EXCERPTS

(From Chapter 11)

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The Nitty-Gritty

     Here you are: inspired with new knowledge about your brain, flush with visualizations and metaphors to apply to your mental chaos, and ready to get to the nitty-gritty. Welcome to the process of creating strategies to tame your pain and stop self-injury—because there is No Place Left To Run. NPLTR stands for Notice, Pause, Listen, Translate, and Respond. With NPLTR skills, you’ll learn to master the moments when your brain is flipping out, the Hulk is coming on, and all the Kids on the Bus are in a tizzy. Self-injury may be the quickest and most habitual way to calm your turmoil, but you know that you have to stop doing it if you’re going to stop doing it. This section is all about how to stop.

    

     When you’re triggered and can’t think of positive action, you know that your only goal is to try not to self-injure. To meet that goal, you need to set one more goal: When you Notice you’re triggered, Pause all action and Listen to your thoughts long enough to hear and Translate the internal messages that govern a healthy Response.

 

     To decide on a course of action when your mind is chaotic, you’ll need to pay attention to and relate intentionally with the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual happenings inside you without freaking out and making things worse. That may be a tall order at first, but just like self-injury became a habit, coping with NPLTR becomes automatic once it’s repeated often enough. Here’s how it goes.

 

Notice, Pause, Listen, Translate, and Respond

     Given the speed and random movement of thought, each step of the NPLTR process can lead into any of the other steps; movement between the steps isn’t always linear.

 

• Notice: Stop action and allow yourself to tune into sensations that indicate the source and severity of your distress.

• Pause: Take only those actions that help you avoid self-injury. If you’re not able to engage your inner content, hold your Pause through distraction.

• Listen: Become aware of thoughts, feelings, and messages your brain is spewing, without taking action or debating with those thoughts or feelings.

• Translate: Change your relationship to the content of your thoughts; get to the deeper meaning and messages that you can take constructive action on in order to change your feelings.

• Respond: Create options for addressing your situation and select the most skillful course of action to minimize internal conflict. Responding happens continually and can be any step you take to purposely Notice, Pause, Listen, Translate or act on thoughts, impulses or feelings.

 

     NPLTR is about turning toward your pain instead of running away from it by using self-injury. Mastering this process allows you to get to the deeper messages inside your habitual, painful thoughts, first by Noticing that you’re not feeling the way you want to, then by Pausing long enough to decide if you need to distract yourself or can endure taking a considerate Listen to what your internal signals and voices are telling you about what’s happening. However, you know that the voices of the brain, your emotions, and your mental habits can’t always be trusted, so you also need to learn to Translate your thoughts and inner material to craft an effective Response to your turmoil.

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     There’s a difference between knowing and understanding. On the surface, it’s easy to know that NPLTR is a realistic option, but understanding it in action comes only through time and practice. Of all the skills you learn in your life, few are as crucial as learning to Notice and Pause. No matter what mental state you're in, the ability to Notice when you need to create a Pause between thinking, feeling, and acting is critical. From the stillness created by each Pause, you can find ways to lengthen the time between impulse and action, and you can give yourself time to chart a new course that calms you down without quick, unskillful reactions or self-injury. Listening, Translating, and Responding can’t happen without first Noticing and creating a Pause.

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     There’s one main reason to use NPLTR as a foundation for your strategy to cope without self-injury: it works. It’s not magic but, over time, using NPLTR to your advantage helps to improve your distress tolerance and create emotional ease by developing your talents for:

 

• Noticing indicators of tension or elevated emotion

• Calming racing thoughts and redirecting obsessive thinking

• Managing and changing destructive tendencies

• Responding to your own signals by tuning into and naming what’s happening

• Knowing when you need to reduce stimuli

• Dealing effectively with anger and shame

• Choosing soothing action

• Avoiding self-injury stimulants and supports

• Finding words that authentically convey your experience and needs

• Allowing for truth and acceptance

• Gaining an understanding of which thoughts you can trust

 

     Until you become accustomed to Noticing, Pausing, Listening, Translating, and Responding, try to consciously develop these skills and to cope in any way that doesn’t create fuel for self-injury. Notice and Pause, decide if you’ll engage or avoid the internal content, and Respond to both the initial signals that indicate the need for a Pause and the Response options that feel as if they come from a clear place inside you. Over time, NPLTR will become second nature, and it’s infinitely useful. Eventually, the smallest signals will alert you to your need for a Pause or a Response, and you will naturally take action on your own behalf without stress or self-injury. As you begin this practice, though, you may have to work pretty darn hard simply to Notice (So many reasons not to!), Pause (Pause? But action happens so automatically!), Listen (To whom? So many voices and impulses!), Translate (Good Lord, the things you say to yourself! How do you find truth in that junk?), and Respond (I’m already confused; now I have too many options!).

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     As you focus on slowing things down and coping without violence, you’ll continue to learn about your own indicators of distress and become more familiar with the fact that you actually need to start Noticing. By Noticing, you’ll start to see your own patterns. You’ll also learn how to tell if you’re raw and need to Pause and create comfort, if you’re feeling wonderfully stable and can Respond immediately to challenges, or if you’re getting to a point where you may pop off any second and the only Response is to shut your brain down. You’ll Notice your own changes in body sensations and energy, in thought and emotion, and from there you’ll have a platform to consider action to limit or stop your self-injury actions.

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     Part of your success in changing your self-injury habit will come from realizing that no matter how others or life may have hurt you, you’ve developed thoughts and emotions so powerful their strongest foe is self-injury. It’s just not a great idea to keep on hurting yourself and making life harder than it already is. The other part of your success will come from developing practical skills that allow you to be compassionate, patient, and mindful. Following the course of NPLTR when your mind is on overload can give you something to rely on besides self-injury.

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     You deserve to be able to move on with your life despite your history, so it’s best to see your violence for what it is: a cry for help, for compassion, for understanding and acceptance. Though self-injury is a confused self-protection instinct, you don’t really want to hurt yourself or others with your habits. You want to be able to help yourself; you just don’t know how. Practicing within the framework of NPLTR will build a coping structure that supports you in moving toward a less painful life.

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     Moving away from self-injury is facilitated by learning how to live with directed effort and to maintain an intention to reduce your extreme responses to life. NPLTR is one of those tools; allowing you choose a Response, even if you end up self-injuring when the choices you make don’t lead you where you wanted to go. Eventually, you’ll feel far enough from self-injury that you’re not in danger moment-to-moment, and you won’t need to be quite as vigilant in using your tools. But even if self-injury urges were to stick around in some small way, the only real question is how effectively you’re able to NPLTR and derail the cycle of violence with skills other than self-injury. You'll always need to cope with life in some way, and an active process of NPLTR can support you in any situation.

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     As you start to work with the ideas described in the book, focus on Noticing during every other step of the process. Notice if what you’re doing feels like it may drive you to self-injury. Notice, after you Pause, if you’re in a state where you need to distract yourself until you get over the urges to self-injure. Notice, as you Listen, that you have a lightning-quick reaction to certain thoughts. Notice, as you Translate, that you have a choice about how you interpret your thoughts. Notice, as you Respond, which Responses work to ease your tension in particular situations and which are likely to escalate your tension.

    

Eventually, you’ll be Noticing (without hyper-vigilance) and easily Pause, Listen, and Translate when urges to self-injury arise. At first, however, simply give yourself permission to Notice, even if what you Notice is so overwhelming that you have to stop looking at it. Just don’t self-injure as an instant response to your emotional pain, and you’ll be on your way.

 

No Substitutes

     You want relief. You deserve relief. But, there is no substitute for the relief provided by self-injury. The release achieved through physical pain is unique and can’t be recreated in a non-violent context. The goal with NPLTR is not to try to get the same relief that self-injury would provide, but to tolerate your pain and redirect your thoughts without self-injury—even if it means you have to deal with stuff you've been pushing away. Eventually, Pausing and getting to what’s true will create a sense of ease that instantly washes away urges to self-injure, so you can achieve relief without physical pain. By using NPLTR effectively to cope without violence, what you want will change. You’ll crave something more useful than self-injury, so you won’t need your Response to feel exactly like self-injury.

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     Please remember the Ground Rules (from the Introduction) as you change your self-injury habits, and don’t expect that you should be able to stop self-injuring right away. If self-injury has been one of your key coping strategies, it’s normal to find yourself returning to self-injury after long periods of coping in other ways. That said; don’t justify your self-injury habit. Change it. Just set realistic expectations. It may be difficult to completely rid yourself of urges—after all, you’ve developed a habit. To stop self-injuring, you may have to drop a million clearing thoughts into your well of muck (see Chapter 2). If you persevere, you’ll succeed in clearing up those mental waters and stopping the violence against yourself.