inCOGnito
12-10-13, 19:23
The scary road might be the only road that leads to full recovery.
Sometimes I feel compelled to write things. This is one of those moments.
The more I read about fear itself, the human mind and life in its entirety, the more I know what needs to be done to fully recover, and usually the more I subconsciously do to avoid what needs to be done.
There are many self-help books out there, gurus, websites, medications, and witch doctors that sell their versions of how to reach recovery. I think the most daming of them all are the therapists who tell us that we can only manage anxiety and not recover from it. No. Recovery and peace are all too real and readily available if we are willing to do what is needed to realise it.
This is what I know. We live life through fear. By that I don't mean just anxiety. I mean all aspects of fear. Fear of being disliked, fear of not being accepted, fear of rejection, fear of shame, fear of embarrassment, fear of fear, fear of failure, fear of succeeding, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of being alone, fear of not being in control, and so on and so on. 1000's of little fears that don't even register. Fear of saying hello to a stranger. If you look closely in your daily life we are completely driven by fear.
And I tell you this. In my heart I know all these fears are fragments. Like the branches of a tree that proliferate from a trunk, all fears project from a single fear. That is the fear of loss of self. It's a fear of losing who or what you are in whatever form. You fear death because its loss of self. You fear saying hello to that stranger in case they think you are wierd or reject your greeting. you constantly protect yourself from ANY kind of harm. You protect yourself from any perceived loss of self. You protect your sense of self even if you don't like who you think you are. It's so ingrained in us to protect ourselves from whatever might cause harm to our sense of self. We avoid it because it brings negative emotions. Loss of self will bring us negative feelings about ourselves.
So what do we do in response to this? We learn strategies and techniques to avoid facing ourselves. To avoid feeling bad. To protect what we have, even if its not what we want to be. There are infinite ways in which we do this. The most obvious one is avoidance. We avoid anything or anyone that might bring us pain. Another tactic is anger. If someone hurts us we strike out at them. We discredit them. We do anything to reduce feelings of inferiority. We turn to alcohol, drugs, television, the internet, food, daydreaming, sleep. Anything upon anything that will aid us in avoiding feeling negative about ourselves. Deep down we are so afraid of admitting who we are. and we do everything to cover it up.
All this begins early in childhood. As children we learn those strategies for avoiding feeling bad. We did it unconsciously. You've probably heard many terms from psychotherapy; denial, suppression, repression, transference, and others. All psychological terms that describe the different ways that we avoid fear and feeling negative emotions related to ourselves.
It's so obvious that you won't even have noticed it. You won't have seen the wood for the tress until it's been pointed out. Every problem you have ever had revolves around you. They have always revolved around what has, is, or might happen to *you*, the central character in your life. They all revolve around some kind of loss of self.
All these strategies to protect your self from psychological harm do absolutely NOTHING for you. They might have protected you from some short-term acute effects, from feeling some unwanted emotion. But ultimately you carry around that pain and hurt trying your best not to let it affect you. But it accumulates. You haven't expressed it so it sits there and you change how you see and perceive the world in order not to feel it. Numbing the pain of the past with medication, alcohol, self-help books, and whatever that will push away what desperately wants to be expressed. But this protection does not last. You get anxious, panic, you cry, you can't be on your own, you feel emotionally exhausted, you suffer.
Everything I understand about fear and anxiety comes down to this. You have to be fully present and open to whatever it is you are avoiding. There is no real and lasting alternative. Claire Weekes knew it although she didn't know how deep it really goes. whichever story you tell yourself, you are avoiding negative emotions and you are avoiding everything that might confirm any fears about yourself you might have. Look deep into yourself. Is there shame? Is there remorse? Guilt? Is there a fear of being no-one? a fear of being nothing? A fear of losing control?
I feel it deeply inside my heart that it almost brings me to tears. The only way to start living an authentic life is to stop avoiding everything that brings you negative emotion. To open up to everything inside that needs healing. To stop using strategies to avoid feeling any pain that resides inside. That isn't easy. You will find an infinite number of ways to deny this to yourself. The worst is saying "I've tried this and it doesn't work".
It's easy to know when you are avoiding. There will be some kind of tension, be it physical or mental. When you open up you will feel more open than you have ever done before, and it can be scary. It can be scary to open up to everything you have been hiding from. It can be terrifying. By opening up I mean letting every feeling good or bad to express itself, fully. No stories. No thinking about it, no analysing, no looking to feel better, no asking whether this is working. This isn't a technique or strategy for feeling better. This is an invitation to allow yourself to feel as terrible as it takes. It's staring death in the face and saying "ok, if I die then I'm ok with that".
I fear I haven't gotten across what I wanted, but screw it. I wrote it to remind myself, because I've found other ways to avoid this and to try other things that ultimately don't work (whatever to avoid the pain), and maybe to spark something in someone else. You'll know if it resonates or not.
"What you resist, persists"
Sometimes I feel compelled to write things. This is one of those moments.
The more I read about fear itself, the human mind and life in its entirety, the more I know what needs to be done to fully recover, and usually the more I subconsciously do to avoid what needs to be done.
There are many self-help books out there, gurus, websites, medications, and witch doctors that sell their versions of how to reach recovery. I think the most daming of them all are the therapists who tell us that we can only manage anxiety and not recover from it. No. Recovery and peace are all too real and readily available if we are willing to do what is needed to realise it.
This is what I know. We live life through fear. By that I don't mean just anxiety. I mean all aspects of fear. Fear of being disliked, fear of not being accepted, fear of rejection, fear of shame, fear of embarrassment, fear of fear, fear of failure, fear of succeeding, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of being alone, fear of not being in control, and so on and so on. 1000's of little fears that don't even register. Fear of saying hello to a stranger. If you look closely in your daily life we are completely driven by fear.
And I tell you this. In my heart I know all these fears are fragments. Like the branches of a tree that proliferate from a trunk, all fears project from a single fear. That is the fear of loss of self. It's a fear of losing who or what you are in whatever form. You fear death because its loss of self. You fear saying hello to that stranger in case they think you are wierd or reject your greeting. you constantly protect yourself from ANY kind of harm. You protect yourself from any perceived loss of self. You protect your sense of self even if you don't like who you think you are. It's so ingrained in us to protect ourselves from whatever might cause harm to our sense of self. We avoid it because it brings negative emotions. Loss of self will bring us negative feelings about ourselves.
So what do we do in response to this? We learn strategies and techniques to avoid facing ourselves. To avoid feeling bad. To protect what we have, even if its not what we want to be. There are infinite ways in which we do this. The most obvious one is avoidance. We avoid anything or anyone that might bring us pain. Another tactic is anger. If someone hurts us we strike out at them. We discredit them. We do anything to reduce feelings of inferiority. We turn to alcohol, drugs, television, the internet, food, daydreaming, sleep. Anything upon anything that will aid us in avoiding feeling negative about ourselves. Deep down we are so afraid of admitting who we are. and we do everything to cover it up.
All this begins early in childhood. As children we learn those strategies for avoiding feeling bad. We did it unconsciously. You've probably heard many terms from psychotherapy; denial, suppression, repression, transference, and others. All psychological terms that describe the different ways that we avoid fear and feeling negative emotions related to ourselves.
It's so obvious that you won't even have noticed it. You won't have seen the wood for the tress until it's been pointed out. Every problem you have ever had revolves around you. They have always revolved around what has, is, or might happen to *you*, the central character in your life. They all revolve around some kind of loss of self.
All these strategies to protect your self from psychological harm do absolutely NOTHING for you. They might have protected you from some short-term acute effects, from feeling some unwanted emotion. But ultimately you carry around that pain and hurt trying your best not to let it affect you. But it accumulates. You haven't expressed it so it sits there and you change how you see and perceive the world in order not to feel it. Numbing the pain of the past with medication, alcohol, self-help books, and whatever that will push away what desperately wants to be expressed. But this protection does not last. You get anxious, panic, you cry, you can't be on your own, you feel emotionally exhausted, you suffer.
Everything I understand about fear and anxiety comes down to this. You have to be fully present and open to whatever it is you are avoiding. There is no real and lasting alternative. Claire Weekes knew it although she didn't know how deep it really goes. whichever story you tell yourself, you are avoiding negative emotions and you are avoiding everything that might confirm any fears about yourself you might have. Look deep into yourself. Is there shame? Is there remorse? Guilt? Is there a fear of being no-one? a fear of being nothing? A fear of losing control?
I feel it deeply inside my heart that it almost brings me to tears. The only way to start living an authentic life is to stop avoiding everything that brings you negative emotion. To open up to everything inside that needs healing. To stop using strategies to avoid feeling any pain that resides inside. That isn't easy. You will find an infinite number of ways to deny this to yourself. The worst is saying "I've tried this and it doesn't work".
It's easy to know when you are avoiding. There will be some kind of tension, be it physical or mental. When you open up you will feel more open than you have ever done before, and it can be scary. It can be scary to open up to everything you have been hiding from. It can be terrifying. By opening up I mean letting every feeling good or bad to express itself, fully. No stories. No thinking about it, no analysing, no looking to feel better, no asking whether this is working. This isn't a technique or strategy for feeling better. This is an invitation to allow yourself to feel as terrible as it takes. It's staring death in the face and saying "ok, if I die then I'm ok with that".
I fear I haven't gotten across what I wanted, but screw it. I wrote it to remind myself, because I've found other ways to avoid this and to try other things that ultimately don't work (whatever to avoid the pain), and maybe to spark something in someone else. You'll know if it resonates or not.
"What you resist, persists"