Self-healing copywriting

The core truth of self-healing is never to force yourself to reconcile with the pain quickly, but to allow yourself to "not heal" first - to first take away the knife on your neck that "you must be positive, you must be normal, you must get better quickly".

I have been working in psychological counseling for almost three years, and have been exposed to more than 200 cases of emotional problems of ordinary clients. The most common healing problem I have seen is not the trauma itself, but that people always regard "healing" as another KPI to be completed: scold them immediately after crying. I thought, "What's the point of crying about this?" After an emotional breakdown, I would immediately review "Did I lose my temper just now?" I even signed up for a bunch of mindfulness classes and healing camps. The first second I sat down to meditate, I was thinking, "Why haven't I calmed down yet? Is my method wrong?" 」

It's a bit funny. I once met a client who worked in Internet operations. He made his weekly healing progress into an Excel table. If he cried twice less this week than last week, he would be considered qualified. If he cried once more than last week, he would write "Review this week: Emotional management failed." I laughed out loud after reading it and asked her, is this healing, or has she found another boss who cares about her emotions?

The current mainstream psychology schools actually have quite different opinions on the path of self-healing: psychoanalytic counselors will suggest that you trace back to the source of trauma, find the connection between your current emotions and past experiences, and bring the pain in your subconscious to the sun.； Cognitive-behavioral counselors will help you sort out your unreasonable beliefs and replace the "I'm a waste" rooted in your mind bit by bit with "I just didn't do this well."」 ； The practice of mindfulness will teach you to bring your attention back to the present moment, without being repeatedly pulled away by past regrets and future anxieties. These three methods have a large number of clinical cases to prove their effectiveness, but none of them is "must", and no one is better than the other.

But what is interesting is that senior practitioners from these three schools all mentioned one premise in clinical practice: the basis for any healing method to be effective is that the client first gives up the obsession of "I want to get better quickly." Just like your feet are worn out, you still force yourself to run a marathon in high heels that squeeze your feet, and you still ask why it hurts more and more as you run. This is not healing, this is self-abuse.

Many people also feel that if you allow yourself not to heal, isn’t that just escaping? Do you want to hide in your comfort zone for the rest of your life? In fact, there is no standard answer to this question. It all depends on your current situation: you have just been laid off, you have just ended a relationship for several years, you have just experienced the death of a loved one, and your soul has not come back yet. You force yourself to sit down and analyze "what did I do wrong this time" and "how can I get over it quickly?" This is essentially secondary trauma. At this time, you can watch stupid dramas that are nutritious for three days, eat three hot pot meals that are so spicy that you will sweat, and sleep with a plush doll for a whole day. As long as you are comfortable, that is part of the healing.

I worked on a project for a month at the end of last year. When I collapsed, I tried a very ridiculous method. I set aside 10 minutes of "garbage time" for myself every day and did nothing meaningful: I squatted on the ground and opened express boxes and folded them into small cubes, or blew bubbles into a cup with a straw in my mouth. My friend saw me passing by and said that I was as childish as a three-year-old child, but I didn't bother to refute. Anyway, I don’t have to be an emotionally stable adult for these 10 minutes, and I don’t have to force myself to be positive. It doesn’t matter if it’s a waste of time. Just this 10-minute buffer made my subsequent work much more efficient.

There was a client who had been in a car accident before and had a problem with taking public transportation. The previous counselor forced her to take a bus stop every day to desensitize her. Instead, she became more and more afraid, and the thought of taking a bus made her sleepless all night. Later I told her, don’t force yourself, just take a taxi to and from get off work, hug your stuffed bunny on the way, and listen to whatever high-pitched songs you want. You don’t have to prove “I’m not afraid.” More than three months later, she sent me a message to tell me that one day after get off work, she was stuck in a taxi for forty minutes. She suddenly felt that taking the bus was not that scary. She took the initiative to try taking the bus for two stops the next day, and it was really fine.

You see, healing is never linear, you don’t do the exercises today and you have to be better tomorrow. It's more like a cut on your hand. You can put a band-aid on it, apply iodine, or you can do nothing and wait for it to scab on its own. As long as you don't have anything to do, just pick off the scab and play with it, whichever way feels better.

Yesterday evening I was buying water at the convenience store downstairs in my community, and I saw a little girl in school uniform squatting on the steps, holding half a box of strawberry sundae in her hand, stuffing it into her mouth while shedding tears, not caring if the ice cream melted and ran to her wrists. After crying for about five minutes, she took out a tissue and wiped her face clean, stuffed the last mouthful of ice cream into her mouth, and skipped away, with the Hello Kitty pendant on her schoolbag dangling.

There is no complicated truth.

You allow yourself to cry, allow yourself to be temporarily unable to stand up, and allow yourself to be useless for a while in a place where no one can see you. This in itself is the best self-healing.