12x12: February #9: "Q&A"

This is part eight of a Saturday-long Conference I attended with Adam Young and a guest speaker. This was held on February 4, 2025. The Conference was entitled: "On Fear and Failure: From "My life is an Endless Struggle" -- to -- My Life is a Compelling Story." This is the last part of the Conference: a Q & A. 

1. How do you figure out what soothes you to help you get out dysregulation? Instead of lashing out, screaming, yelling, or sinking into yourself, you need to figure out ways to help you climb out of the dysregulation pit. Some ideas presented by Rob and Adam include: 

• Other people (interactive regulation from other people) is often the top of the list. When we are alone and not doing well, reaching out for care is hard to learn but can be transformative. 
• What feels too good to be true? A favorite place you go for lunch? Can you make it work! How jacked up is the expression guilty pleasure? So if it is pleasure, you should probably feel guilty? How upside down is that? Do you have seasonal depression? Why not actually figure out a way to not live where you live in February? Try to figure out if you can actually break from the previous regime. It is not selfish. 
• Wait! You went for a hike in the middle of the day. Egads! How about we surrender productivity and watch how much gets done. Why does it have to be "too good to be true."

I have, personally, been trying to take good care of myself. I've been giving myself permission to say "no" or to take a nap or to skip something important. Why can't we give ourselves permission to take care of ourselves?

2. What if your body is screaming out but you are not really seeing any trauma in your past? The first thing is, listen to your body. Let it speak. Take notice. Your body has wisdom. Your body holds memory. And when your body is telling you something, will you bring curiosity and kindness to whatever it is screaming and shouting at you? The fact that someone asks a question, indicates that you are listening to your body. Having bodily symptoms and a voice that says, "Nothing bad ever happened to me," is very common. When you get into the story, you will probably find the answer. Continue to listen to your body. "Your heart will remember what it needs to remember in the moment." Remember, you don't want all of this at once.

3. What do you do with "default" fear. You just wake up with fear and do not know what the fear is from. Oh man, this was how my anxiety was affecting me. The fear is disproportionate to any object I can think of. You are not making it up. Human beings have neurons. These neurons are very particular cells that work in a certain way. When you feel fear, that is because neurons are firing. Be patient. It will reveal itself in time. Lean in. Be curious. It almost feels like a low-grade dread. Try narrating everything. Note it in a notebook. "I have a pervasive malaise. I walked the dog. I made breakfast." Was the year 2020 good or bad? Well, that was lots of things. That was a yard sale of things. Lots of things can sit side by side in the heart. You don't have to pick one or the other. Lots of contradictory things can sit side-by-side.

4. I am afraid of people being mad at me? I avoid them and then avoid them fear etc. Okay, yes, but what is the fear underneath the fear! What is your story with regard to people being mad at you, people when you were younger. Someone being disappointed in you? The past is present. How is that fear enstoried for you. You have neurons and that's how neurons always operate. Neurons that fire together, wire together. When you have an experience of disappointing someone in the present and you get that feeling in your gut and tightening in your chest, it is linking you to other experiences, particularly in your family of origin, when your brain was most rapidly developing. I'm curious about those stories!

And, may I say, from Wendi. EMDR has begun to free me from this horrific people-pleasing. My brain has begun to rewire and it is a beautiful thing for me. I am nearly free from what has plagued me for decades. Awareness of the pattern is the first step to breaking the pattern. 

I act a certain way because I don't want anyone to be disappointed. I act this way so that in the future that won't happen. However, that fear is not true. It's an illusion. We say we don't want to let people down, but we are letting ourselves down continually. We are betraying and violating ourselves continually. Part of the way we extend kindness to ourselves is, we decide to stop disappointing ourselves. 

If someone did act if you would love to act, "I am sorry, I don't stay out past 10p." You are rarely disappointed by that. You are mostly just like, "Oh, got it."

5. What do you do with exhaustion in healing? When this happens, you have to clear the calendar of everything in your life. You must remove all weight from you life. This is what I had to do when I collapsed in 2024. I had to stop everything and just BE. You must have a posture toward the attempts as "my attempts were good." I am really good at trying! If it comes to nothing, is that waste? Is that failure? When we are exhausted, the first thing comes in is despair. If you find yourself with a, "What is the point of anything?" that is a gauge on your dashboard that is saying, "You got to stop." Many people hate the fact that I have limits. But we do! When I collapsed, I wondered if I'd ever be able to do the things I'd loved before. I am back. But it took nearly a year of rest. And even now, I am requiring more rest than ever. 

What feeds your soul? Why have you not done the thing that feeds your soul in so long? How do we put off things that help us survive? 

6. I majorly struggle asking for help. How do I do that? Okay, there's a reason that it is hard for you to ask for help! There is nothing more instinctively hard-wired than to ask for help. If you can't do it, there is a reason! You came out of the womb reaching for help. So you should still be doing it. "It literally makes me nauseous to ask for help!" Pay attention to that. Say that to someone else. 

7. How do I not skip over the processing of the hard while simultaneously having a posture of kindness to myself! Yes! The question is indicative of maturity and honesty. You have to hold both things at the same time. 

8. Living in a world where feeling anger is stigmatized, what does healthy anger look like? Your body has impulses, and as long as they are not illegal impulses, go ahead and do with your body what your body wants to do. It might be taking a baseball bat to a garbage can or painting something.