If You Feel Like A Boneless Chicken, There’s Hope

The other day I was listening to a lecture in order to earn Continuing Education Units for my counseling credential where I live. 

I had exactly .25, one quarter, of a credit short before my birthday in a few weeks when all my credits were due. I hunted down a lecture online to learn from, something short.

A long-term psychotherapist, J. Eric Gentry, was offering a lecture. He has worked in the field of trauma for over 30 years.

His message?

Being in a repeated stressful situation, without inquiring, can leave you complaining, unhappy, and very numbly stuck.

You feel irritated and you say “this is a stressful job, a stressful situation, because of _____.”

You have your list of reasons….

….but you might be like a frog who’s been put in a warm pot of water where the heat’s slowly turned up, just slowly enough that the frog doesn’t leap out, but winds up getting boiled to death instead.

You aren’t moving. You can’t move.

So find a place where you feel repeatedly like you’re stuck, and you’ve almost given up.

We perceive something is an ongoing threat….

….and we lose brain functions like reason, clear judgment, fine motor control, speaking up clearly. Dr. Gentry said the sympathetic nervous system is activated and goes on major alert and you freeze (and consider flight).

THE WATER IS BOILING! But I’m too weak or unhappy to even jump out!

BURN OUT.

You say “I can’t take it anymore”!

Martin Seligman, a very famous psychologist, gave dogs electric shocks through the floor, randomly. Eventually, the dogs gave up and lay down, allowing themselves to be shocked, hopeless.

What-ev.

(Picture a teenager holding a “W” up on their forehead for “whatever”.)

Now…lying around like a boneless chicken isn’t necessarily the best experience, right?

One might think “I need to get motivated, I need to get fired up!”

But even an Olympic Athlete doesn’t say “I wish I would be MORE anxious about my upcoming competition.”

Relaxation is valued, interesting, comfortable, and good.

Somehow, we all know there’s a place of relaxation AND joyful action put together, without a big feeling of danger, fear, threat, stress.

I love what Dr. Gentry suggested.

Who would you be in your same stressful situation without tensing up? Without believing it is stressful?

Who would you be with the belief that your situation is hopeless?

Without the thought that it’s dangerous to speak up, try to make changes, or ask for what you need and want?

What if you no longer thought you were trapped, that you were a victim, that you’re stuck?

What would that look like?

“Burnout is a perceptual disorder, a perceptual issue. Nothing is ever demanded of you again. You have no demands upon you. You are free. Yes, your actions come with consequences, but you get to choose…” ~ Dr. J Eric Gentry

WOW!

Sinking into that place where I am truly, deeply free, without any expectation or demand for the outcome, without the clutching, without hoping, without pushing, without feeling stuck that there’s a *right* way, without feeling bossed, without feeling like a victim…..

…..I soften.

“Believing in a solid, separate self, continuing to seek pleasure and avoid pain, thinking that someone ‘out there’ is to blame for our pain—-one has to get totally fed up with these ways of thinking. One has to give up hope that this way of thinking will bring us satisfaction.” ~ Pema Chodron