Expressive Writing the route to Personal Resilience

In a world where Facebook and Instagram leave you looking at people whose lives are not just rosy but totally peachy, self-editing is king.  In the social media world I post what I want to, when I want to; my food is fabulous, my holiday snaps are wonderful and my moaning is minimal (just to make me look more human).

There is a place for self-editing as Dan McAdams of Northwestern University has discovered.  We write our own life stories, making it up as we go along; no surprise there, but the what and how we write makes a massive difference. People can so often experience the same event where some start to sink rushing to hit the bottom, while others resurface like corks in the ocean.

McAdams talks about “narrative identity” as a person’s personal story, a script that people work from at the deepest level; the who are you, how did you get here kind of stuff.

Resilient people have learned to be the editors of their own life stories, they have learned to work through the different emotional viewpoints and consider the options.  One way of doing that is through the process of expressive writing.

This practice over time helps you to question assumptions and challenges our tendency towards conformational bias.

People use it to find meaning that is not obvious especially in the heat of an emotionally charged event.

In doing this regularly a pattern of thinking is seen that not only helps in healing past hurts but perhaps more importantly enables individuals to recover their balance more effectively in the future.

The process that we teach in our resilience workshops is simple to do and involves writing about events experienced over a number of days.

Each time the writing time is short and not to be looked at again.

What people have found is that by writing emotions are acknowledged and forgotten details appear. New insights or conclusions are often drawn. But while it can lead to different conclusions that in itself is not the important piece. 

What tends to happen is that people discover new meanings from events, which increase personal resilience. The practice point, which is key, is openness and daring to acknowledge to themselves what they are thinking and feeling.

How Do You DO Change ?

Change happens to everyone, but how you deal with it affects the outcome. You can make change as easy as possible or more difficult dependent on your approach. The simplest way involves three steps:

1) Accept that change is upon you.  This is the first and often hardest thing to acknowledge.  Change can creep up on you like ageing; orcome suddenly like Brexit did.  We all get comfortable to varying degrees with where we are, what we are doing and who we are so that being blind-sided by life events occurs more often than we think.
When a change happens the response is I like it or I hate it.  The thing is actually, my opinion is irrelevant.  It makes no difference how I feel about it.                                              Rain is rain, sun is sun, snow is snow and change is change.  There is a reality that is present and acceptance makes the process of healthy change possible.

2) Own it or at very least take some responsibility.
Responsibility = Response + Ability.
We all respond to situations.  It's the how that's important.
Giving away the ability to respond happens when you hear things like
She made me angry...
People in government are muppets...                                                                                            Things will improve when... (usually something way into the future and doesn't involve me doing any thing!)

Whatever the change event, I have responsibility for two things: my actions and my attitude.  All of us have reflexes that act as short-cuts, like touching a hot stove gets me moving my hand quickly.  In situations of change the reflex action is often wrong and the reflexive attitude is usually negative.  Ownership is not a reflex.
Owning change does however involve the attitude that I have a part to play; and I can influence my environment whatever the circumstance.

3) Action- where the rubber hits the road.  Ifyou get beyond ownership.  Most of the time I get stuck in the paralysis by analysis.  I can believe in ownership till the cows are ready for milking but taking action especially ones that need me to do something different istough.
The call of the status quo is a strong one.  It's what I'm used it.  It may be not what I like but at least it's familiar.
Taking contrarian action from a standing start is difficult because all of the momentum is going in the opposite direction. However different actions are the difference makers in navigating change.

Questions I ask the person in the mirror:

What is changing now, that I'm not recognising or wanting to accept ?

What is my response to the situation?

What's my attitude saying?

What helpful actions am I taking ?

https://www.facebook.com/theartoftransition35/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamlit/

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change ,the courage to change the things I can change and the wisdom to know the difference. ”

— Reinhold Niebuhr

Blog Beginnings

Courtesy:pixabay.com

Once upon a time there was a little child who had big ideas and big hopes of changing the world. He spent several years in education, came out with his ideals intact but his pockets emptied.  He went into a chosen career path where his pockets became filled and his ideals emptied.

Then deciding that there was more to life than this, he withdrew from the rat race. And spent his allotted years elsewhere.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who studied hard, worked hard and graduated. She formed a stable relationship, had two children and for years was content with her lot.  Yet every now and then she’d hear a little knock, the faintest of whispers that said ” Is this it?”

The reply often came back as “What can one little person do?”

The world is awash with talented people, however talent isn’t enough.  Life can knock you about; sometimes we need a hand up, sometimes a push forward.

The world is filled with “little people” who are capable of being far more than they could every dream of being.  A little person with a big footprint.

Gamechangers are those people we read about in sports who have the ability to turn a game around. Gamechangers have the ability to scare the opposition into submission.

They either score heavily in a match, run goals or inspire others around them to achieve new heights.

My early years were on a warm Caribbean island of Trinidad, I now enjoy being in a colder clime, that is the UK. I love the views from mountain tops and (sometimes) the challenge of getting there.

Fast forward twenty years through a medical degree,  diplomas in Counselling and life coaching and this is the result. A husband. A father. A Church Leader.   Addicted to learning. Learning to live. Living to leave a legacy.

Why write?

There’s a quote that goes:

We exchange pounds and we still each have £1.
We exchange ideas, and now we each have more.

This for me is a record of some of the ideas I’ve found along the way, and some of my thoughts on them. If no one else reads them I will not be disappointed (too much), but at very least I willhave moved forward in some way.

If you are blessed by any of this, then I am blessed.

I write not as somebody who has the answers but someone with questions

My hope is that this blog will be of use to leaders, learners and seekers.

These are some of my thoughts and answers to questions I’ve been asked along the way.

My prayer is that not to be simply changed by my circumstances but to be that Gamechanger.

To be that little person with a big footprint.