I started a blog about balance but to borrow a phrase from a friend, it was coming out as complete and utter "word salad." There's always been this idea out there... that people say we need balance in our lives. Not too much work, not too much play etc. And I've never really thought of it much beyond that. The realization that I came to was that it's not just the overt activities in our lives that need balance, but it's also the inner workings of our minds. Not too much happy, or we won't appreciate it, not too much sad or we might not endure it, etc. Not too much focus on pleasing others, not too much focus on pleasing ourselves.. Not too much worry about being perfect, and not too much complacency in where we are. Not too much pride, not too much self-deprecation. Let's not argue about semantics... let's just acknowledge that it's complicated and I can't fully explain ;)
It reminds me of a book I've been reading actually, called The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris. I won't go trying to find exact quotes right now... but he talks about the idea that we seem to think that we need to be happy. He talks about the myth that we all seem to think that we need to be happy all the time, and if we're not, there's something wrong with us. When in truth, nobody is happy all the time, and the other emotions have just as much a valid and rightful place in our lives. We need those emotions to be balanced. Granted, we don't have to dwell on them, but you can't ignore them or wish them away either. The much faster way to dealing with it is to acknowledge what you're experiencing and then move on. But that acknowledgement has to come first. I love his chapters on anxiety. Trust me when I say that there's a fair amount of time that I have walked around repeating phrases in my head like "I'm having the thought that I'm feeling anxious" or "I'm having the thought that I said something dumb" or "I'm having the thought that that person doesn't really care about me" or "I'm having the thought that I'm not worth very much" etc etc. And as dumb as it sounds... just repeating the phrase in my head helps me acknowledge it, accept it, and move on instead of having the feeling on constant replay all day long. And instead of believing them as hard written facts. There's a fantastic analogy he makes that my therapist brought up with me once. The idea is that our "thinking self" is like a radio constantly playing in the background going on and on about all the negative Nancy things we could possibly think about our past, present, future. Occasionally something cheerful of course, but less often than we'd like. So, if we're totally tuned in to this radio, believing everything it says, we're basically guaranteed misery. And, to top it all off, this radio doesn't have an off button! And if we try to turn it off, it seems to get louder and louder (the same way ignoring our problems often seems to magnify them) You understanding the analogy? (it's found on pages 65-67 of his book if you're curious for all the deets, it's really quite good). Anyway, he continues on to say, that the alternative is similar to when you're listening to the TV, or listening to music, but if someone were to ask you what was just said, you'd have no clue because you weren't really listening. Diffusion (the "I'm having the thought that I am..." statements I gave examples of earlier) is just that. You're acknowledging the thought, and then letting it go, and getting back to what you were doing. Letting the thoughts come and go works so much more effectively than purposefully trying to block them out and letting them bother you. Let me testify to that! Anyway, this seems to have been a bit of a tangent, but, that's okay, I hope you'll see the connection by the end and everything will make sense.
I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, and I won't try to cover them all, but bear with me for a moment while I go on one more tangent. Someone recently talked to me about the idea that people who have struggled with addictions, often find that they can tend to follow a similar trend in other areas of their lives as well. Addictive behavior as a pattern in their lives so to speak. And it stood out to me as something I needed to consider. It reminds me a lot of that radio analogy. The idea being that a lot of people who struggle with addictions have some kind of pain or issue in their life that they're avoiding, or simply don't know how to deal with, and there's a whole dang lot of stigma attached to what they're experiencing. And that struggle, and that stigma make you really really want to turn that stupid radio off! Like you become addicted to trying to turn it off. That becomes the habit. But doing that just makes it worse.
And in thinking about it, I managed to acknowledge something on Monday that relates to my ability to develop relationships and engage in healthy conversation... and just general anxiety about whether or not other people actually have a desire to reciprocate in relationships with me (which is probably why I would pinpoint words of affirmation as one of my love languages that I don't often admit to, even to myself, but, it definitely helps to ease my anxieties. Probably one of the best things someone has said to me in the last few months was long the lines of "Don't worry, I still want to be your friend" not that that has stopped me from having plenty of anxiety about it since then. But in that moment, it was fantastically comforting and felt like an act of love)... Anyway, I decided to turn my phone off for most of the day on Monday so I could distance myself from part of the problem and just live in the moment with my kids for the day. It took several hours, but eventually I was able to feel distanced from it enough to stop feeling so anxious, and I was able to enjoy at least part of the day with my family.
And I can't begin to express how helpful that has been since then. It's helped me identify a few areas in which I need to be better about frequently using those diffusion phrases in i.e. "I'm having the thought that...." (again, the idea being that by phrasing it that way, you are acknowledging that it is JUST a thought, instead of accepting the thought as fact, therefore distancing yourself from it and allowing it to dissipate naturally). And that diffusion from that particular anxiety has continued. That doesn't mean I don't still think unhelpful thoughts about negative things... but it hasn't been controlling my actions, or my thoughts so much, because I've been able to let them go. And THAT my friends feels so much more like "old Emily." One of the things that I told my therapist early on was that part of what I hated about the anxiety was that it made me feel not like me. I've spent most of my life being proud of the fact that I could hardly care less what other people thought of me, and I didn't waste time on fake personas to appease certain crowds of people... I was just me, all the time. And I loved that about me. And so, to worry that people don't want to know me or spend time with me, or won't want to spend time with me if they know more about me... really irks me, and makes it really hard not to dislike myself, making it even harder to believe that someone else might like me.
Anyway... because of this diffusion that I have experienced for the week... I've been able to see how much fear has stopped me from being a better friend to people these last few years. How much my self-seeking for understanding has forced me to focus on my past and the negatives of my life way too much. One of the initial reasons that came up from my therapist as why the church's Addiction Recovery Program might help me.. was because I needed help in forging my own identity separate from how I believed that others perceived me. I saw a meme the other day that said something along the lines of "The first thought that comes in to your head is what society has taught you. The second thought is the one that defines who you are" And in some things, it has been hard to see myself beyond what society has taught me. And my inability to submit to God's will, and trust in him, has been making that part of the recovery process difficult. But because of someone else's inspiration for me in the last few weeks, I have been forced to consider the benefits for others in addition to myself, in submitting to the will of Heavenly Father. And, as always, how I can benefit others has always been a bit more motivating to me than my own personal benefits. But it has been helpful to see the two in conjoint... with a small window to what God sees in me, and not just society or myself.. and the responsibility I have to live up to God's will for me as best I can.
So, there's where the balance part came in. I needed (and still need) to improve my inner balance. The algorithm for allocating the appropriate ratios of time into each of the things that come into my mind during the day. And... one of the thoughts that came to me during General Conference was that [part] of the cure for anxiety is trusting in the Lord. Because yeah.. some things are still going to be scary, or make me sad, or disappoint, but regardless of whatever consequences may come because of my actions, I have to be willing to be me, and engage fully, and do whatever the Lord asks of me, because if I'm trusting in Him, then I have to acknowledge that the final result will be worth whatever sacrifice of comfort was required of me. And, for that, I am grateful. And I hope I'm able to start doing a better job of implementing that. Forgive me while I stumble through it ;)
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