Tuesday, April 21, 2015
I met with my therapist this evening. The next time I meet with him will be my one hundredth session. I do not anticipate I will need another one hundred sessions of therapy. I feel fortunate in this regard. Some people go to therapy for many, many years and still do not achieve the results that I have. Commitment to healing is one essential ingredient to successful treatment. A network of supportive people and resources is also vital. Learning when to let go of old ideas about yourself and what may unfold in your future life is important as well.
Tonight I spoke with my therapist about the possibilities of my future. I believe I sometimes create a false dichotomy in my mind. What I mean by that is I create a story in my mind that by making a certain choice in my future it will automatically foreclose other possibilities from ever being anything more than possibilities. I have a real whopper of a story that sometimes plays through my mind. I imagine that moving to Hawaii will somehow permanently doom me to a life in which my need for significant intimacy goes unfulfilled. My mind occasionally concocts a really dark future as the future I will somehow eventually experience.
Unintentionally imagining a dark future for yourself is not necessarily uncommon among those who have experienced significant trauma. It can be easy to be pessimistic when your life has been marked by substantial loss and suffering. Sometimes responding to such dark future story-lines with a simple statement such as "the future does not have to look like the past" can deflate the power of such heavy thinking.
I am going to look through some of the workbooks of the eight week outpatient program I completed earlier this month to inspire me as I begin to more actively visualize the future life I wish to live.
I met with my therapist this evening. The next time I meet with him will be my one hundredth session. I do not anticipate I will need another one hundred sessions of therapy. I feel fortunate in this regard. Some people go to therapy for many, many years and still do not achieve the results that I have. Commitment to healing is one essential ingredient to successful treatment. A network of supportive people and resources is also vital. Learning when to let go of old ideas about yourself and what may unfold in your future life is important as well.
Tonight I spoke with my therapist about the possibilities of my future. I believe I sometimes create a false dichotomy in my mind. What I mean by that is I create a story in my mind that by making a certain choice in my future it will automatically foreclose other possibilities from ever being anything more than possibilities. I have a real whopper of a story that sometimes plays through my mind. I imagine that moving to Hawaii will somehow permanently doom me to a life in which my need for significant intimacy goes unfulfilled. My mind occasionally concocts a really dark future as the future I will somehow eventually experience.
Unintentionally imagining a dark future for yourself is not necessarily uncommon among those who have experienced significant trauma. It can be easy to be pessimistic when your life has been marked by substantial loss and suffering. Sometimes responding to such dark future story-lines with a simple statement such as "the future does not have to look like the past" can deflate the power of such heavy thinking.
I am going to look through some of the workbooks of the eight week outpatient program I completed earlier this month to inspire me as I begin to more actively visualize the future life I wish to live.
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