I first came across the Spoon theory a while ago. It was written by Christine Miserandino. It was conceived by her following a conversation with her friend around her condition which gives her not limitless energy but quite the opposite and means that constructing her day has to be done with care and consideration for the amount of energy she has to devote to any one task.
It’s something that I and I am sure many of you ‘fellow travellers’ can also identify with. Life is frenetically busy and sometimes there are just too many balls being juggled and when the final ball or plate has been spun and then fallen it is then that we break and find it difficult to get up from, may be you are reading this and thinking and feeling that this is you, or potentially could be you.
For a moment sit back in your seat, take a deep breath, have a look around you and ask yourself when you last took this moment or space for yourself. When the messiness of life, grief or change happens we can get caught up in the organising the tasks that have ensued from whatever has thrown at us and we keep going and going and going until we have forgotten how to stop, and more often than not until too late.
Understanding the Overload
So you might be asking yourself what on earth have spoons got to do with this. When you woke up this morning and you were calculating the long list of things to do that probably created a spiral of worry and anxious thoughts.. Did you jump out of bed and leap to the long list and by now, the end of the day you feel like your overloaded allostatic system, which is the state when the demands of our environment exceed an individual’s capacity to adapt cannot bear any more you cannot take on one more thing before you break completely.
Believe you me I don’t want you to get to that point at all, because it is difficult to pull yourself back from the brink, but not impossible. As much as our bodies, our brains need space and time to rest and assimilate the challenges and changes our physical bodies have been going through.
The Role of Hypnotherapy and Sleep
When we use Hypnotherapy it can help our brains navigate the changes that we are experiencing because it uses our conscious and subconscious minds to bring us to a relaxed state of mind creating the space for us to process the emotions of the day and give us a chance to recuperate.
We can do this through sleep too, specifically our REM sleep which the Sleep Foundation say we require at least 2 hours of a night. REM sleep Rapid Eye Movement dreaming is when we are helping the brain consolidate and process new information. It also has a role in helping us have better mental concentration and mood regulation. These are both very critical to our overall mind and body, ie your quality of life. If we don’t get enough of the precious REM sleep, which generally happens every 90 minutes accounting for 20-25% of your sleep cycle, that’s based on an average of 7-9 hours of sleep, we are in danger of succumbing to worse of health including brain function, cellular repair can suffer as well as potentially sleep disorders. In my practice it is almost the first question we ask, ‘How is your sleep?’. It’s a good marker of where we are at. If sleep falls away then our ability to perform everyday tasks, cope with daily life and happiness is at risk.
Back to the Spoons: Pacing Yourself
Back to the spoons. Each of your spoons will contain a value of energy that will be unique to you, everyone is different. Lay them out in your mind or physically, whatever works for you so as you can get the gist of what you will be able to manage on any given day. When we are coping in transitioning moments we naturally have less energy, because it’s being expended elsewhere and our emotional and mental capacities will have changed. So before you take the step of getting in touch with me, be gentle with yourself and with the amount of capacity you have to undertake the tasks ahead of you.
Working out what we feel we have the capacity to do is the first step in managing an overloaded system. If you have a list that you can’t face and potentially not enough spoons, to deal with that list, take it in steps. Do what you can, don’t try and tackle it all at once. Take what you think is necessary first and see how that goes. Judging the number of spoons we have to cope with is a good way to regulate our activities when we are in a crisis or transitioning mode.
Personally it took me a long time to realise that doing a million and one things all day every day wasn’t necessary and that I could take my time, I was about 36 at that point. Yes, it took me a long time to realise. Having a very switched on system and way of functioning I don’t always know when to rest, though I am getting better at it. For some, switching off and resting is easy for others not so. I’m learning that achievement doesn’t have to be done in massive strides, but can be equally well achieved in small steps. Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is about helping you get the best out of yourself and being able to regulate and function when life has thrown you some heavy stuff to deal with.
My practice is open to helping all fellow travellers find their equilibrium and way of coping. Our minds are marvellous and change and transition is possible when we are open to letting our minds help us process change.
Change wherever you are at is possible and achievable without forgetting what we may have lost.
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