I have a tendency to live in my “Emotion Mind”. Impulsive, emotion=fact, difficult to see logic. I may not seem like it from my writing, and maybe I do. How do I know I live there? I live in my eating disorder and I don’t question it. I hear it say “don’t eat” and I don’t. I hear it say “binge and purge” and I do. I hear it say “you are fat and disgusting” and I believe it. I hear it say “you are worthless” and I know it’s true.
What my DBT group has been working on the last couple weeks is living mindfully, or living in your Wise Mind, the melding of your logical brain and your emotional brain. The area where you make wise decisions, using both reason and emotion, living intuitively. It’s difficult. I am learning, though.
Today, I was living in my Emotion Mind when I didn’t eat dinner. However, I was able to tap into my Wise Mind for a brief moment when I didn’t take laxatives also. I used a technique called effectiveness. I was able to think about what my goal was (babysitting tomorrow without being sick) and think about what was effective for bringing about that outcome. I also used a pro con list of being effective and not, and the combination helped me to tap into that Wise Mind to make a wise choice to not take laxatives. At least for tonight.
a2eternity 