{"id":619,"date":"2010-07-27T20:07:25","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T20:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=619"},"modified":"2011-02-28T13:56:34","modified_gmt":"2011-02-28T18:56:34","slug":"psychological-patterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=619","title":{"rendered":"Psychological Patterns"},"content":{"rendered":"

When my husband and I were first married, we took a course called DMA.\u00a0 It was about how to manifest the life you want.\u00a0 It had been created by Robert Fritz, who also created (and still teaches) \u201cStructural Consulting<\/a>\u201d. Dana took this workshop from Robert.\u00a0 Structural consulting is a very different way to think of and organize human behavior.\u00a0 There was something called your \u201cpattern\u201d which was the pattern of actions you went through to get something you wanted, that did not result in getting it.\u00a0 Many of us sabotage ourselves by getting distracted from focussing on the thing we want.\u00a0 My pattern looked like this: I would see something I wanted, start in that direction and have an initial success.\u00a0 But then I would look around for support and approval, and when I didn\u2019t see it, I would try to fix myself since clearly I didn\u2019t know what I was doing.\u00a0 Interestingly, when I examined stories of how I failed to get the thing, I saw that sometimes support and\/or approval would be there and I would fail to see it.\u00a0 That’s one way of sabotaging myself.\u00a0 Having been conditioned by my alcoholic parents to believe that anything that went wrong was my fault, of course I would try \u201cto fix myself\u201d and lose my focus on what I wanted.\u00a0 It\u2019s also true that an initial success would be scary, because my parents disliked my intelligence, creativity, and exuberance, and any report of something I had done well would get the rejoinder \u201cDon\u2019t think you\u2019re so great!\u201d Understanding the dynamic was often helpful when I went after something I wanted.<\/p>\n

Another, related, pattern was seen by Dr. Cynthia Rankin in St. Johnsbury VT.\u00a0 She was a specialist in mood disorders and I went to see her after I had become convinced that I really was dealing with serious depression.\u00a0 The first thing she did was find a person who helped me get on an antidepressant that worked.\u00a0 That was major, because I had been so freaked out by my first experience with medication.\u00a0 (See my post for July 20, 2010 for a description of the summer from hell).\u00a0 Another problem I was struggling with was a sensitivity to noise.\u00a0 This is actually common for people with PTSD.\u00a0 I remember one day when I thought I heard a chainsaw start up, and my heart began to race, etc. and then I saw it was just a fly buzzing on the window pane.\u00a0 At that point I knew I was in trouble.\u00a0 I also suffered from extreme reactions to the noise of small planes that flew out of the Franconia Airport, especially the ones that towed gliders, because they were louder and went on longer than the ordinary ones.\u00a0 On a good day in summer, I\u2019d have to pack up my food and supplements, and something like a book or journal to keep me busy, and go to a friend\u2019s house out of town where I was safe until dark.\u00a0 It made my life very hard.\u00a0 When the season was starting up again, I talked to Dr. Rankin about it.\u00a0 I said I would white knuckle it for two or three planes and then run screaming from the house and go ANYWHERE to get away.\u00a0 I asked her if \u201cwhite knuckling\u201d was OK.\u00a0 She said yes, and also that she had observed a pattern in my behavior.\u00a0 I would start a process that would take maybe 10 steps.\u00a0 I\u2019d do the first two just fine, but then on the third something would go wrong. Later observations showed that it didn\u2019t even have to be something I did wrong, it could just be someone complaining about something entirely unrelated.\u00a0 She said then, instead of going back and giving myself credit for 2 steps completed correctly, I would \u201cconclude I can\u2019t do it\u201d what ever it was.\u00a0 This insight blew me away.\u00a0 I saw Dr. Rankin on a Friday, had the first Reiki Initiation on Saturday (and had the odd sensation of my immune system clicking into place like an invisible shield).\u00a0 Sunday, I knew there would be a lot of planes and settled down to count how many I could survive before I gave up.\u00a0 I kept track on a piece of paper.\u00a0 By the time I got to thirteen planes I knew that Dr. Rankin had given me my power back, and that the plane phobia was over.\u00a0 I still didn\u2019t like the noise, I still don\u2019t like it, but I don\u2019t notice it every time like I used to.\u00a0 Now I hear it and say \u201cOh yes, I was in bondage to that sound for 14 years, but not any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

I also have found recognizing the pattern useful in other areas. I would repeat the things I had done correctly, or I would reinterpret the blanket idea that I couldn\u2019t do it.\u00a0 Wondering where I got such a dysfunctional belief, I remembered my father saying, when I was having trouble doing something, \u201cWhy did you try it if you didn\u2019t know how?\u201d No guidance, no help with doing the project, just making me wrong for not knowing how ahead of time.\u00a0 I remember thinking at the time \u201cWait a minute. What happened to if at first you don\u2019t succeed, try try again?\u201d but of course I didn\u2019t have the temerity to stand up to my father, and I didn\u2019t understand how the power differential between parent and child (I was probably 9 years old) would give such a remark very heavy impact.\u00a0 Knowing about that pattern has been very significant.\u00a0 Struggling through PTSD in 2008 and 2009, when I was able to accomplish something that fear had been preventing me from doing, like clean up the mess in the laundry room, I would write the success and put (good for me!) afterward in an effort to retrain myself in the idea that I could in fact accomplish things I wanted to do.\u00a0 I will always be grateful to Dr. Rankin for her intelligence and wisdom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When my husband and I were first married, we took a course called DMA.\u00a0 It was about how to manifest the life you want.\u00a0 It had been created by Robert Fritz, who also created (and still teaches) \u201cStructural Consulting\u201d. Dana … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}