
  A friend of Mandela, Fikile Bam, who was on Robben Island with him for ten years, said (on Mandela - available here):
  
  
  Although he had been sentenced to life imprisonment, he made it clear in all his being, that [it] was unlikely that he would finish all his time in prison ... It was, in fact, a condition of our survival in prison, to believe that we would win. The struggle would be successful in the end. We'd be out of prison during our life time.
  
  

  Faced with life in prison, many might or might feel temptation to give up, in a sense. Believing that you may one day leave and experience freedom is a very faithful belief, which promotes self improvement and improves self esteem. 

  
  

  In The Secret (available here), Rhonda Byrne insists that belief and faith in something you want will make it happen. Mandela definitely didn't read The Secret, but the similar way he chose to think helped him to endure and make the most of being in prison. 
• Kindness
  
  Ex prisoner Fikile Bam also wrote about Mandela's attitude towards prison warders:
  
  
  The one thing I can talk about is that he was always generally very polite courteous to warders. He greeted them, but at the same time, he didn't cow down to any warder at any level. He was just very courteous.
  
  

  We all have people in our lives who try to control us, whether it's to the extreme of a prison guard or not. Being kind to everyone, no matter their behaviour towards us (to an extent), shows a great level of tolerance. This tolerance is a reflection of an inner peace - that we accept and love ourselves unconditionally and are able to accept others in the same way.

Mandela's prison cell when I visited in 2014

Peering into his old prison cell on Robben Island, knowing his attitudes and ways of being, I felt the love and acceptance he felt towards every human there has ever been and will be. He not only helped to reduce racism, but he showed peace and integrity throughout his life that has inspired more change across the globe than he ever knew. 

My favourite powerful Mandela quotes:

• Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
• I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
• It always seems impossible until it's done. 
• The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. 
• If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

Image from here

CBT: Life as an Optical Illusion

We're all familiar with optical illusions. Whether it's two heads or a vase, a young or an old woman, or straight lines which appear to bend, it is clear that our brains can be tricked into seeing things differently to how they actually appear. 

Over the last week, I've been thinking about how our brains, in a similar way, interpret peoples' comments differently to how they were intended. 

When you stare at the top of the elephant, your brain might see four legs with the feet underneath. This is not actually the case when you look at the feet, but your brain tries to add new information to create a picture it makes sense of.

This also happens when people say things to us. For example:

Nick is showing Jo around his house. He recently added a new TV to his wall, which he believes is too big for the space. When she sees the TV, Jo comments: 'Wow, that's a big TV!'. 

To break this down, 

1. Jo's intentions
• To make conversation.
• To show Nick she cares about what he's showing her.
• To show she is impressed with the size of his TV. 
2. Nick's thoughts
• 'She thinks it's too big for that wall'
• 'I should've bought a different size'
• 'She probably thinks I'm a technology-obsessed idiot'

You might notice some differences between what Nick thinks Jo thought, and her actual thoughts. If he hadn't already been thinking about his unhappiness at the size of the TV, his assumptions might have been different when he heard the comment. 

So why is this important?

In my experience, the biggest cause of drama and fallings out in friendships and relationships is miscommunication. When words are taken to mean more than they actually do, this causes problems. For instance, negative effects on Nick might be:

• Negative beliefs about himself may be strengthened.
• Might spend money he doesn't have on a new TV.
• May lower his self esteem.

All of these consequences might have been avoided had Nick had a closer look at his thoughts.

How can my thoughts change?

I believe that thoughts are very automatic. It is hard to change which thoughts actually come up, but it is beneficial to become aware of them and challenge them where you can. Next time a relative or friend says a comment to you, try these steps, which have helped me in my relationships:

1. Become aware of your thoughts.
• Write them down if you can. 
• This is in an observational, not a judgemental way. If you find yourself thinking 'I shouldn't be thinking this', try to push past it and write it down as if you were observing the results of an experiment. 
2. Rationalise
• In a column next to your thoughts, write next to each one the likelihood of it being true. Argue as if you were a lawyer prosecuting your thoughts (excuse the law references, I've been watching Suits avidly this week!).
• What would the person's intentions be? The likelihood is, they are not being malicious.
• How do these intentions differ from how you're feeling? Note the difference. Circle it, highlight it. Doodle all over the page. 
3. Be kind to yourself 
• Lots of things will come up. Take them as they come and congratulate yourself for being insightful into how you feel. 
• Treat yourself - a new journal to do this written process is always a nice idea when you're going into so much detail :)
4. Change things
• If you believe this person is actually commenting in a malicious way, do what you can to remove that person from your life. 
• If the person is not removable, for instance a close family member, then come up with some coping methods - can you spend less time around them? Or avoid certain topics of conversation?
• Voice yourself. If you feel they are being unfair and it is in their interest to know this, let them know how you feel about what they just said. 

Just as when you see an optical illusion, question what you're understanding about situations so you can get a more authentic view of what's really going on. This process is not dissimilar to CBT workbooks, such as this one you can buy from Amazon (link here).

Let me know how you get on in the comments :)

Image from here