Are you looking for a safe place to discuss BFRBs with people who get it?
Conversation always helps spark ideas, and hearing insights from others is the best way to internalize lessons.
Here's some of the insights that Keen family members, just like you, have made over on our online community, the BFRB Change Collective.
"As I work on myself, I want to include boundaries as part of my life practice so that I won’t butcher my eyebrows anymore.
By consistently practicing assertiveness and self-discipline to create the life I want to live (along with the tools I’ve acquired in this support group), fear will not be rooted in fact." –Valerie
"Every year on my birthday, I vow to never pick or pull again — “this year is a new year,” I tell myself. And every year on my birthday I am devastated when I inevitably end up picking or pulling again.
Does anyone else find themselves falling into traps like this?
Well, yesterday it was my birthday, and for a change I decided to just celebrate another year being alive on this earth, rather than bullying myself into making drastic promises I know from experience I will not keep.
See, usually, I kind of hate my birthday. The pressure of having the chance to “start fresh” with my pulling and picking weighs heavy. But this year, instead of focusing on what I will or will not do in the year to come, I reflected on the memories —painful and joyful— of the year that I just had.
It isn’t about never picking or pulling again. It’s about creating a healthier lifestyle where I give myself the space to be more in tune with what I need.
I’ve only just joined the collective recently and I already learned that from you all. I am excited to see what else I will have the opportunity to learn in this new year of my life. 💗
Thank you, immensely."
–Mac, a BFRB Change Collective member
"So in today’s Collective zoom call, Ellen mentioned the helpful acronym B.e. T.h.i.s. and Aneela elaborated on how breathing and noticing senses stuff brings us back into the present, back into the body.
Then I shared:
Maybe a month or so ago, I was listening to a podcast & they were talking about being disembodied. Not in a BFRB way, but more about spending all our time in our minds rather than in the present, in our bodies. But I had this “aha moment” when I was listening and realized that BFRBs bring us back into our bodies. When we’re stuck in our minds, our mind is chaotic, etc, that’s when our BFRBs kick in. Bc we FEEL the hair, the pulling, the scab picking. We’re in our bodies FEELING, in the present. We’re not worrying, stressing, anxious, - all the mental chaotic cerebral stuff.
It’s the subconscious thing we picked up along the way to regulate our systems to bring us back into our bodies.
It was just a huge revelation for me. And I think this is where the pause, the Be This or similar breath/senses work is so helpful for BFRBs, and also other areas (eg. anger, getting flustered, any time my mind or emotions get carried away). "
–K. T., a BFRB Change Collective member
Getting to know members of the BFRB community is a wonderful way to put your own BFRB in perspectives. There are people in the world dealing with the same struggles as you, and they're wonderful. If you can meet people who inspire you, all while dealing with their BFRB, you'll begin to shatter your own BFRB shame.
Header image by krakenimages
