ROADS TO RECOVERY: DO SOMETHING… ANYTHING…
Accidents Don’t Just Happen – Forgive and Remember
When I was radically rethinking my career objectives, I did not pick my cuticles at all. But, and this is really interesting, I did start picking my face again during that crisis. A big part of the crisis dealt with my sexuality, rejection from men, the realization that I might never marry, feeling unlovable, etc. So it seems that, for me at least, the picking of the face and the picking of the cuticles were two different issues. The cuticles seemed to come from a core, overall anxiety, which I was able to take control of. But the face picking seemed connected to my sexual life, which I cannot control.
Once the crisis was resolved, I stopped picking my face.
Remember Your Thoughts Before You Take Action
I believe that accidents rarely happen AND picking does not happen by accident. Your subconscious is just filled with conflicting messages. And it tries to deal with them effectively and sort them out when they surface.
When you go to pick at yourself, think back at what you were just thinking. Was it a judgmental or critical thought of some kind? Repeat what you have thought and allow yourself to forgive the negative thought.
Next time you stub your toe or have any other kind of ‘accident’ think back to whatever you were just thinking about before it happened. Odds are your subconscious was trying to work something out. After you have had an uncomfortable thought it is your instinct to punish yourself for it.
You look to the self to find something wrong. If there is not something wrong, you find a way of making something wrong. And in the end your harshest critic is only yourself.
For me, I would pick most often was when I was thinking about the people and relationships in my life. Usually these thoughts were of a judgmental nature. Not necessarily condemning them for anything in particular, but I had a habit of classifying people or making a judgment about something they had said or done. I tended to think this way, because of my extreme need to be in control and know what the mechanical workings of every situation was. I wanted to keep everything within my understanding.
A split second after I had the judgmental thought I would find myself in front of a mirror looking for a flaw on my face.
Remember Habit Reversal is about identifying triggers when they occur. If things aren’t obvious on the surface, go below and look to your subconscious thought patterns.
