Stampeeding Elephants

Imagine you're sitting in you're living room, maybe alone watching TV or with family and friends, with you feeling ok at this moment (not great or ecstatic, just content).

Then suddenly, a wild elephant storms into your room!!! It starts swinging its enormous trunk around smashing your photos, plants, flattening your coffee table, then picks you up by its trunk and then starts swinging you around, knocking over shelves, the TV before dumping you on the broken sofa and leaving.

And you just sat there wide-eyed and in shock. There was no warning this would happen, nor did the elephant pick you out for any particular reason. It just happened and you're stuck with the after affects of this wild Elephant.

The impact of thoughts can be like this too. It happens in an instant, a memory of the past, or the potential of a lost future, but the impact of this thought stays with you longer than the thought itself, and you're left dealing with the after affects of this.

For me recently, memories of my ex had left me raw, unfocussed and a bit scatty. I told my therapist of this analogy and the raw emotions I felt about the recent news about my ex and how much anger and rage I felt at her. For example, if I fell in love and looked to propose again, that moment when I'm on one knee wouldn't be 100% dedicated to this new person, in the back of my head i'll be thinking 'I did this before, this is what happened' and I have that feeling when I get asked out or people try and set me up. It all triggers thoughts of my ex fiancé, and that makes me

I explained to my therapist that I currently feel more content at being alone\single and doing all the things outside of work (evening classes, volunteering) that make me feel satisfied, as none of it is associated with my ex, or my friends or family and their expectations.

My therapist sat back and told me:

"The brain has a part which time stamps memories and thoughts. At times of distress, it struggles to do that, so it makes you feel that the thoughts you're having are current and real. So your body reacts in a fight or flight response, or even freezes like you're playing dead. It's an evolutional characteristic we've had embedded into us from when we were cave men. Only difference is that you won't encounter a sabre-tooth tiger down the street. But we still have experiences that cause these reactions. You know that it's not happening now even though your body is reacting to it. 

The way to overcome this is to time-stamp the memories telling them 'you're in the past, you happened over a year ago' or reiterate that thoughts of the future are not true and haven't been decided.

By doing this, you'll find these Elephants will become docile and the after-affects won't be so damaging".

...looks like i'm going to be taming some Elephants for a while...