The Mindful Migraine

If you’re new here to this blog (welcome!), there’s something you might not know about me: I read, read, read… way more than I write. I read other blogs, I read scientific papers (as a hangover from studying for my PhD), and I read self-help books galore, looking for clues on how to be a healthier / happier version of myself.

The latest book I read was “The Use of Metaphors and Stories in Healing: a guide for therapeutic practitioners” by Adrianna and Kevin Vandeyck. I’m a huge fan of using metaphors for healing, and have my own extensive take on the hows and whys and what fors, but this book had a great little exercise in it that I wanted to share with you.

Before I get to the exercise, think about all the ways that we can shift the way we look at something. We can use a microscope or telescope to investigate things up close or far away. We can be more playful and use a kaleidoscope, or more subversive and opt for a periscope.

Then there’s all the more day to day ways; we can gaze out the windscreen of our car while driving forward, but also glance in the rearview mirror to see what is behind us, or in our side mirrors to clarify our surroundings. We do the same thing, figuratively, when we consider our future, past and present respectively.

We can put our prescription glasses on and enjoy clarity of vision or slip them off relax into the blur. We slide sunglasses up and down our nose to slide in and out of the midday sun or afternoon glow. You can witness a sunset by sitting in the moment and staring at the horizon or by capturing it through your phone’s camera to upload online later.

We can also see the world through rose-colored glasses and with the benefit of gratitude, or through a lens of doom-and-gloom and anxiety-induced-catastrophizing. We can see with an open-mind or tunnel-vision, with the benefit of hindsight or in an anticipatory way that might be shaped by our socio-cultural context that suggests we are too woke or too conservative.

Physically, emotionally, ideologically… there is always another way to see the world we live in.

So then… to the book.

Under the heading of: “The Power of Perspective & Mastering Perceptual Positions”, the authors note (page 29):

The ability to see the world from multiple viewpoints is the essence of empathy and a cornerstone of cognitive flexibility. The three Perceptual Positions – Self, Other, and Observer – are not just philosophical ideas; they are practical story-crafting lenses.

Here’s how the exercise works: you create a story which is described from 3 different perspectives. They are writing for therapists to prepare an activity for their clients, but you can do it for yourself, by writing it out, speaking it out loud or just imagining the three sides of the scenario in your head. The point is to cover all three bases:

• First Position (Self) – the embodied experience – conversations and some story telling is told from a first person perspective; “I remember a time when this person made me feel so angry” – it’s personal and relateable.
• Second Position (Other) – the ‘walk a mile in their shoes’ idea – you can flip the narrative and imagine the story from another person’s perspective; “imagine how the other person must have felt when you started yelling” – seeing the other side helps resolve conflict, build empathy and understanding.
• Third Position (Observer) – the wise, detached witness – this is a meta-perspective, outside the key events – “two people approached each other, one was very angry, the other became very sad” – by taking a step back from the action, you might be able to take a more neutral position and see solutions the participants missed.

The book gives the example of a patient who feels overwhelmed by a project item on their To Do List, and starts to panic every time they open their computer. The first person describes how that panic feels physically and emotionally. Then the project itself gets to speak; “I’m not a monster, I just want to be finished so I can help other people, I feel bad that they feel bad.” Lastly, an observer, in this case, a camera on the wall and/or a career coach, watches as the patient panics and the project waits patiently, and wonders what would happen if the person could just break the big task down into smaller five-minute steps that might get the ball rolling.

Whilst the book isn’t explicit about who the Other or the Observer should be, I think intuition should be your guide. ‘Self’ is obvious: that’s you. ‘The Other’ can be another person or the ‘problem’ itself (including part of your life or body) – whatever or whoever is giving you grief. ‘The Observer’ is also open for interpretation; it could be a person who has helped you in the past, such as a High School teacher or Yoga instructor, or something more omnipresent, such as The Universe or God.

I tried the exercise myself, and let it unfold in a free-writing way (which I’ve experimented with before – here):

• First position (Self): “I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired, no matter how much I learn about my migraine brain, I don’t seem to be able to fix it… it’s been 4 years and I still have almost perpetual pain in my right-eye… except when I take the day off and spend it outside gardening.”
• Second position (Other – my brain): “It makes me sad that she hates me so much; I’m not broken and don’t need to be fixed… I’m just doing my best to keep her safe; if I sense risks and emergencies, it’s my job to respond and tell all her body parts to respond too… I let her know that spending time off the computer and outside is good for her by turning down the pain volume… I’m not sure why she doesn’t listen to me instead of complaining about me.”
• Third position (Observer – Mother Nature): “Ahhh, humans… especially the ones who live in their heads… they always want to ‘fix’ things ‘now’… but the world works more slowly; there are cycles and moon-tides, waxing and waning, births, deaths, rebirths, blooming and leaf-fall… everything in its own time… bodies and brains have been around for centuries, they know what to do and how to do it… especially when they align themselves to the wider world… it is only now, in the relentless ‘now’, that humans are trying to place themselves in artificial busy-busy-bubbles, detached from sunrise and the gloaming, removed from fresh air and the rain and wind… the body knows how to heal itself, it just needs time, space, and belief… not to be bossed and rushed and ridiculed… poor lady… but poor brain too… it must be so tired trying to keep up with her demands…”

The exercise only took a few minutes, but I learnt a lot from it.

I’m sure if I did the exercise again with different second and third positions (my sore neck muscles and my mother, for example, or my tax return and the laptop’s inbuilt camera), I would get a completely different set of insights.

As the authors say; “The ability to see the world from multiple viewpoints is the essence of empathy and a cornerstone of cognitive flexibility” AND I would say it is a helpful tool in healing… and now… (always ‘now’)… I’m going to shift my perspective, stop complaining, close down my computer and get outside in Nature (it’s raining, so no gardening, but I can drink my tea on the deck and admire the clouds… ciao for now).

Take care taking care,
Linda x

PS – let me know if you have a go at this exercise, and whether it worked xx