Orpheus and Eurydice Part II: Listen to Your Heart
A while back I wrote about how the story of Orpheus and Eurydice haunts me as a relationship therapist. How Orpheus could have saved their relationship if he had been able to manage his anxiety and reactivity.
This is a song I might sing to Orpheus: “Listen to your heart.” This would include all of the renditions of this song originally released by the Swedish rock duo, Roxette, in 1988. For this blog, I chose the 2005 Furious remix by the Belgian group DHT, with vocals by Edmdee. This is because sometimes distress tolerance interventions needs to be accessed quickly.
If I could sum up a good way to calm yourself out of destructive reactivity in one phrase, “listen to your heart,” might be it. But you must know what that really means.
Too often we listen to what we think is our heart, when it’s really something else. That something else might be overthinking, overreacting to a surface level emotion, thinking with just one part of ourselves rather than the grounded whole.
There could be many other names for what “your heart,” means in therapy. I would consider “wise mind,” “rational thinking,” and “differentiation,” as terms that could also mean, “your heart.” When you are listening from this perspective, you can listen with love.
Some therapists encourage their clients to “slow down.” That’s not a bad idea. The original form of this song is a slowed down ballad. This ballad might slow your heart rate if you breathe in time with it. If you have the luxury of slowing down, I do recommend it. Adrenaline is like fire. Very helpful and necessary, but flames get wild. Smaller flames are easier to control.
I like the EDM version of “Listen to Your Heart,” because I think it’s a realistic situation. Sometimes we must listen even when adrenaline is pumping. The most important times for the reminder, “listen to your heart,” are when life becomes a techo mash-up remix. Or, a journey out of hell. Or, a stressful journey in general. Maybe you’re a parent on a road-trip with the kids?
To me, Orpheus’ situation, is best depicted by EDM. So fun, and so sad. To prevent an Orpheus situation, your skills must happen quickly to keep up with the quick automatic thoughts attempting to trigger reactivity.
If you are in an Orpheus situation, I encourage some quick self-talk antidotes to fearful thinking.
My favorite reminder is:
“You will be okay no matter what happens.”
Even if she or the fates betray you, you will be okay. You are whole, and you will survive this.
Other quick reminders include:
“Take care of yourself no matter what the other person is doing.”
Regardless of whether she’s behind you, you still need to get out of hell. This is not a “we” task. You needs to focus on your own task knowing that her actions should not affect your own differentiation.
“Turning around makes it worse no matter what.”
If she is really gone, now you’re trying to get out of hell all upset instead of just confidently plodding out of there alone.
“You are *drunk* with emotion.”
If you are the type of person who knows not to make certain decisions when you are too sleepy or too intoxicated, remind yourself that states of heightened emotion are also a type of intoxication. If you can manage to restrain yourself during those other times when you know your judgement isn’t clear, then hopefully you can restrain yourself now as well.
In conclusion, “listen to your heart,” means listen to YOU. Listen to what you can do. Accept what you can and can’t control. You can’t control where Eurydice is. You can control where you are, and where you are looking.
