This week I’m reading a couple of books. They’re books I’ve had for a while, but they are both subjects I’ve found interesting and want to actually read and try the suggestions they each have.

The first book is called Mind Over Medicine, by Lissa Rankin, MD. This book was published in 2013 and I may very well have purchased it around then. There’s a bookmark in the book, so it’s logical that I started reading it at some point.

Of course, I have no memory of it, so it’ll be like reading a brand new book for me. According to the dust jacket, it’s about how there’s scientific evidence that you can control your health with your mind. I actually already feel this way, however in my case, I tend to ignore what my body is trying to tell me until it’s screaming its head off. I usually push myself past what I’m capable or comfortable with until my body breaks down with some sort of physical symptom that I can’t ignore anymore [usually some sort of muscle spasm/severe pain].

I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself with Dr. Rankin’s work.

The second book is Self-Therapy [and the workbook that goes with it] by Jay Earley. I’ve read this book before, but I haven’t completed the workbook, so I plan to start that again this week, too. Self-Therapy is based on Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems Therapy model.

It’s based on the idea that we all have different ‘parts’ to our personalities. If you’ve ever felt like there was a part of you that felt one thing, but another part that felt something completely different, you kinda know where this is going.

When I found this therapy model, it really resonated with me because I’ve always felt like I had several distinct personalities [although none of them have ever dissociated from the others]. I love Dr. Schwartz’s work because it doesn’t pathologize behaviors. It says that every part is trying its best to help you, not harm you, and therefore can be worked with to move on to more productive/helpful behaviors and leave behind the destructive stuff we do to ourselves.

This feels like a good place to start, because I have a long history of putting myself last and taking care of others before I get to myself [which has often meant that I never got any care unless it was by accident]. I think I’m one of those people who believes that I’m not worthy of care, which is why this journey is such a challenge for me.

I’m hoping to use IFS and Self-Therapy to get in touch with the parts of me that believe I don’t deserve care and heal those parts so this path [hopefully] becomes less of a struggle than it’s been in the past.

On a personal note, I went grocery shopping with my beloved and now feel hungry and exhausted, so I’m gonna go find food and maybe play a game on my phone. 🙂