Dear Running:

First, I will retell your story, rearranging it (doing this helps me process information): In your childhood home, after your father left, your mother took out her anger on you and on your siblings. As a result of that, as a child, you felt “insecure a lot. Anxious… paranoid.. worrying”, “unwanted and rejected”. You left home at 17, and you left your country in your 20s.

Now, in your late 30s, settled more or less, except that you are still seeking that approval and love from “Bosses (who) become parent figures”, from others as well. Still anxious, you “run from 1 situation to the next, sometimes in a panic” and you “find yourself tangled up in situations and feelings and thoughts that are difficult to get out of”.

You wanted your mother’s “approval, love, to be the special one”, you wanted loving attention. Not angry attention. You are still running away from her anger, and you are still seeking that loving attention (“I think I seek out attention cause I need it”).

My input: as adults we really do re-live our childhood when our childhood was a damaging one. When we put thousands of kilometers or miles between us and those who damaged us, a parent, most often, we are not a centimeter away from that parent’s mental representative in our brain. That mental representative is still doing to us what the parent did, still yelling at us, still harming us.

So we keep doing what we did then, run away in one way or the other, and we still look for safety, for love. Our lives are very much the same as before, with bits and pieces of the present, sometimes, coming through the same-old-same-old life experience of childhood.

There is a way out of that life experience, a way to experience a different life. I have done it, still doing it, am in the process of doing that, seven years of an ongoing process. Let me know of your thoughts regarding my reply.

anita

Dear Running:

My healing process includes an element that has to be included in your process as well. I have no doubt about it. This element is slowing down, doing the opposite of Running. In my first quality psychotherapy seven years ago, my therapist at the time introduced this concept to me under the term Mindfulness. Mindfulness is a huge movement in modern psychotherapy as I know it. And it is a popular concept otherwise. Being mindful is about slowing down and paying attention.

No matter how much insight and understanding you gain, nothing can take the place of mindfulness, of this slowing down and paying attention. There is so much information you can’t gain otherwise and the only way to stop Running is to.. slow down. Not an easy task for a Runner.

Are you familiar with the concept?

anita

Dear Running:

Running, figuratively, as you have been doing is a habit. Much like driving or tying shoes, you go through the motions without paying attention, automatically. You do these things and think about other things. Slowing down, or being mindful, is doing things not in the habit-automation state of mind, but attentively, choosing your actions, choosing with intention and attention.

When you choose with intention and attention, you no longer act automatically, impulsively, out of habit, or as you put it, you no longer “find yourself tangled up in situations”. Instead, you intently and attentively direct situation so that they are most likely to be what you need them to be.

Being mindful is paying attention on an ongoing basis (it is a skill, practiced over time, you get better at it) to what you think when you think it, what you feel, what you sense in your body, including five senses, you see what is in front of you, you hear things you ignored before.

What work have you done so far in therapy?

anita

The process of slowing down is useful to help us find the unconscious/automatic patterns that we go through on a day to day basis. Realizing the causation of some of these does bring out painful feelings. But it also gives us an idea of how many myriad experiences go into constituting what we call – our life and its experiences; This to some extent gives us some freedom from the thought that we were to blame. At the same time, this awareness also entrusts us with the responsibility of doing things differently so that we don’t create more of the same pain. That is empowering.

Dear Running:

One more thing, regarding being sent off to the nanny, you figured that this was the origin of your anxiety, that festered fear I mentioned?

Your experience with your mother after your father left, if you would like to share more about it, please do. I will read attentively and respond.

anita

Dear Running:

“I couldn’t stop the fear from taking over. It was a terrible feeling.. things just keep replaying in my mind.. What can I do during these times… in general? What steps can I take to help myself?”

1. Make a list of activities that calm you, that have worked for you in the past, activities that are not harmful. One would be posting here (“that slows it down for me”). Other activities may be, you decide as it is about your experience, listening to music, taking a walk, going to the gym, listening to a guided meditation online, etc. At any one time try an item on the list that fits the circumstances you are in. Examples:  a guided meditation when you are in bed trying to sleep; a walk outdoors when at work during a break. Notice that at any one  time an item on the list will not work for you, but it may work next time. Over time re-evaluate and update your list.

2. Decide on and follow a routine in your day and night, things you do the same, at about the same time every day. We are calmer within a routine, within a predictable structure to the day. Be flexible, re-evaluate and experiment with different routines.

3. Consider taking a class of yoga, slow, mindful yoga where one holds the same position for a long time, or a class of tai chi, a slow motion martial art form. Slow movement is an amazing neurological/ muscular slowing down practice.

4. Literally slow down, outside a yoga or tai chi context. When you wash dishes, wash them slowly. Do everything slowly. It is crazy making to do it for too long, of course, especially at the beginning, for a Running kind of guy, so do it as an experiment, for a short time, just a few minutes, here and there, see how that feels.

5. Eliminate distressing relationships in your life. If a relationship with a particular person is full of unresolved conflicts, make you cringe, avoid it, get out of it.

6. In general, review your life, activities, places, situations. Avoid those that are unhealthy and distressing and choose those that are healthy and calming.

This is enough for now. Regarding your mother, she went from being out of control to being dead. Do you mean that she raged, was very loud, then went deathly quiet?

anita