(PART 2) So... there was a parrot and judge...

Okay, apologies for the delay in getting this second part posted - you know i'm a busy gal and life gets in the way sometimes ya know? 

Firstly, I just want to say a HUGE thank you for the overwhelming support since my last post went live. I am honestly astounded by how many of you have reached out to me to offer me advice, share your experiences and just let me know that we are not alone! It was the soul reason I wanted to share my experience for responses like that and I just wanted to let you all know how happy it has made me because it's confirmed that it was worth writing about! So here's to part 2, grab a cuppa it's a long one....

(Also, I hope you enjoy these pics of me having a facking good tym at Mighty Hoopla last week hehe)

My second session came around quickly and I was a LOT more relaxed. Ronaldo explained that we will be exploring the mind further, delving into our ways of thinking, how we interpret certain situations and how this can be translated into particular emotions and responses. To explain it to me, Ronaldo used a lot of metaphors including a parrot, a judge, a Grandma and the government....I know what you're thinking (I was thinking it to) but just bear with me!

Throughout our whole lives, he explained, we are disciplined between right and wrong, when growing up we are told yes or no and often told off when we do anything 'wrong', we learn what is 'bad', 'scary' and everything in-between. This later on in life develops meanings in our heads of what is right or wrong with certain aspects of life and how we react to certain situations. Take a spider for example, if we are told "spiders are scary", "they will hurt you", "they are creepy" we will grow up believing so and what happens when we see a spider? HOLY SHIT, we run!! Cause that shit's scary, right?

But, what if you overrule that thought process in your head, what if the spider isn't actually that scary (cause it isn't, it's tiny and realistically in Britain i'm 99% certain it will not kill you, even though i'm not spider expert), your instant reaction won't be fear, it won't be to run away, it'll just be to get on with your life...

Emotions are your reactions to thoughts.

So here is where the judge and parrot come in....What does a parrot do? Yes they're probably just fucking annoying and repeat themselves constantly right? Correct. So how does this link to your thoughts?

When you look in the mirror, how many times has your instant reaction been 'I look shit, fat, ugly, old' (delete as applicable) ? It's these constant put-downs that are on automatic repeat in our heads that can cause the damage. Because, what happens when this goes on for far too long, you begin to believe it and then you worry that's what other people think of you, leading to all sorts of problems.

On the other hand you have the Judge. The Judge outlines the rights and wrongs in your life, the do's and don'ts which 'reflect' your core values and beliefs. All the judge does is assume and assert rules. TBH, the judge is a bitch and is far too hard on you. For example, the judge might say "oh, that person doesn't like you", "that person thinks you're weird" and what happens then? We're left feeling not good enough. The judges rules are always based on perfection and an all or nothing attitude. The judge is just going by the rules outlined and pushed forward by the Government. And who is the Government when it comes to your thoughts? YOU!

You have the ultimate power as the Government to override that silly ass Judge and change up the rules! The Government can let the Judge know that it's okay to show emotion, it's okay to fail, it's okay to disappoint others...it's life and it is going to happen.

JHEEZ, this was actually a full on*Mind Blown* moment for me. Honestly, ALL my life I've been putting so much pressure on myself to not make mistakes and to not disappoint anyone that I've been excruciatingly punishing myself if anything went badly or not the way I wanted it to. To be told, it's actually okay to do these things and at the end of the day you're only human, was literally just what I needed to hear in order to not be so hard on myself and actually, it's alright if I fuck up!

"So......." Ronaldo went on...."who loves you more than anything in the world? Through your mistakes, through your failures, through your darkest times?" ***picture me looking blankly*** "

Your Grandma!" Ronaldo stated... "She's there to shh those negative bad thoughts that come into your head from the parrot and fill you with love and joy." Ronaldo was literally standing at this point acting out being in front of a mirror and having a full-on conversation with himself, in his strong Spanish accent, being both the Grandma and the parrot....absolutely hilarious to watch. 

Parrot: You look ugly 

Grandma: It's okay, you are confident 

Parrot: you aren't good enough 

Grandma: You're going to be okay. 

Parrot: Nobody likes you 

Grandma: You are surrounded by people that love you 

And so it went on.

Channel the Grandma and less of the parrot he says....

Okay, writing this all down, I sound like a fucking weirdo but it actually made sense to me at the time, if you don't get it, don't worry! This is what I loved about Ronaldo, he would interpret ideas in a way that somehow I understood, he was animated, committed and actually pretty funny, which made these sessions so much more enjoyable than I ever thought they could be.

Before I left the session, Ronaldo grabbed a piece of paper and wrote 'MY RIGHTS' at the top of it.

He went on to fill out two bullet points:

• I can make mistakes 
• I can make the same mistake twice. 

He said we'll complete the rest next time. And then off I went home. 

Over the next couple of weeks I really tried to put what I had learnt into practice. When I was worrying about how things would go at work or in my home life, I just told myself it'll be alright and if I make a mistake it doesn't matter, nothing bad will happen. I became more aware of when my thoughts lost control and the "Judge" was assuming the worst into what other people thought of me. I began to take control of it. I cannot tell you just by doing this, how much of an impact it had on my confidence and my happiness. I began to care less about what people thought and because of this I stopped telling myself how annoying or shit I was in general life and I saw my confidence start to grow.

I know first hand that I (used to) suffer quite badly from social anxiety. Whenever I would be going out for dinner or to a club with my friends, I would get this weird prangy feeling deep in my stomach. I used to confuse it sometimes with excitement but really it was dread and anxiety, because with it would come the accompanying thoughts and worry, as I would be creating different variations in my head of how the night would possibly go... who I might bump into, what if I got too drunk, what if nobody liked what I was wearing, what if I ran out of things to talk about, what if my friends found me boring.... Yardy yardy yaaaaa.....I would drink to cover it up and overcome it, which, obviously isn't the best idea but when explaining this in one of my sessions, Manuel told me it was because I felt so low of myself and told myself such shit things, that I was always assuming other people would be thinking the same thing of me. Hence, (unless I was drunk) why it always took me ages to come out of my shell, let people in and would have this anxiety before heading out somewhere, where I knew new people I haven't met before would be. Once I finally stopped the bloody 'parrot' repeating negative thoughts in my head, this prevented me from feeling so shit about myself and therefore, I now don't fear that anyone else thinks the same. Great on-going little cycle that is, hey! Anyway...

My third session came about quickly and I was jumping into that room ready to tell Ronaldo how much of a success the last couple of weeks had been. I told him about how my mentality had changed and how I noticed more when I was putting myself down and that I was stopping it. He lit up and looked so happy at my progress. He said to me, the way you used to speak to yourself, would you ever speak that way to your friend? To which I replied, "God no, never!"

"So", he said. "Why would you ever speak to yourself like that? You don't deserve it as much as your friend doesn't."

I think this was one of the biggest things I realised. Like honestly, why do we speak to ourselves like such shit? We have to live with ourselves our whole bloody lives, so why do we persevere on making it so fucking shit? It just doesn't make any sense to me. Self love and all that whoop whoop. 

Anyway, back to my rights.

He continued to write on the piece of paper the following points:

MY RIGHTS

• To disappoint others 
• To disappoint myself 
• To express my emotions 
• To say "no" without justifications 
• To say "yes" to what is good for me 
• To change my mind 

Reading these, was the most odd thing for me but it explained a lot. For the best part of the last 5 years I've been living in a state of pleasing others instead of myself. I felt like a bad person and guilty if I ever put myself first. I used to get gratification and fulfilment from making other people happy, which obviously isn't a bad thing but when that is your only source of validation, that's when it becomes a problem. 

At the end of the day, it had never became so bloody clear to me that you really are in charge of your own happiness. Being told that actually, it was okay to let people down and not go on that night out if I didn't want to or prioritise my own time to go to the gym, pamper myself or spend my money on what I wanted, it made life a lot easier. Now, I just do exactly what I want. Within reason of course, I'm not out here giving absolutely no fucks to everything, burning down buildings and what not, that's just nonsense. But literally, I do what I want when I want, I do whatever is going to make me happy (as you can see in these pics LOL) and finally for the first time in my life I've actually started putting myself first and stopped worrying about what everyone else is doing. Light-bulb moment or what! 

The next sessions were based more around worrying thoughts themselves, where they stem from and how it can result in anxiety. Ronaldo gave me a diagram which conveyed the 'Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder' annddddd it went like this....

Situation   >   What if?   >   Worry   >   Anxiety   >   Demoralization Exhausion 

He then explained that a lot of people (like me 3 years ago) get to the anxiety part of the spectrum and then go oh shit, let's sort this out and get some medication. However, you should be stopping it around the 'What if'. Okay, this is where he goes on about lorry's and car's. Again, bear with me. He told me to imagine that i'm at a junction of a motorway (this is your mind) each thought is either a lorry or a car. So, a 'lorry' is a worry that cannot be controlled, cannot be fixed, is in the past or is in the future. For example, I shouldn't have said that thing to my friend, she probably hates me. OR worrying about whether anyone will be bored in a presentation. OR going out and worrying that they'll think terrible of me. OR thinking people are talking about you. All of these things either can't be controlled, they aren't happening now or they aren't a complete reality. These sort of thoughts have to be cast aside, let go of and you need to focus on something else. So you say TA TA to the lorry as it drives off down the A3. 

A 'car' is a thought that can be actioned. So, getting a presentation done, you can start working on it. Prepping for an interview, you can do research and so on. 

It's crazy how you are actually so in control of your thoughts. At the end of the a day a thought is just a thought and you have the choice whether to give it the time and energy or not. 

After this I was asked to start a worry diary, mark the worry out of 10 and then label it a car or a lorry.....

I have got so much more I need to tell you but I think I'm going to have to save the big finale shall we say, for another post. It will be the last one I promise, but I underestimated how much I was going to write (soz about me flapping on) because trying to squeeze 6 sessions into two blog posts has proved too much! Oh but trust me the last one is a goody. You can read about my final farewell to Ronaldo and the last piece of advice he gave me! 

Stay tuned xxxx