Battle the Bane of Back-to-School Burdens…without the Burnout! | Part 2
For most of us parents, the school year is in full swing, and we are BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!!! My two daughters’ after-school hours are packed with volleyball, studying for high school entrance exams, volunteering for service hours, homework, testing, multiple clubs, and social lives. This weekend also kicks off dreaded driver's ed. (I am not ready for my daughter to be a city driver!)
In my last blog post, I shared how my mind was a hot-mess-express, a hotbed of swirling anxious thoughts and fears. That said, I was (slightly) comforted to learn I wasn't alone in this; recent surveys indicate that about 66% of parents experience back-to-school stress. (5wps.com) Stress can feel like racing thoughts or sleep issues, and it can show up as impatience, yelling, fatigue, or dashing toward that glass (or bottle) of wine.
To help us survive the Bane of Back-to-School Burdens without the Burnout—and maybe even enjoy the journey—we’re using Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy’s (REBT) simple but hard-as-hell steps.
REBT was established on the premise that our brains can’t tell the difference between:
A thought.
An image in your mind’s eye.
Or an event in the world.
This explains the placebo effect. Imagine someone goes to the ER in severe heroin withdrawal, with pulse racing, sweating, nausea, diarrhea, and other unpleasant symptoms. When the person is told they are being given morphine, their shaking subsides, and their symptoms become tolerable, even though there isn’t actually morphine in the IV but a placebo. The brain thinks it’s getting morphine and responds accordingly. The point is that what we believe can strongly affect how we feel and respond.
Imagine you're in a dark alley in downtown Chicago at 2 AM. Your heart rate will likely skyrocket, breathing might be panicked, and your muscles will contract, ready for danger. Even without seeing a masked mugger with a gun, your brain tells you that you are not safe, and your body responds as if it’s under attack.
Based on this premise, REBT is incredibly successful (if applied appropriately) because it helps us retrain our brains and how we think. As a result, our bodies then respond with Healthy Negative Emotions like concern, sadness, regret, remorse, disappointment, and frustration, instead of Unhealthy Negative Emotions like anxiety, depression, rage/anger, guilt/embarrassment, and jealousy.
Many years ago, when my oldest daughter was in Kindergarten, I mixed up the dates on Spirit Week. For Whacky Hair Day, I went all out, putting my daughter in the most outrageous and over-the-top hairdo known to man. There were braids, hair ties, bows, crazy ponytails, sequin scrunchies.... You name it! My daughter was going to win Whacky Hair Day! When I picked her up from school, expecting to bask in her joy at having the best hairdo, she told me I'd mixed up the days. Spirit Week started the following week. Needless to say, I spiraled.
With that example in mind, let’s use it to dig into REBT and see how the process applies.
In my last blog post, we discussed the difference between Rational and Irrational Beliefs. Now, let’s build on that by looking at how changing a Healthy Preference into a Demand/Have-To/Must gets us into trouble, as it always leads to Unhealthy Negative Emotions.
Today, we’ll take that idea further and introduce the term MUSTing, the tendency to turn a wish, want, or preference into a Demand.
MUSTing is broken down into 4 categories of Irrational Beliefs: Demand, Awfulizing, Low Frustration Tolerance, and Labeling/Condemning.
Here are some examples of the Irrational Beliefs I was telling myself about this situation, so you can see how they showed up in my thinking:
DEMAND: “How could I have gotten the dates of Spirit Week mixed up! I should have paid more attention to the damn school email.” (This led to anger towards myself!)
AWFULIZING: “This is so awful! I can’t believe I did this to my child! I can’t bear knowing that my actions made my daughter stick out like a sore thumb! I can’t emotionally deal with it now, and I never will!” (This could lead to depression &/or anxiety.)
LOW FRUSTRATION TOLERANCE: “I can’t deal with the shame of my stupid mistake! The fact that kids were making fun of my child because of something I did is driving me crazy!” (I was whining, which could lead to guilt and shame.)
LABELING/CONDEMNING: “I’m the worst mother in the world! And now everyone at my daughter’s school will know what a failure I am!” (This could lead to self-hatred, depression, and anxiety.)
The next step in REBT is to challenge and dispute those Irrational Beliefs. From there, let’s use my Spirit Week mistake and REBT’s cognitive restructuring to see how changing my thinking might change my emotional response.
DEMAND: Dispute the demand by changing it into a healthy preference.
“I would’ve preferred not to mix up the days of Spirit Week; next time I’ll pay closer attention to the damn school emails.” (This leads to disappointment, a Healthy Negative Emotion, instead of anger, an Unhealthy Negative Emotion.)
AWFULIZING: State the healthy preference and dispute by comparing to something worse.
“I would’ve preferred not to have mixed up the Spirit Week days so that my child wasn’t singled out. But I can bear it. It’s not as bad as having to deal with terminal cancer.” (This leads to disappointment or remorse, Healthy Negative Emotions, rather than depression and/or anxiety, Unhealthy Negative Emotions.)
LOW FRUSTRATION TOLERANCE: State the healthy preference and dispute by comparing to something worse.
“I would’ve preferred not putting my child in the uncomfortable position of being the only one with wacky hair. But I can bear it. It’s not as bad as having to deal with homelessness during Chicago’s brutal winters!” (This approach leads to frustration or disappointment, Healthy Negative Emotions, rather than guilt and shame, Unhealthy Negative Emotions.)
LABELING/DAMNING: Label the behavior, not the person. Dispute by questioning how one situation makes them a “bad mother”.
“Mixing up the dates of Spirit Week was regrettable, and I wish I got the dates right. But messing up was an honest mistake and not reflective of what kind of mother I am.” (This leads to Unconditional Self-Acceptance, the healthiest emotion (in my opinion), instead of self-hatred, depression, and anxiety, Unhealthy Negative Emotions.)
More REBT skills and tools are coming, but for now I invite you to challenge those Irrational Beliefs, avoid Unhealthy Negative Emotions, by replacing them with flexible preferences that lead to Healthy Negative Emotions and Unconditional Self-Acceptance—the tools needed to live a satisfied life.
Please feel free to share, comment, and let me know how this worked for you. If you’d like me to cover other topics in my next blog post, please reach out to me at angela@restartt.work.
