Mlc wife

[DnJ]

Hello R678

Be gentle on yourself. I am sure this detaching is new to you, it will take time to figure it out. It is coming, just look at how you are compared to a couple of months ago. You are doing well.

Focus on you. When your emotions take over, they highjack you. Be mentally assertive, take control back, and get back in that intellectual car.

To be sure, you do need to feel these feelings to some extent so as to process and heal, so some time in the emotional car is needed and healthy.

Don’t get discouraged, every time you cycle back, it is another step towards detachment.

Feelings, even those harsh, raw, and painful ones do flit away when not reinforced. Try letting yourself feel them for a time limit, say 10-15 minutes. Then wrestle control back from them. Force yourself to do something, while letting the feelings just be. It takes about 30 minutes for a feeling to fade. Just stop feeding it for half an hour and you will see it is a lot smaller.

Now, once you can do that for 30 minutes, you can even increase that time. The big tip here is that you don’t actually stop the feeling, you just feel them in the background. Feeling are processed, you are focused on other things, and you keep healing and getting better.

That will decrease the time of the emotional highjacking, and helps with the next part, the triggers.

Finding detachment does lessen the severity and frequency of the cycling. However, it does not end the feelings. The point of detachment is to uncouple your emotional response from her - her emotions, her behaviour, your memories of her, etc... Your attachment is an irrational response to triggers regarding her. You need to rationalize these triggers. When that happens it places your responses in your intellectual control and not at the whim of your emotional self.

The triggers are based on what ifs, those possible future events which are usually imagined as dire - something that is not realistically probably. Fear is a big part of this. That uncontrolled feeling of dread that paralyzes you.

Pure intellect doesn’t feel, doesn’t hurt, it is logic and reason, it is understanding. Look at your situation, or start with a single event, with fully rational accurate vision. See the trigger event for what it really is, and work to uncouple it from that uncontrolled response. For example:

I don’t think I’m doing this detaching right because she phones up last night and says she’s coming round to the house and I know soon as she’s there all the emotions start and I find myself unable to stop the cycling the next day so I know it’s her that’s triggering them .

First let’s get rid of the stinking thinking. Try to keep that out of your head, your mind will make your reality. Positive thoughts, positive reality. Really! I’m serious.

I don’t think I’m doing this detaching right because she phones up last night and says she’s coming round to the house and I know soon as she’s there all the emotions start and I find myself unable to stop the cycling the next day so I know it’s her that’s triggering them.

As you can see, and I know how hard this is, I really do:

- Try to lessen the self doubt.

- Stop predicting your future response as cycling. Predict it as a good response or if that is a bit too hard at this time, just don’t predict your response at all. You are predestining yourself to cycle.

- For your first bit of accurate seeing. You are triggering your own feelings. No one can make you feeling anything. Attachment is an irrational response regarding her. Triggers are based on what ifs and possible future events. Her behaviour, her emotions, memories of her - are all just events. Your response to those events is the trigger that causes the cycle.

That probably seems like splitting hairs, it is not and does have a reason. If you are causing the triggering, then you can stop the triggering, and that is good news. It is not her that’s triggering, she is the event.

So, on to this event. She called you last night and said she is coming to the house. You have an emotional response that is uncontrolled and difficult to end.

Look at the event separate from your feelings of it. Be purely intellectual, non-feeling. She called and is coming over. Has anything changed? No. She hasn’t done anything, threatened anything, nothing is happening. She is just coming over.

What about if she just came over without the phone call? Would you be emotional? Probably. Therefore the phone call is not the big deal, it is the visit.

What about if she cancels the visit, something came up for her. Now what? Still emotional?

How about she didn’t call, planned on coming over, then changed her mind. You would not be cycling, since you didn’t even know about it.

See how your response is disproportionate to the event? See how it is not the event that is the trigger?

Your trigger is an irrational response to a stimulus about her. Your emotional response from the trigger is disproportionate to the event itself. Looking rationally helps.

I want to assure you R678, your emotions are normal, healthy, and shared by all of us at one time or another. This is just a way to see them clearly and loosen their hold and power over you.

I hope you can see what I am trying to say.

I’m going to decline and say no and although it will probably cause a row but I need to do it for myself.

I need to do it for myself - Yes! Awesome!

Detachment is not for her, not for M, not for R. Detachment is for you. Well done.

You are the most important person in this. Keep you headings and focus on you.

DnJ