Becoming Functional Again After Narcissistic Abuse

as you've surely noticed abuse and trauma greatly reduce your brain functioning every time you go through an experience like that the effects get compounded maybe you notice that you're having some difficulties managing your life now managing tasks and responsibilities at work at home in your personal life with your children in this video I'm going to talk about executive functioning skills I'm going to talk about what they are specifically then I'm going to give you seven ways to get functional again that way you can avoid the anxiety frustration panic paralysis procrastination and overwhelm that can happen when your executive function isn't working so well [Music] so the executive function is handled by the frontal lobe of your brain this is different than the brain changes that we've talked about in the limbic system like the amygdala and the hippocampus I'll put a link up here for you to check out that video if you're curious about those things but in this video we're gonna talk about the executive function which is something else executive function manages skills in your life such as organizing things paying attention focusing having self-control time management planning for projects in the future motivation achieving your goals what's called working memory which is mostly like memorizing things and being able to recite them your executive function helps you juggle many things at once which some people call multitasking and it also helps you to avoid distractions it helps you with problem solving with prioritizing tasks that you need to do and also adjusting for surprises because life is full of surprises sometimes we have things all planned out and then other things happen other things show up and we have to be able to adjust for those so these are some examples of what the executive function manages in your life so now I want to give you seven ways that you can help yourself get functional again after abuse the first one is to create a calendar I like using iCal on my computer that syncs with my iPhone it has notifications so whatever system you're using see what kind of electronic calendar you can use then what you want to do is block chunks of time and you want to set up your calendar every week before the week starts and every week you have chunks of time allotted for all your activities now I mean literally everything because when your executive function isn't working you don't remember how to manage your time meaning you don't remember how to manage yourself in time because we really can't manage time we can only manage ourselves in time so you're gonna put on there what time you have to take a shower and that's a block of time for you to get ready why because if you don't do that and your phone doesn't let you know it's time to take a shower you're gonna be late you're gonna be late for work you're gonna be late for a meeting you're gonna be late for something you have to do because you're just gonna tie yourself I'll do just one more thing we're gonna get distracted with something else when you shower when you do self-care things when you have work projects when you have kids activities pet activities grocery shopping cooking you're literally planning everything out on that calendar and then your phone if you're not next to your computer your phone is always notifying you what you're on task for at that moment I like to make those little blocks color-coordinated - so like self-care is purple personal stuff is red anything to do with managing money is green and anything to do with food is yellow so you pick the colors but having those colors I find is also helpful for keeping me really present on what's going on right now and what I'm supposed to be focused on creating a calendar like this maintaining it regularly following it helps you so much in eliminating decision fatigue this is what dr. Daniel Eamon talks about every time you're like what should I be doing now what am I supposed to be doing now first of all that's exhausting to your brain you're wasting a lot of energy thinking about that if you have a calendar you simply look oh it's two o'clock what am i doing right now I'm recording videos right now so what are you supposed to be doing at what time and that's gonna set your your brain energy free for something else that you can use it for it's also going to help you so that you don't just walk around confused all day it's gonna help you set boundaries and prioritize your time so you're moving through your day you're following your calendar and an email comes in or a phone call or a text message or someone's out the door and there's an invitation to distract you from what you need to work on and someone else and their issues or whatever else they have going on and they want your time and energy but if you have a calendar and you know okay right now is not the time for me to answer that right now is the time for me to get this project done and then oh looks like I have free time after 7:00 p.m. that would be a great time to catch up with my friend they handle that thing or the other thing so this really helps you in prioritizing because you can get easily distracted when you're in that fog you know in that calendar makes the boundaries easier so if you're having difficulties saying no and setting boundaries this is a really easy way to do that I'm sorry I can't you know talk to you right now I need to be doing this or you simply tell yourself because remember boundaries are first and foremost with ourselves you simply tell yourself I'm not going to read or or answer that email right now because I have to get this stuff done if not you're gonna be wandering through your day doing all kinds of stuff and wondering why you didn't get anything done and wondering what you didn't even get done that day and so with your calendar that's all very easy the second tip is to create a daily to-do list so I like Evernote this is a free app I might pay a little bit more I think to get some kind of upgrade but I'm pretty sure there's a free version and the great thing about Evernote is it automatically like in the moment syncs with all your devices so you can be working on an Evernote text file in our computer and then you swap over to your phone and it's right there you don't have to wait to send a file or update anything like it's all right there in real time updated for you so I have this one Evernote text every week that's my to-do list and so at the very top of that list are ongoing projects things that are still going on that just more things long-term that need to happen and/or not yet projects like things that need to get done but I either don't have something that I need or I'm waiting for a piece of mail or I'm waiting from a contact from someone something that I can't work on just yet but it needs to get done I'm gonna put it on that list just so I don't lose track of it because if it's not on the list I could easily forget about that so at the top I have those ongoing and not yet things and then underneath that I have every day of the week and Evernote is awesome because it puts these little boxes and you can check the box and I love that it's so satisfying two check boxes offer to do this and so Monday you know what all the tasks I need to get down Monday so is that superfluous to your calendar maybe kind of because your calendar has everything blocked out but I find personally this helps me a lot to have this double system and to check in every day because sometimes I may need to adjust my times maybe I need to juggle something around maybe something new comes across my plate that actually is a priority and actually really need to work that into my day somehow but having that to-do list is just really helpful because I'm checking off those boxes and then maybe I finish a task early and it has like thirty minutes or something so instead of mindlessly going to like some social media site and wasting a bunch of time or doing whatever I might be doing to waste time I go to my to-do list and I'm like is there anything I could bang off this list really quickly before that next activity comes up and if there isn't I get it done and I check that off my list my list and I find that is so so helpful for productivity for getting things done and man it helps me so much to sleep at night too because I used to get the kind of insomnia where I would fall asleep usually but then I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about something I needed to do or I should have you know gotten down already or it was overdue or the deadline is coming I don't have to worry about any of that stuff when I have my to-do list when I have my calendar because it's all there and the point is it's all there so it's gonna get done if you don't put it on there it's not going to get done and it might haunt you in your sleep so this is gonna help you sleep better it's gonna help to reduce the anxiety that you feel on the daily in those early stages of PTSD you might relate to this this is how I felt if I had more than say two or three things to do that day I was in full panic mode in the morning I mean I had still the whole day ahead of me but my brain could only see the panic of oh my god I gotta get done I gotta get done I got so much to do today and it really wasn't that much but it was that much for my brain to manage at that time so it was just incredibly overwhelming and I was just always feeling I was gonna run at a time I just wasn't gonna get things done I think that's coming from the PTSD so this really helped me a lot to get organized like that it can relieve some my anxiety you know your memory might not be working as well that's a different thing that's part of the amygdala hippocampus connection from that other video I mentioned but because your memory could be failing you you might be forgetting things that you have to get done like you might even remember things morning and then totally forget later but if it's written down you're not going to forget it and then you can relieve yourself of that anxiety burden knowing that you have that and knowing that you have a calendar with your times all blocked out and you can tell yourself and that irrational voice in your head I have plenty of time today to get those things done everything is okay there's no reason to panic you know in checking those things off your to-do list it's gonna help build momentum it's gonna help you feel a sense of accomplishment which is really important after going through lots of experiences where you felt powerless you felt helpless you felt like you know that low self-esteem like you just couldn't have any kind of positive effect in your life this gives you actual way to measure that and to get it done number three is organize your space so that's your space at home your space at work if those are separate spaces that's your car if you have a vehicle this I like to work into my morning routine so what I like to do as part of my morning routine as soon as I wake up like I'm fixing the bed I'm straightening out my room that I leave any glass is there last night's that I leave anything else that needs to go to the kitchen is there you know anything that needs to be brought into there I go to the kitchen that I leave any dishes the night before I'm gonna clean those up real quick to get them out the way you know I'm gonna fix the blanket that I left here the night before snuggling with Venus watching Netflix I'm gonna get my space I'll tidy it up I'm gonna go to my office I'm gonna straighten the paper work the files I'm gonna put things in the order that I need them that day I'm gonna get rid of anything that's clutter that's just clouding my mind and getting in the way because I function so much better when my stuff is organized you know I'm not wasting time looking for stuff I'm not sitting there feeling all clouded and foggy because I can't see through all the crap in my house or my office or on my desk it's just so helpful for everything but especially for that clarity of mind and and just the ease of what you're gonna flow through your day and you don't have to worry about keeping up with everything during the day you know maybe you do the dishes then again at night maybe just clean them up a little bit in the mornings you have a clean space to work in and then you let things pile up during the day and then once you know at night after dinner then you do them all at once and get those done so really get yourself some organization work that into your daily routine especially your morning routine so you really start the day off right you know maybe you're gonna make your bed that kind of stuff so that everything is looking great that just creates this the sense of like real confidence and self-esteem because you did something positive for yourself and it feels really different it's also going to help you to avoid the overwhelm if you let that [ __ ] pile up over and over and over days at a time you're not even gonna want to touch that because it's so overwhelming and it's such a mess don't let things get out of hand and that's symbolic for life in general you know constantly be working at things little by little so that you're only spending five to ten minutes in the morning organizing your stuff instead of hours on a weekend catching up from all the messes that you've left yourself during the week number four is monthly project planning these are the projects that you need to get done that month so at the end of the month so don't wait until the month starts I start at the end of the month before and it'll get out a blank paper or I what I really love is using a whiteboard because you can take a picture of that to keep it they refer to it but you can always wipe it away and start over and erase it and all that and creating some kind of Organization for the project that you need to get down or project that you absolutely need to get done that month so that could be work personal goals family goals body health goals etc whatever those goals are that you're working on that month those projects every month you're gonna come to this board this planning place whether it's a whiteboard or a piece of paper or a file in your computer that you prefer to use so you want to look at the overall project and then what you want to do on in that space on your paper and that file on the whiteboard is start to break that down into all the different tasks that need to take place or the milestones that need to take place as you're going to be reaching the goals of those projects every month you're going to chunk that down into manageable tasks that way you're starting to take away the overwhelm of overall projects so each one of those tasks you're gonna then create a time frame for and then you're gonna take that and put those onto your calendars so you can already start to block out those chunks of time during that month you know Tuesday's is the best day for you to work on that project Friday's is the best day for that project Sunday's are the best day for that project so you're gonna start to put all those details on your monthly calendar on your monthly and weekly calendar and then as you come into each week you're gonna add those into your weekly to do this so it's just copy paste copy paste you're not gonna be using a lot of brain power or energy you're not gonna have to be overthinking things because it's all right there for you this is really going to help you achieve your monthly goals now keep in mind at the very beginning of your recovery your goals might be very basic and simple it might be that you're not functioning to work right now and that's okay a lot of us went through that maybe your main goals this month are much simpler maybe there are things like getting back into a daily hygiene habit because a lot of you probably know in those early stages of PTSD hygiene can go out the door you might not want to get yourself in the shower you don't have any energy for that you don't want to brush your teeth you just you don't clean up yourself or anything you know so maybe your goal is okay this month I'm gonna start taking daily showers I'm gonna start putting on makeup a little more I'm gonna get a haircut you know you're gonna work on these things you're gonna maybe even set those reminders for yourself you're gonna put this on your calendar and it's gonna remind you to brush your teeth it's gonna remind you to get in the shower it's gonna remind you to go take a walk because maybe you know part of this for you is getting back into fitness so you want to plan that 30-minute walk every day so again this could be very simple projects or they could be very big and elaborate projects but this technique is really going to help you to manage those every month number 5 is meal planning so this is another one that's great for a whiteboard you could have a whiteboard in your kitchen depending where you live you might even be able to find a kind of whiteboard that has every day of the week on it and it's like an elongated one my cousin uses this for meal planning it's great she's got four kids it really helps her manage I and so on there she plans every meal of every day that helps her know what her grocery list is going to be you know because if you know what you're gonna be eating that week when you go to the grocery store you're not like what was I supposed to buy and then you go home you're like if it I forgot this and that and the other so you know this really helps you to organize that it helps making your grocery shopping easier it helps you reaching your body and health goals because if that's something for you that got out of hand during the abuse maybe started with some emotional eating you know if you just go on idle you're gonna go to the grocery store you're gonna buy up all the process junk food you're gonna bring that home you're gonna be starving you wouldn't have thought of planning Emilia like I'll just have some of that junk food because I'm so hungry right now you're gonna make poor decisions that are not gonna help you reach your health and body goals so you really want to set that up create a weekly meal plan for yourself you know if you're going to work and you want to take your lunch to work then you know how to plan that out you know how to plan your Tupperware's how to plan you know the quantity of meals that you're making the night before that you're gonna take to work the next day you're gonna have all those things organized and the refrigerator so you wake up that morning all you got to do is grab that and run you're not gonna have to make a poor decision in the middle of the day and go to some fast food place and end up eating some garbage that your body doesn't want to eat that you really didn't want to eat you know or starving you know because you know the worst thing is like when you're starving yourself during the day then you're pushing it off and pushing that off because you're busy or whatever you're doing when you're really hungry you're not thinking well that's why the word hangry right because you become like a different person when you're not when you're when your body is deprived of food your brain doesn't even work well in those cases so when you have the meal plan you have things planned out you have your grocery list planned out you have the or how many other days a week you need to go to the grocery store you can plan all of that in advance take off an enormous burden from having to think and wonder what you're gonna do and then again you're saving yourself from making really bad decisions that block you from reaching those health and body goals it's also going to help you stay in your budget because if you plan carefully your meals and you eat most of your meals at home and you bring most of your meals to work for lunch you're gonna be saving yourself a lot of money then if you're going out going out going out because at the last minute you just got to grab something really quick and that adds up a lot so you're gonna find that you're gonna end up actually saving money when you take care of your meal planning number six is long term goal getting these are six month plus goals now in the early stage of recovery you might not be able to sing that far in advance and that's okay this might be something that you put off for a little bit later in your recovery but these are gonna be things like learning another language learning how to do a certain kind of dance learning how to play a musical instrument learning a certain sport or maybe just fitness in general whatever your goals are but usually it's maybe something that you're gonna be learning or something you're gonna be accomplishing long term maybe you're in the process of transitioning out of a day job that's sucking your soul away and you want to create your own business and you've told you told yourself okay in the next six months I'm making this transition so during this six months I need to get my business off the ground so I can transition myself out of that job so kind of like your monthly projects what you're gonna do with your six-month goals - is you're gonna chunk those down into manageable chunks you're gonna chunk those into months so you know six months is your goal maybe your goal over six months is to lose X amount of pounds so you divide that by six months and then you start to to chunk down all the different things that you need to do that month you need to go to the gym four times a week you need to do good meal planning you want to do some juicing you want to get into more organic freshly-made foods instead of buying a bunch of processed garbage at the grocery store which isn't going to help you to reach those goals so whatever that main goal is you know if it's your business then you know this month this needs to take place that month this needs to take place you know setting up the website talking to vendors creating an email campaign like whatever your business is going to be your divide that all into the six months and then you're gonna take that and you're going to start adding those to your monthly calendar and your weekly to-do list so that's all copy and paste you don't have to rethink of things you've already done that planning it's all written down and then you simply got a copy and paste into your calendar and to-do list when you write down your goals as silly as that might sound it helps you achieve those goals you are much more likely to achieve a goal that you write down then one that you never write down and you just think about usually that's just like that Oh someday kind of goal but some day isn't a day of the week and that's not gonna happen so you really want to do this goal getting planning because it's gonna help you to achieve those goals that you want to achieve long term otherwise those six months is just gonna pass by and you won't have accomplished what you really wanted to accomplish so write them down you know and again if you're at the very beginning of your recovery maybe you can't think six months in advance maybe you can think three months in advance that's okay make these very simple goals you know the hygiene maybe getting things with your doctor and therapy bills and all that organized you got to deal with some kind of medical insurance or whatever maybe you have to make some calls for something to get yourself access to some kind of provider maybe you just moved and you need to get yourself unpacked and organized in the home and that just feels overwhelming right now so if you give yourself these long term goals you know over the month or over in this case the six months even when they're very basic things that's going to help you as silly as that might sound when you're in that early stage this will help you a lot number seven is meditation and this is going to help you with all of the above and so much more this is one you're gonna slow down you're gonna bring yourself present you're gonna Center and you're gonna ground inside yourself meditation is like going inward and it's gonna help you to create more of a stillness in your mind at first it's gonna be very overwhelming because your mind is gonna be constantly thinking there's gonna be so much that's coming up a lot of people like well I'm not good at meditation nobody is and that's the point the point isn't that your mind is blank that's not a human mind there's always going to be thoughts in your mind but meditation helps you become aware of them helps you become aware of yourself aware of your body it's gonna help you download insights the more you meditate the more you get used to entering into that state you know maybe at first you have a formal sitting practice where maybe you do some kind of guided meditation or you took some kind of class and meditation and you have you sit on a certain cushion or a certain area or maybe you like the chair and that's always your meditation practice for you but maybe you realize like maybe you have ADHD and it's really not good for like it's not helpful for you to sit still because you're just all over the place so maybe you find moving meditation is helpful so you do some stretches some movements it kind of looks like Tai Chi or some kind of martial art form like this chi gong and that becomes your meditation even though it's moving you're still getting all the benefits you're becoming president you're becoming aware of yourself maybe you take your meditation out walking I love to do that so you're walking to the city or you're walking through nature even better if you have access to that and you're centering yourself you're grounding yourself you're not distracted by everything you're not thinking about your grocery list and what you got to do today that's all taken care of that's all written down somewhere you don't have to waste your mind power thinking about that you can just focus on being present with yourself in that moment one of the easy most basic ways to start meditating is just focus on your breath it can be really that simple just focus on breathing inhaling and exhaling that's gonna help you also become more aware of your self-talk that's gonna help you become aware of those thoughts that you don't want to keep having and keep rehashing in your brain so you're gonna be able to get some insights on what you want to start reprogramming so maybe every time that thought comes by that's your time to work on that reprogramming where your unsubscribing from that old reality from the narcissist reality and your reprogramming those negative thoughts into something positive maybe you sit down and all you can think about is I can't do that I'm not good enough like that's the abuse training that's the view as perming so meditation is going to help you become very aware of what those thoughts are which is on comfortable but it also gives you the power then to transform those thoughts to reprogram them some people like to do yoga as a form of meditation you know as long as it's not like the fitness form of yoga you know if you take yoga at a gym oftentimes it's not like real yoga it's more like this fitness class you know where you're gotta kind of like show off to other people and doing these like powerful poses and everything and like they're way too advanced for you and they're moving you through this flow class that just feels like this intense aerobic exercise more than something meditative so find maybe yoga class that's more gentle yoga or yin yoga or restorative yoga or even Kundalini Yoga something like that that's more relaxing that's more still that's more meditative for you another form of meditation that I love so much I just got to do recently when I was in California we don't have one here I don't think when you go into a floatation tank and it's total sensory deprivation it's totally black in there there's only 10 inches of water but there's a thousand pounds of salt and so you put in earplugs and you just lean back very gently and you're completely suspended in space and time like the water is completely holding you up you're not touching anything you're completely it's like you're completely suspended in space and time and it's like the most meditative experience you can have and you'll become very aware of tensions in your body it'll hurt a lot like I was feeling a lot of pain in my neck because I hold a lot of tension that side of my neck and so you practice relaxing that and relaxing that and you'll get insight so get downloads you'll get into this in-between stillness kind of state and they've actually done research with flotation and PTSD and found that it's very helpful for PTSD recovery another form of meditation that I love is laying in the grass I don't really have that opportunity where I live right now but if you do I would highly recommend that one of my favorite things to do in Peru was just to lay in the grass and watch the clouds they had amazing clouds and just laying there feeling at one with every was very meditative you can even take your meditation like I said before with the mindfulness in the previous video you can take that anywhere with you you're standing in line you're waiting on something normally that's a very frustrating experience so you can make it better by focusing on meditation instead the reality is meditation is going to help you in all areas of your life it's going to help your brain start to heal it's gonna help you with the neurogenesis the neuro plasticity as your nervous system is actually changing or creating new neural pathways by doing meditation that there's been scientific studies on that Harvard did that study so I highly recommend bringing that into your life you know maybe you have five minutes a day maybe you have 10 minutes a day maybe you really can't get yourself into that routine at the beginning so maybe it's just a couple times a week you are going to notice the positive effects of doing meditation in your life you're gonna become more productive at work things are gonna become more effortless and easy to deal with even emotions that come up and you're really going to help your brain heal after the abuse so I hope this video was helpful for you the highly recommend that you put these things into practice sooner rather than later no matter what stage you're at in the recovery process make it relevant to you at that point in your stage so this video was helpful for you give it a like or let me know in the comments below if there's something you want to share in the comments there's something I didn't mention or an insight that you got or some benefit that you got from putting one of these things into practice leave that in the comments below because that can help someone else I'm sending you a big hug you [Music]

Channel: Inner Integration

Views: 56,464

Keywords: executive function, executive function ptsd, executive function skills, executive function skills for life and learning, brain trauma, ptsd, ptsd and the brain, brain changes from ptsd, brain changes after abuse, brain changes after narcissistic abuse, brain changes after trauma, get functional, become funcional again, executive functions, narcissistic abuse, narcissistic abuse ptsd, narcissistic abuse symptoms, narcissistic abuse healing, narcissistic abuse healing channel

Id: 6_rf_B7qazY

Length: 29min 1sec (1741 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 02 2019