Thoughts after reading the psychology of self-healing

Self-healing is never about changing yourself into a "perfect person without negative emotions", but about learning to find a safe outlet for your emotions, and there is no universal healing method that is suitable for everyone.

To be honest, the biggest pitfall I have ever encountered is treating self-healing as an exam that requires perfect scores. The first thing I came into contact with was the cognitive behavioral school (CBT). The book said that you should find out your irrational beliefs, such as "I must be recognized by everyone" and "One mistake at work means that I am incompetent." I honestly bought an emotional record book, and every time my colleagues did not reply to my message, I would When I was so anxious that I couldn't sit still, I forced myself to write "He may be just too busy, and he doesn't hate me." I tried hard for half a month, but it made me even more tired. Every time anxiety appeared, my first reaction was not to feel the emotion, but "Why do I have irrational beliefs again? Is it because the treatment has not been done properly?" Later, after chatting with a friend who is a certified counselor, I learned that the CBT method is more suitable for acute anxiety with clear triggering scenarios, such as fear of speaking and nervousness in specific social situations. For someone like me, who has accumulated petty emotions for more than ten years, the essence is to use reason to suppress sensibility. Of course, the more pressure, the more explosive it becomes.

Later, I switched to books with a psychoanalytic orientation. Winnicott said that people should allow themselves to "regress" and don't have to be a mature adult all the time. I tried to practice free writing. I wrote whatever came to my mind in front of a blank document. I didn’t care whether the logic was smooth or not, and I didn’t care whether it was “pretentious” or not. As I wrote, I got involved in the third grade of elementary school: that time I scored 98 points in the math test and was second in the class. My mother’s first reaction when she took the paper was, “Did you copy your deskmate? You usually get over 80 points on the test." I held the paper in my hands all afternoon and didn't dare to cry. As I was writing this paragraph, my tears dripped onto the keyboard without any warning, and I couldn't even wipe them away. After I finished writing that day, I suddenly understood why I had to repeatedly refresh my work software every time I submitted a proposal and wait for the leader’s reply, and why I would first reflect on whether I had done something wrong when others frowned upon me - it turned out that the unseen aggrieved child had been standing in my subconscious.

But I haven’t been able to use this method since I was little. She was raised by her family since she was a child, and she doesn't have any problems with her original family. She just works in sales and has to deal with a lot of weird customers every day. When she gets off work, her mind is filled with weird requests from customers. If you ask her to sit there and write freely for twenty minutes, she can't even touch the chair with her butt. The method she learned by herself is the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding method of mindfulness. Every time a client makes her chest feel tight, she takes out the mints she carries with her in her pocket and counts 5 things that can be seen in front of her eyes, 4 things that can be touched by her hands, 3 things that her ears can hear, two things that her nose can smell, and one thing that has the taste of mint in her mouth. It can bring her soul back from the quarrel in just one minute. It is better than anything else.

Oh, by the way, there is a lot of quarrel on the Internet right now about "whether self-healing requires reconciliation with the family of origin." Different schools have different opinions. I had forced myself to reconcile before. When I went home during the Chinese New Year, I specifically mentioned to my mother that I had scored 98 points in the test. My mother had long forgotten and laughed at me in return, "How can you remember such a big thing?", which made me even more confused. It wasn't until I later looked at the content of existential psychology that I realized that no one stipulates that you must forgive or reconcile. Admitting that "some hurt has already happened, and your parents may not be able to understand how you felt at that time" is also a kind of healing. You don't have to force yourself to let go of the thorns that have really pricked you. As long as those thorns no longer prick you every day and can't sleep, it's enough.

I attended an offline psychological salon last week, and a boy who works in back-end development said that his method of self-healing is to go home from get off work every day and dismantle an old radio, then slowly put it back together without thinking about anything during the whole process. It is much more effective than following a blogger for half an hour of meditation. You see, is there any standard "correct healing posture"? Some people relieve themselves by writing, some use boxing, and some people just squat on the roadside and watch stray cats eat for half an hour. As long as they don't hurt themselves or affect others, they can feel comfortable as long as they don't hurt themselves.

Before, I always felt that negative emotions were like a flood, and I had to try my best to block them, otherwise they would wash away my life. Now I realize that it is actually the rain that leaks into your house during the rainy season. Instead of standing in the living room and cursing God for why it leaked into your house, you should find a basin to catch the water first, and then slowly mend the roof after the rain stops. There is no need to force yourself to climb up and repair the tiles when it rains the hardest. That is not called healing, it is called self-torture.

I still keep two orange gummies in my bag all year round. Sometimes when I work overtime and get irritated, or when a client makes outrageous demands and I feel so angry that I want to throw the keyboard, I peel one off and stuff it into my mouth. The moment the sweet taste spreads, most of the air that was stuck in my chest is relieved. This is a little healing method that I figured out myself, and it works better than any theory written in the book. After all, reading so many self-healing books is not to make yourself an "emotionally stable adult" in the eyes of others. It is just to understand yourself better and know how to take the initiative to make yourself happy.