- Ch. 1: We Follow the Worse, Ch. 2: We’ve been Programmed, Ch. 3: The Internal Battle
First Reactions:
What stood out to you in these 3 chapters? What felt familiar or relevant? What made you pause?
Reflect:
What thoughts or emotions came up while reading? Did anything challenge how you usually think? What question are you sitting with?
Share or Consider:
What moment or idea feels worth naming? What might others relate to here? What would you want to explore further?
Having familiarity with TNM ideas the content is not new. However the direct telling does provoke reactions and insights. The clear explanation of the process as a journey towards alignment of feelings and intent is reassuring to me. It takes as long as it takes, and I love the realisation that actually the part of me driven to binges is seeing it as a way to look after another part of me. Nothing bad, nothing to fix just observations and understanding.
I felt understood and relieved. A big eye opener for me has been knowing and seeing the part of me which is often scared and has sought solace and strength in alcohol. The need to perform!
“To move from the Awake phase to the Alive phase, we need to do two things: Create the right emotions—the kind that support lasting change. Remove the emotions that block change—like fear, shame, and guilt.“
This straightforward statement brings home that beating yourself up over things you do in spite of them being harmful is never going to help. The turning point for change is curiousity and positive emotion, alongside “ acceptance-based approaches—like curiosity and compassion. In fact, a 2024 systematic review of thirty-six studies found that higher levels of self-compassion or self-forgiveness are linked to a lower likelihood of problem or hazardous drinking.”
I want to explore how kindness and nurture can pull others into looking after themselves.