DROPPING THE ROPE

My last therapy session went better than I had expected, not that they are ever disappointing I like therapy and like my therapist I believe it’s a good match. However I was feeling down the whole week leading up to my appointment and wasn’t sure how it was going to go.

I started to talk and just let the tears come, I had never cried in front of my therapist but he dealt with it great and let me have a few moments to collect myself and wipe away the tears streaming down my face.

I told him that while the options he had gave me to work on for my worrying and anxiety had helped they did not at all touch the negative thinking. We had also worked on some strategies to help my negative thinking and while my brain did try to use those strategies it wasn’t helping.

One of my goals in therapy is to change and become the person I have wanted to be for as long as I can remember, however that’s when my session took an unexpended turn.

He stated I don’t think you are ever going to live without negative thoughts and self-hatred you have hard wired your brain like well-maintained machine, what could be the best approach is to not fight it but accept it.

He compared my internal struggle in my mind with my self-hatred and negative thinking to a tug of war with a monster, in the middle is a deep trench filled with spikes and I’m on one end of the rope and the monster is on the other. The monster is winning and dragging me in, I won’t win this struggle there is no strategy to win, but what I can do is drop the rope.

DROP THE ROPE…THAT’S IT DROP THE ROPE, my self-hatred won’t simply disappear by doing this but the struggle and tug of war will end. I am no longer battling with the monster IN A VISIOUS TUG OF WAR. I can see the monster on the other side of the trench. Meaning my thoughts have not gone away nor will they ever perhaps, but I can choose to accept this and choose to carry them with me, it’s a burden but if I choose to carry them I’m freeing myself from the struggle. I am giving my mind a much needed break, and while the thoughts are still with me I can try to identify that that’s what they are only thoughts and not what is necessarily true and for some moments in time they will fade away and I can focus on what I am grateful for in life.

This is me, dropping the rope, I might pick it up from time to time and see if I can win the tug of war but I know the outcome and I know what I need to practice now to see if it helps, drop the rope and carry on.

I found the comparison my therapist gave me very interesting and my mind can picture it very clear so I thought it might be eye opening to others like it was to me. Hope it helps someone out there.

xoxox