What is the importance of family history when it comes to healing trichotillomania?

I believe that it’s important to explore your family history.  Not for the purpose of blaming anyone, but to heal the perceptions which led you to become and remain a hair puller.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Trich interferes with your whole life, doesn’t it?  But, do you really want to stop pulling?

Take a good look at your life to see if you’ve been rationalizing your compulsive hair pulling even though it seriously interferes with your freedom of choice, your relationships and causes you a great deal of shame and pain.

If your true answer is no then it’s best to admit it to yourself.  You don’t have to tell anyone else.  But, freely acknowledging whatever is true for you, even if the truth is that you’re not ready or willing to stop pulling, is a real and valid step toward healing your trich.

I want to assure you, whatever your position, it is valid.  You have a right to your own thoughts and feelings whatever they are.  Admitting the truth to yourself about your real feelings is a big step toward freedom!

“Help me I’m trapped on the inside of my face.”
-Chuck Pyle

This quote is from “Inside of my Face,” a song by one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Chuck Pyle, known as “The Zen Cowboy.”

You can check Chuck out at http://www.chuckpyle.com/. He’s brilliant, not to mention being a great singer. From his website, “He is a famed Western singer/songwriter, who is known in theaters and festivals across the country as a virtuoso guitarist with a Will Rogers-like wit, who talks straight about his journey.”

“Help me I’m trapped on the inside of my face” sums up another great Truth with a capital T! Ultimately the only place real safety lies (or doesn’t) is inside your own head. It doesn’t matter what happens outside your mind…your world will be viewed as safe or unsafe based solely on your thoughts. The next time you find yourself in fear, check out who’s really putting that spin on your world.

–In Healing,

I read an article once that stated that the difference between a “champion” and an ordinary performer was the number of thoughts that each one had during a given day.

The author made a point of stating that the champion’s performance was not based on the content of those thoughts but simply that champions seem to have less thoughts and seem to hold each thought for a longer period of time.

This is an interesting (and controversial) popular notion these days. Is it the “quality” of our thinking that or is it the “quantity” of thoughts that we’re thinking that produces greater results?

How does this relate to your thoughts on hair pulling? Are your thoughts the reason why you pull?

Do you know about the dangers of swallowing hair?

Surprisingly enough, not enoughparents of compulsive hairpullers do. Because hair cannot be digested, it can lead to serious medical issues for your child – and in severe cases it could be fatal. For more information please read >> Dangers of swallowing hair

Many compulsive hairpullers have experienced a great deal of trauma and use their hair pulling as a way to cope. To read further on this subject, go to my article on trauma and hair pulling.

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. -Bertrand Russell

We all struggle at times to see the magic that is right in front of us. It’s time to slow ourselves down and discern where the magic is. Our wits can never grow sharp if we’re buzzing around trying to make it happen. Rather take today to grow your wits a bit and see if you can spot the magic.

This goes double for those who deal on a daily basis with addiction and compulsive behaviors because rather than slowing down they fill their time with mind or emotion numbing things. For those with compulsive hair pulling, for example, it’s more important to find that “perfect pull” than to slow down, feel your feelings and allow them to exist within you. But it’s only in doing so that we begin to spot those magical things that are waiting for us.

When trying to end trichotillomania, sometimes the healing process offers us the opportunity to walk through an invisible door into our future. The only problem is that by walking through this door it closes, even locks behind us. We cannot go back to the safety of the past. The future lies ahead, its path uncharted. There may be vast waves of grief and anger over what has been left behind. There may be fear or disorientation. We must regain our equilibrium. We may not remember the moment we made the choice to go through the doorway into greater freedom or why we chose it. But choose it we did and now we must continue forward into our healing, into a more expanded life.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Are you a parent of a hair pulling child? My guide for parents of trichotillomania sufferers is still available and continues to be a helpful guide to parents:

New Parent Guide for Hair Pulling Children

The guide offers helpful tips and action plans for parents who want to help a hair pulling child.

Just because you go down one path earlier in your life, doesn’t mean that you’re stuck in that rut forever.
-Walter Shaw, author and ex-master burglar.

Wow! This is a great quote, don’t you think?

Trichotillomania and other compulsion sufferers are often so stuck in their repetitive ruts that it appears to them that change and a better life are completely impossible. One of the things that I help them to work on is unsticking their minds so that they can vision a better future for themselves. But, while this is a critical step, it often is not enough to get them to move to that better future.

They also need to the tools and support to do the work of healing the underlying issue that continues to fuel the compulsive behavior. For people with compulsive hair pulling and other compulsive disorders, I offer a comprehensive program that moves them through the self-healing framework.

The program is very powerful, but it alone, is not enough. The student must do the work for their own healing is waiting inside of them to be discovered.