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Timing for Making Change Happen is Important

CBT for Tinnitus E-Programme
Published by Debbie Featherstone in Discovering tinnitus series · Wednesday 09 Jan 2019
Tags: timeforchange
The start of a new year is a really good time to throw out the old, and bring in something refreshing and new! This is as true for mindset and behaviour as it is for anything else.

I have been doing my own clearing out of the old - something terribly sad to the point of traumatising took place in my life 2 years ago; I have been through the process of trying to understand what happened and why, even though ‘intellectually’ I understood that what happened was down to external factors and influences over which I had no control! Still my sense of self felt invaded and undermined. At some level, I was blaming myself for the duplicitous actions of others. How dumb is that?!

Unfortunately it’s pretty “normal”! Like anyone else’s, my mind needed time to process what happened.

Now, two years on, it’s a case of “Ok, that was bad. But as there’s absolutely NOTHING can be done to change things back, what is the point in ‘wishing it hadn’t happened’ or feeling about the perpetrators the way I did - and still do - but to the point of it affecting pretty much everything I think and do on an everyday level. How can it help me? Simple answer - it can’t and it doesn’t!

Timing is important though. I wouldn’t have been ready or able to do this a year ago. There was the pain of all the various “anniversaries” to put myself through - “X happened a year ago today” etc etc.... the anniversaries came, I suffered leading up to them, during them and after them, only to repeat the pattern weeks and months afterwards as each date loomed throughout the year.

I have made the decision NOT to allow the same thing happen this year. The events were processed last year, and somehow I am not only “still standing” as the song goes, but I have much more control now over where my mind goes. It still wanders back to the hurt at times but I have made enough inroad in to the change process that my mindset about it is more robust, and I can quickly come back to the present. Rather than my focus being on what I can’t do anything about, it can now focus on what I can do something about.

Why Am I Writing About This?

I’ve given away no personal information, but I have described a process that is NORMAL. It doesn’t FEEL normal as we go through it, but the kind of reaction process described above is indeed normal.

I see it several times each of my working days when I work with people with anxiety, low self-esteem, PTSD, depression and yes, tinnitus! Having tinnitus and the way we behave/react about it produces a mindset of course; however, people with tinnitus are not immune to experiencing all the other horrible stuff life puts in our way! In fact, these issues - anxiety, low self-esteem etc - can sometimes feel amplified because of the tinnitus, and not infrequently, the tinnitus is AMPLIFIED by them! Literally!

So, if the New Year feels to you that it would be a good time to change how you have been - however long that might have been for - you CAN decide to do something to change.

There are several ways I can help. All you need do is decide to change!

And don’t forget - if funds are stretched and there’s a genuine need, funding for the Tinnitus E-Programme is available through the Tinnitus E-Programme Investor Donor Scheme!

Wishing you all the very best for 2019 and beyond!

Debbie Featherstone MSc
Tinnitus E-Programme 2009-2019 YES! It's our 10th Anniversay this year!



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