You're healed when you grasp the moral of the story

It’s 2019 and I’m stood behind a wall holding a drill in my hand.

I’m sweating through my hardhat and hi vis jacket as the warehouse I’m working in feels like a sauna in the middle of summer.

“Lewis?!” I hear my boss’ stern voice call out. To which I respond “yeah?”

“You need to drill this hole where I’m banging my fist.”

“Ok.” I respond.

My boss, who I’ve been working with for the last 3 months is a 40 year old man, tall, fat, domineering and the most insecure and volatile person I’ve ever met. I’ve been his labourer for what feels like an eternity but I can’t wait to leave the job in 2 weeks and go travelling.

So I grab the screw in my hand and try to place it exactly where I can hear him bang his fist. Found it! I think!

So I power the drill and sink the screw into the wall but 5 seconds later I hear him shout at the top of his lungs. I can feel the blood drain my from body, as I think “not again.” And I just want the world to swallow me up.

He comes charging round the corner “are you joking?”

“Sorry, I just can’t seem to place it, maybe it’s best if you do it?” I say.

“Ridiculous. Get it right.” He mutters under his breath and walks away.

Every day for the last 3 months has been like this on the construction site, a huge fruit picking warehouse in the middle of the Kent countryside. There’s loads of us men working here, most of who are unstable and can’t stand their lives, but in terms of workmate, I feel as if I’ve got the worst of the bunch.

Everyday I have to endure the narcissistic celebrations of my boss whilst accepting the tirade of abuse he throws my way everyday.

But I’m a 19 year old impressionable young man, so I find myself just going along with whatever he says and accepting whatever insults he makes towards me and pass them off as “construction site banter”.

So after that days work I come into work the next day to see he’s in a foul mood. On my lunch breaks I’d sit in my car next to his so I could see when he’d finished eating and follow him back into the warehouse. But today lunch seems to go on forever. 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour and he still hasn’t left his car. Strange I think, we never have lunch this long.

So I go over to his car to see him not in there. Startled, I rush upstairs to find him already working. I couldn’t help but feel he’d snuck out of his car and not told me we’d finished on purpose.

But as I try to spark up a conversation with him while working, he ignores me, working with rushed aggression as he begins throwing our plumbing materials on the floor and shouting.

I stand there in silence, but then ask if he’s ok. “Yes.” He snaps back. And then gives me a task I’ve never done before without explaining how to do it. And when he sees I’m stuck and need help, he continues to get angry and my inability to suddenly become a plumber with 30 years of experience.

But as the time arrives for me to leave the job 2 weeks later, we shake hands and go our separate ways. The excitement of leaving the job was enough for me to look past the torture of working with him for 3 months.

So I spend the next year travelling with my girlfriend at the time. Over the moon to have escaped the construction site and verbal abuse I experienced everyday.

“I’m passed that now.” I think. “Now It’s time to enjoy life.”

So 3 months later, I work and live in Lisbon as a bartender, Brugge as a hostel worker and explore all the wonders of travelling and novelty, but in late 2019 I started to realise my mental health was in the worst place it’s ever been.

3 months on from working the job I thought I’d be happy every day from the sheer reality of not working there anymore, but I couldn’t help but feel angry, guilty and depressed most days. I felt I was tormented by my thoughts, as if they weren’t my own and each thought seemed to say something negative about myself whenever I tried to do something new. “You can’t do this. You always mess this up. You’ll never be worthy of…”

So it wasn’t until 2 years later, when me and my girlfriend at the time moved to Poland that everything came crumbling down.

I was stood in the kitchen of our apartment alone, with my ex in the living room.

I’d just picked up the habit of cooking and wanted to cook a brand new steak meal for us. Steak and pesto, Jamie Oliver style, nice.

But as I start cooking, I have no idea where to begin with the recipe. A simple problem for a new chef. But the negative voice comes back with a vengeance “you always mess things up” the voice says.

I drop the bag of salad as I get it out of the fridge “you’ll mess this up as well” the voice tells me.

I start chopping the vegetables but they turn out to all be different sizes “you’ll never do anything worthwhile” the voice concludes.

So I frown, I can feel the tension rise in my body as I’m stood in the kitchen, my girlfriend comes out and makes an innocent comment about how the vegetables are cut weirdly, and I snap. I turn towards her and unleash all the anger I feel inside for myself towards her “just let me cook, go away!”

She looks at me shocked, as if to say “where did that come from? We were just happy and all loving 5 minutes ago?!”

But it was in that moment, as soon as those words left my mouth I realised, the voices in my head weren’t mine. I was still carrying the negative comments of my old boss in my head, and I felt broken.

After that experience in the kitchen, 2 years on from my experience working at the construction site, I knew something had to change because never before had I experienced such negative thoughts.

So for the next 2 weeks I poured all my energy into writing about my experience on the construction site as best I could. The relationship dynamic with my boss, how it affected me, and how I could move past it.

And with some tears, anger and hard hitting memories I finished articulating everything I needed to, writing for around 3 hours a day for 2 weeks like a man possessed, even going as far as to write about other experiences in my childhood and outlining how they’ve effected my personality at the moment.

Ans as soon as I stopped typing the last words I needed to on my computer, I felt exhausted yet exhilarated. I felt I had journeyed into the depths of my soul and rewired the cogs which turn to programme my behaviour and who I am.

The negative voices, guilt, anger and confusion I felt every time I tried to do something new and whenever someone questioned my ability to do something completely disappeared. And never before had the words “you’re healed when you grasp the moral of the story” ringed so true.

Distillation:

Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar either to a lesser, same or greater degree.

You experienced something a while ago and you still carry the unarticulated and non-fleshed-out parts of that experience with you. And it torments you, but each time it arises within your awareness you push it down with your business, addictions, or rationalisations.

Maybe you went through a breakup, experienced the death of a loved one, suffered abuse, had to grow up too quickly or you were let down by multiple people in your life.

Whatever it is that you still carry with you, I’m here to tell you something; this thing will continue to torment you until you turn around and face it in all its ugliness.

In his book, beyond order, Jordan Peterson has a rule of life which states; if old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely, because it is a psychological truism that anything sufficiently threatening or harmful once encountered can never be forgotten if it has never been understood.

So we’re going to finish this video by outlining how you can return to that which torments you so you can free yourself from it.

First of all, you might not know an experience is still tormenting you, or perhaps you do know but you don’t want to admit it.

After all, its easy to busy ourselves with work, new relationships and hopes of the future than to explore the recesses of our soul. And in no way am I advocating you search for excuses to be traumatised, but what I am saying is if you still think about something negative which happened to you, and when you do it sparks upsetting emotions or numbness, you will continue to be tormented by it until you articulate the experience as best you can in an objective manner.

Our brain craves pattern recognition. Cause and effect.

So you need to glean the lessons from your past so you can calm the fear centres of your brain, highlighting you understand what happened and can use that information as a guide of what to do or not to do in the future.

The 2 ways to articulate your experience are; talking to a professional or journalling.

And I’m going to help you with the latter, journaling.

This is what saved me. After my experience in the kitchen with my ex, I bought Jordan Peterson’s self-authoring programme and did that. But because that’s paid, I’m going to outline how you can journal about your experiences for free.

Why journaling?

• Because multiple studies have found journalling helps us process trauma and difficult emotions such as anger, guilt and anxiety
• 1 study where students were asked to journal about personal trauma for 15 minutes everyday for a week made fewer visits to their campus health centre and took less pain-relieving medications
• So journalling helps us achieve post-traumatic growth where we not only learn from experiences but get better as a result from articulating it clearly
  

To engage in the journalling process:

• Find a quiet space without distractions where you won’t be disturbed
• Make sure you’re in a calm mind frame, if you’re anxious, irritable or feeling sensitive, wait until you feel calmer otherwise the experience can be triggering
• 1.) Take some time to reflect (reflect on how the experience or experiences you want to focus on have impacted your life. Consider how they’ve changed your perspective or behaviour. Write down your deepest thoughts and feelings)
• 2.) Reflect and write about the event you experienced. Ideally write for around 15-20 minutes and do not aim to write well - write freely in whatever way the words hit the page - capture it. Don’t worry if you get stuck and can’t reach the 15 minute mark. Write in whatever doses feel manageable. Note, your writing might span out over a few days.)
• 3.) After you reach a point where you want to stop, reflect and read what you’ve written. (As you do so, check in with how you feel, noticing any shifts in mood or experience - note, what usually happens is after you articulate all that needs articulating, you likely experience low mood and then a positive mood shift a few days later)
• 4.) Create a plan for managing distress (anticipating the experience of difficult emotions, think about how you can best allow yourself to unwind. Perhaps a long walk, talking to a friend or having a relaxing evening.)
  

Here are some journal prompts to use:

• What has been my greatest wound?
• What has been the greatest obstacle in my life?
• What do I need to say goodbye to?
• What have I been carrying for far too long?
• What shame do I carry in my body and soul?
• What keeps me stuck and unable to move forward?
• What gift has come with my greatest wound?

“Learn from the past. Or repeat its horrors, in imagination, endlessly.” - Jordan Peterson

You got this.