Day 42 What's the difference between avoiding something and emotional suppression

Question for you both. Do you write down what you put in your container? I can be forgetful sometimes so I like to put things in my notes app on my phone. @BloodMoon

 

You can do this but then you should actually put it away somewhere. In a drawer or box!
Usually I just visualize.

 

No, I've not needed to do that because, so far, the visualising of putting the issues in a box has helped me remember them all. However, I can't see that making a note on your app would be anything other than a help, that is, if you make a note on your app after you've done the short visualisation first. I say this because the temptation would possibly be to not bother to do the visualisation and the visualisation is good because it means that really difficult issues are safely contained and can be pulled out of the box in bite size chunks if, or in case, they might be overwhelming. (I don't know what the view of this would be in the context of EMDR though as I've never done EMDR.)

 

I will have to try this, thank you both.

 

I think these are very important realizations in terms of recovering from TMS. It's finding these early patterns of hurt and discovering how the coping patterns we developed at the time are no longer serving us. It was the best we could do as children, but as adults these patterns don't work well anymore.

 

So often the pendulum must swing this way between generations. I was emotionally abused, and in my effort to stop that cycle I become emotionally unavailable!

 

I don't use the container method, although I went through EMDR therapy. Because TMS programs such as journaling, the SEP (and other similar programs), and mindfulness teach us to be OK with emotions and the sensations of emotions in the immediate, or to use journaling and other means of self-expression, my therapist bypassed using this method. We talked about the TMS work I had done, and she felt that we learn so much awareness in this method that the container method isn't necessary. So keep in mind that you may find that there are differences for you blending methods and it's OK if something doesn't work for you - something else will.

 

I agree with @Cactusflower . Like so many of these things some tools are more effective for some people than others. The container works well for some but is not something I use much myself.