Winter solstice

[Dimity]

Hi @Shaz51 I hope you've shaken off the flu. Just got back from .craft group. If the rain holds off I'll get into the garden after lunch. How's your day so far?

[AuntGlow]

Of course you would be impacted by this @Dimity 😔

Experiencing somatic stress and rumination must be so overwhelming too. 

I would honestly be such a mess if I were in your position... so I don't want to try and encourage you to feel any different. You are allowed to grieve, and cry, and even scream about how hard this has been! 

I guess, my focus is on what might help to keep you feeling ever so slightly more supported and grounded overall. I know that it's tricky to pinpoint exactly what you may need right now, so I would encourage you to listen into the first thing that comes up when you consider support. What might that be? 💛

[tyme]

We care a lot @Dimity . So glad you are able to connect with the community here. I know family issues can be difficult at the best of times. 

Hope your craft group was okay. Do you go regularly?

Also, with this somatic stress stuff, I'm interested to hear more. Of course I can look it up, but I'm interested to hear of your experiences. I'm hearing the term more and more recently... what do you find helpful?

[Dimity]

@AuntGlow @tyme I had a solid session with a psychologist today and learnt of my schemas assessment. I only remember 3 of the top 4 but I'll have a lot of work to do.

@tyme my somatic symptoms... pain (muscle tension?), palpitations,  heart rate, gut. I do breath exercises sometimes.  I know in principle things like mindfulness, meditation, yoga nidra, progressive muscle relaxation should help but haven't got there for a very long time. My daily walk is important to me.

@AuntGlow emotional constraint was my top schema so a few tears is about all I can usually manage. Emotional deprivation and social isolation were up there too. So although what I'd love to do for support is ring someone I can't actually do that. 

I've only just started two support groups (craft and exercise). They'll be alternate weeks. Hopefully they'll be a gentle introduction to socialising more. I'm upset it took so long and was so difficult to get my referrals acted on.

I'm starting to face the fact that a  lot of the family problems, and people's decisions about their own lives and health, are beyond my control and I need to learn better selfcare and self-efficacy for myself. I don't know how yet, but maybe my new psychologist can help. 

[NatureLover]

Glad you had a good session with your new psychologist, @Dimity 👍

I'm pleased that you will be learning better self-care ❤

[AuntGlow]

I am glad your psychologist went through your schemas with you, it's helpful to know and allows for deeper self-understanding. @Dimity 🫶

It makes so much sense that connecting to and sharing your emotions would feel almost inaccessible. I can only imagine how hard it has been to safely feel and ask for your needs to be met. I am wondering if we can titrate with this and slowly work towards asking for support? 

I understand why you would be frustrated with the delays. 😣 However, I am happy you will have access to some social activities that could also help you find some flow. 

I am really hopeful your new psychologist can help with this. 🤞 In the meantime, we are always here to talk things out with you. 

💛

[Dimity]

I've remembered my other top schema... defectiveness...

[Dimity]

Apparently emotional deprivation schema has 3 facets: nurturance, empathy and protection/guidance.

On reflection outside of the forums I now have someone in my life who models nurturance (although they don't nurture me), someone else who I can communicate with who seems to mostly understand me, and avenues I can follow. Within the forums I guess there's all 3.

Emotional constraint and social isolation are things I can work on although greatly complicated by my sense of defectiveness - I guess they feed into each other.

Someone recently posted about learning self-compassion. Perhaps I could try to refind the thread as it suggested some online study materials.

@AuntGlow @NatureLover 

[Dimity]

From cci wa

Self-compassion involves being aware of our own pain and suffering, and understanding that while feeling this pain is hard, it is a normal human experience. Directing feelings of kindness and care towards ourselves, and focusing our attention and energy on how we might alleviate our pain, are also crucial components of selfcompassion.

Self-compassion can bring great benefits for our mental health and well-being. Particularly, self-compassion can activate our soothe system, which calms our threat system (the system responsible for detecting potential dangers in order to protect ourselves) and our drive system (the system that spurs us on to get things done and be active in life). This is important, as without our soothe system, our threat and drive systems become overactive and can lead to difficult emotions such as anxiety, anger, and depression.

The opposite of self-compassion is self-criticism. We  can get stuck in a self-critical cycle, where any problem we face activates our threat system and anxious, angry or depressive responses then follow. If we then use self-criticism as our way of dealing with whatever we are going through, that just keeps the threat system active, and keeps us stuck in the problem and our emotional suffering.Those who are highly self-critical particularly can benefit from developing the ability to relate to themselves in a more compassionate way.

There are many ways of building self-compassion. By practising ways to stimulate the soothe system we can begin to cultivate an attitude of kindness, warmth, concern, understanding and strength within us, and then use this attitude to respond to our own struggles, rather than reverting to our usual self-critical habits.

[NatureLover]

I don't know anything about schemas, but they sound intetesting and useful @Dimity . 

The notes on self compassion sound good.