Hi Brooke, I had a breakthrough this morning while doing my Scholars homework. In Scholars the things I wanted to work on was addressing my negative thoughts, stopping overdrinking and improving my focus on my business. This morning I was doing some models on various related things. I noticed while doing this I was pulling hair on my scalp. I decided to do a model with this as the action and I then added “Stressed” as the feeling.
I know Ive had this hair pulling bad habit since I was a teenager. Its less major than when I was younger but Im aware of it. Then I started adding other related “habits” I have in my Action line and for the first time as I was writing them all down and I thought “holy shit, there is something going on here”. The other habits I wrote were biting nails , blinking more when stressed, chewing my inner cheek, and twitching my legs when I first sit down after being busy. I googled all of this and self diagnosed myself with a “body focussed repetitive behavioural problem”. Reading more about how it is treated, it sounds like the thought work we are doing in Scholars and the methods you describe to stop overdrinking are the sorts of approaches that the medical profession would offer (not counting medication).
Now I have so many thoughts and feelings related to this – like oh yes, my mom had it too, I remember the day in my teens it started (there was a mini trauma), all of my overdrinking and negative self talk and inability to focus on work as much as I would like to and these symptoms are totally interrelated. Here is my question – do you think I can cure myself of these habits with continued Scholars work only- running models for awareness and choosing more helpful thoughts and feelings, and now practising and using my skills at allowing urges (Hey are the picking/biting/pulling etc habits a form of buffering?) . I think these habits are buffering and I think I can stop all of these buffering habits with continued Scholar work. What do you think?
Thanks so much for the Scholars program.