Anita,

Dear Caroline:

 When you encounter certain distressing real life circumstances, the old thinking will automatically return. You will have to repeat the new perspective and new thinking until these become your new habit.

Understood. I need to practice new way of thinking and responding. I already behaved in non-passive way several times, maybe it’s not a lot but I know something has changed in me. I want to be more brave.

Today my coworker told me that yesterday there was an argument and an outburst of anger of the abusive person in our team, the ex-friend of mine. The other girl who works here says it is becoming a problem and that “he would destroy everyone and he is a sociopath”. I know that on our next weekly meeting he will “perform” as usual (talk in specific way – like an actor, show off, laugh at people, curse – he would usually talk like that for 40minutes while we all listen) and it is becoming a problem indeed that we all passively listen and allow this – along with our manager (he is passive too).

I know I probably won’t win this… or maybe I should believe I will. Already a couple of people left this job because of his behavior. None of us have an option of a new job yet. I want to call him out and stop his “showing off”, do something, stop being passive – because passive means accepting.

 I know that you deserve kindness!

Thank you, Anita. It changed a lot since I allow myself to feel that I feel, to rest, even if that means watching low quality tv shows. I noticed since I do not pressure myself to do something creative, I have more pleasure spending the day whichever way I choose.

Tee,

Yes, it does help with grounding. The more grounded you are, the less chance that your nervous system will go automatically into dissociation. It’s like creating new neural pathways, which enable you to stay more present… Anyway, try it and let us know how it went…

I have not had a lot of time to spend in the nature this week but I am planning to do it tomorrow: to go to the park, take some pictures and rest.

Sometimes you’ll feel great about yourself, the next day you’ll feel like you’re back in the old patterns. Throughout it all, it’s important that you have compassion for yourself and are patient with yourself. If you haven’t succeeded to respond the way you wanted today, you can try again next time. Patience, self-compassion and taking small steps… I think those are key to progress.

Great point. I will remember that. Being kind to myself.

don’t be harsh on yourself if you sometimes end up binge watching on those TV shows… What you can do is you might limit the time you spend watching those shows, say instead of the entire afternoon and evening, you tell yourself that you’ll spend max 2 hours in front of the TV. So you make a compromise with yourself: a little bit of your favorite TV show, and a little bit of something else, which is a healthier/more nurturing type of relaxation. So no one loses and everyone wins

I am trying to put it into practice. Unfortunately I ended up not doing anything productive this week but I what I did is took a bike few times to go to the supermarket and thus spent some active quality time, so..  I am working on it.