You may just need to learn some skills that will help you avoid the long restorative shutdown

Q

Many times I get overwhelmed. I can organize my life, but when I get hit by emotional things or a lot is going on, I will drop everything and all I feel is “I can’t.” At that point my coping tool is to shut down and go into doing-nothing mode. I suddenly feel like I can’t do homework or keep to my schedule. Do you have strategies on how to cope with overwhelming situations like when my shidduchim aren’t going well or someone hurts me? Bad feelings tend to sit inside of me for weeks. Eventually I process my feelings and then I’m able to access the logical part of my brain like I can do when I’m in a therapy session. But this is so hard and many times I just want someone to tell me how to proceed.

A

You said it very well: Your coping tool is to shut down when you feel overwhelming emotions. It is actually a pretty commonly employed strategy, although people do vary in how deeply and how long they shut down. For instance, some people just need minutes or hours to “regroup” after going through a difficult experience. Others can take to their beds and stay there for days or weeks — or even longer. If someone is in deep emotional pain that immobilizes them and lasts for more than two weeks, they might actually be experiencing an episode of clinical depression. If this is happening, it’s best to access professional care.

Although you sometimes suffer with bad feelings for weeks at a time, I see that you already have a therapist. That’s great! However, I’m wondering if your therapist has been working with you on developing skills needed to independently and quickly shorten the period of suffering you endure after disappointments, setbacks, and hurts. Each therapist has their unique offerings — it’s possible that you’ve gained a lot from working with this person but have hit a wall at this part of the journey. Sometimes a new therapist has something different to offer that can help a client continue the journey forward.

You evidently do know how to process your emotions — it’s just that you tend to go through a lengthy period of hibernation before you are able to start the work. And the work is hard, so you understandably crave the shortcut of just having someone give you direction. That’s not pathological on your part — it’s totally normal. You seem to realize that despite this wish for an easier way, you need to get to the bottom of your emotions and learn what you can from them. That’s a really good thing. So it seems to me that you may just need to learn some skills that will help you avoid the long restorative shutdown.

Let’s look at one self-help technique that simultaneously eliminates the need for crawling into a hole, processes the emotions to their deepest roots, and opens both intuition and cognition to powerfully resolve and problem-solve issues. You might already have heard of this tool: Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

There are many resources for learning this powerful tool such as specially trained therapists, courses, and books. But the strategy is so simple, we can get you started right now with just a few simple steps.

When something is bothering you, rate how much it bothers you between one and ten (ten being a lot!).

Describe the problem and the pain it causes, as you use your fingers to tap certain points on your body: top of the head, under the eyebrows near the nose, outer corner of the eyes, under the eyes on the eye bone, under the nose, under the lips, under the collarbones, and a couple of inches under the arms. For example, while tapping you might say something like, “What she said was so insulting! She really hurt my feelings. I can’t forgive her. I never want to see her again...” etc. This pained part of you needs to speak her truth in a completely uncensored way. Let her express all the hurt, pain, and anguish that is in your heart.

After completing the under the arm tapping point, take a deep slow breath in and blow it out slowly and completely. Then check to see what you’re thinking and feeling and give it a number between one and ten. Repeat steps two and three until all the pain is gone, you feel calm and settled, you understand yourself, and you have clarity on the situation and what it means for you. The whole exercise will normally take a few minutes for a complete resolution, thus saving you days and weeks of unnecessary numbness.

This pared-down version of EFT can get you started but you’ll obtain best results by learning the full and proper version of this amazing technique from a reliable source.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 922)