BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Self Development What helps you to change?

Most profound things are.

Resistance? I don't think so, but fear, yes, probably.

pardonnez-moi ma petite amie...

Isn't 'Resistance' another form - or word - for fear?

What's the worst that can happen?

The crappola we tell ourselves, inside our heads, can be the most destructive element of all....

Well that's an interesting thought. But i don't know what i can do about it. Semantics aside, i react unconsciously, and quite often, physically. I was merely making an observation after the fact. If you can suggest a way i can make it conscious before or during in a way i can change the behavior then i'd be very much obliged!

Hi, Hollyelise,

We have our comfort zone. We all resist moving out of it. For some of us comfort zone may be to worry, to be stressed, to think negatively. All of us have this.

Holly, you may have to do like I do when changes I want are really scary to me and threaten my comfort zone (such as becoming an editor here, quitting smoking, and so on).

First, don't let yourself look at the overall picture. It IS overwhelming to some of us, so honor yourself (the individual you are), and permit yourself to just avoid that step. It may work for some, but it doesn't work for everyone. So you've learned this important fact about yourself, and you need to pat yourself on the back. That's a big Yay for finding out a little about how you work inside.

Second, find that first thing you can do, that tiny baby step you CAN take, and work on taking it. As with my quitting smoking, just getting through that first step can take awhile. Here's where it's important to praise yourself and just focus on that baby step goal. Don't worry about what might come next. Don't look down the road. Just be in the moment with this baby step.

Gotta go give my husband a breathing treatment, so I'll be back later. If this helps, I'll keep going with more strategy for you. But the upshot of it turned out to be for me that I had to sort of trick myself into moving ahead with the more overwhelming changes, and that's the process I can describe to you

I'm very much with barbara on this - and also, when you find yourself resisting, or fearing moving on anything - stop yourself short, and simply ask yourself the question, why?
If you already know the challenges that raise resistance within you, ponder on them, in meditation... if you discover them as you move along, hail them as firnds...they're manifesting for you to see tham and conquer them.
The secret is to not be at odds with yourself. You are on Your side.... I know it sounds odd, but so many of us have "fights with ourselves" it's a wonder we're not more battered and bruised!

That is great advice from both of you. Yes, Barbara, i would like to hear more...

And Alexandra, the concept of "comfort zone" is very helpful.

I'm just realizing now, from what you both have said, that i'm really dealing with several kinds of situations, and they should perhaps be treated differently.

The first is where i REACT first, and understand my behavior only after. Often this is accompanied by physiological reaction. Following some trauma i experienced about 6 years ago, i became a very anxious person. Most of it i've improved greatly, but traces remain. I can still have very strong adrenalin, nor-adrenalin, and perhaps cortisol reactions. I know what the first two feel like... but generally in HINDSIGHT and the problem has been IDENTIFYING that i'm having a physical reaction when i'm having it. I'm perhaps making this sound worse than it is... they are less frequent now. Anyway, this has been very frustrating for me, perhaps because i HAVE made improvement and i so very much want to be done with all of it! It's gets OLD! HAHA. I can make the best plans, but if i have a reaction, it has complete control over my intentions, and i just slip right into the usual thoughts and behavior.

Secondly... comfort zone stuff.... baby steps... I'm thinking this is the area where it's not so charged and i have awareness and some flexibility. I get anxious in some situations because in the past those situations were associated with danger or abuse. But in my case, we're not talking about walking down a dark alley or being in any situation you'd normally associate with danger and it'd be smart to avoid. Oh nooooo... in my case: danger became associated with happiness, confidence, love and personal success. What happened to me happened BECAUSE i became happier and more confident. So that's NOT a good association to keep!!!! The fear... and again, sometimes it doesn't even feel like fear but rather something just hardwired into my body... makes me shy away from finishing or submitting my art or writing, from applying for a job of any worth, from going back to college, from feeling confident again or like i don't have to look over my shoulder if i smile a lot today... and often it's an unthinking, automatic reaction and i don't always know what i'm doing until i realize i'm procrastinating! But i do take responsibility for this and i think... this is where the baby steps might help... as Barbara put it... i can find the first thing i can do. As the saying goes, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." I think of it as trying to desensitize myself. It's just... sometimes i worry about what might happen if i don't push myself ahead as quickly as i can. I need to be earning more money. There are things i've got to take care of that i neglect, and yet on the other hand i find there is a limit to how much i can handle at this time. So i worry. And it's frustrating i can't always do what i wish i could do.

A third kind of situation is my sleep. And i don't want to try to do anything with it!!! ...because i have tried, and exhausted an extensive list of things to try: auto suggestion, lucid dreaming, herbs, medications, dream journalling, native american healing techniques to name just a few things. And virtually everything i've tried has BACKFIRED. Yes, that is correct... not made it better, but actually after a few days, made it far worse. I finally came to the conclusion to make peace with my nightmares and just accept that my unconscious mind must know what it's doing, and the dreams serve a purpose even if i don't know what that is. But you know, like today... i only had four hours of sleep, and i still got up and got to my class before 10 and taught a full day and gave my best so that no one would know i had only four hours and those filled with nightmares. But now, there are things i need to do here at home, but i can't get myself to do it because i just feel lethargic!!! Anyway... where my sleep is concerned, i now just try to improve my ability to cope with it and mitigate it... for instance, as soon as i wake up i try to improve my mood, and that's always my first job of the day. My dreams rule the night, but i rule the day!... it's an agreement we've come to! hahaha. i try not to let my sleep be an excuse.

This has been very enlightening for me. All of you are helping me figure some of this stuff out, and i hope you don't mind my talking so much about this. I definitely appreciate your thoughts!

And yes, Alexandra, i am at odds with myself. In fact, it feels like a war. The reactive me versus the conscious me... who's gonna steer Holly? HAHHAHAHA... i'm like a two headed donkey... one at each end and at the same time, all a$$. hahhahaha.

Actually, Holly, I think the duality you're describing is very common in many if not most of us. It's just that some of us have managed a sort of integration of those two opposing poles, and others don't have such strong internal opposites to begin with.

The reacting behavior you describe is exactly what happened to me recently when a bunch of family members showed up unexpectedly to help me with the housework, since I had my hands full with my husband. It was so chaotic, and I found myself feeling really reactive, unable to get my thoughts organized and be a good hostess. Later (after they all did what they could and left), I realized I was responding to a feeling inside myself that was very old in its source, going all the way back to when I was a child and faced situations I found chaotic and overwhelming. And here I am an adult responding to a childhood trigger! So I suspect we all do this to a degree as well. Whether or not we react just depends on what kind of things happened to us to establish triggers, how well we were helped to process those things, and where we are now with them in our lives.

I think what you say about associating danger with success or happiness is also very understandable. I can think back to times in my past when something good happened to me (such as winning the attentions of a new boyfriend) only to lead to a negative result (finding out he liked to make rude comments at my expense), and I had that same sort of associative pattern for a while. What I eventually learned was I wasn't looking at the whole picture--the disappointments that accompanied what should have been happy choices, for example, were because hidden in those choices were negative aspects I was choosing to ignore (such as a person's tendency to be mean)--I just wanted to have the relationship, and I wasn't thinking it through fully. This is something that can be learned, believe it or not.

I'd like to ask you some questions, if I may, too. The first set deals with your sleep situation. I was wondering if you could describe what happens when you try to go to bed for the night--what's on your mind, what process do you go through in getting ready, etc.? Then what happens: Do you fall asleep and then wake up and can't get back to sleep, or do you have trouble falling asleep at all? What's going on in your head throughout all this?

Thank you, Barbara! It's very comforting to me to not feel like this stuff i'm experiencing is that unusual. It is still seems unusual for me, because i went through most of my life feeling much less reactive. But what do you do when in your head you know better, but emotionally still find yourself reacting? That's what i keep wondering about because it doesn't seem like something i can learn... it feels like i've learned it already but it needs to transform emotionally not logically. I can't figure out how to do that.

The sleep varies somewhat, but has patterns. The main issue is the nightmares. Sometimes they are waiting for me within moments of falling under. Boyfriends have told me i usually whimper and i start suddenly in my sleep and sometimes call out. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse. There is usually a lag between stress and when the nightmares will be worse. The beginning of January is always bad, because of the stress of Christmas and my birthday and anniversaries that happen the last week of December. If it's bad for a while... (i call it a "jag")... then i start getting insomnia. Usually the insomnia starts when it's time for bed... i simply don't want to sleep and keep putting it off and get less rational as the night wears on because of exhaustion. Sometimes though it happens on the other end... usually after the second nightmare i'll wake up and it will have been so bad i have to make a mental break... "shake it off" ... before i can depend on being able to sleep without immediately falling back into the same one. I'm pretty sure of what i know of sleep that these happen in deep sleep and not REM because i'm so groggy and disoriented when i wake for some time. I don't nap for two reasons... one, i try not to get my hours turned around... and two, if i'm having nightmares, i have them during naps too so there's little point. If i'm having a jag, then also sleep is clearly less effective. I may sleep eight or ten hours but wake up feeling more tired than if i'd only slept a few but slept well. Valerian, soft music, hypnosis tapes, hot baths, hot milk, and a regular bed time all help me relax before sleep, so falling asleep is not really the issue. Earlier I said nothing positively affects the nightmares, but that isn't strictly true. Three things improve it a little: one, reducing overall stress (though i find this impossible to get any lasting effect and stress often is triggered by events not in my control anyway), two, the herb Kava... presently i'm out of it... it's become a bit more expensive and harder to get (there is a rumor it's banned but it isn't), but i could get that again and it would help a little. It requires regular use to work, and time to take effect. Three... boyfriends have said that touching me or holding me when i have a nightmare immediately calms me down. Now that i'm single, I've tried putting a big pink stuffed bunny under the covers with me like a body... don't laugh... okay laugh! .... but i can't tell if it makes any difference, and i don't think it does. I have a cat, it sleeps on the bed with me sometimes, but i don't think that helps either... i think what helps is being actively touched when a nightmare starts. Oh... i guess my last boyfriend said he'd talk to me too. I don't ever remember any of it.

The nightmares are not recurring, but rather endlessly creative (seems to be a genetic element, my dad also dreams in extreme detail, though he does not usually have nightmares). Not only are the stories and elements different, but even the emotions change! It could be fear of something done to me, fear of my doing something wrong, revulsion or grossness, anger, guilt, confusion, anything really. I've tried journalling and interpretting but it only makes me depressed by day. Suppressing the memory of them works far better for me and lets me make use of my day... and the better my days go, in general, the better my nights.

Anyway... i've stayed up to write this, rather than to sleep... been up close to 20 hours now... HAHHAHAHA. Silly me.

nite nite Bella Land.
~h

Oh... forgot to answer a question you asked... i don't usually worry or think unhappy things as i fall asleep, but either try "writing" a fiction story in my head, or if i start to worry i distract myself by counting in prime numbers or naming all the states, or trying to name all the presidents or Santa's reindeer or something stupid like that. It works.

Okay, i really AM going to bed now... no no, really.