EXERCISE - SUPPRESSION
PATIENCE
A lot of information comes along in this website, and the best approach is to absorb the content step by step. Step by step is essential for the brain to process the change, the adjustments, on a neurological level. If you go too fast, you will probably drop this project after one or two weeks. The mind will jump in when things get too difficult and say: “See, I told you so.” The key therefore, is relaxation, and when you tackle this course with an overload of information and exercises, you get the opposite result — you become tense. So we go slowely. We are moving towards calmness one step at a time.
Having that said, there is no specific timeframe or end to finish this course. For some people it might take years to overcome their trauma. Just make it something important, omething crucial for you. Make it your personal “big project” to achieve something that will benefit you for the rest of your life and the life of the people you love. Use this website, its exercises and the energy updates as a guideline and as a motivator. It was made for you not out of pitty but out of love and seeing your potential. Knowing this it maybe makes it easier for you to take on the subject of trauma with great sincerity–there are always people to help you move forward.
Three goals today
It is a relatively well-known exercise that can sometimes make that little difference. It is based on recognizing and clearly formulating goals and rewarding yourself when you achieve those goals.
In this exercise you play with your energy levels throughout the day by making a to-do list with three goals. Every day. No matter how simple the goals you write them down in your journal. Include even the smallest of things like making the bed, walk to the post office, or buy shampoo. By keeping it small and formulating the three most important goals of the day, you will see that you will fulfill them. This feels good, it will benefit the growth of your your motivation. You will see you have achieved succes that day which changes (gradually) your mindset. These three main goals set the right priorities about the core tasks to be done. What you do, you do fully. This approach will also help you with the other exercises in this course.
When we talk bigger long term goals it works the same way. Don’t focus and dream on the hundred things you still want to do in your life, but first on the three most important ones. If it remains a hundred, nothing gets done, it will remain some blurry desire. If it’s three, you might suddenly start saving for your first trip out of the Netherlands if your asylum gets approved. Now all of a sudden one of your three goals of the day is to send an email to see if there is a job available so you can actually pay for that trip to Spain. Or maybe you start jogging for 1 km today because you aim for the marathon next year. That’s how building mindset works, that’s how energy works and builds up to reach momentum. Do the same for a any given day and from now try to integrate it with the course exercises. It will make you grow into the course and will strengthen you to work on your traumas and other difficulties.
So keep the goals manageable, something you can control one step at a time. The big goal can be huge but the key is to keep the steps towards it small and manageable. That single email for a job is a positive action towards your higher goal and it will show up in your capacity to actualize that road trip to Spain. This is your approach with the exercises too, do not confuse yourself, take it gradual and structured. If not you’ll build up tension. Tension means you will drop the goal, drop the effort.
Importantly, do not forget to check off the daily goals once you’ve completed them—that’s the reward! There lies a small energy peak (dopamine) in your brain which is important for the good feeling, but also so the brain remembers how and what it did for next time. Make sure though not to give yourself these juicy credits after checking it off but give yourself credit as you are making the effort! If you can reward yourself while taking the effort of running that 1 km today you will, without a doubt, build up the right mindset to run the marathon! If you take these things into account it will become part of your personal discipline.
Cleaning has comparable results as a to-do list. It brings order and creates some space for the chaos in your head: tidy outside means structured inside. Here’s a link: tidiness brings order.
SEE IT NAME IT
An old colleague and friend of mine (we used to work in a grand cafe) used to get frustrated almost every evening due to the stress of our very incompetent boss and the anti-social behavior of the daily group of alcoholics who came to get drunk. About once a month, my friend would call me to blow off some steam and vent his frustrations. It was his way, his release. In this exercise, we will build on that, but in an updated version. It’s essentially an old technique to bring issues you’re dealing with to the surface and to name the emotion or feeling that comes with them. For now, we will stick to this grand cafe example, but mind you that it can be applied anywhere.
The purpose of this release is to bring the emotion, feeling, fear, or anger to the conscious mind so that the tension doesn’t have a chance to build up further. This may prevent reactive behavior later towards situations or people who have nothing to do with your problem. Often, that middle finger in traffic or snapping at the kids is just built-up negative energy–the final straw. Or maybe you turn crazy towards your roommate at camp because you are on each other’s lips for two years. It’s like the vulcano burst we discussed earlier. Therefore, for your immediate surroundings, especially family, this short release can make a significant difference.
Basically what you do is give the problem a name; you speak it out and make it something that is real. From there it becomes a more tangible issue rather than a mental concept or something abstract. Additionally, you also name the feeling that accompanies it. This part then also takes shape and is brought to consciousness. So you speak out the feeling out loud and, if possible, write it down in a few words, this is when the journal from the former chapter comes in handy.
The effect on your brain is that stress-related areas become demonstrably less active. Research from UCLA, for example, shows that when you name the negative emotion resulting from an event—giving it a label—the power of that emotion decreases. You move towards acceptance, towards what is, and create distance between the emotion and the one experiencing it. Naming it the emotional part of the brain becomes less active, reducing identification with the emotion.
Bringing it to the conscious mind means acknowledging, accepting, and confronting. The order is irrelevant. If my colleague, for instance, decides to take the easy route, which is available in that job, then after closing time, six beers are downed to get into relaxation mode. That feels good, is easier after a hard days work, but it’s not a release. It’s suppression, building tension, and waiting for that vulcano, for an outburst moment, wherever it may come.
INSTANT RELEASE
This exercise complements the one above. Only difference is now we apply it instantaneously. You see it and name it immediately at the moment it happens. So, the example continues with my friend who is working in the grand café and immediately applies the instant release.
Instant release
“Oh no, my boss is in chaos again. He is in his bad energy, his usual routine. It’s not okay for me to work now. Honestly what a poor guy he is, probably a lot on his mind that I know nothing about. I’m frustrated now, and he behaves like a real ass, but I see what it does to me and how it makes me feel. I see my stress, I see that I am getting angry, I see I’d like to punch him in the face. But it’s okay now. I see it, I rise above it. I take a few deep breaths and be cool.”
With this quick release, you admit–in your own language–that the situation is not chill. You recognize and acknowledge the emotion and might even realize that emotion is something human, that it is part of the game. Practice this enough and you could immediately become aware of the bigger picture.
So you deal with the problem, bring it to your conscious mind, and accept it in your own way. Problems stem from identification and need only two things: your attention and blinders. Don’t forget that. Don’t focus on the problem with your personalized interpretations, but shift your attention to observing it. And after seeing and naming it, you might take a walk, stretch, do a yoga exercise, or call someone. This helps shift your attention and provides a physical release.
