Daffodils And DBT

It sometimes occurs to me that even when I am feeling rough I am still quite busy. When I am feeling good I am almost otherworldly so. It's an odd thing that, as I love to do stuff, and it's much easier to do that when you aren't almost dying from lack of iron and other bodily dysfunction reasons.

As I was musing about this on my way out to water the ranunculus in the greenhouse I paused for a second of wondrous musing when I spied the daffodils. They are just popping up out of the still winter dormant landscape. I think they are a somewhat perfect representation of how I have been feeling the past couple of weeks, like I am emerging.

Over the past three years I have been pretty dang ill every winter. A lot of it was many decades of repressed feelings and subsequent nervous system dysfunction that manifested in autoimmune illness. Ironically, as I move through my clinician training I am learning more and more about such things. Our bodies do indeed keep the score, and mine has been below par since the mid 90's.

Bit of joking aside, today, as I wrote three papers in three hours to finish up a couple of my classes, DBT skills training being one of them, I spent a bit of time reflecting on how I have learned the DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) Skills and how learning them has helped me in the mindset part of my life. I spent most of my life in a state of existential dread that I might do something wrong and get into trouble. On the outside I was a serene, calm, and paragon of to-do competence, but on the inside, oof, that was a dumpster fire of existential dread on steroids.

But here's the thing, you cannot out-plan pain and discomfort. It's gonna happen, period. Or as the people on X like to say, full stop. No amount of strain you put on yourself for the sake of alleviating future strain is going to do so, but what can make a difference is radically accepting what you don't have control over and applying the same principles to what you do have control over, how you think about what is happening to you in the moment.

This is easier said than done.

It takes practice to identify negative scripts in your life. Many times those scripts are a propensity to blame the other (People or situations) for what you are going through and your mood. Then you also have to consider all the variables that make up the unique and wondrous organism that is you. As soon as you learn to stop forcing the world to try to conform to your will with shoulds and viewing reality as the gift it is, everything starts to shift.

Then you can push up through the winter landscape that is a negative mindset and bloom like a daffodil, unapologetic yet personally responsible for how you view the world in all your petal-adorned glory(positive mindset).

I have learned so much over the past year, taken so many uncomfortable risks, navigated no small amount of despair, illness, and loss, and yet at the end of the day, when I reflect back over it all, I feel nothing but excitement about what's next, gratitude for all that I have, and joy that I am here to experience it all.

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