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Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2005. Mattie and I made his costume together. We went to the craft store and bought a black sweat top and pants and different color felts. Mattie was trying to look like his cat, Patches. That year, Mattie never went trick or treating. Instead, he landed up going to the emergency room and being admitted for several days. He had an ear infection, which turned into sepsis. Mind you, the day before rushing him to the ER, I took him to his pediatrician. I told her I thought Mattie had an ear infection. She dismissed me as an overly worried parent. Rest assured, when she visited us in the hospital, I gave it to her, and she apologized. She admitted she was wrong, I was right, and from that day forward whenever I told her I thought something was wrong with Mattie, she listened. Thanks to the stretchy nature of the sweatsuit, Mattie was able to use this costume in 2006!
Quote of the day: Losing him was like having a hole shot straight through me, a painful, constant reminder, an absence I could never fill. ~ Jojo Moyes
After dropping my dad off at his memory care center, I did one chore after the other. By the time I got home at 11am, my mom was still not downstairs. So I continued to do things around the house and got derailed on several projects. Over the weekend, I did more of my continuing education class. I have about 20 more minutes of this six hour course, before moving onto another class. However, I learned about emotionally driven behavior and a concept called opposite action.
When we get emotional, our rational brain goes offline. Once that happens, our emotions run us and then we make decisions and act on how you feel. This is called emotionally driven behavior. The problem with this is these behaviors can be destructive and intensity the original emotion. Here's an example, let's say you are depressed. This sad and low feeling causes you to pull back and stay in bed, because you feel that whatever you could do just won’t work. Of course the more we stay in bed and be unproductive, the worse this may make us feel. Therefore heightening the original feeling, depression.
The thinking is to act, despite how you may feel. To stop listening to your emotional brain and behaviorally get your rational brain back online by doing the opposite of what your emotional brain tells you. So with the depression example, an opposite action would be to push against your depression, get out of bed, and for example apply for jobs even though you don’t feel like it. I have been thinking a great deal about what this presenter has been talking about all weekend.
Opposite action is one of the tools used within radical acceptance. Radical acceptance is to accept things in their entirety. Or as Marsha Linehan would say, (the founder of Dialectic Behavioral Therapy)..... "Letting go of having to have what you want at any given moment in time." Radical acceptance doesn't mean we have approve of what causing us pain, but it means to acknowledge it, accept it, and to try to move forward with it.
The mantra I have been telling myself over and over this weekend is..... I wish Peter would return to me, value and love me, and be the person I thought he always was, to now saying I know I want these things, but it is not going to happen. No matter what I have done this year, it hasn't changed the trajectory. Therefore, I am working on trying to accept the impossible. It doesn't mean that it negates my feelings. My feelings are there and justified, but I can't change the reality, because I am not in control of Peter's thoughts, feelings, and actions.
One of the skills in achieving radical acceptance, is opposite action. I am trying to actively be aware of my feelings, so they do not overrun my behaviors. As it is very easy to be sad, angry, and anxious. This weekend was case in point. I am anxious interacting with people, having people visit me, or doing new things. Mainly because I am balancing a circus show with my parents and the heartache of Peter leaving me. Therefore when I feel anxious, my natural feeling is to retreat. But this weekend I pushed through that and did the opposite action.... I had my dad's physical therapist visit and then I took my parents to a deli (a place I normally wouldn't visit with them). Both opposite reactions turned out to be positive experiences, thereby easing my anxiety (or at least in that moment) with talking and interacting with people.
You maybe asking yourself, WHY is Vicki giving me a lecture on radical acceptance and the tool, opposite action? Because, I am trying to apply these concepts to my own life, and since the blog is a big part of my life, it translates into my writings. We all get stuck, we all get wounded by people, and we all feel uncertain about life and how to take a step forward. Since I find therapy ineffective, I have decided that I am doing what I have always done in life..... learn, research, and process for myself. Or at least this is my current thinking, it could change on a dime given the fragile nature of my situation.
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