What do you carry on your back?

We all have emotions and memories that burdens our lives. It can be from the childhood, catastrophes, broken relationships and so on.

We store them in our minds so that they are not visible on our surface. We hide it well. But when someone wants to get closer to us and opens the door to our inner memories it will all come tumbling down.

Instead of treading on or walking around it, it might be time to clean out you inner emotions. Make a decision and throw away everything negative and never let it disturb you again, like ripping out the pages of a book.

You can turn this into a defined exercise if that will help you more. Take some post-it notes and a trash can. Write down one negative emotion/memory on each post-it note and throw them one by one in the trash can.

Some old dark clouds that roam in you present mind are harder to get rid of than others. Then you can write them down and also answer these questions:
*WHAT can I do to leave this behind?
*WHAT do I need to succeed with this?
*WHEN should I do it?

HOW you do it can vary greatly, anything from getting therapy-treatment, to talk to someone that might be one source of your troubles, or cut of the contact to someone, or to write a letter to someone you never usually write to, or to pay debts (both financial and emotional). Yes, it can be anything. Only you know what you need to do.

If you clean out the old baggage you will have the possibility to write new pages and chapters in the future!

Have a wonderful day!

/Carina

Last day to download the free self-help manual!

Oooops! Today is the last day to download my book Self-Help For Relatives of Substance Abusers for free here!

All you have to do is download the Kindle app. After that you can order the book through Amazon.com. And don't forget to write a review if you find the book useful, it would help a lot! :)

Exaggerated strength!

As a contrast to the last blog entry about playing the victim I'll go ahead and describe another behavior that is common among relatives to a person with an addiction problem. It's called that you get "obsessed with strength".

It means that you help other people that are in need of help and to get acknowledged and identify yourself as a strong and good-doing person. By looking at the addict in a way you would a small vulnerable child in need of care you yourself get the affirmation that you are supportive, important and you build your self esteem around this.

Compared to the addict, you'd view yourself in the role as the strong and responsible one. That way the addict can continue to not take responsibility for their actions. Because the consequences of the addiction are taken care of by the strong and responsible one.

This could also mean that if you don't have anyone to take care of at the moment, you lose your feeling of being valuable and you start to feel that there is no purpose in your life.

Being focused on helping someone else all the time lets you postpone dealing with yourself in many ways, your own feelings and needs. You hold yourself occupied with saving someone else and in that way you don't need to face yourself and the situation you are living in.

Don't get me wrong, being helpful and showing compassion are amazing virtues, and the world would be a better place if those virtues were used more. However, when being helpful becomes an escape from yourself, or happens at the expense of someone else's health, then it is high time to think over your priorities.


Do you like this blog? Become a member and share it to others!

Create your own support team

Alone is not strong. To isolate yourself and hide behind a façade has a negative impact on you and diminishes the possibility to stay healthy. That is why you need people around you that you trust and feel close to. And sometimes, when life is hard, you need help and support.

Who is on your support team?
What people do you have in your support team that you can ask for help from? Ask for advice or that can be understanding listeners? Who can, for example, support you when it comes to the kids, economy, practical things, emotional things? Maybe there is a relative who gladly babysits, a banker that can help you to make an economic plan, a neighbor that doesn't mind lending you their car, a friend that is a good listener?

Exercise
Fill in below who is on your support team. I have written a few subjects as examples. You can fill in with other subjects according to your needs.

Your support team
Subject (fill in with your own)                           Who?

Practical things

Economy

Kids

Emotional support

Health

Personal development

Support group

Others?

What do you need to ask these people about, how are you going to communicate that you need help and when?

If you think that your support team looks small you might have to develop new healthy relations or invite new people! To people with "negative" behaviors it is easy to follow the same old pattern of as before. If that is the case for you, what can you do to break these kind of patterns and create the healthy relations that you need?

Good luck!

Do you like this blog? Become a member and share it to others!