Day 19 Personality traits insights

Hey everyone,

I wanted some insights about how you deal with the TMS personality trait list. I see myself in a lot of them and journaled a few of them when prompted to in the SEP. When it comes to past events and current stresses, I feel like I have been able to clear most of them after journaling about them once or twice which feels amazing. I get some help from my therapist who I was seeing pre-SEP for the ones that I don't feel are fully processed even after journalling. But when it comes to personality traits, I don't really know how to feel about them. I would imagine that you can't really clear them in the same way that you might be able to with a current or past event. I feel like I can't exactly put it on the shelf or come to terms with it and be able to push it aside a little unlike a well-processed stressor or event. I know that things like perfectionism, people-pleasing, etc. will probably live on for me with perhaps a little more awareness, but still present.

How do you deal with those personality traits going forward? Once you journal about them and feel like you really disected them, what have you done with this new knowledge? How do you feel about them afterwards?

Any thoughts or experiences are greatly appreciated

Thanks!

 

Hi Deviation,

Great questions and thoughts!

I think that you're right that am not going to change these basic tendencies very much. So I think the best way to deal with personality traits is primarily through forgiving awareness. When I notice a repetitive personality flavor asserting itself, I first have to see it. Then I may have to defend against the Inner Critic if I'm under attack about it --- that this trait is a tendency in me. I want the trait, for the moment, to be free to be what it is, is what I am saying. Rejecting myself for it only causes me more suffering, and makes the trait or any experience "more sticky."

So awareness and understanding for the personality trait. Then I can have freedom. I am less bound either to have to "be it" or "not be it." I can be loose about my traits. I might also feel compassion for myself about perfectionism, or people pleasing. I might connect my past with this moment, this moment which evoked the perfectionist response, for example. What kind of pressure am I feeling? Is this pressure familiar?

Then with TMS I can connect these traits to symptoms or vice versa, accepting the tendencies in me, and knowing that since they are seen, they lose power to create TMS symptoms. If I know pressuring myself is causing symptoms, then I know the supposed nerve damage is not causing symptoms. So even if I have symptoms, they are not dangerous. This is what Dr. Sarno taught us: look behind the curtain, and you need not be afraid.

Andy