There is often discussion in the forum about how long it takes to improve.
It is so easy to become focused on that, rather than cruising along in the ship of Gupta’ing and enjoying the good times as they happen, while allowing the ship to float you through the dippy times.
I remember in my childhood a common reply to the question ‘How long will it take?’ was:
‘How long is a piece of string?’
Meaning that we don’t know because a piece of string can be whatever length you cut it.
How long does it take to retrain the amygdala? Or to show a certain type of improvement?
Concentrating on how long it takes someone else to retrain their amygdala is like asking how long is a piece of string.
It depends on so many things which we do not know. Also how long it takes one individual doesn’t affect how long it takes a different person.
Feeling worried because someone else has shown improvements in a very short time, doesn’t help our own recovery.
Feeling worried because someone else has taken longer to show improvements doesn’t help us either,
Each person’s journey is unique to them, so comparing our own voyage to someone else’s is a false comparison.
In our forum we have people at all stages of recovery. They all contribute to each other’s understanding of how to chart the course of their ship. Wherever they are, and however long or short a time it’s taken them to get there.
We have many forum members who are brilliant at celebrating the baby steps they take on their journey to wellness. This not only helps the rest of us, but also helps themselves.
We are very lucky to have such a mixture, and we can see that no matter how dippy times become, it is possible to float through without giving up. Those who have seen improvements can share how they did it, those who haven’t given up hope can share how they kept hoping.
I never gave up, even in my worst times, no matter how fed up I became.
Rather, I chose to be the captain of my ship, to chart my course and not to concentrate on what all the other ships were doing.
I chose to be pragmatic. To allow whatever was going to happen, without worrying about the things I couldn’t control.
It worked.
