The dreaded change of season

[babs]

Does anyone else out there hate Autumn? I get depressed every fall without fail, and now that I'm in withdrawal it's going to be really bad. I think it's started for me already ... there's a certain point where the angle of the sun changes just a smidgen and that triggers it all, the beginning of the end. I just hate hate hate the shorter days and colder weather. It gets especially bad when it starts being still dark out when I get up in the morning. I am so dreading it this year, as I will be at the 6 month mark when that starts, and things are supposed to really suck then anyway.

I have a light box but don't use it consistently as it really doesn't seem to help me that much. I just wish I could hibernate every year.

[MizzT]

hey Babs! have you tried the EFT at all???
dont set yourself up to "think" its going to be BAD!!! as winter comes on.
You say you have a light box....hhmmnn....what kind of lights???
I have beading lights that i use for....well ....beading. LOL
they are full spectrum (non-fluorescent) lights. I use them a LOT in winter!! they get quite warm in summer. but that can really help. you want light on skin and eyes so dont sit under it all bundled up in turtle necks. strip down and sunbathe a little under a high intensity light.

try not to mentally set yourself up to be miserable....and work with the EFT to release that "mental set up". tell yourself that you will get thru this and it wont be as bad as it has in the past!

I also get by by lighting a lot of fires in the winter. seems there is always one burning in the wood stove. nice to curl up with and relax the mind.

ps....you can always come to NM. we have lovely sunny winters. not always warm...but very sunny.

[babs]

Bev, I've done EFT a little but I honestly don't know what to tap for ... it seems like you have to know specifically what the problem is. I guess I'm just being negative and resistant as usual. I'm in a real funk right now, just horribly depressed and confused. I'm having a very hard time eating right and taking care of myself. I do take my supplements every day, but I don't see a connection in how I feel ... some days I feel okay, some days depressed, so it all feels very out of my control. I've been reading a lot of books, and they all say different things. "Feeling Good" says all depression is caused by negative thoughts. "The Mood Cure" says that depression is caused by deficiencies in certain nutrients. EFT theory says that all negativity is caused by a disturbance in the body's energy field. I feel like my head is spinning ... I just want to feel better so badly and all I do is cry. I'll be 4 months off in a week and I thought I'd feel better by now.

[MizzT]

its a combination of things babs. at 4 months you probably still feel like ****. unfortunately many of us are finding that 12 to 18 months is more realistic.
nutrients are for life.....you should do that daily...always. in time it will help. not in a week or 2 tho. months and months to repair.

EFT....hhmmnn...im gonna post an article i got from Gary Craig this week...about "WHAT" to tap for.

[MizzT]

http://www.emofree.com/cases/rightwords.htm

EFT Cases on Varied Issues
From the EFT email support list



How do I know the right words to say when I'm tapping?

Hi Everyone,

David Lake, MD (from Australia) takes us on an insightful and creative journey into the language possibilities within EFT. Please note his innovative method of magnifying the issue (from both positive and negative directions) while tapping. I've done this myself many times (you will see it on our tapes) and it often produces substantial cognitive shifts, belief changes, new perspectives and the like. Those who want to master the fine points of EFT will find David's message invaluable.

Hugs, Gary



How Do I Know The Right Words To Say When I'm Tapping?

This question is perennial. To me it indicates that the mind is concerned about getting the instructions correct (and worried about getting them 'wrong'...). You might not need too many words at all! While EFT is robust and forgiving as a technique, it's easy to forget that it's a body-energy technique and not strictly a psychological one.

Thus, the emotion of the issue fills your system regardless of how the mind processes the problem, and this might be why focus and persistent tapping bring so many positive and varied results. I find it better to tap on body sensations and reactions than to get over-concerned about labelling every feeling. I am also interested in bringing the maximum leverage to the use of EFT by concentrating its effect on the most intense aspects of the dysfunction.

One of the best ways to do this is to emphasise and exaggerate the negative. This is important if you believe that EFT works its wonders by harmonizing the disruptions in our ‘reactive’ emotional system. I have also found that a light-hearted therapeutic focus on the dark side of personality and life can bring disproportionate relief, ironic acceptance, laughter, and compassion--and EFT will facilitate the unique alchemy of transformation. Steve Wells, another EFT Contributing Editor, and I have been investigating this approach toward the negative over recent years in our Energy work (it is not fair to assume that his therapeutic imagination is more bizarre or surreal than mine).

This is a composite example of how I would do this in treating a relationship issue. The presenting problem is the frustration of a wife who 'can't trust' her husband, as a result of repeated broken promises. The couple sits together in a counselling session, both have learned EFT, and it is her turn to talk about her grievance. I ask her to tap on facial points whenever she feels intense about the situation, as it is important to take up every opportunity to ‘treat as you go’, and to end such a session with as many sequences of tapping completed as comfortably possible. I also ask the husband, this time, to tap for relief, if he needs to, while she talks--but to be silent.

She says: "He's always saying one thing and doing another...I get my hopes up but he never follows through. He lies! I'm sick of it!". Now I ask permission to go further with this, and request that she look into her husband's eyes while she follows my actions and repeats my words.


I say, for the three ‘set-up’ statements:

"Even though you lie to me...and let me down...and dash my hopes...part of me still loves you."

"Even though you say one thing and do another, I do my best to handle you."

"Even though you never follow through...and I'm really sick of it...and maybe there is no answer to this... I'm going to find an answer if I can."


Now she taps on the 7 basic shortcut points while saying: "You lie. You let me down. I can't stand it. I can't stand you. I have no hope. Maybe we can't make it. I don't know what to do."

While these statements are intuitive, they also pace the wife's experience, and she knows from my inquiries after the sequences that she can adjust their accuracy if she wants to (instant feedback). I find that all such statements have come up at one time in the mind of a distressed spouse (‘speaking the unspeakable’ according to Frank Farrelly, originator of Provocative Therapy). Typically by using the paradox of worsening the situation, strong emotion surfaces and releases. She would typically cry or get angry.

I now say: "Keep on tapping around the points" (Very important to keep tapping with strong feelings, as this is the antidote). Now I switch to the body: "If you had to name a place in your body where these feelings might collect, where would it be?" The answer might be over the heart. I say: "Put one hand over that place and focus all your attention underneath--as if those feelings have a shape and you could connect with that shape, and touch it". We keep tapping in silence so as not to interrupt the process with words, and to give some time and space to the obvious hurt.

Sometimes this can take a few minutes. Often I will ask if I can help by doing some of the tapping for her, and if the answer is 'yes', I will use the hand points (and wrist yin/yang meeting points); Gary has done this tapping for the client consistently in all his EFT trainings and it is a beautiful gesture and assistance in the right hands.

When things settle down I check the body sensations and their intensity, and repeat some sequences on 'chest emotion' or 'heart feeling' if necessary. It's not vital to get such intensities down to zero as they represent a big picture which is unfolding, so aspects of the problem pop up in many guises, and you deal with them naturalistically (if not logically).

I like to emphasise the bizarre aspects of loving and hating someone simultaneously (the 'good' partner and the 'bad' partner), and making molehills into mountains so that eventually even the client finds it hard to agree that they have teamed up with the 'worst person in the world', or that their 'shocking bad judgement' in saying 'yes' to him means that they are a 'very slow learner'!

A healthy disputing commences, which I can humorously refute, as if I am on the side of her nightmare and as if I agree that it’s really too hard or hopeless (or whatever she said when she was steamed up). I would tap on either side of the belief system, emphasizing the good or the bad, but I would exaggerate that polarity to an uncomfortable degree, using a cartooning or lampooning irony if possible. This is a slippery situation for the client to respond to.

For maximum effect she can follow a sequence of tapping where the good and the bad are presented alternately with each point! The ‘good’ news will usually have an echo in the client’s belief structure, which is a disbelieving or cynical opposite response, while the ‘bad’ news is treated anyway in the usual manner. A lot of negativity is processed very quickly with such accelerated confusion. That confusion exists anyway in the love/hate dichotomy but, after EFT, it settles to tolerable levels.

While doing the setup, I would have the wife say (looking at her partner): “Although part of me hates what you do, I don’t hate you—but I do sometimes, and I hate feeling like that; and even if all that is true, I accept myself deeply and completely… I accept myself, even though it’s very hard to accept myself as a wife when I have these hateful feelings… I love and forgive myself even though it might be a very long time before I’ll do that for you, considering your track record.”

Now she taps on the 7 points, moving to the next point with each phrase: “I love you. I don’t love you. I hate you. Part of me loves you. Part of me hates you. I only love the good you. I really hate the bad you.”

We progress in the session by testing the original propositions and complaints for emotional intensity. If things have shifted to positive and life-affirming directions, a guaranteed way to further the work required is to get the husband to proffer some of his favourite excuses or rationalizations. With the wife’s response you will find more work to be done! Later in therapy the husband has a turn, and the couple can do all of the above strategies together, simultaneously or sequentially, straight or paradoxically. Are we having fun yet?

Of course as the therapist you need excellent rapport and loving kindness in your empathic resonance. I also think you need to be able to tolerate the ambiguity and ambivalence involved in ‘making the problem worse’ in a creative and loving way. For some, this emphasis would go against the grain of positive thinking (or the pursuit of happiness in some countries). It might even be unconstitutional.

Flash: This works! You can even do it yourself for your own private reactive problems.

With my best intentions,

David Lake

[babs]

Wow ... sounds complicated but on the other hand, I have nothing to lose by trying. I am so much more open and willing to do stuff like this when I feel okay; right now, I am just trying to get through the day without crying. Maybe tonight I can give it a shot. Thanks for posting, Bev.

[MizzT]

"when you're feeling down....MOVE AROUND
When you're feeling GREAT!....Meditate"

I love Autumn personally ,

One thing ive started to do and i love it now....... is take pictures..go into the woods and take a little camera with you... Try to remember alll the beauty there is to see in the world ...i found that paxil made me forget this but after 3 years off it i can honestly say i do see the beauty again now and no longer is it dulled by paxil goggles.....
Hope things get brighter for you soon babs.......

[feelin'_wiggy]

Babs
I am the exact opposite. I know that angle of the sun you talk about, and in me it induces a good feeling because it signals the grueling summer is coming to an end. I experience what you feel about the time Daylight Saving Time kicks in because it means summer is coming, months and months of sickening heat. My withdrawal coincided with the onset of summer this year, so I used the time to hibernate. Now that I'm off the poison and feeling a little better, I'm reminding myself what is good about summer. Swimming weather is good. There are a lot of good fruits and veggies available, like watermelon. I love afternoon thunderstorms. Seems trite, I know. But rediscovering the world helps my attitude, a lot.

I've done some EFT, and I find it helps me with immediate stresses, like frustration over something I'm having trouble doing because my brain won't coooperate, spells of anxiety, and physical pain. I don't try to understand the why too much right now.

[MizzT]

I had a pretty wild EFT experience today. i have had a lot of trouble seeing thru this whole WD process. at times it feels like im getting pinkeye....kind of a mucus over my eyes. sometimes its just too many floaters to deal with or bright colors on everything. today i got a blind spot in my right eye that was kind of pulsy and brightly colored....but i couldnt see anything thru it. it grew bigger and bigger until the whole upper quadrant of vision was screwed. and really nasty flashy.
now how do you know what to tap for??? and i was starting to panic. i just did...even tho my right eye is weird. and after 2 full rounds of EFT it really settled out almost completely. i have a beeyatch of a headache now....but thats another story. i should try to tap that away too. im just happy the eyes settled down.

[elisa]

Originally Posted by babs806

Does anyone else out there hate Autumn? I get depressed every fall without fail, and now that I'm in withdrawal it's going to be really bad. I think it's started for me already ... there's a certain point where the angle of the sun changes just a smidgen and that triggers it all, the beginning of the end. I just hate hate hate the shorter days and colder weather. It gets especially bad when it starts being still dark out when I get up in the morning. I am so dreading it this year, as I will be at the 6 month mark when that starts, and things are supposed to really suck then anyway.

I have a light box but don't use it consistently as it really doesn't seem to help me that much. I just wish I could hibernate every year.

Same here babs. It starts when it's still dark in the morning. Usually I add some weight during the winter which comes off again in the spring. Wished I could hibernate as well. (bear envy)

It so co-incidental that my naturopathic doc told me to take cod-liver oil about a year ago. It has Vitamin D in it. In March at my physical it was discovered that the Vitamin D level wasn't even half of what is considered normal. So it really must have been very very low, although I always take lots of dairy products.

It might be worthwhile for you to check your vitamin D level. Sun exposure also helps a lot.

[chrisgam]

Babs,
I'm sorry you're having such a bad day. I can sure relate to the way you're feeling right now. I'm going through a lot of the same symptoms. I think we are just in a difficult time period in the withdrawal process. I think it is a good idea to try the EFT. It sure couldn't hurt and it might help a lot. I think I am going to try it if I can figure it out! Hopefully it will help you with your dread of the change in seasons.
I hope things get better for you really soon.

Chris

[Katesmom]

Babs-

Move to Texas. We don't have Autumn here! We have three seasons: cold and windy, tornados, and hotter than hell! Where I live they conduct NATO fighter pilot training because we have so many days of beautiful clear skies. I love it! I look out at it from my window in my air conditioned house. LOL.

[Delynbetter]

And don't forget we can have all 3 of those seasons within a one-hour time period!

If you don't like the weather...wait a minute.

[Katesmom]

Originally Posted by notdelynwell

And don't forget we can have all 3 of those seasons within a one-hour time period!

If you don't like the weather...wait a minute.

My favorite is when it rains mud. Why wait for it to splash up on your car when it can be coated from the top down!

[babs]

I think the darkness bothers me a lot more than the temperature. It's partly mental ... for some reason I just associate the darkness with loss and death. Maybe because my mother died in autumn.

One of my "if I ever get rich" fantasies is to live half the year in the northern hemisphere and half in the southern, so it's always summer. I suppose that would get old, though ... although it would be nice to at least be able to take a trip to the southern hemisphere each winter ... which one of you folks in Australia can I stay with?

[damama]

Babs,

Just curious, what part of California are you in? Northern or Southern? I'm Northern so I see the change of season, not like Southern where things don't swing too drastically. I know what you mean by the change of season. This year, I think I'm ready to welcome Fall since this summer has been so grueling with all the 100+ days we've had. For me I hate the Pea Soup Fog we get in the valley. Its almost claustrophobic. This year I'm going to buy a therapy light because I know I'll need it. Anything I can do to keep my happy hormones flowing!

[upsidedown90]

Hey Babs-
I commiserate!!! Paxil WD in Boston was hard, hard hard...didnt know about the seasonal thing at the time and went off in oct 2003, totally freaked, and was back on by late march 2004.

One of the reasons I moved to Maui was to heal/withdraw in a safe, warm, sunny place. Am I broke? you bet!!! Is it helping? Absolutely!!

So don't feel like you "can't " take a vacation to a warmer place if need be...DO IT...go into debt if need be...just take good care of yourself.

Warm fuzzies--
Jess

[rdjanis]

Originally Posted by upsidedown90

One of the reasons I moved to Maui was to heal/withdraw in a safe, warm, sunny place. Am I broke? you bet!!! Is it helping? Absolutely!!

What a beautiful place to be! You have any pics you would like to share

[-Ell]

Babs...I am with you on this one....ALL of my close relatives died during this time of year and there is NO way you can not connect the change of season with a change in your life missing loved ones! Again I can not stress it enough....WINTER SUCKS!
I hate it...I hate the darkness because it reminds me of death..it reminds me of those I miss horribly! I want to talk to my dad, I want to talk to my sister and the list goes on and on!

That's why I will probably be on something during the winter months. Living in a twister magnet doesn't help either..even though done with light colors it still is darker than a house in the winter. Plus being a rectangle doesn't help. I feel like the walls are closing in on me.

so I'm with you and I am starting and ANTI-WINTER club if you care to join!

[-Ell]

ps ...I've tried the full spectrum light thing and it didn't help me...just made us fork out a bunch of money. I would try that somewhere before you go buying them! They are EXPENSIVE!

I think I just need a season like this where somebody doesn't die! I keep thinking when this time of year rolls around...Ok who's it gonna be this year??? That's no way to live but how do you help it?

[rdjanis]

Originally Posted by -Ell

ALL of my close relatives died during this time of year and there is NO way you can not connect the change of season with a change in your life missing loved ones!

As have all my close relatives as well, all but one. My grandmother two days before New Years. I connect with this period as well with the time of their death. It is at these times that I will recall the good times shared and enjoy my memories of them. It does bring a connection, but you are in control if this connection be a good one or bad. It is normal to grieve, but it should not ruin the season.

[feelin'_wiggy]

Both of my parents and all of my grandparents died between April and June. My first husband died during the Christmas holidays, and my brother in November. So the only time I'm not reminded of a death is August-September, my least favorite time of year. I try to forget the dates, but my sister loves to remind me. OUr mom's been dead for seven years, and she will still call me on that day and ask if I "remember what today is?"

I'll tell you one date that sucks big time for me, December 27th. My mom received her death sentence that day, terminal cancer. One year later, on that exact same date, my first husband went into cardiac arrest after surgery for cancer. So, yes, the Christmas holidays suck. They will never be the same.

[-Ell]

gosh I am so sorry Deb...that all sucks!

my dad went into the hospital on his birthday (March 9th) ..found out he also had terminal cancer and died in another hospital on April 22nd. (the 22nd being the number of my anniversary..not the month just the number)

My sister died the year I graduated ...her birthday was March 5th. She died right before her 32nd birthday.

I think for me it's the grass dying and the flowers going dormant that start bringing on the feelings of "death" and then just waiting to hear who it's going to be this year.