Hi Brooke,
I will run with this as this is the crux of everything
C: Dream about son getting sick
T: Of course my brain would go there-I completely understand.
F: sad
A: cry
R: my brain goes there and it interferes with me embracing the joy of having my son

C: Dream about son getting sick
T: Losing my daughter and the intensity of that emotion is still programmed in my brain-and that’s ok.
F: stuck
A: research more about cptsd (btw I have the ptgrowth books you recommended in a past podcast, I have only just started them)
R: I understand intellectually and have compassion for myself but I still want to gain some control over it because it holds me back in so many areas of my life. And at the same time I don’t want to change it as the emotional intensity is a testament to how much I love and miss her (T i will work on).

It’s an emotional and thought loop I get stuck in and I often buffer by mentally checking out.
C: clean out a cupboard that has games my daughter played with
Intentional T: it’s ok to throw this stuff away, it’s just stuff
Unintentional T: if you throw this away you are throwing away memories
F: sad
A: think about the last time she touched the items
R: I put it all back into the cupboard. Spend the next several hours in a state of cognitive dissonance.

I have actually done a lot of healing in this area but I still get thrown off when things like this happen. I want more deliberate action to work through this. One thought is apply a protocol for these situations.
Thank you,
Rae