Good Evening, World!
I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while – and then it slips my mind. In fact, I wanted to write a short meditation on this concept for my little book Pearls, but again, I forgot!
So today is the day. (Because I sent out a text about it on Monday… )
Here’s the thing: Early on, I had no idea how to break down the actual realtime experience of hair pulling – or skin picking. I was SO habituated, and had failed SO many times to make significant headway, I had come to believe that change was just not possible for me. This caused deep sorrow, and eroded my self-esteem.
Sound familiar? At least to those of us with many years of this under the belt, it is a common experience. Moving ahead, doing well, then slipsliding back down into cycles of pulling and picking, feeling like it is just too hard to stay free of the behavior. And, even if we’ve only struggled for a few weeks, months, or a year or two, it just makes us feel so out of control etc.
One very simple exercise that I started doing had profound results over time. It was this: I had come to understand that when I denied myself the pulling and picking that I craved, it generally built up my internal pressure and often ended up in a binge episode of overwhelming behavior. Better not to deny, I thought.
So this is what I began to do. I told myself that when I had an urge, no problem! I could like TOTALLY pull! I just needed to wait a bit before I did the behavior. Notice what was going on inside, breathe, and then OF COURSE I could pull or pick!
So it was about inserting a NEW behavior – that of waiting with awareness – for a few seconds to a few minutes, BEFORE I engaged in the pulling/picking behavior.
This way I was not giving my internal need system a message of denial, so no tension tended to build up. If I did start to tense up – feel resistant, I would just wiggle my shoulders, take a nice breath, and relax. Because, of COURSE I could pull! in Just a few seconds or minutes!
Did this work? Surprisingly well. Not at first, but I couldn’t ride a bike, drive a car, type a word at first either. So I was very gentle with myself, and worked to stay in a non-denying state. Letting myself know that yes, I certainly could pull if I still felt like it when the time limit was up (I started with about 5 seconds).
Amazingly, just giving myself the permission to choose to wait a few seconds, began to change my awareness of the whole process. It showed me that there WAS a way to make tiny changes over time, and that with practice, I really could make headway.
And here’s the radically cool thing: often when I inserted these little bits of time, I would feel so empowered that I REALLY was engaging directly with my urge, and I was making choices to engage it differently. Once I got up to more than about 30 seconds, I often no longer felt like pulling simply from the amazement of it all. Of course there were times when even after 10 minutes I would have an urge, and in the beginning I simply let myself pull.
But over time, as I became more comfortable with the experience of feeling an impulse but not reacting to it, except with breath and awareness to stay relaxed, I found that not only did they lessen in intensity, but if I felt an impulse arise, and turned INTO it with the full intention of being ready to insert this little “gap” of time, it often dissipated quickly.
This took a couple months of practicing, and at first it was bothersome, but after the first week it became pretty easy, and now, it is automatic.
So – yes, I do still get urges, now and then. I will go weeks and months with no urge, and then there may be a little flurry. Mostly they occur at a very deep level and today I treat them as signals to pay attention to my overall balance.
Usually when I check in with myself, I find that I am either doing something I don’t want to be doing, or I am trying to multitask to the extreme and I have lost track of the moment. Or, I am too tired, irritated, or in denial of some feelings I need to acknowledge.
So that’s my pitch for making tiny changes – just like a flower unfolding – it happens in little increments over time!
Okay, back soon.
Love Christina
3 Comments
Thank you, Christina. This site gives me a lot of hope. I’ve kept a blog for a little over two years to keep in touch with friends, but I’ve never written about hair-pulling. Until today. It feels like a BIG step and I wanted to tell someone who understands, and maybe find some other folks online who can relate. Thank you for your work, for all of us.
Your comment made my day. And when I began to share about more and more of my personal experience, my life began to change for the better. Wasn’t easy, but sure worth it! Love C
I’m right there with you Christina! I started pulling when I was 7 years old. I was never able to do the whole “clunch your fists and wait 20 seconds thing”- I needed something specific to do. I found that, whenever I had an urge to pull that there was ALWAYS (for me, anyway) a feeling behind it. When I was able to focus and figure out what feeling I was denying and acknowledge it the urge to pull WENT AWAY. After awhile, I would just have the feelings instead of the urge to pull. I’m not 100% pull-free yet, but I am 98% pull-free (also hat and make-up free went I want) and getting better all the time.
Keep up the great work Christina!