Life, it’s stresses and anxieties can just hit you sometimes! It’s time to bring in some reality.
The keys on my laptop are playing up. The s doesn’t always work, sometimes the w joins in and combine it with the shift key and your guess is as good as mine!
It’s a relatively minor thing, and of course it doesn’t happen everyday (I think the laptop knows, because it’s working beautifully now whereas 10 minutes ago…).
Some days I just float through it. It’s quirky and amusing when a word suddenly has 10 s’s in it. Other days it mildly annoys me and I get a little frustrated. Perhaps I need to get something done super quickly, or I have an idea and I don’t want it floating off into the clouds before I have had a chance to write it down.
Other days I could spiral. I start a little frustrated, maybe like I said I’m in a rush, add in a bit of tired or questioning from the kids at inopportune moments. Throw in some little life aches or the beginnings of hunger (too early for lunch, too late for a snack) and suddenly the lack of s in the word stress is the end of the world.
Let’s go through the process of my mean little voice on days when perhaps it’s not so easy to keep it quiet.
‘Damn it! This stupid s isn’t working again (bangs keyboard), why won’t it work. It was fine a minute ago! (bangs keyboard again a little harder, resulting in multiple s’s, deletes s’s). Fine! I’m not writing anything decent anyway. And what’s the point, no one is going to read it… And if it keeps happening will I have to get a new laptop. I can’t really afford a new laptop. Maybe I’m making all the wrong decisions in life, and that’s why I am where I am…
I could keep going, it could spiral into a whole session against me going back to embarrassing things I said when I was 12, and why did I say no/yes to that thing. And all because my laptop keys are a bit sticky.
It’s easy to beat ourselves up. It’s easy to be mean to ourselves, and believe we don’t deserve any better.
It’s easy to blow things up and spiral into the gloom of ‘everything is awful’. I caught myself doing it the other day. Using the nothing ever goes my way narrative.
But that’s it, I caught myself. And I stopped, thought about it and I backtracked. I brought in reality. I went from the thought of nothing ever goes right, to hang on a minute yes I have had had these set backs today, but let’s check my reality. Let’s step back and look. Actually I found a parking space really easily today, and they had my favourite cake at lunch. Also I chatted with my friend and that was really nice to catch up with them. And so I can see that ‘nothing ever goes right’ is just that little voice making those black and white statements. Over generalising.
And even if it is one of those days (and we all have them!) Well OK, but it’s not forever. And while it’s hard, this is a good time to reach out, ask for help, accept help, slow down, show self compassion, be realistic and accept that things are hard at the moment (rather than pretending).
We can fall into old habits, let old messages keep us stuck replaying old scenarios, that are comfortable, safe and limiting. Or we check our reality, bring in some perspective and see how this time we could turn down the volume on that mean little voice and create a different reality.
That’s one of the things I may do in sessions with clients. Check their reality, gently challenge their narrative. Stop with them and reflect on what is going on here for them, what’s the habit, the routine, maybe think about who the voice belongs to. When did it start being so harsh.
These are some of the questions and thoughts that may get covered, not in the first session, not all at once, but gradually over time. Little by little. Because in counselling it doesn’t normally happen in one big moment, it happens in micro moments, brick by brick. And one day a client will sit in a session, look back and realise just how far they have come. And it’s wonderful!