Once You’ve Played In The Back, All That’s Left Is To Go Up

Sometimes our lives plunge full steam into a precipice that seems unforgiving. We got to the bottom emotionally, physically, socially and professionally and we were curled up there, with a fear and sadness that became resistant and caused the emergence of different disorders of the mind.

Everyone has serious problems, has had dramas or even tragedies in their lives, but these descriptions have more to do with how the person manages them than with the event itself. Everyone is strong and has a plan until they experience pain. We are not left without a plan, but it is necessary to redo it. When you hit the bottom you can feel lost.

Aaron Beck, in his explanation of depression, makes reference to the Descending Arrow concept and other resources such as the Paradoxical Magnification Technique to challenge some irrational thoughts. Taking these two techniques and your own experience as an example, you will find that when you touch the bottom, you can only go up.

Realize that your mistake is fear

Everyone is afraid of the adverse events that can occur,  but when you’ve already experienced great pain and feel like you’ve touched the bottom, it remains to be aware that there are two options: continue in this almost vegetative and painful state or ascend. This is your decision.

Descending Arrow is a cognitive therapy technique that teaches you how to select a negative thought and answer the question: If that thought were true, what would it mean to you? The answer would be a new negative thought. It would be necessary to ask successive questions (drawing downward arrows), which would reveal counterproductive beliefs (perfectionism, the need for approval, fears, etc.).

If you’re stuck with a thought of pain and believe you’ve hit the bottom and nothing has a solution, you need to explain what it means to you, and another negative thought will usually show up. For example, when faced with someone who has lost one of their children and has the thought of not being able to take care of others again, ask them: what would the illness of another child mean to you?

Certainly another feeling of pain will appear, and so on, until you reach the most catastrophic vision of your life. Still, despite the harshness of the exercise and what happened, this person would realize that they could take it and stay alive. It is your thinking that amplifies the pain far more than what is actually happening.

Once this point is reached, a person can realize that even having suffered one devastating event, he can still suffer others, as nothing is certain in this life. Even your dynamic of self-defeating thoughts could be conducive to them: it could cause you to lose your job, and the rest of your kids to walk away. Anyway, losing everything she cherishes.

Let’s increase our regrets and see the absurdity of our current attitude

Paradoxical Magnification is a cognitive technique in which the patient is instructed to exaggerate negative thoughts rather than trying to stop or control them. Paradoxically, such thoughts can seem absurd and meaningless. Evidently, this technique should be used for negative thoughts associated with events of relative gravity (addressing thoughts of fear of the future soon after the loss of a child would not be plausible with this technique).

Paradoxical Magnification proposes to the patient the possibility that he is not in the worst state in the aspect in which he feels affected. He may feel lonely because he has just broken off a love relationship, but he is far from being in the worst possible state of loneliness, in which he would also not be able to count on his family or friends.

Suffering makes us wise and resilience makes us strong

There is nothing in a person’s life that can sink him if he doesn’t really allow it. We set the limits, the times and an attentive ear to the harmful comments of these types of people who give their opinions without having gone through anything like this in their lives. Everyone has their “things”.

When we go beyond the limits of ridicule, pain, humiliation, feeling judged, miserable… when we go beyond them and see that we have already suffered enough, we reach the true meaning of our existence. Because only when you’ve reached the bottom and understood the process, do you realize that the only possible option is to go up.

We are sure that we will no longer act out of ego, but out of authentic personal well-being, we will withdraw from the competence of others to simply fight for our own dreams. From so many things past and suffered, the best, due to sheer inertia, is yet to come. Hurry up, get out of mourning, launch into life and simply let it come. So low have you come, now you can only go up.