Mental Health and Relationships
Stopping Rumination Made Olivia a Triple Champion.
Transformation of a person who dramatically improved her physical and mental health and developed better relationships
Olivia’s Background Briefly
This is a transforming story of a woman whose first career created havoc in her physical and mental health and ruined her relationships for many years. She was having the same thoughts over and over again. Usually, they were negative and stress-creating thoughts. She couldn’t control them.
However, by understanding her situation, accepting it, and taking corrective actions, Olivia transformed her physical and mental health and developed excellent relationships with her loved ones, friends, colleagues, and clients.
Olivia used to be a social worker dealing with disadvantaged people. Even though it was her dream job initially, in her words, this job was killing her. So, she decided to make a career change.
After undertaking a year of a postgraduate diploma in finance and short specialization courses privately, she became a financial planner and advisor. After her transformation, Olivia became a chief financial officer in a large business organization.
As a recovering perfectionist, Olivia resolved the root causes of her debilitating cognitive issues and shared her story in our circles with confidence. This is a condensed version of her story.
Unusual Problem of Olivia
Since her childhood, Olivia has been a very sensitive and empathetic person. She took every single criticism from her parents, teachers, and friends to heart. This sensitivity made her a perfection-seeking person at all times.
When Olivia got a lower grade at primary school, she felt sick for several days, overthinking her performance. She aimed to get A+ or at least an A grade for all her subjects. She was smart, being above average in her class, but she had to put significant effort into keeping this status quo in her primary schooling.
The same situation continued in her secondary schooling. However, her intelligence and efforts were not enough for her to become an A+ student. She had a mental block in mathematics and science subjects. Based on her school counselor’s advice, in the final year, her focus changed to social subjects.
Olivia cared too much about other people’s opinions. What they think mattered too much to her. She was also an empath feeling the pain of other people. Seeing poor people made her upset. She shared her lunch and pocket money with her poor friends. Sometimes she lost her appetite and gave her food to other people.
With a strong empathy for disadvantaged people, she decided to study to become a social worker after completing secondary college. She loved her subjects and finished with an honor’s degree qualifying her as a social worker. She also completed a part-time master’s degree in social work.
Even though she took a few psychology subjects during her undergraduate studies, she was unable to protect herself from the psychological effects of her work. The situation of every disadvantaged person was affecting her mental health. She was overthinking, and the situations of other people affected her too personally — she could not protect herself from her keen sense of empathy.
In addition, mistakes made by her colleagues made her extremely upset. She was getting very angry with slow processes in government social net organizations. In short, everything related to her job made her get upset and feel furious. Her chronic stress was noticed by her colleagues and boss. Besides, she was diagnosed with mild depression.
Her obsessive thoughts, her ruminating about each case she conducted, dramatically grew in a few years. She tried to cease ruminating, but nothing worked. Finally, her caring boss noticed her situation and advised Olivia to see a psychotherapist. In fact, he paid the consultation and therapy bills for her.
Interesting Discovery via Psychotherapy
Olivia had multiple sessions with the psychotherapist. During these sessions, she discovered many interesting facts about her mental health, physical health, and relationships, but she highlighted three of them that had the most impact. This timely discovery encouraged her to change her career and lifestyle.
Olivia has had physical and emotional trauma in her early life. During an accident, she had a minor brain injury, and her favorite pet died. She does not remember vividly, but according to her parents, the accident greatly affected her mental health in childhood. Even though she did not feel the pain in her adult years, these traumas were coded in her subconscious, causing excessive recurring thoughts.
The second one was about her perfectionist mindset. She wanted to see absolute results in her efforts. Even though she loved social work, this job was unsuitable for her sensitive and perfection-oriented character.
The third finding was deep down, Olivia wanted to be free. She desired to be her own boss and make her decisions. She was not aware of this desire at the surface, but it came to light during the therapy sessions.
Transition Period
The psychotherapist helped Olivia to create a transition plan. One of the key points was to obtain advice from a career coach.
With help from this coach, Olivia decided to undertake a postgraduate diploma in financial planning. She successfully completed it and opened her own business.
Olivia’s stress was significantly reduced. She became more tolerant and cheerful. As a result, she gained many clients and became a successful financial planner. However, she couldn’t stop ruminating entirely.
Transformation Period
The fundamental transformation happened when Olivia met another psychotherapist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT).
This psychotherapist focused on Olivia’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior. They jointly created a plan enabling Olivia to observe her thoughts, feelings, and behavior and record them regularly.
Using both CBT and DBT, the psychotherapist effectively managed Olivia’s situation.
Specific Techniques to Stop Ruminating
The therapist empowered Olivia to change her thoughts by asking powerful questions. With daily repetitions, these questions turned into habits. Whenever Olivia had an issue, she questioned her thoughts.
The therapist taught Olivia mindful skills to recognize her thoughts and emotions easily. She observed the triggers closely and noted them down in her therapy journal.
In addition, she started daily mediation for half an hour. Meditation sessions calmed Olivia’s overactive amygdala (alert system).
Whenever Olivia identified ruminating, she stopped and asked powerful questions. Questioning her recursive thoughts was reducing her anxiety by calming her alert system in the brain.
Interestingly, after relieving childhood trauma, Olivia adopted a little dog from a charity shelter. This dog gave her a lot of joy. It helped her drop sticky thoughts instantly.
Olivia didn’t need any medication to overcome her debilitating mental issue. Instead, her psychotherapist helped solve her mental problems using CBT and DBT naturally.
Outstanding Results
By reducing obsessive and recurring thoughts, Olivia started feeling much better. After a while, she stopped ruminating. Now and then, her brain would tend to ruminate, contemplate, and ponder deeply on real matters, but she kept it under control with her behavioral changes. Rumination of trivial things did not affect her life anymore.
This improvement made an incredible impact on her mental and physical health. Her relationships significantly improved. Even though she always had love and compassion, she was getting offense by the minor incidents and issues due to her sensitivity. Fortunately, she resolved this mental issue effectively. In addition, her digestive discomfort disappeared.
Reducing her chronic stress by stopping rumination, her approach to people changed. She became more tolerant and forgiving. As a result, her interactions with her loved ones, friends, and clients significantly got better. In addition, solving her cognitive issues improved her relationships substantially.
Since she had a successful business and improved relationships with many clients, a large international company head-hunted her and offered her a corporate chief financial officer role. She was delighted with her job.
They named her a super champion at work for a third time as she contributed to the financial stability of the organization significantly. She kept her private business by outsourcing activities to other financial planners. Her husband retired recently and started running Olivia’s business.
Olivia mentioned that her achievements are related to successful transition and transformation with the help of her therapist. She recommends CBT and DBT to her friends who have cognitive challenges.
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