Foreclosing on Our Inner World

Many of our psychological and emotional problems, if we think of it, come from running from what we don’t want to feel, rather than simply learning to sit with it. We fear feeling more than we can handle. We have an idea that we will not be able to bear feeling certain emotions, that we’ll fall apart. So we shut them down. We rationalize what we’re feeling to make it more palatable, or we flat-out deny what’s going inside or outside of us, rewriting reality to suit our capacity to live with it. Painful emotions can make us feel vulnerable and insecure; that our lives aren’t working the way they’re supposed to. But when we run from what we feel, it makes what we feel bigger, not smaller. Denied feelings don’t go away, they grow, like yeast in a dark corner.

Am I the Only One Who Feels Like I Can’t Survive My Own Emotions?

Nature wired us to depend upon parents and the clan for our very survival. Banishment from the clan meant death. So we do whatever we can to stay connected, including rationalizing our emotional responses to people we’re close to in order to allow us to remain in relationship with them. Or to reinterpret the past or create fantasies about the future that allow us to feel OK about ourselves. That feeling of possible rupture is threatening to us at our core because rupture feels against nature’s primary intent. We are, in other words, wired to want to live in connection. We really do feel we will die of a broken heart because love, like fear, is a necessary emotion for survival. Without it we wouldn’t pair-bond or attach to children or parents. Without fear, we wouldn’t avoid danger. We would not, in fact, survive.

But with practice, our thinking brain can help us to experience, process and understand our emotions rather than distance them. We can reflect upon and understand our feelings rather than diminish or disown them. We can use our thinking to understand ourselves, our worlds and our relationships. Developing emotional balance and sobriety requires that we learn to sit with the powerful emotions and physical urges that get triggered inside of us without blowing up, shutting down, acting out or self-medicating.

But What Happens When I Get Triggered?

When we’re scared, we send the same fear signals to our limbic brain, whether we’re walking in front of a car, staring into the jaws of a lion or listening to the parents we depend on scream at each other. Later as adults, scenes that are reminiscent to those that frightened us in the past — say fighting with our spouse or boss — can trigger us into a child state of fear and helplessness. Our limbic or emotional system goes into fight/flight/freeze and we’re cocked and ready to react. Or under-react: we freeze, become inarticulate and unable to think of anything to say, because our mind just isn’t working properly. In order to bring our emotions back into balance at those moments, we need to understand that our limbic brain/body is getting triggered, throwing our emotional state out of balance. And our cortex, where we order and make sense and meaning out of our emotions and sense impressions, is temporarily on tilt.

Counting to 10, taking a deep breath or a short break may give us the time we need to allow our limbic system to settle down enough to bring our thinking back on board. It’s when we’re feeling intensely that we’re most at risk for becoming unbalanced and losing it. Our feelings run ahead of us and our thinking can’t catch up. At these moments, talking doesn’t do us much good; our limbic reactions are just too big. But if we can become aware of this phenomenon and of what triggers us in particular, we can learn to ride out the limbic storm, so to speak, and make better choices and decisions once we’re in a calmer state and have had a chance to reflect a bit. Or we can teach ourselves not to get so riled up in the first place. We can slowly reeducate our limbic systems to have a calmer set point. Through regular activities and exercise, soothing hobbies, rest and learning to sit with powerful feelings and expand our ability to tolerate and translate them into words, we can take better charge of our psychological and emotional selves.

For more information on this subject, log onto tiandayton.com or read Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance.

Unfortunately, some people misinterpret this slogan to mean they should forget about the past, and hope the future will take care of itself if they just stay in the present. They refuse to take action; instead they remain on autopilot and just get by. They don’t confront their problems in a proactive way, nor create healthy solutions to address them. They don’t create contingency plans, so when problems demand their attention, they slide into panic mode because they don’t have a plan in place and tend to react, instead of respond. They justify the results by claiming they were just following the “One Day at a Time” slogan.

When someone is living with chronic pain, this slogan could be a blessing or a curse depending on how it is interpreted. My goal is to help people use this slogan to improve their quality of life. However, they also need to realize that using it to deny their problems can sabotage their chronic pain management, resulting in unnecessary pain flare-ups or other problems.
Patients I’ve worked with who have chronic pain often become so hopeless and helpless that they mistakenly believe that they are always going to suffer—they think that the pain they are in today will always be this way, and they lose hope. Because they are not getting the pain relief they want, they convince themselves that life is completely horrible, and that they deserve to do whatever it takes to feel better. Sometimes that “whatever it takes” leads them to abusing their pain medication.

Another misuse of the “One Day at a Time” slogan is when people stop doing what got them feeling better. They forget all the previous work they did to put a good chronic pain management plan in place. For example, they stop exercising, meditating daily, eating well, monitoring their thinking, managing their emotions or using any of the other non-pharmacological interventions they learned. They put themselves at risk for pain flare-ups and the possibility of their condition worsening.

For those in recovery from an addictive disorder who also suffer with chronic pain, staying stuck in the moment could lead to a potential relapse. That is why I work with people undergoing chronic pain management to understand the true meaning of living life one day at a time for a better quality of life.

One of the principles I help people with is a concept called time line competency. This means not getting stuck in the past, present or future. First, I teach them how find a peace-centered place within themselves, which brings their stress (and often distress) down to a manageable level. This is where I explain to patients that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it—they keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Also, they feel consumed by shame and guilt as the result of past trauma and it destroys their ability to be in a peaceful present.

The past is the first area of focus. My goal is to help patients look at their history from a safe distance in order to see what they can learn from it. I support them to discover what they have done well—what their strengths are. Next we look for the self-defeating patterns of thinking and behaving that caused negative consequences. One of the tools I use to facilitate this learning process is called situation mapping.

Below are the situation mapping directions developed by me and Terence T. Gorski as part of the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Relapse Prevention Counseling High Risk Situation Management process.

A situation map is a description of exactly what you do and how other people react to what you do that makes you want to use medication or alcohol and other drugs in spite of your commitment not to use.

A good situation map describes exactly what you and other people do in a way that lets you clearly see it happening in your mind. When developing a situation map, it is helpful to go visual and see the situation in your own mind as if were the scene of a movie.

Try to see exactly what you or other people are saying and doing in the situation. It is important to put everything that happened into the correct order or sequence. You can do this by thinking about the beginning of the situation and then thinking about the next thing that happened until you reach the end of the situation.

Once you map out the situation, it is easy to look for gaps in the action by asking yourself: “Where in the action sequence is something missing?” Try to notice where you jump from one thing to the next without a logical transition step and then try to fill in the missing step.

Here are some guidelines that will help you to develop situation maps that will give you the most help in learning to manage high-risk situations:

Think of a specific time in the past when you experienced a high-risk situation that was similar to this and managed it in a way that caused you to use ineffective pain management or misuse pain medication, including alcohol or other drugs. Describe that situation as if it were a story with a beginning, middle and an ending. Start with the phrase: “The high-risk situation started when …” Continue to build the story step by step by asking, “What is the next thing that happened?” Keep asking that question until you get to the end of the story. You can end the Story with final statement that starts with the words, “What finally happened was …”

Once the map has been developed and explored, I encourage patients to bring that new understanding into the present so they can explore how to improve their future. Here we continue to use the situation mapping tool, but this time to map a high-risk situation in the future. Below are the future high-risk situation mapping directions.

Since this situation has not occurred, you will use a technique called mental rehearsal to test out different things you could do to manage the situation. When you use mental rehearsal, you think about or imagine what the situation will probably be like and then you think about or imagine different ways of handling the situation in your mind. First, you map out the situation using your old self-defeating ways of handling the situation that caused you to use ineffective pain management or to misuse pain medication, including alcohol or other drugs. Describe that situation as if it were a story with a beginning, middle and an ending. Doing this will help you to see exactly what you thought and did that caused you to mismanage the situation.

Once we have the maps built, we then analyze the high-risk situation by exploring the person’s TFUAR process—Thinking, Feeling, Urges, Actions, and (social) Reactions—that caused pain and problems. Then we move from the problem to the solution by helping them look at a new way of thinking; better ways of managing uncomfortable feelings; ways to manage urges or cravings; new, healthy recovery-prone actions or behaviors; and finding people to help move them out of the problem and into the solution. This new way provides healthy reactions, or positive chronic pain management outcomes, instead of disaster and suffering.

Despite everything we do, some people will continue to stay stuck in the present. They refuse to either look at the past, or plan for the future and then use the slogan “One Day at a Time” to justify their self-defeating mindset. It happens to all of us—we are human—but having a support who can give us honest feedback will allow us to acknowledge the problem and then act upon it in a recovery-oriented way. Our patients can learn to do this, and we must be there to help.

People choose coaching to help them address a myriad of personal and professional issues, such as overwhelm, stress, challenging relationships, lack of focus, procrastination, and overall life balance. Together we often discover that underlying these presenting issues is a deep desire for authenticity: “I just want to be myself.” And …“If I were myself, I would feel free, purposeful, and happy.”

Coaching can then become a wonderful kind of excavation. Using a process called DreamShifting, we dig down though layers of unconscious beliefs, habits, and patterned thoughts, to bedrock – one’s authentic self. Along the way we explore how negative reactions may be eroding relationship with self and others. There are exquisite moments when the client shifts perception and clearly sees the truth of who they are. A key to this shift is pausing. If we don’t pause, we can easily fall back into unconsciousness. When we do pause, we open into a space of possibility and create the opportunity to choose something new.

In our busy lives how do we cultivate the ability to pause? Though practice. Here is a simple meditation exercise I’ve learned that I share with my clients:

Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Begin to focus on your breathing. Notice, without judgment, the length of your inhalation and the length of your exhalation.  Sense the breath coming in through your nose and mouth, and imagine it filling every cell in your body with new life and new possibility. Sense the breath moving out and taking with it everything that is past and no longer needed. Now, pay special attention to the end of each exhalation. Notice the moment when the breath pauses, just before the next inhalation occurs.  Feel into that gap. Let the breath dissolve into space. Can you allow yourself to surrender into the unknowable – the ocean of possibility?

Next time you’re in a stressful moment, and feel compelled to react in a familiar and habitual way, bring your awareness to the pause at the end of your exhalation. Ask yourself, “What might happen if I let go of everything I know into this space? Now what do I choose?”

Life’s way too short.  Yet, many of us live our lives on automatic pilot without considering what makes life worth living.   The purpose of this article is to offer a fresh perspective on the recovery process by introducing Recovery Coaching.  Powerful, thought-provoking questions, both existential and spiritual, are an integral part of the coaching relationship and these conversations add a new dimension to the quality work already going on in the recovery community.

Currently, there’s confusion over the differences between coaching and therapy.  Although coaching borrows from the world of psychotherapy, there are some specific distinctions.  As a credentialed coach and licensed psychotherapist, I keep my two practices completely separate for legal and ethical reasons. I come from a psychodynamic background as a therapist—exploring the influence of childhood on clients today. The following chart outlines the contrast between coaching and this particular school of therapy.

The International Coach Federation (ICF) is a nonprofit organization formed by professional coaches worldwide and has over 12,000 members in 42 countries.  The ICF defines coaching as follows:  Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.  Coaching is an ongoing relationship which focuses on clients taking action toward the realization of their vision, goals or desires.  Coaching uses a process of inquiry and personal discovery to build the client’s level of awareness and responsibility and provides the client with structure, support and feedback.  The coaching process helps clients both define and achieve professional and personal goals with more ease than would be possible otherwise.

According to a recent ICF survey, the average coach is 46-55 years old with 5-10 years coaching experience, and 53% of coaches have a graduate degree.  Coaching clients tend to be 56% female and 44% male with an average age between 38-45 years old.

Twenty-five years ago executive coaches were being utilized more and more in the corporate world, and in the 90’s life coaching rapidly emerged. Now in the 21st century Recovery Coaching has entered the scene.  In 2005 I co-founded Recovery Coaches International (RCI) to bring together a community of coaches working in the recovery field, and in 2006 a certified Recovery Coach training program was established by RCI’s other co-founder.

Just as every therapist is different, every Recovery Coach is different.  For instance, I choose to work with clients who are clean and sober, and other coaches may work with those who are trying to get sober.  At this time screening tools are being developed to help potential clients determine if they’re good candidates to benefit from coaching.  The ICF suggests that to be successfully coached clients must be able to partner with a coach and to develop specific goals. I’ve found that 3-6 months of sobriety seems to be the basic foundation necessary for a client to benefit from coaching within my model.  A solid foundation in recovery tends to make room for more clarity of purpose and expansiveness.

Recovery Coaching helps clients:

• Clarify a vision for the next chapter of their life.
• Define specific goals and action steps to support this vision.
• Stay accountable toward these intentions.

As a result, purpose, passion and priorities unfold.  If your goals and action steps are in alignment with your values, priorities and purpose, you’ll feel hopeful and energized.  If not, you’ll tend to feel flat and stuck.

“What gives your life meaning?” can be a daunting question, but the coaching process encourages clients to examine big ticket items such as joy, purpose and balance.  Questions such as “What do you really, really want?” shapes the course of the coaching process.  It’s interesting to note that the Positive Psychology community supports the efforts of coaching through its research of topics such as gratitude, forgiveness and resiliency. Dr. Martin Seligman who coined the term Positive Psychology describes it as the science of What Makes Life Worth Living.

Once you choose to live an addiction-free life, a blank canvas appears where you get to design your future paths. With the guidance of coaches, sponsors, therapists and trusted confidants, you clear away the cobwebs of the past, become more aware of the essence of who you are and move forward with purpose and direction in this next chapter of your life and recovery.

The following tools will give you a flavor of Recovery Coaching:

1.  Take a Joy Inventory
How many of us stop to look at what’s going right in our lives?  A joy inventory is a chance to recall what has brought you joy in the past, what brings you joy currently and how you would like to invite more joy and fun into your future.

Write down all the joys of the past and present.  After brainstorming the past, make a list of all the fun, joyful, fulfilling people, places and experiences you would like to invite into your life from now on.

Note:  Because many people in recovery forget how to have sober fun, this exercise challenges you to create more balance in your life.

2.  Get Clear and Take Purposeful Action
Now that you’ve written down what brings you joy, take one item from your list and be even more specific.  For example, a client of mine wanted to spend more time at the beach because she felt lighter and more playful by the water. After brainstorming ways of creating more quality time at the beach, she decided that she wanted to spend time at the beach weekly with a friend.  Throwing a Frisbee, walking her dog, putting her feet in the water were all listed as possible activities and she decided she wanted to set up “playdates” for herself with a friend each week.

Note: You may consider bookending your intention.  For example, let someone you trust know about your intention for weekly beach time.  Go ahead and take that action and let this same accountability person know when you’ve completed it.  Bookending is a tool of accountability.

3.  Create your Vision
What do you really want in this next chapter of your life and your recovery?  Let go of any of the shoulds or supposed to’s, and take time now to write about what you want in the following areas: friends, family, career, money, spirituality, health, fun, love and romance. Don’t hold back even if you think it’s not possible now.  Give shape and voice to your vision of life 1 year from now. (If 1 year feels too long, shorten the timeline to 90 days.)

Note: It’s not that anything has to happen—it’s simply what could happen.

Coaching asks you to stretch beyond your comfort zone while keeping your feet firmly on the ground.  Deepak Chopra in his book Overcoming Addictions, reminds us that “the absence of joy is the cause and the effect of addictions,” and coaching encourages you to invite joy into your sobriety.  With joy comes purpose, and as you open your heart to purposeful recovery, you’ll find more meaning, intention and direction in everything you think or say or do.

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