Questioning the Waves

For much of my life, when something negative has resulted because of my negligence, my carelessness, my inattentiveness, my weakness,  my humanity, I have emotionally put myself down--beaten myself up.  I can't say that I saw this self punishment demonstrated in my home growing up.  I'm not sure that I learned it from any person.  But doing it has been a significant part of me, haunting me, possessing me, making me feel very bad about myself, and I often have felt powerless to stop the cascading waves of ugly feelings.  

In the past, when this veritable tsunami has washed over me, I have felt as if I were in a toilet that was flushing--spinning round and round and sinking deeper and deeper, unable to stop the feelings. Those who do this to themselves know exactly what it feels like.  It is an incredibly dark place.

I have done it for so long that I have become very adept at it.  I know well the continual, seemingly unending chatter inside my head; calling myself stupid, inept, and any other adjective that serves to make myself feel terrible.  In those moments, I have sometimes felt that I deserved to feel this way.  That I deserved whatever bad happened as a result of my poor performance.

Years ago, when my children starting behaving in a way that was contrary to what I felt that I had taught them, I really struggled.  I looked at myself as a father and accused myself of failing at this most important responsibility.  The negative self-talk was brutal.  I would look at their "poor" behavior and tell myself that I was responsible for it; that my "nurture" or lack thereof, had caused it.  Because of my spiritual understanding, however, my faith told me that they had lived in heaven before they came to earth for who knows how long.  I had only been able to influence them for a relatively short time.  They had their own personalities and characters, their own "natures."  I struggled to deal with the age-old existential question of "nature vs. nurture."

I came to realize over time as I saw both their less than optimal and their optimal behavior, that I couldn't be entirely responsible for both, and I began to let go of some of those "put myself down" feelings.  But I still struggled with day-to-day failures that I considered I had caused.  It was still very easy to slip into the negative self-talk.  Probably on some absurd level, it was comforting to not deal with the issue and question it but just let the waves roll over me or flush the toilet, whatever metaphor works. 

It took understanding myself better as a result of personal psychotherapy and my coursework to get my psychology degree to finally change my response to the tsunami.  And frankly, dealing with this phenomenen with others as I do therapy has helped as well because I see myself in them.  What I have learned to do is to ask myself two questions, in the aftermath of a situation in which a negative result has occured because of my perceived weakness:

1. Why am I feeling this way right now?
2. What benefit will it give me to continue feeling this way?

In other words, when I do this, I am taking the overwhelming feelings to a cognitive, thinking place.  I am interrupting the waves, questioning what is happening to me.  I have learned that as I have repeatedly done this little brain exercise, I am essentially reprogramming my brain.  So when the initial event(s) occur these days, those two questions pop into my mind.  I deal with the negative overwhelming feelings immediately and after I ask the questions, the waves begin to ebb and the mind chatter begins to fade to nothing.  I may still feel a bit bad because of what has happened, but I now calm myself and put it in the experience column.  These days I am even able to look at what occured and objectively decide what I can learn from it--what I should or shouldn't do in the future so that the negative outcome is avoided.

To be sure, because of my humanity I still do or don't things that have negative consequences.  But I am well into this particular transition, one that makes me feel so much better about myself and one that I am very proud of!