Tips from Psychologist Isabelle Soucy’s Book to Overcome Waiting List Blues

The waiting lists for a psychiatrist can be very long. What will you do in the meantime? In response to this question, Canadian psychology doctor Isabelle Soucy wrote ‘While you wait for the psychologist’. We can publish a chapter from her book.

Our mind is a machine that easily creates problems

Since my daughter has started going to daycare, she has been catching one flu or cold virus after another, which is exhausting for us as parents. I notice that this is why we are always worried about the future (‘Will it end? We can breathe, won’t we? How does that work for parents who have more children? We couldn’t manage that’) and by ruminating on the past (‘ It doesn’t make sense, she’s always sick! And of course she always infects us with the viruses That’s all. There’s no end to it! In the last few years, let’s count, we had maybe ten days when no one was sick?’

Despair is only encouraged by our resistance to what happens to us, in conjunction with all kinds of resistance. My daughter, on the other hand, accepts her mountain of symptoms without suffering from them. She is more tired and irritable than usual, but she does not say, ‘I have had enough. Why am I always sick? When will I be better again? Is this going to continue for the rest of my life?’ She still likes her and she is still herself. She lives in the moment without worrying, even when she has a cough and a stuffy nose.

Let’s start with an important statement. Our mind is always anticipating threats and problems. Our brain, that wonderful machine, is built to evaluate every situation and thus avoid misery that we fear or have overwhelmed us in the past.

This characteristic of humanity is essential for the survival of our species. We have lived because of threats and because we go around them. It is inevitable that we would have become extinct if, without this idea, we had continued to live spontaneously and naively in the past, without worrying about the future. ‘past or about the future. To understand this better, imagine a group of children about two years old who have to do without parental guidance for a while. I don’t even want to think about the consequences it would have. If they had nothing to eat, they would put anything in their mouth and not worry if it was poisonous. Because they are not aware of risks, anything could go wrong. There are children living there now. That is wonderful. But that also explains why they have to live completely under the wings of sensible parents, who will ensure their survival.

As we grow up, we learn to pay attention, look ahead, and be aware of danger. Our mind wanders between the past and the future, and sometimes we have to work hard to connect it to the past.

The human mind is a nursery for stray thoughts, it is so strong that it can drag an elephant, and it is full of wayward desires for all things in this world. It looks like a mule. If he doesn’t get a way, he gets irritated and starts smuggling. My own spirit will not be captured; it will never be replaced. Just try to grab it and stab it, it’s like trying to stop the fierce wind. – Arjuna’s words in the Bhagavad Gita, 6:33-34

‘Reprogramming’ your mind

Think of your brain as a powerful computer, perfectly programmed to find the smallest possible causes of danger. He is also very creative and has such a good imagination that he creates problems even if they don’t exist! Our intelligence can make quick decisions without much information. This is often useful to protect us from suffering and to avoid various dangers.

Our mind creates its programs and algorithms based on our life experience and beliefs. He can quickly analyze the situations he finds himself in to save us wounds that seem like wounds from the past. All that coding sometimes changes reality. Some programs drag us into spirals of thought that ultimately reinforce despair.

Furthermore, this brain wiring explains many people’s difficulty living with gratitude, hope and contentment. In fact, some enter the world with a brain computer pre-programmed to more advanced situations. However, most people are born with the following ‘apps’: ‘I don’t have the conditions for happiness’, ‘Nothing is going right’ and ‘I always want more’ ‘. To adapt our brain’s coding, we need to install new programs. We have to create new apps ourselves and make sure they are updated regularly.

The good news is: the brain is very capable of changing its neural connections. In fact, he does that every moment of our lives. We also encourage this when we try to develop gratitude, hope and contentment.

Fear and pessimism in the light of evolution

Let’s try to understand why people are so prone to worry and pessimism. This tendency, as previously indicated, arises from evolution and is engraved in our genetic material. Fear is, in a sense, a real concern. It is a discomfort that arises from a particularly imaginative mind, or sometimes from a mind that cares little for other matters. Hypervigilance, or hypervigilance, is an overreaction of the nervous system, similar to a sensitive smoke detector alarm that goes off when there is a small puff of smoke, for example from a sandwich in a toaster.

Pessimism, in turn, is the result of an innate function that prepares us for problems, whether imagined or real. It makes us aware of what is at stake, which is sometimes very reasonable, but very general or taken to extremes.

To motivate us to make necessary changes, a certain level of desperation may have been necessary during evolution. It would have been terrible for humanity if it had been blinded by too much hope. But too much hopelessness leads to a feeling of powerlessness, which paralyzes us. I would like to encourage you in the future to pay attention to your programming and mental structures that require nuance.

Key questions can help you take a step back if your antennas are consistently overreacting or overreacting and setting off the smoke alarm. I also recommend that you read through the Wellbeing Assignment 1 (see below).

Make gratitude a habit

‘Why is that happening to me?’, ‘Why don’t I have this and that?’, ‘I would be happy if…’, and so on. In our society, which encourages comparison and consumerism, it is difficult to avoid these thoughts. Therefore, many of us suffer from chronic dissatisfaction with what we have or where we are at certain stages of our lives.

Yet let us recognize what happens to us in the other case: there are plenty of things for which we can be grateful. But how can we make gratitude a habit? How can we henceforth be filled with gratitude despite the shortcomings of our present state? Like all skills we would like to develop, gratitude and happiness are skills we can train. A number of strategies teach us to develop a positive outlook on life and direct our minds towards things that make us happy rather than towards things that disappoint us.

One thing is certain: the more you train your gratitude muscle, the better you will feel its power. Exercises that help you develop gratitude (e.g.

While you wait for the psychiatrist – A survival guide, Isabelle Soucy, 22.99 euros, Ten Who Have Publishers