Blame can drive you insane
Blame drives you Insane
We all experience times when we feel hard done to, wronged or even down right mistreated. You think about the people or circumstances that you believe caused your pain, and suddenly, thought after thought, images begin floating through your mind.............
Questions! Oh my gosh the questions!!! What should I have said? Why are they such an idiot? Why do people behave that way? It's not fair! Wait until I see them again, I'll give them what for! On and on, your thoughts get louder, your feelings get stronger, your pain increases. If they hadn't done this, if they hadn't done that..............
In reality the person has long gone, the situation has ended, everyone has moved on. But you continue to relive the pain day after day, month after month. Sometimes even year and year! Like a broken movie projector on continuous loop, images flash onto the screen of your mind. You feel hurt, pain, depression, anxiety, stress, anger, over and over. When will it end? When will I feel sane again?
Your imagination is so powerful, you can recreate the bodily sensations of fear, frustration, failure and fatigue weeks, months and even years later just by focusing your thoughts. Wow! Doesn't that strike you as amazing?
justifying our feelings by pointing the finger at others will drive you crazy
Why do we recreate these painful experiences? Waiting for the other person to apologise or for something to right the wrong we perceive they did to us is a futile exercise.
How do I know? Because I've been there. I've felt sorry for myself, blamed others, justified my feelings, qualified my thoughts and waited for apologies that never came! It is physically and mentally exhausting. You can prove this to yourself with a very simple exercise.
Pick up a pen or pencil and squeeze it as tightly as you can. Imagine that pencil is the person you are angry with. Squeeze it, crush it. Come on! Harder! Think how much they hurt you. Squeeeeeeze!!!!!
How much energy are you using to hold on? How long can your body sustain this taught state for? A few minutes? An hour? A week???!!!
Now open your hand and let the pen go. Just let it fall to the floor. Relax. It's gone. This exercise is a great metaphor for how much energy it takes to hold onto painful thoughts.
It takes far less effort to face your feelings and limiting beliefs and free yourself than it does to hold on.
No living creature can sustain that amount of tension and stress without it causing damage physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Letting go of the past takes effort yes, but the positive action required leads to freedom, not more fear.
The journey is not easy on your own. In fact I would go so far as to say it is near on impossible to do on your own. The reason is many of our beliefs, thoughts and behaviours are so automatic that they feel normal to us. They are blind spots that we can't see on our own. Just like we can't see our own ears.
We can easily miss things with the potential to cause our life to crash again without the help of an objective observer. Someone who is there to help you, without getting caught up in your emotional turmoil. That may sound a bit harsh, but actually the only way you can help someone who is in the midst of their own emotional hurricane is to stand firm and guide them out. Being in the middle of their hurricane will help neither person.
You can Book a Creativity Call with me and let's have a chat.