Karen Restivo
In Other Words....
Inevitably, at the height of a thrilling movie, when the enemy is closing in and the main character finds himself against a wall and no place to run, an escape hatch is suddenly revealed to remedy the character’s impossible situation; work with me, Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible scenario.
Unfortunately, escape hatches in real life can be as treacherous as coming face to face with the villain.
It feels like a temporary solution to a short-term dilemma, but in the long run, it’s better to face the villain.
Using escape hatches readily creates a pattern of dodging our overwhelming emotions, allowing them to store up in our unconscious until overflow, creating a combustible nightmare with no escape hatch in sight.
Numbing behaviors we enlist are escape hatches.
According to author Bea Albina, in her book “How to End Emotional Outsourcing: How to Overcome Your Codependent, Perfectionist, and People-pleasing Habits,” examples of numbing behaviors are: compulsive eating, drinking, scrolling, shopping, working, exercising and they are not failures of willpower.
Albina clarifies, “They are attempts at self-soothing by a body that never learned ways to regulate overwhelming emotions they serve.
“No one taught you how to be with difficult feelings when your emotions were met with dismissal. Your body is so smart. It learns to find other ways to escape the intensity of your inner world.”
Get the picture? Over time our own story overtakes the wheel directing us into ongoing traffic using past patterns to weave in and out of conflict with family and friends, redirecting responsibilities on to them, and casting them as villains.
Albina concludes, “The pathway to healing runs directly through understanding rather than judgment.
“When you can see that your patterns are intelligent adaptations to impossible circumstances, when you can recognize that you’re still trying to get needs met that should have been met decades ago, something can soften.
“Self-attack can be quiet, and space can open for something new. Those unmet needs can still be attended to.”
In other words, whatever adaptations that came in handy before when you were in survival mode can be recycled into new patterns modeling safety regulation for both your physical and mental health.
Remember, villains appear magnified in our mind’s eye more often than what they embody in the reality of the present moment.
Karenrestivo57@gmail.com