Lived Experience Forum

[rivergal]

After a recent episode the first one i have had in four years I was busy working on my wellness plan and being busy trying all i could to return to optimal health.

This week within psychology therapy i realise that i had been denying the expression of emotions and had the opportunity to grieve the losses of a life with episodes of mental illness.

Today i know i that I am grateful for all the lessons i have learnt and for the gifts of love in my life. 

Anyone relate?

[rivergal]

after posting this i came across a quote 

'One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels." Gustave Flaubert

i don't think i agree..

In the moment my therapist guided me through a meditation where i was able able to feel notice allow and release uncomfortable emotions.

❤️ 

[Bow]

Our emotions just come and go, we often do not have control of them, but can control how we respond to them… and what we do with them. Like the waves. I’m not good at feeling them, I tend to block them or put a lid on them. 

[wellwellwellnez]

One thing I find useful, @Bow @rivergal , is reminding myself that I've only got one amygdala. Not only that, but one teeny tiny amygdala. Amygdala is Greek talk for "almond" because that's how big the amygdala is. I like to have sympathy for the hard working yet sometimes confused little squirrel, holding the emotional weight of the world without any shoulders to bear it.

That little process kind of helps remind my thoughts and instincts to format themselves in an emotional friendly sort of fashion. Sometimes I think they forget that they're talking to an almond. Not the gods, not my parents, not the matrix, but an almond.

[BPDSurvivor]

I can relate @rivergal .

I grew up suppressing my emotions because I thought expressing them was a sign of weakness. I also categorised emotions as either good or bad. Good being ones I was permitted to feel, bad being the ones I shouldn’t feel.

Each time I was angry, I thought I was bad. I thought something was wrong with me because anger was brewing - hence I suppressed it. This led to SH (which people didn’t see). Then suicide attempts.

It was a lot of work to learn, understand and accept that emotions are natural. And that you are not judged because you have them.

Only then did recovery begin.

[rivergal]

reading your post about the amygdala almond reminds me to practice yoga nidra more often . I find the practice healing.