"Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway!" by Susan Jeffers

[Hope67]

I am reading this book - 'Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway!' by Susan Jeffers, and this part struck me as helpful to me at the moment:
p.57 "The point to remember is that when you blame any outside force for any of your experience of life, you are literally giving away all your power and thus creating pain, paralysis and depression"

(I really think this is helpful to me at the moment - I feel like I'm in a 'waiting room' of life, and not necessarily allowing myself to move on or to truly experience things, or move forward with my goals and aspirations - because I feel held back in this 'waiting room' that I've created for myself, and I need to shift this, and hopefully change. 

This book is quite helpful so far.

Hope 

[Kizzie]

"The point to remember is that when you blame any outside force for any of your experience of life, you are literally giving away all your power and thus creating pain, paralysis and depression"

Haven't read the book so may be wrong but this sounds a bit like Byron Katie's "The Work" and the turnaround technique (see https://mortentolboll.weebly.com/a-critique-of-byron-katie-and-her-therapeutic-technique-the-work.html). 

FWIW in my experience I didn't assign enough responsibility to my abusers, and now that I have it's what empowers me. I thought I was to blame, I was not enough, defective, deserving of abuse ..... and that was the source of my pain, anger, sadness and grief.  Pushing all that away or down was giving away my power; holding them accountable finally is taking it back.  Just my thoughts here of course. 

[Hope67]

(Possible TW - mentioning Cults in my reply)
Hi Kizzie,
I am so glad you wrote that, because since I posted about this book and quoted that small part of it that meant something to part of me, at the time I wrote it, I've since been feeling ill at ease with why part of me came here to share it - because other parts of me are not so happy about it, and don't feel that way.  So there is direct conflict between my parts about it, and seeing the Byron Katie reference freaked parts of myself out, as the resulting issues appeared a bit Cult-like, and made me think of how my sister has ended up believing quite a few things that I worry about.
I'm a bit worried that parts of me are wanting to find answers, and reaching out to different sources and self-help books, and then hearing lots of speakers etc talk about things, and I need to very much maybe step aside a bit from over-reading, and let my feelings and parts settle a bit.

I very much appreciate what you wrote here about your own experience - and how you felt that not assigning enough responsibility to your abusers took away power, and now you've assigned it more, you know you're not to blame, and I think what you've written is very powerful in itself, and I very much appreciate hearing your thoughts. 

To be honest, as I write this, I feel as if I don't really know what I'm saying, so even trying to write things, currently, it's like I can't organise my thoughts and keep on track.

Hope 

[Kizzie]

I completely get needing answers     

I actually had a physician that was working with my addictions counselor tell me about Byron Katie's work and how he felt so much better after learning to think differently.      My point is that if he as a critical thinker and rational person dealing daily with hard science is smitten, the rest of us can be forgiven for being attracted to it too. 

That article I liked to gave me a headache by the way so you may want to give it a day or two (or three  ) after doing the conference. 

[Blueberry]

I am reading this book - 'Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway!' by Susan Jeffers, and this part struck me as helpful to me at the moment:
p.57 "The point to remember is that when you blame any outside force for any of your experience of life, you are literally giving away all your power and thus creating pain, paralysis and depression"

Because at time of writing these thoughts were helping you, I didn't want to rain on your parade but now that you notice some parts of you are objecting - well I might as well write what occurred to me. Before I was in trauma-informed T there were sayings like "You need to work hard on the parts where the fear is" as in don't avoid, confront head-on. Push yourself through any obstacles you may have and Ts should push and push their clients. That backfired mightily after a while in my case.

I've also heard things like "you have to take responsibility for your own life" ad nauseam, meaning 'forget all that stuff from the past' and 'forgive!' I've heard far too much of that kind of thing. When there's a conflict of any kind, internally I'm still trying to find what I did wrong. It's really hard for me to believe that somebody else possibly did something wrong.

[woodsgnome]

I read the book in question years ago and also found parts that seemed to touch a chord ... at first. And then, I realized the almost unsaid pressure to self-blame, even if it wasn't directly labelled that way.

Another author had similar blame-the-victim ways of speaking, and has been praised for creating what she calls 'woundology' -- implying that people hold on when, of course, they should 'just let go'. 

But I feel a need to add another point. In the process of reading tons of books, one will probably run into lots of things that either seem unlikely or was obviously written/spoken by someone who doesn't get it, i.e. weren't there, and never had to walk the talk. Their perspective seems limited to the classroom and/or the latest psychological conformity. It's why Pete Walker has touched many here -- he walked the talk, and it shows.

It's actually good, though, to run into these, if one can discern where one's heart is with the material. It's to our credit that in our reading we are allowing our own self-compassion and understanding to add to our discernment, and that's a strength we never received from abusers. Finding it ourselves goes to the core of self-compassion and self-love.

[Jazzy]

Well, I can really relate to feeling stuck or held back. One thing I keep telling myself over and over is that no one else is living my life, so it is ultimately up to me what I do with it... but it also isn't that simple. A lot has gone wrong, and a lot of damage has been done. I'm not really sure how, but that all has to be worked through I think.

[Blueberry]

(I really think this is helpful to me at the moment - I feel like I'm in a 'waiting room' of life, and not necessarily allowing myself to move on or to truly experience things, or move forward with my goals and aspirations - because I feel held back in this 'waiting room' that I've created for myself, and I need to shift this, and hopefully change. 

Undoubtedly there was a reason for creating that 'waiting room', probably a long, long time ago. I imagine that merely by becoming aware of that waiting room, you have begun to shift it. That's how it works for me anyway. As much as it is hard to follow through with sometimes, I've learnt that baby steps lead to more long-term healing than throwing off all my protection and making a huge leap. In fact the latter has been severely destabilising and occasionally even retraumatising.

With what you write on the forum, it's clear that you're making huge progress! That may not translate into huge actions irl where everybody around you notices but I'm certainly not the only one on OOTS who notices. (I can tell by other mbrs' comments to you.) My experience is that those irl who can feel and really see and take a little time to do so, do notice my steps forward and so yours too.   

[Kizzie]

   Hope   

[Hope67]

I am so grateful to everyone who has replied here, because this has actually been a very helpful thread for me, and it's been very thought-provoking for me, and so thank you to all of you.  I will be coming back here to re-read and digest what has been said, as I find what everyone said was like a pearl of wisdom, and I once I feel better able to articulate myself, I hope to maybe respond in more detail to each of you who said something here.

Thank you.

Hope 

[Not Alone]

To be honest, as I write this, I feel as if I don't really know what I'm saying, so even trying to write things, currently, it's like I can't organise my thoughts and keep on track.

Hope 

One of the many things that I appreciate about you, Hope, is that you process as you write. You give us a gift by allowing us to have a look at your thoughts. It is okay that you don't have it all figured out or organized when you write. Thanks for your continued honesty and openness.

[Blueberry]