A reminder to me

As we enter the weekend, a little reminder to myself: I am not my feelings.

I am not what I feel.

Because feelings are often villified in our culture, we tend to feel guilt and shame when we experience them. Been there, done that ad nauseam. But I’ve learned a few things that I have to remind myself of almost daily.

Through my two years of therapy, I would describe a situation and how I felt about it, and my counselor Ellie would ask, “What does that say about you?”

In other words, go ahead and tell me what you feel, but then tell me what you think that says you are, and we can deal with that. In order to change my feelings, I have to address my thoughts first. My thoughts give birth to my feelings. If I think I am stupid, I will probably feel bad about myself. See how the thought comes first?

I’ve said before that feelings are neither good nor bad in and of themselves, they just are. They are little red flags that indicate what I am thinking. Here’s an example.

If I go out driving and a car comes up to a stop sign at the road I am on, I am afraid he’s not going to stop. I always think he’s going to pull out in front of me so I hit him. No one has ever actually done that, but this is the result of being hit head-on: I don’t trust any other drivers. This situation happens repeatedly every single time I am out driving anywhere.

I could say I am fearful, distrustful, nervous, and all the other things. Those are my feelings.

Then Ellie would ask, “What does that say about you?”

And after fishing around with several “I am” statements, the answer is always “I am not safe.” That’s the thought that overwhelms me every time I drive. It is the thought that makes me fearful, distrustful, nervous, and anxious. So that’s what we deal with—the thought.

My difficulty is not that I am fearful or distrustful or nervous or terrified. The problem is that my brain thinks the thought “I am not safe.” That’s the root of it.

Here’s what you need to know: Your brain’s number-one priority is to keep you alive and safe. That’s what is at the very top of the list. When trauma happens, your brain sees that you are not safe in that moment, and it jumps into high gear to keep you safe from now on. So every time it perceives that you are in a situation like the traumatic one, it reacts in such a way to keep you safe. Anything that causes your brain to associate your current situation with that unsafe one is a “trigger.” In my case, my brain sees other cars as threats because of that one that hit me. Even if those other cars are not doing anything unsafe, my brain sees danger where there is none and it assumes every little thing happening around me is a hazard.

Part of the fix has been to help my brain process the trauma so it can stop living on high alert all the time. It needs to be able to recognize what is dangerous and what is not. That’s what EMDR therapy does. It helps your brain make sense of what happened within your life’s framework. Not every car has hit me, just that one. Not every person has been abusive, just that one. Your brain is amazingly able to learn new things, even when you are as old as the hills, which I am approaching.

Another part of the fix is to re-train my brain. Here’s how I do that: Every time I pass a car at a stop sign that does not pull out in front of me, I say out loud, “He did what he was supposed to do. He did not pull out in front of me. He waited until I passed before he pulled out. He doesn’t want to be in an accident any more than I do. We’re all good. It’s all fine. Everybody is safe.” I am verbally reminding my brain that not every car is just waiting to run out in front of me and cause a crash.

You can do this too! If there is something that always makes you nervous or fearful, every time it happens and there is no bad result, remind your brain out loud that everything is fine. There’s nothing to be afraid of here. Do it over and over and your brain will start to believe the evidence it sees piling up.

Happy Friday! Happy weekend! Happy December! Let’s make it a safe one!