Nervous Breakdown
A nervous breakdown is overwhelming and painful
to the degree that you lose your ability
to cope with life.
You just can't handle it anymore.
It's not really necessary for me to go into the symptoms
of a nervous breakdown,
because if you're having a nervous breakdown, you know it.
It feels like an anxiety attack,
that just doesn't end.
And you may feel so exhausted
that even the smallest task, is too difficult.
You may even feel like you've lost touch with reality.
It feels like you're forced to simple surrender
and allow the feelings to take over your body,
like emotional version of the flu.
The most common causes of nervous breakdown,
are past traumas, problems in intimate relationships,
like, breakdown or divorces,
experiencing the death of a loved one,
problems relative to ocupational pursuits
like, career or schooling,
health problems such as injuries or chronic illnesses
and financial problems such as debt or poverty.
Why do I use this common causes?
Because it's important if you're having a nervous breakdown,
to realise that it's happening for a reason.
I can assure you
that if you are in the middle of an emotional or mental breakdown,
you will not be thinking you have good enough reason
to feel the way you feel,
instead you will feel like you've gone completely crazy.
Because the feelings seem to be so disproportionate
to the things that you are considering
as having caused that particular sensation
within your body.
But you're are not crazy.
These are happening for a reason.
That's why you are experiencing the sensations,
it's just a stress crisis.
Most importantly, you will not feel like its temporary.
You will feel like you have lost if for good.
But it's not true.
It is temporary.
So what should we do if we are having a nervous breakdown?
The first thing we have to do,
is to completely surrender to the breakdown itself.
Breakdowns function like a riptide.
If you try to resist them,
or go against them,
you are just going to get sucked under the water
ten times quicker, and it's going to drown you.
Your option is to let go to it
and let it take you.
Let your body instinctively draw you
towards to it's own way of healing.
Treat it like an emotional flu or a healing crisis.
If you had a bad viral illness,
you literally couldn't function.
So you have to treat the breakdown the same way.
Intentionally letting go to the experience.
The worst thing you could try to do during a breakdown
is try to function.
Now I know what you're probably thinking.
That if you give in to a breakdown,
it's never going to end.
But in fact, the opposite is true.
Your quickest way of getting out of a breakdown
is to go totally through it.
So don't go get a psychiatric medication prescribed.
Try to get help from others
with the things that "have to be done".
Of course I want you to be really honest with yourself.
I might be telling myself
that this thing is something that "has to be done",
when in truth I'm just choosing to do it
because I think it has to be done.
If you haven't done it yet,
I want you to watch my video on YouTube titled:
How to Heal The Emotional Body.
The reason is that in that particular video,
I present a process
which I want you to do consciously,
which you enables you to work your way through
these painful kinds of emotions.
Ironically, during an emotional or a mental breakdown,
the body is forcing you to do that, unwillingly.
It's attempting to self generate a healing.
Instinctive healing forces are at work during a breakdown
And remember, these feelings are not trying to hurt you,
they're not something happening to you,
they are instead, like a small completely powerless and frigtened child
begging for your help.
Step 2. The breakdown is telling you
that there needs to be a serious change to your life.
So I don't want you to be thinking that
just by going through the breakdown completely,
you can stand back up on the other side
and go right back to life as normal.
That's gonna set you up for yet another nervous breakdown.
And also, you've got to realize
it's happening for a reason.
So what you've gotta do is look at your life,
at the areas that caused that particular breakdown,
and you've got to make tangible
differences and changes to those particular areas.
Seek help with it from others.
Trusted friends or professionals.
A nervous breakdown happens when stressors uncover
your deepest fears.
So this is the time that's ripe to discover what those fears really are,
and to address those fears directly when you still capable.
Step 3.
Stop living for future plans.
If you have any nervous breakdown,
the future no longer exists.
You've got to draw it in,
so that you're only living
five minutes to five minutes, or hour to hour.
Nothing more than that.
I want you to live according to the question:
"What would feel like just a little bit more relief,
right here and now?"
Maybe it's eating a bowl of mashed potatoes,
maybe it's watching a funny movie,
maybe it's laying a blanket in the forest,
maybe it's crawling under the covers.
Whatever it is, do it.
And when you feel done with that,
ask the question again.
When you begin to feel more energy
and less incapacitated, which happens naturally,
you'll naturally be compelled
to starting your life over
and to extending that line
so that you're seeing into the future a bit more.
So, contrary to popular belief,
this step does not have to be forced.
4. If you have the tendency to have chronic nervous breakdowns,
that is, they tend to happen with enough regualrity
that you fear them happening again,
than chances are you have
a chronic stressor in your life.
Most often this chronic stressor
is unresolved trauma from our childhood.
I'm going to expose
a common pattern among those who have chronic breakdowns.
The common pattern is a sense of unsafety.
The people who have chronic breakdowns,
have a major major issue,
in that they can't feel safe in the world.
It's almost like the stressors they have,
because of the traumas they've experienced,
have created so much stress in their life,
that living life is a little bit like
tight rope walking,
while carrying an elephant on their back.
Of course, there's like a hundred times more likelihood
that that person is going to fall off the tight rope.
On top of that, when we feel unsafe
we tend to use people to feel safe.
Many people who chronically experience nervous breakdowns,
have the subconscious belief
that there's going to be a negative consequence
to being well or being happy.
So if you chronically experience nervous breakdown,
ask yourself this question,
and think way outside the box to discover potential answers:
Why do you need to be weak or unhappy or in need of rescue?
When that thing will happen
if you're powerful, happy, healthy
and with no need of rescue?
Put yourself in the position
of being happy, and powerful, and healthy
and see if there are any negative feelings associated with that condition.
Some of us find that being well,
means being abandoned by others.
So only by being unwell,
can we guarantee connection and support.
Some of us find that by being well,
we feel we will be attacked,
so by being unwell we send up a white mercy flag
that says to others:
"I'm the underdog, have mercy on me."
Don't take this to mean that you're faking nervous breakdowns
in order to have people around.
Rather see that you can't stop having break downs
because of the absolutely incapacitating fear
you have of abandonment or harm.
Step 5.
When we're having a nervous breakdown
something in our life has gone badly enough,
that it has caused us to enter into a total negative spiral.
There's a really good exercise to use in this particular circumstance.
You take a look at what's going really really badly,
so you're aware of it.
Then you ask yourself:
"What has this really bad situation caused me to know that I want,
or what is the possibility
on the other end of the scale?"
And then you do everything you can do
to find a way to make tangible steps,
or think thoughts deliberately,
that will get you from point A (where you are)
to point B (where you want to be).
In other words when you're having a breakdown
and you know why you're having a breakdown,
you've got to ask yourself:
"What has this caused me to know that I want,
or what possibility exists
as exaltation of this circumstance?"
This should never be forced.
If you force anything during a breakdown,
you're going to nothing but add fire to fire.
And it's going to just fuel the breakdown more.
So make sure you do this when you have enough energy.
So here is an example:
Say I'm having an emotional breakdown
because potentially,
my husband walked through the door and said:
"I want a divorce."
That sent me into a spiral.
Potentially the circumstances caused you to know
that you want to be valued for who you are,
and to feel like you have value.
To get closer to that state,
you could perhaps sit down and write a list of valuable attributes
that you posses, that others might find attractive.
You might buy and read self-esteem books,
you might try out the exercises provided in those books,
you might get a new makeover,
you might sign up to a life transforming workshop or seminar,
you might fill your schedule with things you know
cause you to feel more confident,
like a hobby you're particularly good at,
or you could get on a plane and go visit a friend
who makes you feel valued.
6. Do things that make you feel safe.
If you are having a nervous break down,
then your nervous system is in hyper alert mode.
Your fight or flight mechanism is so triggered,
that you've gone into a freeze state.
So, what you need to do is to find a way to feel more safe.
One of my favorite ways to do this,
is to have people compile a list
of the things that make them feel safe.
Both big things and little things.
And then, what they train themselves to do when they're feeling unsafe,
is to just go to the list
and pick something off of it, to go do.
Maybe what makes you feel safe
is listening to the sound of a cat purr,
or the smell of cinnamon,
or warm towels, fresh out of the dryer,
or the sound of someone's voice.
Make this list as long as possible.
Also I noticed that one of the things
that makes people in general feel the most safe,
is a sense of being cocooned.
So, one of the things you can do,
is to visualize
yourself being cocooned in light energy,
or cocooned in the bud of a flower,
or cocooned on some other type of thing
which causes you to feel
a sense of containment.
Letting yourself hide under the covers
when you're having a nervous breakdown
is not a bad thing,
it's a good thing.
Potentially even creating secret hideouts for yourself
regardless of whether or not you're an adult, is good too.
7.
Do trauma release processes.
When you're having a nervous breakdown,
your nervous system is literally shot.
So you have to give it some assistance
in moving that trauma through and out.
I think my favorite technique as far as this is concerned,
was invented by a man called David Berceli.
He does TRE (trauma releasing exercises)
So go ahead and look him up
and try those exercises out.
8. Instead of slipping into the deprivation hole,
give your body something to live off of.
Go for a walk, even if it's just around the block.
During a nervous breakdown you may lose your appetite entirely,
but you need to try to sip and nibble
so as to not feed the cycle of your stress hormones
wrecking more havoc on your body than they already have.
Do not indulge in junk foods.
This will only exacerbate the problem.
Instead eat tiny bits of healthy foods
or protein shakes, that require no preparation.
Also get out into the sun for 20 minutes a day.
Just pull a blanket outside in a chair or on the ground and lay on it.
Vitamin D is an amazing mood stabilizer.
Another thing that you definitely want to take
which is really really good for you
if you're having a mental or emotional breakdown,
is a vitamin B complex.
So find a really good source of that,
and then consult a professional about what dosage you should take,
if you are experiencing an emotional breakdown.
The way that our society is set up
is ripe to cause emotional and mental breakdowns.
Now I know that a lot of the points which I've hit in this video
might leave you looking at me saying:
"Teal obviously does not live in the real world,
why can't she just give me some information
about how to get on with life as usual?
I can't do that, because getting on with life as usual
is exactly what brought you to this exact position.
We need to create a life for ourselves
and eventually a society that allows for things like
breakdowns and illnesses.
We can't expect ourselves to function under the stress of most of our lives.
The serious reality is that if we don't allow ourselves
to have a nervous breakdown,
if it occurs,
our body will find a way to stop us.
And usually does this through debilitating chronic illnesses.
So my question to you would be:
Do you want to willingly do it today
and make hard changes that guarantee you
a life that feels good?
Or do you want to wait for your body
to literally force you to do it unwillingly?
Another common excuse I hear is:
"I can't let myself have a nervous breakdown
because of the kids."
I want you seriously to ask yourself this question:
"What message am I sending through my actions
to my child?
Do I want them to grow up believing
that they have to pull it all together no matter how they feel
and get on with life?
Or do I want to teach them that I want them to sculpt their life
according to what feels good?
Children don't need you to be perfectly strong for them all the time.
What they need is a secure connection with you,
They can handle the reality that people have a hard time
and that people get sick,
and that difficult stuff happens.
What they can't handle is the repercussions
of you treating them like they're just one more reason
that you have to keep it together.
Can you feel the guilt and pain
of being saddled with the perspective that you are the burden
or one more item of pressure, from your parent?
The parents that handle these breakdowns the best
are the ones that reassure their child
of the security of the connection
and of the unconditional nature of their love,
whilst allowing themselves to have a breakdown.
Letting yourself intentionally melt into the break down
is the fastest way through the breakdown.
I can promise you,
you will not be the same person on the other side of this breakdown
and there will only ever be improvement
on the other side of this breakdown.
So repeat after me:
"It's okay to not be okay."
Have a good week.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte www.tanyaduarte.com