5 Strategies with 1 bonus… Listen to the podcast with Sarah Myles for her 5 strategies.
Podcast link: https://open.spotify.com/show/74iinBD4fsgE2EleGTkKam
1)Halt negative thinking. Easier said than done, I know. My previous podcast episode, “The Borderline’s Garden” would be a good episode to listen to about weeding out your thought garden. My mind is constantly producing thought seeds. I know now that I am responsible for getting rid of the bad seeds and nourishing the good ones.
2) Harnessing the beast. I get into a pattern of spewing the negative things my previously planted bad seeds have produced. I whine and vent about the way things should be and how often my feelings are not considered. I can’t stand being this way, so I have to harness the ugliness of my beast by becoming aware of it’s dangerous utterances. My beast is always right. It takes an even bigger beast to get mine to surrender. I haven’t encountered many beasts bigger than mine, and that is not me trying to boast. My beast doesn’t care about feelings of others or the final outcome, it only cares that everyone comprehends how it is feeling. My beast is arrogant and unable to stifle its anger. Many things anger the beast. Some triggers include, social settings, high stress situations, incompetence, mistakes- personal or otherwise. going unnoticed or ignored, the beast is incapable of being perfect, so it shows off just how ugly and nasty it can be, and within that display, it is perfectly undesirable. Harnessing this beast has been something I have struggled with for most of my life and it is exhausting to wrestle with it. I try from time to time, to keep it locked up. My energy has been lower recently, so the beast overpowers me on most days and to pull it back seems pointless. Reasons to hold the beast back become fewer and fewer. I fall into depressive states when I’ve allowed the beast to roam free for too long. How do you harness the beast? Corner it with the things it doesn’t like, positive thinking, gratitude, and self-love. These things do not come easy to the borderline so you may need to call in some back-up or help with corralling this perfect monster. Which leads me to my next strategy… Sarah has a great way to look at the beast too, not so much as everything that scares you about yourself, but rather a much needed beast/bear that communicates the personal boundaries of the person dealing with borderline personality disorder.
3)Hack your way into a better mood. If you are a busy working mother like me, we don’t always have the time to utilize this hack. I have discovered that there are several things that instantly lighten my mood. One method I’ve used before is legal with the proper medical license now, but there are others that don’t require a license and are just as effective. Music that pulls you out of a funk- finding that song that can take you from sad to moving your body instinctively is a great way to hack into a better mood. Here are some of the songs that do this for me; “Wake Me Up Before You Go” by Wham and “Human” by Rag’ n ‘Bone Man. There are several other things I’ve used to pull me up from sadness; Poems, scriptures, phone calls with people that make me laugh, movies (comedies) or TV Series. Series that are guaranteed to make me laugh are Friends & The Office. I also feel better after some physical activity, my preferred sport at the moment is kickboxing.
4)Handle pressing situations immediately or place on a priority list. You will soon find out that not everything is in fact a priority. I struggle with procrastination and perfectionistic attributes. Sometimes getting some of the job done results in doing a decent job altogether.
5)Harmonize your environment. Recognize stressors as they occur and take a mental note of the situation, create a plan to eliminate the observed stressors. For example, I have had to do quite a bit of adjusting to living in an incomplete structure of a house when trying to prepare for the workday. I would struggle every morning standing to look in an available mirror or locate my eyeliner or mascara. Nothing was ever where I needed it, and it was that little bitty straw that broke the camel’s back or in my case opened the gate for my beast to get out. I would start most mornings in a terrible mood. I then decided to lock the beast up by bringing a little bit of harmony to my morning routine by buying, building and appreciating a small vanity and stool. It helps me start every day in a better headspace.
Bonus one) Hallelujah is last, but certainly not least!!! Start your day in prayer! Tell the Lord the things you are grateful for and watch your environment become more harmonious, and your mood more positive, and your patience restored, and remind yourself that Jesus loves us even at our worse, which means he even loves that beast inside of us too!
Other strategies found during research:
1. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
2. You are NOT responsible for everything.
3. Let other people do their share.
4. It’s perfectly fine to take a step back now and then to gather your bearings.
5. Know when to walk away.
These five points are the keys to achieving balance. When you find your world getting a little too crazy and hectic, just breathe and remember these things.
~H.A. Larson
Thanks to http://www.halarsonauthor.com/2018/09/finding-balance-in-midst-of-chaos.html?m=1 for reminding us that it’s ok to find balance and serenity for ourselves.
Sarah’s initial piece on The Chameleon Effect…https://sarahmyles.net/2020/07/01/managing-borderline-personality-disorder-and-the-chameleon-effect-through-the-end-of-lockdown/
The World in Black and White 