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Post by tnr9 on Dec 24, 2018 11:19:21 GMT
I am finding that my tools to keep hope in check are unfortunately ineffective. Basically I look for random bits of information and create srories that seems very real and could be true, but often are not. This was a coping mechanism against disappointment...if I could predict disappointment in advance,then my reasoning was it would not hurt as much...but it has turned into a life where hope now is tied to fear of things that may not be true. Understandably, hope needs to be a bit tempered..but I don’t seem to know the tools to temper it in a mature way...so I automatically revert to stories, images etc. Basically I am using a 5 year olds solution still and that does not work as an adult (in fact, it makes me paranoid, distrustful and feeling like I lack). Any suggestions?
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Post by ocarina on Dec 24, 2018 17:34:26 GMT
I am finding that my tools to keep hope in check are unfortunately ineffective. Basically I look for random bits of information and create srories that seems very real and could be true, but often are not. This was a coping mechanism against disappointment...if I could predict disappointment in advance,then my reasoning was it would not hurt as much...but it has turned into a life where hope now is tied to fear of things that may not be true. Understandably, hope needs to be a bit tempered..but I don’t seem to know the tools to temper it in a mature way...so I automatically revert to stories, images etc. Basically I am using a 5 year olds solution still and that does not work as an adult (in fact, it makes me paranoid, distrustful and feeling like I lack). Any suggestions? Hi tnr9 - I think this realisation about hope could be really helpful for you since awareness is the start of the process to healing.
The stories are another way of avoiding feeling and the mind is just so very skilled at this - like an amazing movie (of a jumping record) that has you totally rapt in the moment. If you can see it as a movie and yourself as an observer you can begin to see that all the thinking, explaining, rationalising, hoping, blaming or whatever else your mind is doing, are simply a script - often a well worn one. But you have a choice (as always!) whether or not to buy into this script or whether to accept that for what it is - and repeatedly notice it, in order to get to the important stuff that lays beneath.
Catching yourself at the point where the story telling starts is key - and coming back again and again to the body as an anchor - often the breath. ALL of the stuff we carry with us can be dealt with like this and I think one of the limitations of looking into our past and at the whys, at the hurt child etc is that often we get hooked into that story again and again and then the piece of information becomes us.
The best book I have ever read which was a life changer for me and many others is The Untethered Soul by Michael J Singer - have you read it? Once you get the concept it is pretty simple (simple not easy!) and then takes a lifetime of coming back to the presence, of noticing, of practice.
Many good wishes x
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Post by boomerang on Dec 25, 2018 2:47:07 GMT
tnr9, to add to what Ocarina said above, one thing my therapist did with me that I found super helpful was a fact list. Listing the clear facts of an interaction without allowing any interpretation of what they may or may not mean. In my case, it was an exercise about managing negative conclusions/narratives that spring from my AP mind--but the point was, it was all about not falling into the stories. I think it will be harder emotionally to do with hope, as hope is kind of by definition not current reality (whatever one is hoping for --someone to come back, a promotion, whatever--is a future outcome), and so easy to see facts as part of the negative story. But if you can just see the facts as facts--we literally wrote them down in my session and my therapist allowed no interpretation--it might help? It super helped me to sit with the present and as a tool to head off the stories. If I understand you correctly, one problematic part of the hope is the fear and anxiety it engenders that hope may not be realized--hence the stories that cause distress. In that, my use of this tool was the same: stopping the stories that cause distress. For whatever reason, I found this so much more effective than doing what I had done previously, which was telling myself that I can't know, that I am interpreting, etc. That did not work at all.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2018 22:34:41 GMT
mm these days i ask myself, what is truly happening? is it happening in reality right now? if it is not, then it is not something to think about. i focus on something else that IS happening in my life. breathing is a good way, focusing on walking and my scenery is a good way. if i'm hopeful, i tell myself... i hope this will turn out well in positive ways. let's see what happens. then i let it go. so i keep the hope but not create a story. it's a process, everyday i have to recommit to the decision of being present, of doing my best, of being secure. i check in everyday if i am coming from a place of lack or from a place of love. when i am in a place of lack, i just disconnect and try to be present, then move into a place of love before i interact with anyone. keeps me from turning that hope into fear.
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Post by leavethelighton on Dec 26, 2018 0:58:33 GMT
It might be helpful if you'd share a specific example, but maybe it's a matter of considering the need or desire the hope feeds, and also working to believe/see how you could be okay without it. That is, recognize with compassion what your psyche is trying to obtain via the hope. Then working to find those things in a different way or to build a good life with what you do actually have.
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