The Positive Woman

Exercise: The emotional story of my life

Using a large sheet of paper and some coloured pens, draw a series of pictures to illustrate typical scenes in your life which you remember with feeling. Don’t attempt a great work of art; you can use symbols and ‘pin-men’, but avoiding words will help you stimulate the right side of your brain, which deals with emotions, and prevent you from making too many clever intellectual interpretations as you remember! (See the following chapter for further explanation about right and left brain hemisphere activity.)

You have already spent some time reviewing your past history, but now is the time to dig just a little deeper into your personal ‘feeling bank’ and see whether there is any what we in the world of therapy call ‘unfinished business’. By this we mean past situations which gave rise to:

– feelings which were never satisfactorily expressed, causing deep-seated tensions which may still be inhibiting the free flow of emotional energy and perhaps hindering you from being as spontaneous and passionate as you would like to be

– thoughts which were not correctly assessed and evaluated and may therefore have replaced your capacity for rationality and impartiality with dogmatic opinions and prejudices.

To assist you in the unearthing of your own ‘unfinished business’, complete the following exercise, which will help you review your emotional life to date. Remember that:

1. In looking for material we are not necessarily looking for ‘the Truth’, i.e. what actually happened, but merely your emotional reaction to your perception of what was going on. For example, your mother may not have been actually baring her teeth and threatening to kill you when you knocked down your brother’s castle or came home late from the disco, but you may have thought she was and therefore felt the terror.

2. We are not necessarily looking for major events or traumas. It is often in the everyday common experiences that most unfinished business lies. Indeed, the very ordinariness of the experiences may have resulted in their not getting the attention that they needed. We say to ourselves:

‘Well, almost everybody has failed an exam in their life, haven’t they?’

‘All sisters quarrel with their brothers.’

‘All my friends’ Dads were just the same.’

‘Every girl is terrified on her first date.’

It’s up to you to decide in which order to look at your life events. Some people like working backwards, while others must always start at the beginning and others prefer working with whatever pops into their head – vive la différence! Just check out with yourself from time to time that sticking to your particular method is working in your best interests and is not just an old habit acquired from someone else with different kinds of aptitudes.

The examples I have given are merely guidelines rather than suggestions and should be used to help you structure your work. The next exercise can be completed over several days or weeks – but don’t leave too long in between sessions or you will lose momentum.

Exercise: ‘Unfinished business’

Using your picture of your emotional history as a guide, try to summarize and highlight your own legacy of hurt from the past, noting how it may be affecting your feelings and thoughts or behaviour in the present. Try to be as specific as possible.

For example:

1. Mum’s migraines just before holidays and any other exciting event left me with an expectation that there is a price to be paid for every pleasure.

2. Dad’s inability to express any feeling except anger has left me wary and resentful of this emotion.

3. Mum’s moans about having to work and the constant quarrels over who should do what at home left me cynical about the possibility of combining a career and motherhood.

4. My brother’s bullying has left me with a fear of authority – especially if it is male.

5. My sister’s gloating over her gleaming blond hair left me convinced that ugly ducklings like me are nicer people.

6. My family’s general prudishness about sex has left me with a tendency towards frigidity.

7. Missing out on opportunities to make friends at school has meant that I have become too accepting of my loneliness.

8. The double standards of the nuns at school left me suspicious of all matters spiritual.

9. My dislike of the maths teacher has left me afraid to face figures.

10. My best friend’s habit of flirting with the lads I fancied left me feeling that women can’t be trusted if there are men around.

11. The extreme poverty of the neighbourhood in which I lived left me feeling guilty about indulging in any luxury.

12. My sheltered and over-protected childhood didn’t prepare me for the real world.

If you have completed this exercise, you may now be feeling ‘churned up’ and a bit depressed because you have probably reactivated some sad or perplexing memories. You may even have begun to feel a bit sorry for yourself – but believe it or not, that’s good news! Of course, I certainly would not want anyone to remain in that position for very long, but to be there for a while can be very healing. I believe that it is vitally important that at some stage you must reach the point where you truly feel that, for whatever reason, you did have an unfair start or influences in life and that this has handicapped your ability to think and act in a positive way. I am not suggesting that you now become submerged in a sea of self-pity, but rather that, having recognized and acknowledged the injustice, you will be energized into righting the wrongs. You will be better motivated to give yourself a break, to beat destructive habits of self-blame and self-torture. So frequently I see these demonstrated by negative thinkers who depress and immobilize themselves with thoughts and comments such as:

‘I’m a born loser.’

‘That’s just my luck!’

‘Trust me to put my foot in it … I’ve always had a big mouth.’

‘I’m the jealous sort.’

‘“Trouble” is my middle name.’

Emotional healing

When you start to love yourself, everybody wants to be around you because you have something very marvellous going on.

Susan Taylor

On their own, the individual and personal experiences which you have highlighted in the last exercise may seem insignificant, but when they come in excessive doses they can turn even the happiest and most carefree children into depressives and cynics – unless they have been followed up by the kind of action which will encourage emotional healing. By this I mean action which allows:

– appropriate feelings to be discharged

– the experience to be assessed in some perspective.

When we are children it is up to our parents and parent figures to help us to heal. Ideally, when something happens which hurts or frightens us, whether it be a broken toy, a sick parent or a nasty nightmare – or indeed a war in the Gulf – a caring adult will encourage us to express our feelings and, if necessary, hold us while we cry or shake with fear. If the emotion should be rage or anger, they will help us to discharge this in a safe and sensible place or channel it into constructive action. When the feelings have died down, they will sit quietly with us and talk about what happened – helping us to understand the whys and wherefores, and accept the imperfections of the people concerned (even if these are themselves!), encouraging us (and showing us how) to put right what we can, or simply giving us ‘tea and sympathy’ to help us bear inescapable pain.

If we have been fortunate enough to receive this kind of help, as we grow older, we learn to take ourselves through this healing process or seek similar assistance from other people. We do not get stuck in the role of ‘victim’ – we get hurt but we are empowered to heal ourselves, pick up the pieces and move on in a positive direction. Moreover, we have the energy, skill and motivation to help others do the same, and we can gain much pleasure and satisfaction from being able to give such support.

The sad reality is that many people have not acquired this precious life-skill. Many parents can’t, or won’t, consistently help their children to heal emotionally from hurt. Sometimes they are simply too busy, too tired or too frightened. Perhaps they themselves have never been taught the skill. It is only a small minority, thank goodness, who are knowingly or intentionally neglectful. But whatever the reason or excuse, the result can still have a powerfully negative effect on the mind and behaviour of the adult who carries a collection of unhealed wounds inside.

In doing this self-development work, we are not concerned with blame recrimination or revenge, but simply facing up to the reality of our inner pain and trying to do something positive about it. We have to learn to give ourselves what we may have missed out on – whether that be the time and space to feel repressed feelings, the opportunity to gather objective information to gain perspective on our experience, or simply comfort for our misfortunes.

So the next step I would suggest that you take is to give yourself a strong dose of self-nurturing. If I were your fairy-godmother I would probably whisk you away for a week to a peaceful and luxurious health farm – but perhaps it is quite fortunate that I do not possess a magic wand because my idea of heaven might well be your idea of hell! But do you know what your idea of a week’s self-nurturing might be? It’s my experience that many people with a negative view of themselves and the world don’t.

Positive people do know how to nurture themselves. They know how to give themselves treats when they are feeling blue or run-down and how to reward themselves if they have done well. Negative thinking people may sometimes seem to know how to do this but their ‘treats’ very often have a sting in the tail! For example:

– the big ‘booze-up’ which leaves you nauseous and depressed the next day

– the double portion of chocolate cake which leaves you feeling bloated and 1lb heavier

– the trip to the cinema to see a horror film which haunts your dreams for weeks afterwards

– an action-packed holiday which leaves you exhausted and financially bankrupt

– a night out with a ‘friend’ who specializes in ‘isn’t it awful’ conversations

– an extravagant new dress which will hardly see the light of day with your kind of lifestyle.

So, when you are doing the next exercise check that you do not sabotage your chances of getting some real nurturing for yourself and certainly do not choose to do things which may masquerade as treats but are merely obsessional, conditioned responses to an addiction. For example: the cigarette to the nicotine addict, the whiskey to the alcoholic, the quiet evening in to the agoraphobic, or the afternoon in town to the shopaholic.

One of the common ways of sabotaging our chances of getting the nurturing we deserve and need is to depend too heavily on others to give it to us. As women, this often means expecting or hoping for a man to come up with the goodies – the well-timed cuddle, the listening ear, the box of chocolates or the surprise holiday in the Bahamas. Don’t knock yourself for this bad habit because the Prince Charming myth has infiltrated even the most liberated female subconscious – just recognize your pattern and replace it with some self-nurturing action over which you have control.

Exercise: Self-nurturing

Make a list of activities which you know or believe could refresh you and help you to feel at peace with yourself and the world. For example:

– a walk in the park

– a long hot bath

– an aromatherapy massage

– an evening at home watching a video

– a Mozart piano concerto

– a Julio Iglesias tape

– pottering in the garden

– some early nights with a good book

– etc.

Make a list of treats which you already give yourself or could begin to give yourself as a reward for doing well or as encouragement when the going is tough. For example:

– a trip to the cinema

– an Indian meal

– afternoon tea at …

– a new book or tape

– a week-end away

Draw up a healing action plan for yourself for the next four weeks, allowing at the very least half an hour a day to be devoted to one of the above activities or treats. If possible take at least one full day’s holiday so that you can spend the entire time nurturing yourself.

If you have been very hurt and deprived by your past, you may need to consider doing an additional programme that stretches over many months if not years. Others may just need to do some short-term corrective work in certain areas, but I doubt if there is anyone who couldn’t benefit from doing something. But remember, don’t set yourself up for failure by giving yourself unrealistic tasks or goals.

Remember: we cannot always control the events which hurt us or the people who disappoint us, but the resultant reservoirs of emotional baggage are entirely at our disposal!