When We Are Filled With Horror

We’re living in turbulent times. How can we experience some calm and comfort in the midst of the uncertainty and chaos?

I recently read this story about rescuing sheep that I found illustrative:

Sometimes a sheep accidentally takes a plunge into the water. Its wool soaks up the water and gets so heavy it’s almost impossible for a person to drag the sheep out. A farmer shared how he responds: “People always want to rush things. They want to solve all problems, and they need to solve them NOW. What I do is the opposite. I do practically nothing. I get into the water and let the animal lean on me. I can sense when it gets calmer. When that happens, the sheep takes a leap and scrambles ashore all by itself. I only give it the tiniest push.”

Let’s apply this story to ourselves

This year has been hard.  We probably all feel like that sheep, weighed down by the weight of our personal struggles, the chaos of our nation, and the world pandemic.  There is much to feel and so much to do.  Maybe the best action to take is to hold and calm yourself and those around you. Out of that, you will have the strength and clarity to take the action that is needed.  Be gentle with yourself.  Be your best ally.  Take care of yourself.

I am about to go on maternity leave so it will be a few months before I write again.  As I leave, I want you to remember to check in with yourself:

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1. What am I feeling?
2. What do I need?
3. Then, what is mine to do?

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Acknowledgements:
Shepherd story: Debbie Mirza: The Safest Place Possible
Phedra Smith: first two questions – What am I feeling and what do I need?
Suzanne Stabile: What is mine to do?

It's been a hard week, a hard month, a hard year.

Consider this your invitation to take a moment for yourself.  Take stock of how you're doing.  Are you feeling tired, depleted, hopeless, or frustrated?  Are you feeling blessed, supported, or thankful?  You might be feeling a mix of all of these and more.  The tricky part is allowing space for all of them.

Notice what is hard for you in your life right now.

What are you missing in your life that you need to grieve?  Hold that in one hand and let yourself feel those feelings.  You may notice yourself trying to discount them by comparing your hardships to someone else and dismissing yours because they don't seem as great as someone else's suffering.  You may notice yourself trying to discount them by "looking on the bright side" and telling yourself you shouldn't feel upset because you have so much to be thankful for.  Notice those feelings and tendencies.  Sadness and loss don't go away because you ignore them, avoid them, or try to pack them away in a closet.  They need space to be heard and find comfort.  If you want a fun way to see this in action, rewatch the Pixar movie "Inside Out."  If you want to know more about how to grieve, you can read more here.

Then, notice what is good in your life.

Where have you found silver linings in the midst of the hardship?  Where have you found unexpected sources of support and kindness?  Where have you noticed inner reserves and strength you didn't know you had?  What are the little things that you have heightened gratitude for?  These can be a great source of encouragement and hope to keep you going in hard times.  Just remember to keep them in their place, as a source of support, energy, and hope, not as a way to discount harder things you are feeling.  You need both to get through this.

Notice what you are experiencing and what you need.  You are not alone.  You can find the support you need.  Take some time to listen to yourself and take care of yourself today.

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We feel overwhelmed when there is too much on our plate and too little emotional, physical, or mental energy to meet the demands.

We avoid our emotions, memories, and problems in large part because we don’t want to feel overwhelmed.  We want to feel strong, capable, and in control.  The best way to feel that way and get through problems is to face them, feel them, and move through them.  But you need support to do that.

When you don’t have adequate support or resources to work through the feelings and obstacles, sometimes avoidance is the best thing you can do in the moment to cope.  And I want you to thank yourself for that.  For finding a way to survive and make it through.

Time for a change

At some point, you will find that it’s time to stop avoiding because one or both of the following have happened for you:

• You have access to the resources to work through the painful memories or current overwhelming circumstances.
• The avoidance may have started causing you more problems instead of continuing to helping you.

You may become aware that everything that’s been avoided has been building up inside, no matter how much you try to stuff it down.  It’s baggage that you’re still carrying around even if it’s not in your conscious thoughts every day.  It doesn’t stay nicely in that locked box forever.  It starts leaking out and affecting you in other ways – physically, mentally, emotionally, and relationally.  It affects your self-esteem, your confidence, your belief in yourself.  It affects how you relate to others and the choices you make.  It takes a lot of work to keep everything locked up in that box. You end up spending a lot of energy trying to avoid, and that becomes draining.

Because it’s still there in the background, you may find it doesn’t take much to get you upset, or shut you down.  Your margin of feeling capable has kept shrinking because of all you’ve been through.  I want you to have that space back where you feel capable more often, and triggered less frequently.

When it’s time to overcome

You get to clear out all the old baggage so you don’t have to carry it around anymore.  You get to name your losses and struggles and know you’re not alone.  You get to find support to face current overwhelming circumstances. My job as a therapist is to help you work through it without feeling overwhelmed.  I am part of that support to get you through this.  I don’t want you to get flooded with all the things you’ve been avoiding.  I want you to work through it piece by piece until you are free.

This infographic shows the middle ground where you feel capable and able to address the problems you face, as well as enjoy the great things in your life. Therapists call it the Window of Tolerance.  When you come to therapy, one of my goals is to increase your window of tolerance.  I also want to keep you in that window of tolerance as much as possible in therapy.  If you start feeling flooded or overwhelmed (hyperarousal), I am going to help you regulate and calm down.  If you shut down and start feeling numb or zoned out (hypoarousal), I am going to help you be more present in your surroundings.

When you’re ready to face what’s overwhelming you, give me a call.  I’ll help you walk through it.

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"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” - Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

It's time to change that.

It's time to set aside any shame or defensiveness and just listen.  Listen to understand.  We need this personally.  We need this in our relationships.  We need this as a country.

How do I listen to understand?

You can read more about developing the ability to listen and empathize here.

You can read more about how to do this in the context of race with some of these resources:

Books: ‍

• So You Want to Talk About Race
• Waking Up White
• White Fragility
• How to be an Antiracist

Podcasts:‍

• Understanding White Privilege and Systemic Racism
• Understanding Implicit Bias
• Understanding the Daily Indignities of Racism and What You Can Do to Make a Difference

Get personal support

You may feel overwhelmed by everything going on in our country this year.  You may feel a lot of things you wish you didn't feel - fear, shame, guilt, confusion, denial.  It may be hard to get support from people you normally get support from - because of social distancing, differences in perspective, or everyone's margins being so depleted.  If you need a neutral place to process and get support, contact me for a session.  

Find a way to get the support you need.

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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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