We forget to acknowledge what has happened us – here’s one way to remind ourselves

When I qualified as a Life Coach a few years back, one of my favourite exercises to help the client become aware of their lives in the present moment was firstly to ask them to write out a short synopsis of their life so far. This was to identify what they wanted to work on, what to change, or what to come to terms with and accept, to move on. Sometimes this was enough for them to take stock and realise they were having difficulties, and justifiably so, seeing it in black and white on a few sheets of paper.

We sometimes forget all that has happened to us, and how our history affects us today.

We need reminding of what we have achieved, become and overcome in our lives.

Tell it

1. Take that written story and TELL it to someone. But don’t just sit there and recite it. Relay your experiences in the third person.
2. If it helps, call yourself a different name. Tell it in full, don’t abbreviate, then watch the other person’s reactions.
3. You will see and hear interest, sympathy, surprise, empathy, awe – a full range of human emotions.
4. Also I guarantee your story, retold to your closest friend or even a family member, will be received with renewed attention and new reactions, as it’s about someone else, a person they don’t know.
5. By doing this, it is now new to you too, so notice how you start to feel. You will possibly think this is quite a tale; sad, brave, unbelievable.
6. I also asked the client to quickly write out how they felt as soon as possible after completing this exercise, using words not sentences, to describe their reactions.

How this works

You have become desensitised to your own life history. So have your friends and family.

You have internalised the emotions, stripped the narrative of despair, and are just spouting the facts. It has become your party piece, it’s your stock answer to, and for example, ‘so you are divorced’? It is your brief biography parroted out, almost verbatim, to describe yourself. The worrying thing is that you have told it so many times that you believe it. You know it so well, are so faithful to the script, that you cannot see the wood for the trees. To you the abridged, cold, factual version is now the truth. You no longer identify with it. You don’t empathise with yourself. It is distinct from you, in the past, done with. You have forgotten your own history.

Remind yourself

How this exercise works is by effectively taking yourself out of your story. You then observe it objectively. Once you do this, you can start to analyse and become aware of how you have got to this point in your life. Then you can begin to cut yourself some slack, be kind to yourself, as you would be towards the person the story is about. Then you are back as the subject of your story, being subjective about your life again, as you should be. You are now ready to try to come to terms with your experiences and move on.

I know because I have done it. Countless times.

I spew my potted history out to people I don’t know well, just to bring them up to date, get it out of the way. Just as they start to give me ‘the face’, that, ‘poor you’ look which precedes the sympathy vote, I go to great lengths to console them with a couple of statements; ‘No, I’m fine! I am over it all’.

In that moment I am negating everything that has happened in my life, shoving it under the mental carpet I carry within me. What I am doing there is looking after the other person’s sensibilities, while disregarding my own. That is NOT how to deal with experiences, to let them go, to move on.

My present reminder

What brought me to a standstill a few years back was actually studying for my Life and Business Coaching Diploma. The whole idea was being life-coached myself, which I totally understood, to learn the process. I also totally underestimated its effect.

We had the summer off and I ended up having a breakdown, manifesting in my first panic attack which was a whopper. I realised this happened because I hadn’t dealt with, as I thought I had, quite a few issues in my life up to that point. I have had about three major attacks since, nothing as large as the first, but I carried the legacy of fear of the next attack, bubbling under in my subconscious, making me constantly anxious. I have thankfully learned to manage it by knowing the signs and facing them down.

As I write I am about to commence therapy in order to deal with a fresh set of circumstances which has made me realise I need to do some more work in dealing with my life as I have, once again, forgotten my own methods. I also have to revisit all my other coping mechanisms. One thing I know for sure is that they work. I just have to COMMIT to them and not just do them every now and then. I have to do what all of us who have succumbed to an anxiety disorder, in whatever form, have to do – I HAVE TO LIVE THEM.

It has to be a way of life, ongoing, in as much as a healthy lifestyle is ongoing by eating well and exercising to look after our physical bodies and mental state. Our brains need constant training too. We have a very powerful brain. With the right therapies that are available to us, never before more so than now, we can practice a physically, AND mentally, healthy lifestyle.

Find the right help for you.
Take the help.
Take care of you.