• About
    • About Severance
    • From the Editor
    • Submission Guidelines: How to Contribute
    • Contact Us
  • Articles
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • Advocacy
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • DNA Surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • Family Secrets
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Interviews & Profiles
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Psychology & Therapy
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Search & Reunion
  • Essays & Fiction
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
  • Short Takes
    • Short Takes: Books
    • Short Takes: Film & Video
    • Short Takes: People, News & Research
    • Short Takes: Podcasts & Radio
  • Self Care & Coping
    • Coping Strategies
    • Self-Care
  • Speak Out
    • Micro-Memoirs
    • Your Video Stories
  • Resources
    • Start Here
    • Abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • Donor Conception
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Late-Discovery Adoptees
    • NPEs (Not parent expected) & MPEs (Misattributed parentage experience)
    • Psychology & Therapy & Coaching
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
    • Self-Care
Severance Magazine
Tag:

stress

    Coping StrategiesSelf-Care

    Urge Surfing: Ease the Mind by Riding the Wave

    by bkjax June 19, 2019

    A simple mindfulness practice may help you corral your runaway thoughts and better tolerate distress

    Do your thoughts keep traveling on the same groove, driving you deeper and deeper in a rut? Maybe you can’t stop thinking about lies you’ve been told or wondering whether you’ll ever figure out where you came from. Or you can’t tear yourself away from the computer because the answer to your search and all your urgent questions may be just a few keystrokes away. Or worse, your thoughts become so oppressive that in order to blot them out you find yourself eating or drinking more, burning through cigarettes, relying on prescription or recreational drugs, or picking fights with those around you.

    Although not always recognized as such, loss related to separation from family or discovery of misattributed parentage can be a form of trauma. And trauma, according to Sarah Bowen, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Pacific University, plays a trick on your mind. It’s hard to find relief from it. “When anything traumatic has happened, whether it’s loss- or fear-based, you can’t get away from it. It’s in your face. If it’s fear, sadness, grief, whatever, it’s easy to go down rabbit holes.” But obsessive thinking locks you into feeling the feelings at the same time that it intensifies them.

    It’s easy, Bowen says, to get caught in rumination cycles. While sometimes it’s helpful to think things through, often it’s the thinking through that causes intense distress. You get stuck in the same loops of thought, and catastrophizing and obsessing isn’t actually very useful. Those obtrusive and persistent emotions, she says, may manifest in many ways. “It might be engaging in ruminative thought patterns, picking up a drink, yelling at your partner, or eating, but the function is the same.” Those behaviors arise because you can’t handle what you’re feeling, so you engage in something that you think will make you feel less bad, she explains.

    Urge surfing is a simple technique to allow you to slow down and acknowledge your feelings without acting on them. This evidence-based intervention was developed to help prevent addiction relapse by the late G. Alan Marlatt, PhD, who was director of addiction research at the University of Washington in Seattle. The concept came to him when he was trying to help someone stop smoking. It’s based on the understanding that urges — impulses to act in some way on negative feelings — rise like waves, getting bigger and bigger until one feels compelled to give in and indulge the urges. Trying to suppress these feelings tends to make them stronger and more insistent. Urge surfing helps individuals learn to ride out the wave without giving in and to understand that the urge is impermanent. Marlatt and his colleagues found the technique effective in addiction relapse prevention, but its applications go well beyond substance use and abuse. It’s simply a way of applying mindfulness to feelings that seem intolerable, says Bowen, who worked with Marlatt as a graduate student at the University of Washington.

    The concept and practice are based in large part on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction program. As defined by Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is “paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, nonjudgmentally.” Learn more about mindfulness in this short video by Kabat-Zinn.

    Urge surfing is not a way of solving or figuring out the problem. It’s about backing up and observing your feelings, says Bowen. It’s a way of asking, “What if I noticed what’s happening in my body, what my mind is doing now, instead of having panicked reactions?”

    To ride the waves, you’ll learn to recognize when your thoughts and feelings are leading you to react in habitual, impulsive, and unproductive ways. Perhaps your urge is to log in to Ancestry.com constantly to see if you have new DNA matches. Of course, it’s helpful to monitor your matches, but checking 10 times a day can only increase your distress. Instead of flipping open your computer, sit quietly with your uncomfortable feelings without judgment. Acknowledge the thoughts that arise and the accompanying sensations and tensions in your body. Bring your attention to your breath as you follow the wave of the urge until it crests and subsides.

    As with all mindfulness techniques, urge surfing requires a dedicated practice to strengthen your ability to react mindfully instead of in your default mode. Stopping and sitting with your feelings in this way each time they arise, combined with practicing mindfulness-based techniques on a regular basis each day when you’re not feeling the impulses, will make you better able to choose constructive responses.

    Listen to Bowen guide you through an urge surfing exercise in this sound file.

    It’s natural to have a powerful urge to escape feelings associated with or arising from trauma. Urge surfing, Bowen explains, is a way of learning to sit with the feelings and ride them out, learning to live with them without them overtaking your life. Through urge surfing you’ll be able to recognize that the feelings probably will come back, but you’ll become aware that you can feel things you don’t want to feel and still be okay.

    Whether it’s through urge surfing or other practices, “mindfulness is useful in that it illuminates how our minds mean well but end up trapping us in cycles of anxiety, worry, and suffering,” says Nick Turner, a clinical social worker in the Clinical Road Home Program for Veterans and Families at Rush University Medical Center. “It provides us with a practice that accepts the mind as it is and allows us to be more present and effective.”

    It’s often enough for individuals to break thought patterns and negative behaviors by developing a regular mindfulness practice — urge surfing or mindful meditation — but sometimes it may be beneficial to seek help. “If someone is to the point where they are obsessing about something and it’s decreasing their quality of life, working with a guide such as a therapist or teacher can be helpful.”

    Look for more on mindfulness techniques coming soon in Severance.

    June 19, 2019 1 comment
    1 FacebookTwitter

http://www.reckoningwiththeprimalwound.com

What’s New on Severance

  • There Was a Secret
  • Should Health Care Professionals Tell the Truth About Paternity?
  • 20 Questions and a World of Stories
  • The Wizard and I
  • Rabbit Holes and Hobbits
  • We Three

After a DNA Surprise: 10 Things No One Wants to Hear

https://www.righttoknow.us

Call Right To Know’s resource hotline to talk with another MPE be paired with a mentor, get resources, or just talk.

Original Birth Certificates to California Born Adoptees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erHylYLHqXg&t=4s

Search

Tags

abandonment adoptee adoptees adoptee stories adoption advocacy biological family birthmother books DNA DNA surprise DNA surprises DNA test DNA tests donor conceived donor conception essay Essays family secrets genetic genealogy genetic identity genetics grief heredity Late Discovery Adoptee late discovery adoptees Late Discovery Adoption meditation memoir MPE MPEs NPE NPEs podcasts psychology Q&A rejection research reunion search and reunion secrets and lies self care therapy transracial adoption trauma

Recommended Reading

The Lost Family: How DNA is Upending Who We Are, by Libby Copeland. Check our News & Reviews section for a review of this excellent book about the impact on the culture of direct-to-consumer DNA testing.

What Happens When Parents Wait to Tell a Child He’s Adopted

“A new study suggests that learning about one’s adoption after a certain age could lead to lower life satisfaction in the future.”

Janine Vance Searches for the Truth About Korean Adoptees

“Imagine for a minute that you don’t know who your mother is. Now imagine that you are that mother, and you don’t know what became of your daughter.”

Who’s Your Daddy? The Twisty History of Paternity Testing

“Salon talks to author Nara B. Milanich about why in the politics of paternity and science, context is everything.”

What Separation from Parents Does to Children: ‘The Effect is Catastrophic”

“This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents.”

Truth: A Love Story

“A scientist discovers his own family’s secret.”

Dear Therapist: The Child My Daughter Put Up for Adoption is Now Rejecting Her

“She thought that her daughter would want to meet her one day. Twenty-five years later, that’s not true.”

I’m Adopted and Pro-Choice. Stop Using My Story for the Anti-Abortion Agenda. Stephanie Drenka’s essay for the Huffington Post looks at the way adoptees have made unwilling participants in conversations about abortion.

Archives

  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019

@2019 - Severance Magazine

Severance Magazine
  • About
    • About Severance
    • From the Editor
    • Submission Guidelines: How to Contribute
    • Contact Us
  • Articles
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • Advocacy
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • DNA Surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • Family Secrets
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Interviews & Profiles
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Psychology & Therapy
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Search & Reunion
  • Essays & Fiction
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
  • Short Takes
    • Short Takes: Books
    • Short Takes: Film & Video
    • Short Takes: People, News & Research
    • Short Takes: Podcasts & Radio
  • Self Care & Coping
    • Coping Strategies
    • Self-Care
  • Speak Out
    • Micro-Memoirs
    • Your Video Stories
  • Resources
    • Start Here
    • Abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • Donor Conception
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Late-Discovery Adoptees
    • NPEs (Not parent expected) & MPEs (Misattributed parentage experience)
    • Psychology & Therapy & Coaching
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
    • Self-Care
Severance Magazine
  • About
    • About Severance
    • From the Editor
    • Submission Guidelines: How to Contribute
    • Contact Us
  • Articles
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • Advocacy
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • DNA Surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • Family Secrets
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Interviews & Profiles
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Psychology & Therapy
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Search & Reunion
  • Essays & Fiction
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
  • Short Takes
    • Short Takes: Books
    • Short Takes: Film & Video
    • Short Takes: People, News & Research
    • Short Takes: Podcasts & Radio
  • Self Care & Coping
    • Coping Strategies
    • Self-Care
  • Speak Out
    • Micro-Memoirs
    • Your Video Stories
  • Resources
    • Start Here
    • Abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • Donor Conception
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Late-Discovery Adoptees
    • NPEs (Not parent expected) & MPEs (Misattributed parentage experience)
    • Psychology & Therapy & Coaching
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
    • Self-Care
@2019 - Severance Magazine