*As I come back to finish this post, I’ve noticed a trend in what I write that I’d like to point out. Most of my blog posts start off pretty depressing, but if you stay with me they come around. Now let’s get to it.
You know on the fourth Harry Potter movie where Madeye Moody is showing the classroom the three unforgivable curses? And he calls on Neville, who answers with the cruciatus curse. Where Moody takes the spider and curses it, leaving it squirming uncomfortably?
That’s what I think it feels like to be depressed. To just have this huge weight on you that you can’t see, but it’s just fucking torture.
You know, you really don’t realize how much you’re struggling until you find yourself with someone who legally has to keep what you say confidential. There are a lot of things I thought I had worked through that I didn’t realize were still weighing on me until I had a complete wellness chart done with my acupuncturist.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about cognitive behavioral psychology and how much individual processing time I require for things. If there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that I love discovering the root cause of an issue. Which a lot of times means paying attention to the past. However, the thing about CBT that makes it so powerful is that it’s about what’s happening right NOW. It’s about taking stock of where you are currently — the issues you’re dealing with in this moment. When we ruminate on the past, we tend to start blaming. But blaming either ourselves (or others) doesn’t fix anything. So to me, cognitive behavioral therapy is about forgetting the blame, and instead taking responsibility. No one else is going to fix or save us after all, at least not in the long term.
Cognitive behavior psychology is how our thoughts and behavior interact. I just love that.
Our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
It’s comparative in my eyes to how emotions arise, from both how we interpret what is happening to us — how we think about it — and how our body responds. It’s just so nice that they are linked. It’s like how when you’re anxious you can reframe the way you think about it in a way that makes you experience excitement instead. Or how when you’re nervous about something, that really just means that you care. And what’s the harm in not being a nihilist? In thinking your life matters?
It’s a nice tool honestly. That our thoughts, feelings and actions can feed off of and reinforce one another. Because when you recognize that, you understand what’s in your control. You can work with and negotiate with yourself. You’re not a fixed thing by any means. You can change. You can make decisions, envision what you want, and work to make it happen — even with just seemingly small shifts in the way you think or your body language.
The first rule in Jordan Peterson’s book is “Stand up Straight.” Without going into in detail, I’d say this is a testament to cognitive behavioral therapy. Standing up straight psychologically makes you more powerful and earns you more respect. Something as simple as your posture can have a profound effect on your well-being over time — how you view yourself, and subsequently how others view you too.
How cool is that?
I think it’s right in line with our mind, body and spirit. We so often forget how important it is to take care of the whole package. How beneficial it can be to growth. We forget how complex we are.
Recently, I’ve been reading about obesity. I guess in my head, I always just chalked it up to an energy imbalance that got extremely out of control. Part of me didn’t understand how someone could let their health get that bad. I guess I still don’t exactly understand because I’ve never been in that exact situation (which isn’t to say I haven’t had my own eating disorders). But much like the way in which many health issues are both a physiological and biological feedback loop, it’s also an individual, environmental and cultural feedback loop. Basically, it’s way more complicated than I ever took the time to think about.
Which lead me to a simple google search of “The Complexity of Obesity,” where I found such a well-worded essay on the matter.
It basically presented how important it is to consider an issue as complex as obesity from all angles, not only in the patients life, but also within the scope of practice for doctors. How it can not only be beneficial for an obese person to work with a professional, but for that professional to recognize where their own limitations lie — and within those limitations their own bias.
It’s comical to me that I always forget how incredibly social humans are. Even from my own experience, I can’t deny the effects of working WITH someone on your personal issues and goals. Establishing that communication and dialogue with another human being makes such a profound difference.
Which brings me to another interesting idea that came to me this morning, although in some self-critiquing way, it’s kinda pathetic. I was working out with Kelly, my PT, and he asked me what I wanted to work on. This isn’t exactly conventional in the world of personal training, but my goals with him aren’t to necessarily change my body. I just want to learn and get feedback on my movement to make sure they are optimal. But what I realized is that having him — a professional — help me has given me this level of support I didn’t know I needed.
Now I’m not exactly saying this is a great thing — I mean, in a weird way I found that he was granting me permission to do things. To try new things. That sounds like a dominance hierarchy, and I guess to some extent it is. After all, I am there to learn from him. But honestly, I think it has more to do with the psychological safety net that someone with experience can give. It’s almost like as humans, we need each other to provide perception, to believe in us.
It sounds kinda simple whenever I type it out, but honestly most things I write are. The thing is though, and I’ve thought this before — simple concepts like this feel like an epiphany whenever you actually implement them into your life. We can know everything in the world. We can literally know all of life’s secrets, but it all means absolutely nothing until you experience it all first hand.
There’s this increased self awareness when you work closely with someone who knows exactly how to support you. They help see through the biases that you view yourself through. The magic of all healing, of all change, truly does happen within the context of a relationship with another human.
JP talks about the the importance of relationships within his practice in a pretty cute way:
“Physicians and pharmacists tend to blame such patients for their noncompliance, inaction and error. You can lead a horse to water, they reason. Psychologists tend to take a dim view of such judgements. We are trained to assume that the failure of patients to follow professional advice is the fault of the practitioner, not the patient. We believe the health-care provider has a responsibility to profer advice that will be followed, offer interventions that will be respected, plan with the patient or client until the desired result is achieved, and follow up to ensure that everything is going correctly. This is just one of the many things that make psychologists so wonderful :)” p.31
“The people I listen to need to talk, because that’s how people think. People need to think. Otherwise they wander blindly into pits. When people think, they stimulate the world, and plan how to act in it. If they do a good job simulating, they can figure out what stupid things they shouldn’t do. Then they can not do them. Then they don’t have to duffer the consequences. That’s the purpose of thinking. But we can’t do it alone.” p. 240
“That’s the key to the psychotherapeutic process: two people tell each other the truth — and both listen.” p.245
First of all, it’s pretty adorable that Jordan Peterson put that little smiley face in the text. Secondly, that is the power of professional help. The outside accountability of another person is by no means a small thing, whether it be a therapist, a personal trainer, an acupuncturist, etc. Different people, different ways of helping someone can work collectively on a person. Everything about us is intertwined, after all. And most people don’t actively seeks to disappoint those they work with, especially when change is to be expected — regardless of whether that be a physical or mental change. Add in the fact that people are paying for a service, and their ability to take it, and themselves, seriously is bound to skyrocket. Which is to say nothing on the power of investing in yourself. And of doing something actively, versus being passive. In the most cliche way, change only works if you do.
So, I started this blog post a few weeks ago, and never got around to finishing it. But I actually made a therapy appointment for September (yes, she is that booked up). I did my research on cognitive behavioral psychologists in the area, and at the time that I made the phone call, I was feeling really down. This is around when I had talked to my acupuncturist about the issues I didn’t realize were still affecting me. The moment I made the appointment, I felt better. And I’ve continued to feel better. Part of me weirdly hopes I’ll have something to talk about when I see her.
But that’s besides the point. The whole point of this is that, well —
“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” – Peter Levine
Meaning once again, that great healing can happen within a relationship. It’s almost like, the moment you admit things you’re confused about or have been holding inside, you can finally let them go. But in order to do that, you really need someone there who wants to listen to you. Someone who is rooting for you, and working with you.
They say the role of a teacher is to believe in their students. There is even scientific evidence that students perform better when their teachers believe they will. I think that’s part of why working with another person is so beneficial. Because they don’t see all the false stories about yourself that you see. They aren’t looking through the fucked up prescription you are, that you’ve had since you were a child.
Growing up really is just about forgetting all those beliefs you had ingrained in you as a kid. I really believe that there is insane potential within every single person. In my head, we are all little Gods, creating and shaping our worlds.
There is this great documentary on Netflix called Heal. It’s about how belief shapes biology. It’s just so evident that there is something about our souls and the way they interact with the world around us that we just can’t pinpoint. It’s almost like religion or different ways to enlightenment. In the words of Ryan Holiday, “I don’t care how you get there, just that you get there.” Meaning whatever path serves you and gets you to your own version of truth is the one you should take. And it’s different for everyone.
Idk, I wish I could formulate all these thoughts stuck inside me better, but that’s what I get for being a lazy blogger.
PRETTY EXCITING STUFF IF YOU ASK ME.