I’ve been trying to be better about sitting with my emotions and thoughts. Not fighting them, not pushing them away, but just letting them be and observing them. My therapist suggested this a while back, but I didn’t really understand how to do that until recently. I’m not sure what changed, but it’s helped.
The thoughts have a lot of power over me, and I often have very physical reactions—a sense of heat and shame, perhaps, or a feeling of twisting and churning in my stomach.
If I sit with the thoughts longer, though, that physical reaction starts to go away, and I can focus more on the thought itself. Some thoughts are honestly pretty ridiculous when I’m able to look at them in a less emotional state, and I can sometimes see where some must have originated. I think realizing that you even have a thought is an important step in recovery. Some of my thoughts and beliefs have been so ingrained for so long that I don’t even see them as the lens that they are when I view the world. I may not always feel like I can remove the lens, but at least I notice that it’s there.