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Some (to me) earthshaking work with T

Posted by Kath on October 5, 2009, at 20:13:39

today. It was one of those "I have NO idea what I'm going to talk about & it feels like a waste of an appointment."

Well. That was not the case.

It was a pretty complex session; lots of things got talked about & she gave me some really cool ways to deal with my son's voice, over the telephone being a trigger. I have my 'scanners' out, hearing how he sounds & doing this instantaneous assessment of 'how he's doing'. Although he's 'doing' quite well right now, I still have the scanners out & still get really anxious if he sounds 'off'.

It came out in our conversation that I have difficulty feeling 'safe'. If my son's voice sounds a certain way when he phones, I instantly get anxious & wonder what is going to happen & if there's a crisis how will I POSSIBLY deal with yet another one, as I feel quite worn down by the past decade of them (regarding my son).

T explained my strengths in another area of my life, where I can deal with unknowns quite well.

She helped me realize that this is partly due to perception.

She talked about, if his voice sounds shakey, or upset, or 'off', my habit has been to have a 'perception' of the situation through a somewhat narrow tunnel because I'm triggered to feel fearful. She suggested I widen the tunnel - make it widen out into a huge angle, rather than parallel lines. So....instead of perceiving it through the tunnel as 'oh no - something's wrong' I can widen my perception to include other possibilities, like 'he sounds tired; he probably just woke up'. Then she suggested that since thinking of him being tired didn't cause me much stress - I can make it a habit to ALWAYS perceive it as tiredness if he sounds 'off'.

THEN she talked about 'diffusing' the trigger with different thoughts.

She mentioned some TV show where there was a 'ditzy' girl who, if someone said they had broken their nose, she wouldn't talk about the broken nose, but she'd say something like, 'ohhh what colour bandage did they put on it?' & I came up with the idea of the diverting reply to the broken nose might be, 'Oh - was the doctor cute?'

So I came up with the idea of hearing my son's voice; perceiving it as tired & diffusing the trigger with a positive thought: 'he's probably tired because he had a heck of a lot of fun last night with his friends & didn't get enough sleep."

She talked about recognizing one's Trigger, then either diluting it with positive thoughts, OR switch to alternative thinking to diffuse the trigger.

She said she felt like she was taking a big 'risk' in suggesting to almost ignore the trigger. And she said that there's a big shift in psychology to, I think she called it 'positive psychology'. She said that there's a lot of newer research showing actual molecular changes that happen when we change our thinking from negative to positive. There are measurable & repeatable changes. She said that there's more & more research on the Mind-Body connection & she's interested in incorporating it into her practice, hence the suggestion of acknowledging the trigger & then moving on.

Well, I'm 'into' "The Law of Attraction" stuff by Michael Losier, so this fits right in!

She also said that when my son calls, I have the option of really listening, scientifically, to the tone, texture, pitch etc of his actual voice, without putting ANY interpretation on it! This is a huge challenge, but boy, am I up for it!!
I realized how much a part of 'bad news' & learning of crisis situation comes to me through my son's voice on the telephone - through him telling me about it! So of course it's a trigger.

She also said that I have additional options of listening to the background noises in his house, and to hear the silence between his words/sentences.

I am really excited to try out these methods.

I'm also glad she gave me so many, because then I have an arsenal to choose from.

:-)) Kath

 

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poster:Kath thread:919851
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090907/msgs/919851.html