I know what it’s like. You don’t feel well. Your body is not happy, you’re in pain, you don’t like your symptoms, and you are stressed to the max. You’re trying to keep up a normal lifestyle despite the health issues you’re dealing with, and on top of that you have the normal everyday stresses to deal with, both big and small. Everything has taken on a gloomy perspective and you’re losing hope – if you’ve not lost it already.
I know what it’s like because I’ve been there. I’ve been in that murky, dark, hopeless place. I’ve felt the powerlessness, the despair, and the black depression. In my opinion, those emotional black holes were far worse than the physical pain I experienced simply because feeling hopeless is just plain awful.
Feeling hopeless doesn’t exactly help your heath, either. In fact, the more emotional stress you feel, the more difficult it is for your body to heal. It’s too busy pumping out stress hormones, creating tremendous amounts of muscle tension, and promoting widespread inflammation as you navigate life in a constant fight-or-flight state. So digging yourself out of the emotional hole becomes of the utmost importance – so you can feel better in as many ways as possible.
The most helpful and interesting technique that helped me crawl out of my emotional pit was actually something I did not really understand clearly until I became a coach. While I was in the process of crawling, I didn’t really know how to articulate what went on in my mind, but looking back on it brings a lot of clarity. In a nutshell, I changed the way I was talking to myself, in my own mind.
I spent a great deal of time feeling quite victimized at the beginning of my illness. “Why me” was a refrain that played often in my mind, and I kept hoping for a white knight to ride in and rescue me, somehow, from my agony. The way I worded my own story as I thought about it daily was very self-defeating. I was caught up in the quicksand of my own thoughts, and I was sinking, fast.
I’m not really sure what made me realize the futility of my own thought processes. I just know that I woke up one morning and saw there was no white knight – there were supportive people, and people who loved me – but their ability to affect my emotional state was a big zero. It was up to me.
I changed the theme of my story from “I’m suffering from this horrible illness and it’s not fair” to “I’m taking charge of my emotional life and looking into the power of mind-body healing.” Little did I know the power of this significant mental shift. In fact, it may have been the single most important tool in my actual healing process. It pulled me up out of the murky darkness and into the open light, where I found hope everywhere I looked, despite my physical pain. Hope is unbelievably powerful – just look at the placebo effect. Researchers have to try to find ways around that mental magic when studying medications, because the simple hope a medication will work often effects physical change within the body.
This is a mental tool that is so easy to use and yet so difficult to apply. It’s difficult because it’s easy to overlook its power and skim right past it on our quest for mind-body healing tools. In Martha Beck coaching we call this tool Telling the Hero’s Tale. Are you telling your story from the perspective of the victim, or are you stepping into your role as a hero in your own life? Choose to become the Hero – and yes, it is a choice – and you will reap the rewards.
When I use this tool with clients, it is always fascinating to see the change it creates in their emotional state and their sense of power. Try it in your own life with a past event and see how you feel. Write your story from the victim’s perspective first and then re-write it as the hero. Use something small at first as you practice thinking in this new way. Progress to the harder subjects slowly. You’re not trying to fool yourself – you want to believe your Hero’s Tale. So tell the truth, the positive aspects of your story, and take a look at their validity. There are always two sides to the story, even when it’s just your own.
Here is an excerpt from a client’s work as she perfected her use of this tool:
The Victim’s Tale
I was a perfectionist. I always had the best marks at school. Out of obligation and desire to please my parents, to get their attention with how good I was, I had equally good marks at every subject. I didn’t know what I liked and what I didn’t like. I forced myself to study everything. I had sleepless nights when I didn’t do homework for the next day. Even though I was an excellent student, there were still people who were better than me at some subject – I couldn’t stand that. I competed with them non-stop.
The Hero’s Tale
In school, I was extremely versatile. I studied every subject with ease. I was even further encouraged when I received praise from my parents. As a child, I knew that to please the parents means surviving in the house as long as you depend on them. I was a clever child and I guided myself towards adulthood and survival. I was not sure what I wanted to be when I grow up, so I paid equal attention to all my subjects and got good marks. I enjoyed studying so much that I never had any problems with homework or tasks I was given in school. Early, in primary school, I also noticed that some of my friends who were less creative than me used to get better marks. I realized then that the education system can never give me approval and I continued developing my creativity regardless of the teachers.
When I asked her what it was like to tell the two stories, here is what she answered: I loved doing the hero story. It’s very liberating. It made me look at my life in a completely different way, it gave me CHOICES. It made me realize that we have choices always!
Don’t underestimate this quietly powerful tool. Give it a try – more than one – and you will begin to see the hope you can create in your own life, and the power you have to change how you feel in this moment, right now.
