Thread by @jamesldowns

One of the problems I’ve experienced with thought-based therapy is that rarely has a therapy/therapist offered me a thought I haven’t already had.

Sure, some thoughts might be emphasised over others, but I don’t think we can always debate ourselves into feeling better ...🧵->

Of course anyone who knows me will know I hugely value talking therapies, the power of articulating an experience, being heard. But other approaches are also valid, or necessary.

And I think sometimes it’s even actively unhelpful to combat language with language.

A big part of my recovery has been recognising when intellectualising, reformulating or challenging “faulty” thoughts has been appropriate. Often, language has been entirely the WRONG medium for me to engage with my experience.

Recognising & valuing all the OTHER ways of knowing, understanding, moving with & moving through human experiences has been key to my recovery.

But I’ve never been assisted with this in therapy or #mentalhealth settings. It was an extra to navigate alone (sometimes riskily)

The emphasis on fighting thought with thought can be counterproductive and exhausting, and reminds me of how we often talk about recovery (especially I think in relation to #eatingdisorders) as a battle, a war, a fight.

Yes, it’s a struggle. But in my experience, recovery has always been *as much* about letting go and surrendering as it has been about fighting and pushing through.

I don’t mean surrendering to the problems you’re experiencing or giving up and resigning yourself to being unwell.

Instead, surrendering sometimes involves giving IN - to the wholesome parts of you; to what you know deep down to be meaningful to you; to the truth that you are inherently worthy irrespective of how you’ve always felt or what you’ve always been told.

Giving up habitual thoughts not just by fighting them with new ones, but by just surrendering them. Laying them down. Letting them go rather than tussling with them or trying to replace them. It’s different.

The idea that we don’t always have to use language shouldn’t be strange. It can help to let go of words, find something beyond words - not just the same old arguments trying to convince yourself to believe or feel something that needs to happen at an embodied level.

The choice to surrender can require huge effort -perhaps more than the ways of struggling you know all too well. The moment of surrender can involve a huge & sometimes unsettling or frightening release, too. Words might help us make sense but they aren’t a substitute FOR “sense”

Perhaps it is at times even braver, even stronger and even more fruitful to surrender, than to fight an unhelpful war of words.

Of course we can have compassionate language, too, but knowing the limits of words might help us tap into other ways of knowing, changing, recovering.