When we’re cutting out compulsions (which you’re already doing), we want to take that energy we would’ve spent on compulsions, and put it towards living our lives and being ourselves. BUT when we do that, we often encounter fears and uncomfortable experiences and trauma from the past. It’s very likely that we were using our online compulsions, at least in part, to avoid doing the things we want to be doing because we know three are some challenges we’ll have to face.
So now that you’re going to be yourself and do the things you’ve always wanted to do in the world, you’ll come face to face with that stuff. It’s not a problem. This is really what we’ve come to build skills around. The next week will go more in-depth into tackling more of these underlying compulsions and unhelpful beliefs and core fears. For now, as you’re starting to make changes in how you use the internet, be curious and make it ok to notice challenges.
In the past, it might have seemed that challenges were very bad and they meant you couldn’t change and there was something wrong with you and you’re forever debilitated. We can be very judgmental and rigid with ourselves.
Loosen that up. Taking a more psychologically flexible approach is helpful with sustaining changes. We tend to take an all-or-nothing approach and force ourselves into change. But by bringing flexibility and compassion to challenges, we can grow, we can see an issue, not derail ourselves with judgments and fears of failure, but instead touch that problem and understand where it comes from. And then we can work on it at the source.
EXERCISE: Where do these challenges come from?
This exercise is about seeing what’s pulling on us from the past, and what’s pushing back on us in the present. By articulating these, we can begin to see what we can change, what supports we need to put in place, and also understand our challenges not as personal failings, but as natural results of the timeline we’re navigating.
Use the slider below to go through each step of the exercise: