The Expert Within

From the beginning: "A" Discovery

You might notice that Auto-Thoughts begins with the first letter of the alphabet. All of the remaining Markers will follow that same pattern: Auto-thoughts, Beliefs, Consequences, Dig…. (So will the Tools. You’ll see)

Shut up! In 2012, this was my most pronounced Auto-thought, directed at goats and people and, especially, myself.

While I never uttered the words aloud, it was a constant theme. Why had everyone from my goats to the guy on his cell phone at the gas station become insufferable in their chatty-ness? Mornings became my time to think and Google, which I did with a cup of tea, from bed. Truth be told, I did a lot of my Googling in this upstairs bedroom at all times of the day, sitting on my mattress aside a big heap of window and door trim stashed under the eaves. Between Google searches, I listened to my own chatty thoughts which sometimes took the form of a question.

“Did my slant create the cancer?” I asked the empty room. The trim-less walls and windows stayed silent.

If I wasn’t Googling the number of coats needed for the dark stain I would need to apply once the trim was in place, I was Googling to find out what others did to “cure” cancer.

I read research that discussed the Type C (for cancer) personality—fearful, stoic, and inauthentic. I noted these qualities in myself.

Fun Fact: we’re born with many of our most ingrained qualities. And what we’re not born with, much of what we acquire, quality-wise, happens early on. I learned that the best way to get along with people was to be masked and silent, so that became one of my most defining qualities. Although I wasn’t aware of any of this, it gave me a certain sense of safety to quietly recede to the back of the room.

This is how “Shut Up!” became the primary Auto-Thought I began my Elements work with. As I yearned for a quiet place from which to gather my thoughts, I kept a tight fist on my status quo: head down as to avoid conflict and unwanted attention. At the same time, my goats and everyone else within ear shot got louder.

One morning, between the Google searches, came this thought about “shut up”: Maybe others seemed to talk tiresomely and ceaselessly because I had so silenced myself. I was the common denominator. I had identified loudness as my nemesis, but it was actually my self-enforced silence.

I had no idea how to fix this.

And yet, I felt lighter with this realization. It seems I had unearthed an important recognition centered on a single Auto-thought. If I was lucky, this “Shut Up!” might point the way towards even more self-discovery.

Reader's Action Step

Identify some of your own Auto-thoughts. They’re any thought that you have more than a few times a week. They can be positive or negative. The negative ones often manifest negative emotions and/or events.

You might find it difficult to catch yourself thinking automatic thoughts in the beginning. I find that I can be more aware of random thoughts when I’m doing a “mindless” task, like washing the dishes or weeding the garden or, at this time of year, shoveling snow. Just before or after a task that takes some focus is a good time to catch yourself “thinking” about the task at hand.

Automatic thoughts can be positive, neutral, or negative. Here are some examples in each category:

Positive:

Neutral: I’m so hungry! I’m so tired!

Negative:

There is never enough (fill in the blank–hours in the day, money, support…you get the idea)
I’m late / behind!
I look frumpy / fat / old.

Now select one of the negative Auto-thoughts, and write it down. Sit with your intuition for five minutes, staying open for clues about what the Markers might be ready to show you. Jot down anything that comes to mind.

The Elements

The earth’s elements, particularly wind, fire, and water, can be brutal.

Virtuosos of unpredictability, they can turn anything on its head in a second. High-speed winds take off part of an outbuilding roof. An out-of-control fire begins making its way to a neighbor’s house. A ravenous eagle eyes a free-ranging chicken before deciding that it will be lunch.

After purchasing a 1930s farm in Wisconsin, the elements became a daily encounter. I had made the decision to move to this farm because I was exhausted by my work as a clinical psychotherapist. I was drained. My hope was that cleaning up this overgrown farm, connecting with nature, and maybe growing and raising my own food might wake me up, ignite me.

Nature’s potent Elements did just that. Maybe not in the way I expected, or would have wanted. But in their own unique way, they changed me.

Not long into my new farm life, I discovered a mole on my lower right leg that was rapidly increasing in size. I showed it to my new local doc. He referred me to a surgeon at a nearby hospital, who removed it and sent it to the pathology lab. I scheduled our “results” meeting a week out, promising myself I would make health a bigger priority. I thought of this as a belated thank you to my physical body for getting me through what I’d come to think of as a close call.

On “results” day, the surgeon looked fidgety and nervous. Strange, since our first meeting was relaxed and amicable. After a very little bit of small talk, he said, simply, “It’s Melanoma after all.”

“Oh, no no no,” I countered. I refused to accept this news. It never occurred to me that this might be the turn our conversation would take, especially on a day when farm cleanup was to have all my attention.

He pushed on. ”This will require surgery, another surgery where we’ll cut a wider swath. One of your lymph nodes will need to be biopsied to see whether the cancer has spread.”

The two of us seemed to face off. I squared up my body with his, but my expression trailed off to the right. I was unable to find the right words. ”I’ll need to think about it,” I said. Cancer wasn’t the plan, and, besides, I had come to believe the body could find its own way towards health if I just helped it along. Surgery didn’t feel like my path.

“Thinking about the surgery is not an option,” he replied. He was looking at me, but his voice felt like something I needed to set aside and deal with later. This was my body. This was my life. I wasn’t great at following instructions, no matter how well-intentioned or well-informed.

Cancer now joined the other elements, a new brutal force I wasn’t prepared for. I thanked the doctor, and as I left, I said I’d be in touch.

As I drove away, my mind wandered to farm animals, maybe as a way to push “Cancer” away. I was thinking that I wanted to adopt some goats. Goats felt like the answer.

The big farm mess was still waiting for me when I returned. There were big piles of trees and the remains of old buildings and a sorry-looking dog house that needed burning.

I wanted to see the elements in a better light. I rounded up the kindling and the lighter and the newspaper to ignite the first pile. We all face difficulties at one time or another in life. Some we can sidestep and some we can’t. We haven’t yet found a “cure” for storms, high winds, or even wild predators; and we don’t engage in the futility of the attempt. This is probably fortunate–imagine the imbalance we might create if we were to succeed.

Tomorrow, I’ll tackle Cancer, I thought as I grabbed the butane lighter.

I’m a licensed psychotherapist who believes that our stories have the power to “write” us.

If we look more closely at the stories we tell ourselves–about ourselves–we come to a place where we can easily construct a different story. A new story offers a new beginning, and a path to changing what doesn’t currently work in our lives. My strategy offers a stepwise approach to towards change that is easy to understand and implement.

This narrative strategy is nested within a broader philosophy I’m calling Regenerative living. Regenerative living is a system of life principles and practices that seeks to rehabilitate and enhance the ecosystem of the person by placing a heavy focus on narrative health with attention also paid to food intake, environmental toxicity, and more.