When I was ready to change the first action I took was to select one single thing from the list of things that I want to change about myself. Then I made a commitment to overcome this problem. What I choose to change was to overcome my bad temper. I began breaking down this huge problem into manageable pieces. I chose one manifestation of my temper and decided to work on that first. What I chose was my habit of yelling at my son, I chose this because at a therapy session with my son, the therapist said to him, “If you could change one thing about your mother, what would it be?” My son replied, “I’d like her to stop yelling at me when she gets upset.” To begin trying to change this bad habit, I spent the next few weeks thinking a lot about yelling. I asked myself why I yelled. The answer was that I was frustrated when my son didn’t do what I asked him to do, and this was the only way I could get his attention. Then I asked myself what other choices I had. I came up with a plan that I called “calm persistence.” The day after committing to this plan, I screamed at my son. Afterward, I was overwhelmed with a sense of how easy it was to do something that I had told myself I wouldn’t do. However I didn’t give up. I keep trying, and after each failure I spent some time thinking about how the incident had gotten started and how it had escalated. A few weeks of great adventure of trying to change, I asked my son to do the dishes when he came home from school. I got home from work expecting a clean kitchen. When I saw the dirty dishes piled up everywhere, I turned red with anger. I was ready to pounce on my son. Fortunately he wasn’t home so I had some time to think about the commitment I had made to calm persistence. When my son came home, I began talking to him calmly. When he started getting defensive, and making excuses. I suddenly found myself yelling at him again. However, this time, instead of feeling as if I was in some kind of trance with no control over the situation, I found myself observing myself as I was yelling. I also felt, for the first time, that I had a choice. I knew I could stop if I wanted to. I used this new sense control to change my behaviour, I stopped yelling at my son in midscream and walked out of the room. Later, despite my small victory, I still felt as if I had failed to reach my goal and I started crying about it. The sobs continued for a while and afterward I felt as if a big weight has been lifted of my shoulders. Then I recognized that at least I was thinking about yelling at my son and during the act – not just afterward. I was making progress. The next time my son forgot to do the dishes, I talked calmly to him about it and insisted he do them before going out on turning on the television. He resisted and I persisted – but I did not yell. Afterward, I felt so good about myself for not yelling. This victory lifted my self-esteem and later become a motivation to continue fighting my urge to yell. From this point on, despite periodic relapses, I continued to have a sense of choice about my yelling rather than feeling powerless about it. After a year passed, the urge to yell at my son disappeared, and it seemed normal to handle things without loosing control. I still got angry, but I had gotten control over my behaviour and I felt better about myself. Most of all, in changing my behaviour I had improved my relationship with my son. We were close and he respected me more. Because he respected me more, he was more cooperative. Over the years, I have continued to change many things about myself – from hurtful behaviours to small vices. I give myself all the time I need to change, and I never give up. I do something even if it’s just thinking about the problem and keeping the goal of change firmly entrenched in my mind.
Healing the wounds of the past begins with changing how we look at it. – Identify the things that happened to you – Talk about them – Write about them – Feel your feelings fully – no matter what the are and how they are or how afraid of them you are – Accept what has happened to you – Accept what you did in reaction to what happened to you. – Forgive those who hurt you – Forgive yourself if you passed your anger on to others – Try to find something good that came out of the chaos – Move on. Live in the moment. – Once I broke through my denial and identified what had happened to me and what I had done to myself and others, I began talking about it. At some point, I also began writing about what had happened. However, I was still unable to feel very much at this point, so my writing was very analytical. This was my way of recognizing my pain but not feeling it. After some time, the dam burst and all my painful feelings would come and go, but every time I discovered something new, or I realized how much I have been wounded in the past. I faced my feelings and had a good cry. I cried a lot. Eventually, I moved on from my feelings and addressed the issue of acceptance. Acceptance was very important part of the healing process for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment