There’s been a theme in my life lately...it’s sort of a mix of responsibility and courage.  It also involves trust.  Trust that what I do makes a difference, and that I have locus of control over my life.

I don’t know when this was lost - this ability to believe in myself.  Actually, I lied.  I do know...there were many points along the timeline of my life that contributed to a nihilistic mindset.  There were many times I felt like the dog in Seligman’s experiements.  Here’s a short story that sort of explains concepts like self-efficacy (one’s believe in their ability to achieve goals, control situations, or influence outcomes)  and learned helplessness:

“ As my friend was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from the ropes they were tied to but for some reason, they did not. My friend saw a trainer nearby and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away.

‘Well,” he said, ‘when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size of rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.” My friend was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.”

Also, I totally stole these paragraphs from some random website (theunboundspirit.com) because I was too lazy to paraphrase or reword the story.

So back to this theme of “Hey Rach, you matter.  You can do it.  You’re capable.  Don’t believe all that old shit.  Things can change if you make them change.  When you try now, it actually makes a difference.  Effort counts, action counts; it’s different than before.”   

I’m embracing it.  I’m starting to have goals again.  I am putting the book I’ve been working on online so anyone can use it.  I believe this matters.  I believe this counts.  I believe, by doing this, I am contributing to good.   I now see how working with sponsees, starting the non-profit, taking phone calls from suicidal wack-jobs, and giving rescue animals a good life matters.  It matters because every action I take to make the world a better place counts.

This is so healing for me.  Prior to EMDR and trauma therapy, I knew (cognitively) that these things mattered....but I didn’t believe it emotionally.  I didn’t believe it in my body.  There was a disconnect.  I believed “I was capable” in the same way teenaged girls - the shut-down, pimpley-faced, chubby kind...the kind with thinning hair and old clothes - believe they’re supposed to love themselves.  It’s the right answer to the question.  I can picture it now.  There I am, unshowered, with oily hair pulled back in a scrappy ponytail before aerosol shampoo came out.  Old clothes, boyfriend-less and emotionally dead: “Yeah, I know Mr. Counselor Person.  Sure, I matter.  I know that.  Do I love myself?  Yeah, I guess.  Sure, why not.  Yeah, I know I’m a good person and that I should love myself.  Yeah, whatever, yadda-yadda.”

 This dog pic is like the 16-year-old me doing talk-therapy, versus the 35-year-old me doing EMDR:

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Counseling was pretty useless back then because, if you’re under 18, you pretty much have zero locus of control over your life.  But also because I thought God was more important than counseling, and my conception of God very much resembled this meme: 

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Now that my current conception of “God” is finally integrating into the crevices of my brain than were impenetrable (no matter how much I used the 12-Steps model), I’m getting back to my usual self.  The last time I remember feeling empowered and capable of creating my own life was around age 27-28, when I was still in college.

Thank you, Goodness, for the opportunity to change.