You Can Cope with Anything Until It Kills You and If It Does You’ll Cope with That Too - and so will everybody else

Worrying is an automatic process caused by the Unconscious where we’ve attached a lot of emotional energy to some potential negative life event.

The message we’ve given ourselves is ‘I couldn’t cope!  I couldn’t cope!  I couldn’t cope!’ and it keeps churning away inside.

Trouble is we have limited control of what happens in life when it comes to nasty surprises so our Unconscious tries to keep us negatively motivated and pre-prepared in the belief that being hyper-vigilant will give us an advantage and we may just manage to outwit reality.

It doesn’t.  It just ruins the journey of life.

To undo worrying and get rid of your repeating negative emotions either take some time out alone or talk to others and go into the scenarios underlying the immediate worrying thoughts.  Feel how you’d feel if the worst happened.  I’m not talking about just touch on the feelings and jump back - I’m talking about really going into the feelings and FEEEEEELLLL for as long as it takes.  Then you’ll see yourself come out of it and this teaches your Unconscious you actually would cope.

This releases the energy attached to your worrying thoughts - your mind is full of horrible thoughts you could be thinking about but the only ones coming up into Conscious attention are those you have emotional energy attached to - feel the energy out and the horrible thoughts disappear.

Once you’ve done this enough times worrying stops.  If you won’t do this for yourself then you’re not taking proper care of yourself - I know what this feels like because I used to have the same problem and it made me seriously emotionally ill. 

You would cope and you are coping but worrying makes it 100 times worse.  Sure, you’d have a horrible time while you coped if the thing really was to happen but by worrying you’re coping over and over again and it hasn’t even happened yet! 

The newspapers are full of negative life events showing us worst case scenarios - but they also show those who survived and those who coped with those events too.  YOU WOULD COPE!  and if you didn’t you wouldn’t care anyway.

But your Unconscious won’t believe it until it sees it so you have to spend time ‘going in’ to show it you would cope by spending time with the imagined event and the horrible feelings you release.

Then one day the Unconscious realises you would actually cope and stops trying to warn you about it.

You CAN cope with going through this process - if you’re willing to do the work.

You can cope with anything.

Regards - Carl

The Mammalian Disassociation Response

Imagine if you were an animal, a mammal, with the body of an antelope and the brain of a tiger.  An omnivorous eater; physically designed to be a prey animal, mentally designed by Nature and trained by it's herd to think of itself as a predator. 

This is what a human being is.  What a ridiculously designed creature, eh?  What was Nature playing at?  No wonder a human sometimes can't figure out quite what it is or why it's thinking and emotions don't always work in line with each other.

It makes a poor carnivore; possessing a body with neither claws nor teeth sharp enough to pierce another animal's hide or to easily eat the meat below it.  It is slower, weaker and less flexible in comparison to almost all the other mammals in it's territory. 

As a herbivore it cannot digest most leaves and grasses; it has great difficulty in chewing and digesting roots.  It can easily, however, find seasonal berries and fruit - but the seasons don't last long.  So why does it survive so well?

It survives and thrives because Nature has given it the ability to create external tools.  By manipulating its external world humanity has been able to gain leverage over all other animals, plants and territories.  It has hands and fingers able to manipulate raw materials directly, turning them into tools, but it has also learned to use even more advanced tools to create and maintain extended tools that no human can directly operate.

Those creative hands are controlled by an unusual brain.  A brain with comparatively more inter-connectivity (60% white matter) than any other mammal of its kind.

Our grey matter, the matter we associate with thinking, is the same in comparison by volume as that of a chimpanzee - it's the white, interconnecting brain underneath that is much larger.  It gives greater rise to association and idea generating possibilities.

And, because we are able to associate sound and symbols so effectively and have a talking mechanism we can communicate our internal connections with others of our kind; we are super-connected both internally and externally.

Remember though, before we get carried away by how awe inspiring we are - we are still mammals.  We have the same basic biological emotional response system as the Impala, the Antelope and the Rabbit (to name a few). 

I remember the slightly perplexed look on my counsellor's face one day when I told her I'd just realised it was Nature, not me, that decided what the emotional process was and I now had to surrender my ego to the fact if I was going to heal my anxiety disorders.  You see, as a human mammal I was convinced my intellect should be running the emotional show but something much more powerful was going on and I had to accept and surrender to it.  When you suffer with an anxiety disorder of any kind you learn this lesson very deeply if you experience the Mammalian Disassociation Response.  Journeying through and out of the other side of a blocked emotional response forces you to understand. 

This is the natural experience a prey mammal sometimes goes through (if it lives long enough) when being attacked by a predator.   It is not a consciously controlled experience. 

We often hear of the 'fight or flight response' where, in a split second, an animal decides to fight or flee from it's attacker and the emotional energy driving either response is the same.  But mammals come with three responses to threatening situations, not two, and we are mammals.  The third response is the 'freeze' response - 'The Mammalian Disassociation Response' - also known as 'playing dead'. 

When you can neither fight or flee but still have all the energy powering these urges running through your body this is your only other option (unless, as humans can, you suppress it).

It is called the Disassociation Response because, in a bid to easing the pain of being eaten alive, the Conscious mind is detached from the body.  My personal experience of this, after I had been working on healing my panic attacks daily for three months (deliberately, through exposure therapy), was to have my muscles begin pulling me to the ground one night on the way home from work, forcing me to feel like laying down.

My thighs and shoulders got heavier and heavier - as though I were weight training with them at every step and at some point I was going to have to stop moving and collapse.  I looked at my hands and they, and my arms, seemed to be far, far away.  I got home from work, began searching the internet, and came to the conclusion I was suffering with the symptoms of a diabetic coma. 

I phoned my doctor who asked me to go and see her straight away - when I got through the door she told me she saw these same symptoms often with patients suffering with anxiety related issues and this was simply the ‘Freeze Response’.

I had read about the response before in Peter A. Levine's book, 'Waking the Tiger' (a book on how to heal traumatic stress disorders), but this was the first time I had experienced it.  Within thirty minutes of seeing the doctor and receiving her explanation the symptoms, which had been coming on for about three days, had lifted.  Once my thinking mind was able to label the condition and accept what Disassociation felt like for me, my Unconscious was able to let it go.

Mammals freeze or play dead with the unconscious intention of either not being noticed by the predator (moving gets you noticed) or of looking as though you're a diseased meal.  In his book Mr Levine explains how prey animals will look as though they're dead, with eyes open, while the predator stands over them. 

If the mammal is not eaten there and then, and the predator wanders off, a short period of time passes before the mammal gets up; shakes itself off and leaves the scene.

This is not a dangerous state for humans to be in unless it happens regularly – but it is alarming when it happens for the first time. If you ever have these kinds of symptoms I suggest you speak to a doctor just to make sure that is what it is. Their reassurance alone is sometimes enough to help the state pass.

Shortly after this time my panic attacks completely disappeared (they never returned) and I learned a very important lesson:  to stop trying to figure out and outwit the reality of my emotional system using my intellect.

To let the process of feeling do what it was designed to do: discharge.

Sometimes in external life we find ourselves in situations over which we have no control and we are so terrified we want to run away to avoid it or so enraged we want to attack it or undo it but still can have no effect on the situation.  Then, when our emotional reaction keeps being produced and it's obvious there's nothing to be done (sometimes because the emotionally intense reaction is in regard to an imagined scenario) we may turn on the emotional response itself, criticising ourselves, fighting it.  We hate the emotional response and the way it affects us when it comes.

We even end up producing a Secondary Response to try and keep it in check and that just makes it worse.  Now we are overwhelmed but at the same time suppressing the whole thing just so we can get through the day.

But if you were to give in to it ... lay down, let it 'eat you alive' for as long as it needs to ... what do you suppose the Unconscious eventually sees?

It sees the experience from beginning to end for what it really is - all the symptoms, the different intensities, their strange effects, and yet you're still alive despite enduring the worst.  And it stops producing the response.  You get up, you shake yourself off, and you get on with living.

No matter what the emotional type, the emotional healing process works in the same way.

We may hate being mammals sometimes, but that's what we are.

Regards - Carl

Your Prefrontal Cortex - Your Superconscious

Positioned just below and behind your forehead the Prefrontal Cortex looks backwards, like a rower in a rowing boat, into your brain and body (it is listed as the ‘Front Cortex’ in the diagram above). 

It performs your Executive Functions.  As your Strategic Senior Manager the PFC develops and monitors your long-term self-image and self-awareness process as you travel various journeys through different environments. 

'You’ lives there.

Central you is unconditionally happy you with the role of your PFC being to repeatedly return you to that state.  When you are internally emotionally conflicted it is the PFC that tells you 'you are not yourself'.

I became more aware of the workings of this brain-part about three months into my self-devised healing plan during which I was carrying out daily self-exposure therapy sessions in regards to my obsessions.  Until then I hadn't known it even existed and became gradually more aware through the functions it performed. 

Initially I imagined I had somehow developed a new place from which to look at things, almost like a new personality, but in truth I was learning to shift my consciousness - the point from which I saw things - into this part of my brain.  I did this by asking just one question:  'how does it (my emotional process) work?'.  I had spent years telling myself how it should work, but it wasn't working that way.

Simply by repeatedly looking inwards, watching my emotional system for prolonged periods of time without critical judgement, I began to change my inner dynamic.   Other parts of my brain's conscious activity, such as my thinking chatter, began shutting down quicker while memories and pictorial information were being accessed more often.  I was now in the habit of hunting emotional energy responses and matching them to imagery to which they were attached - then moving consciously towards both.

At first I named this newly discovered part of myself my Silent Observer.  I called it 'Silent' because it did not work in word-based thinking.  I called it 'Observer' because I noticed the moment it saw a particular part of myself in a different way permanent changes began to occur in the way my emotions operated.  They began to release in dramatic bursts and then disappear.

Initially I had started the process of going in using just my thinking word-based brain - I would mentally talk to myself a lot - but this new picture-based part was taking over the job and any thoughts for or against working on myself would quickly die down.  After I had done the self-work for a couple of months I couldn't stop going in even if I wanted to - it was now automated.  Day and night my Silent Observer forced me to go into emotional reactions I hated.

For a specific period during sleep the Prefrontal Cortex works on the imagery flowing through our brains - we call it dreaming - and during this time it talks to the Unconscious through the Right Neo-Cortex (your Conscious Pattern and Picture Mind).  It decides which images are dreams and which are reality.  It establishes a visual map of how different areas of your life are connected or disconnected.  By the way, your Right Neo-Cortex never sleeps and your Unconscious uses it to talk back to your Conscious all of the time.

I watched as my Silent Observer observed, experimented and tested my emotions like a cold hearted scientist.  The 'Observing' moments began to increase in number.  The Silent Observer began spending more of its time away from what was going on in the outside world because it was getting results internally it had always previously looked for out there.  I imagined it to be like an ecstatic engineer who had been trying to bring an old engine back to life for years and suddenly understood what needed to be done. I started to experience a great deal of frustration - something overwhelmingly determined had lit up in the front of my head and was angry at how long the change process was taking. 

Now starting to develop a belief I could actually remove my obsessions my Prefrontal Cortex pursued anything new it spotted like a rabid hunter.  It wanted to get the work done before any external-world event could distract it.  I would occasionally wake in the middle of the night to find myself having a panic attack in my sleep, shaking and sweating with a pounding heart.  A new emotional layer, with new imagery, would come up into consciousness and my Unconscious would fight back with arguments such as 'I can't go there, it'll kill me!'.  My Silent Observer - the Prefrontal Cortex - would say 'that's an acceptable risk, carry on'.

My doctor, who I had been seeing regularly, advised me to slow the self-directed exposure-therapy process down as my physical symptoms were getting more severe.  I had started making regular trips to the hospital due to having strong heart palpitations; my stomach acid had become imbalanced and my blood pressure had rocketed - one nurse told another a reading she took from me was the highest she'd seen in her career.  But I couldn't stop.  I explained to my doctor it was like I'd gone over the curve of a rollercoaster ride and to stop now would take more effort than to just go with the ride.  My Prefrontal Cortex  had won the battle - it was going to keep working on my inner world now whether my Unconscious wanted it to or not. 

The Prefrontal Cortex is our predatory brain part. 

It forces us to hunt.

It performs multiple functions such as:

• acting as self-motivator; moving you in different directions, in different physical postures and generating different emotions according to different environmental contexts


• your main source of judgement (is it you or is it them?); it decides what 'real' is as it assesses the meaning of the many signals reaching it through the rest of your brain - sometimes, when it's tired and sleep deprived, those signals get sent straight to the emotional Limbic brain in error and you can find yourself reacting automatically to something without knowing why


• managing your value systems - it decides what goals in life you are emotionally attached to and moving towards, and how you prioritise or line up your journeys towards those goals, one over another, and then redesigns your brain to adapt your behaviours to support the value hierarchy this creates for you.

And there’s more.  The Prefrontal Cortex also produces:

• hope: it projects picture-based suggestions of wonderful environments you could move towards and calls on experiential sensual memories to enhance the affect; it triggers the initial production of Dopamine causing you to become pleasantly attached to the idea of something (craving) and moving towards scenarios built only in your head and then Seratonin to make you feel satisfied when you reach the goal


• despair: it projects picture-based horror stories telling you about things to be avoided; about things pursuing you and which you (allegedly) need to keep a continual lookout for - it triggers the initial production of Adrenaline and Cortisol in order to stimulate fight, freeze or flight reactions (and it can do this in regards to your own emotions too) causing you to avoid scenarios that do not yet exist in reality


• depression: in depression it initially produces rage at being detached from something seen as a high value priority to the self-image; when rage does not ensure reattachment it then attempts non-cooperation with the process of life itself by withdrawing electrical activity in certain parts of the brain; it pulls back into the lower Limbic brain in a bid to avoid acknowledging the painful loss but paradoxically causes itself to set up home in the very worried, brooding brain


• gratitude - it can train you to start upwards from rock-bottom by learning to appreciate every little positive thing; you don't do this by default - this is a re-learning process


• intuition - the Prefrontal Cortex can learn to pay closer attention to certain signals it previously ignored so sharpening its ability to see 'in-between' signals; to shift from a subjective experience to an objective viewpoint and then make better informed directional judgements.

A lot of this activity is carried out in the imagination - the Prefrontal Cortex's image manipulation and association tool.  But we’re not finished yet - it does even more than that:

• it creates logical cause-and-affect memories by deciding which of your brain's signals should be kept and stored as named 'facts' for later retrieval


• it records visual patterns, using these as templates for future actions - it imposes these patterns on your internal and external world; it is the creator of both positive and negative expectations and also of disappointment and pleasant surprise


• it is a solution hunter - searching through your many internal signals for sense and meaning and it does this because it is also your direction-finder - to find 'meaning' is to find 'direction'.

also, of most importance in emotional healing it is the part of you that:

• consciously affects neuroplasticity - the connecting and disconnecting ability of your brain's neural pathways


• it can persuade the Unconscious to co-operate in re-establishing emotional flow by forming new connections


• it is the part of you that, when it hears the mantra 'you can't cure your emotional condition, you can only manage it' decides that message is unacceptable and tells you to proceed towards full healing anyway


• it's the part of you that finally decides to override your social programming, making the achievement of internal unconditional happiness your top priority while developing the view that if you do this your social environment will benefit anyway as a result.

Oh, one more thing - it's also the part of you that made you emotionally ill in the first place because it previously made some wrong decisions about the direction in which you should travel in order to find your unconditionally happy self.  Sorry about that.

Your Prefrontal Cortex is Your Superconscious

We use the Prefrontal Cortex all the time but we may not become consciously aware of it until we start making plans to move into a new environment.  It is this part of us that keeps reassessing just how much we want to move, and then drives us on, making us increasingly determined despite coming up against obstacles.  It reminds us of what we're moving away from and what we're moving towards.  It will even lie to us to get us there by promising things it has no way of knowing exist for sure (we call this faith).

Because we're not consciously engaging with it all the time we may regard it as a part of our Unconscious, but it's actually our Superconscious.  Our overseer and future programmer.

It instructs the Unconscious, which then goes on to automatically work on behalf of the Prefrontal Cortex's instructions once they are imprinted enough times.  Whereas the Unconscious is concerned with self-protection and maintaining the safer status quo, the Prefrontal Cortex is concerned with taking measured risks and trying new things.

The Unconscious and the Prefrontal Cortex are in constant discussion with each other, with your Conscious thinking mind - your Left Neo-Cortex, sitting between the two.  When suffering from an emotional block your thinking mind experiences the discussion as a non-stop fight it can’t quite figure out by using it’s sole resource and tool - thinking.

When deciding to heal emotionally, by using a technique such as exposure therapy, you force your Prefrontal Cortex to reconnect with the parts of the Unconscious it is currently avoiding, getting your word-based thinking mind out of the way and entering their more picture-based discussion. 

Trapped emotional energy is released and the old neural pathways the energy once travelled through start to disintegrate like disused railway lines.

New ‘happiness pathways’ are created and they become your more permanent way of thinking and feeling (this is not a theoretical change in thinking, it is physical reconstruction of the brain - it hurts and takes time to achieve). 

In the next post we look at the Left and Right Neo-Cortex and the roles they play in your Emotional Information Cycle.

Regards - Carl

Completing Your Emotional Information Cycles

All emotional disorders are caused by blocked full-body 'emotional information cycles'.

The most common model for multi-cellular life on Earth is the tube and organic tubes live by managing the cyclical flow of things travelling through them. 

Living tubes take things in from the world outside; manipulate what they take in, extract what they need from the flow then pass other things back out into the environment.  This cycle is rhythmic, the rhythmic pulse produced being dependent on the organic system concerned (compare your breathing cycle rate with your sleep cycle rate, for example). 

The rhythm of our emotional cycle depends to a large extent on how we work psychologically as an individual.  We all have the ability to block emotional energy release through psychological 'non-acceptance'.  We can also reverse this blocking through learning 'acceptance' (opening the psychological valves, so to speak).  Because of this difference in psychologies, differences in what we accept and reject, one person's 'emotional rhythm' will pulse at a different rate to another's.

As a rule babies do not block their emotions.  They feel, they express, they heal - and they do it really loudly and quickly too.  As babies turn into adults however they develop different approaches to emotional expression based on different life experiences and then begin matching these to varied forms of 'social programming feedback' from their social environments.  Each of us has different opinions about what we 'should' be feeling or doing and where we ‘should be’ feeling or doing it as a result. 

Adults generally learn to express less and suppress more, holding their responses in check to maintain and get benefit from important and complex social relationships.  Too little suppression can put you in jail or worse; too much suppression can make you emotionally sick.

When any biological  lifecycle is blocked or disturbed the organism experiences tension; discomfort; illness; sometimes even death.  Our emotional system is just one more biological system, designed to operate in a certain way.  We take in sensory signals; we let some signals float on by while others we extract from the flow; we act on those extracted signals and we put thoughts, attitudes and behaviours out into the external world on the basis of them.  We change our entire physical positioning, and occasionally our entire 'environmental set', on the basis of this particular life cycle.

Blockages of any biological cycle occur either because an environment does not provide the right things needed (what's coming in may be poisonous to us), or the environment is not accepting what the organism puts out (rejection is painful, isn't it?). The cyclical rhythm is disturbed, with the organism finding itself out of synch both externally and internally.   The return to balance, to 'homeostasis, where the rate of emotional flow is at the' Goldilocks Point ' of being just right, takes a lot of energy to bring about following such a disturbance.

If you are someone stuck in a blocked emotional state right now and want to return to homeostasis (non-emotional, unconditional happiness) your job is to learn how to complete your internal emotional information cycles. 

Please note if you are suffering with a severe emotional problem you should not attempt to do this work without the support of a medical professional. 

Here’s a quick version of what a normal emotional information (not blocked) cycle looks like:

It all starts in your Prefrontal Cortex.

• The Prefrontal Cortex sends signals to


• the Left and Right Neo-Cortex commanding them to send signals to


• the Limbic Brain which sends signals both into the brain and also to


• the Endocrine System (glands) which releases chemicals containing


• Ligands - molecules containing information which travel through the body in the carrier liquids we call hormones (and in the brain as neurotransmitters).  Ligands travel through the body looking for the appropriate receptive organs, muscles and other bodily parts which they then attach to via


• Cell Receptors which float on the surface of cell walls.  Once the ligands attach to the cell receptors the cell receptors begin contorting their lower strands, which are buried within the cell body, at about 10'000 times a second, causing the cells to vibrate internally producing an intense energy driven


• emotional response which travels through the body and then back up via the Reticular Formation into the brain reaching the


• Prefrontal Cortex at which point the responses asks for permission to release and


• if the Prefrontal Cortex accepts the need for physical release the energy flows and nerves either drive


• your muscles to physically discharge energy through movement targeted at the external world or the Prefrontal Cortex can decide the energy can be released just through the process of


• feeling alone and the energy flows and clears - with both the Unconscious and the Prefrontal Cortex working together to fully release the energy and then when fully released


• the Prefrontal Cortex confirms the threat is no longer present and produces a sense of satisfaction or relief and the whole body returns to a relaxed state.

So it all ends in the Prefrontal Cortex too. 

Did you get all that?  If not - read it again and build a picture of the full journey in your mind. 

It starts in your forehead, travels backwards through your brain then downwards into the body and then comes back up through the body, through your brain, and the energy releases; evaporating either through physical activity or through surrendering to the process of feeling alone.

Although the cycle I've described above is probably much more complex, with lots of other activities and communications going on in the brain and body, that just about sums it up.  If you were to focus on that model during healing it would be sufficient for you - for your Prefrontal Cortex, that is, to understand what needs to be done.  A blocked emotional response is a full body information cycle needing completion.

In my next post I’ll be discussing the role of the Prefrontal Cortex, the starting and finishing point of our emotional responses, in more depth..

Regards - Carl

PS I’ve not posted in quite some time but I’ve not been idle (honest!) I’m working on ‘the book’. The book will be a mechanics-style guide for people suffering from severe emotional disorders on how to get back to being unconditionally happy.

It’ll be a ‘live’ book - which means I’ll be putting a free e-book version on the blog when it’s complete (there will also be a link for you to go and buy the paperback version should you prefer). It also means you’re going to see the content developing on the blog through my posts (this is one example). The finished book may look different (including the style) but the message will be the same.

Response to Kurt who is on the path to healing from Anxiety and OCD

Hi Kurt, thank you for getting in touch and giving me permission to reply through the blog.

The main body of your initial email and the second smaller follow-up email you sent are at the bottom of this post in italics if other readers wish to look at the whole thing.  To answer your email as thoroughly as I can I am going to split the content up into paragraphs and then respond to each paragraph separately if that’s OK?

Here we go:

Learning to Think More in Pictures

When healing from my my own obsessions I would go into the nearest available emotional response available (this may sound a bit strange but when you have practiced doing this for a while you get used to the idea that entering the emotions trapped within is the key to remove emotional disorders of every kind). 

When I did this very strong imagery would come up.  By ‘strong’ I mean it completely dominated my mind while I was in the emotional response.

I would move my Conscious towards the obsessional image and then other images, not the image at the centre of the obsession (although that was there too) would start to appear after several hours.

They were either images regarding the nature of the process I was trying to enforce or about the situation and environment I was in at the time the obsession developed. 

At first I did not realise these images had any meaning or use at all.  I would just get a ‘sense’.  After a while though (a few weeks) I started to realise this was how my Unconscious was talking to me.  Sometimes it was warning me not to go towards the obsessional image (with pictures of certain death) and other times it presented imagery I had not seen before (such as the picture of a hill or of a horrible building in the middle of a beautiful scene).

It took me a few months of doing this on a daily basis for me to realise these images were advice on how to see things in order to heal. 

When we enter our emotions we also enter our Unconsciously stored memories of the pictures we sent down, sometimes years ago (in your case, 10 years ago).  If we enter them repeatedly and communicate to our Unconscious we want a new approach to resolving our blocked emotional problem eventually the Unconscious starts coming back with suggestions of its own - it communicates these suggestions in pictures.

If you think of your basic internal design as being similar in structure to any human business organisation you can form a picture of your Conscious, thinking brain, being like the Board of Directors while your Unconscious acts in a similar way to how a large workforce would.

If an organisation makes cars, for example, and suddenly it decides to drop cars and make bicycles instead management should expect a bit of a rebellion from the workforce in regards to what looks like to the workforce a crazy management idea going to put everyone out of a job. 

Fear, anger, frustration, rejection should be expected.  But if management are as gentle as possible while they keep pushing for the new approach eventually the workforce starts to co-operate and comes up with ideas of its own on how the new goals can be brought about.  This mostly happens for us when we start to accept our own intense emotions have not actually killed us yet despite our belief they just might.

The first impression I got when I received your email was of a ‘wall of painful information that cannot be resolved or coped with’.  I got that impression just by looking at your email as a whole without reading the content.  There are few paragraphs separating the text in your email (if any) and if you look at it visually the words look like bricks in a wall.  I assume this is what your Unconscious is currently seeing?  An impenetrable wall? 

The second visual impression I get is of a concave mirror.  The reason I get this visual impression is because the content of your email reflects my own experience several years ago during my healing process.

I remember saying to a counsellor how, when I looked at my condition, I felt I was in a mirrored ball with only my own emotional responses bouncing back at me.  I could not seem to get through that wall.

Does that relate to your experience at all? 

As we heal from emotional disorders such as obsessions and OCD I found we become much more image and pattern focused - this is because pictures with emotional energy attached are the common language between the Unconscious and Conscious minds.

Word-based thoughts produced in our thinking mind create pictures (like sticks used to build a hut) and then these pictures, produced in the right neo-cortex (our picture and pattern mind), are projected down into the Unconscious.

Some of these pictures look threatening – we see ourselves as though we are not coping or could not cope with them – and we attach a negative emotional response to these pictures. 

Where the threat is genuine in the real, outside world we feel ourselves ‘forced into a corner’ to react and protect ourselves and at some point we fight, flee or surrender.  This usually discharges the emotional energy produced and we are able to accept and move on with external life. 

But when we believe the threat is a product of our own internal imagination we may tend towards pretending the response itself should not be acknowledged as real and then not worked with because the feared external threat is not real.

Our Conscious may now reject the idea of processing strong negative emotions in regards to what it sees as ‘only imagined events’ and the emotional energy attached to the image is not discharged.  It remains in the body still attached to the pictures.  Those pictures are continually sent upwards by the Unconscious which is really just asking for permission to release the energy attached to the image now dominating our mind.

A problem for our Unconscious is it has no filtering mechanism for deciding real events versus imagined events - that is the job of the Conscious.  When we send imagery downwards with strong emotion attached it is always treated as a real event.

Thought-based self-talk has almost no effect on changing how we currently emotionally react to things unless it is concerned with gently taking us into moving towards the trapped emotional responses and pictures presenting in the Conscious mind. 

In summary: pictures and feelings are what you need to focus on most.

So that’s the first thing I wanted to say!  Let us start looking at your email content.

i was wondering if you could help me with a 10 year problem, i had a panic attack 10 years ago , and after that i was looking for what happend thinking some one put drugs in my beer, as the week went buy i seacrhed for whta happned

You had a panic attack and you thought something had gone wrong with you.  What if you had a panic attack and thought ‘I am having a panic attack and that is perfectly normal and I will just keep feeling my way through it and I will eventually get back to normal’ instead?

What if you knew that all intense emotional responses such as these take several hours to several days and sometimes even several months (such as when suffering grief) to go through? 

We think something has gone wrong with us because it is the first time we have experienced the situation (you remember it, the moment sticks in your mind a bit like a car crash would).  But what if instead you just felt it, accepted people have these experiences, and did not start searching for what went wrong?  ‘Oh, I have had an intense fearful reaction.  I will feel it without criticising it until it has gone’.  And then it goes and does not return.

Naturally with it being an unusual experience you wanted to find out if there was a physical threat in your environment and you suspected someone had put drugs in your beer.  This is a genuine thing to be concerned about but from what I gather here you believe it was an imagined threat you should not have imagined.

I would have a short burst of fear if I thought someone may have put drugs in my beer, by the way, and so would most others.  It is perfectly normal for you to suspect things.  What we have to do when we have these kinds of suspicions is accept we have them, think about the thing and discharge the emotions as we go through them.  You could not act out your suspicions by blaming people in the real world because it was just a suspicion - but did you make the mistake of blaming yourself for being ‘suspicious’?  It is normal to have suspicions.  Just watch them and let them go by, and eventually they will.

If you had found out someone really had put drugs in your beer you would have had a right to do something about it - our suspicions simply prepare us for dealing with things should they occur in the real world. 

You could say ‘nothing happened in the outside world but internally I had a strong emotional response and I now have to feel it out of my system’ or you could say ‘nothing happened in the outside world so internally I refuse to feel it out of my system because it should not keep bothering me’.

By refusing to accept the whole thing as a normal part of being human you have frozen the experience into your body, into your Unconscious, and it is still acting like it needs to be listened to and is telling you the emotional energy needs release.

In that short section there you’ve provided some very strong images and I’d suggest you return to those; return to the situation and just re-interpret all your emotions and suspicions as perfectly normal. 

That is going to be a lot harder than it sounds though as your Unconscious ‘workforce’ is blocking you from doing that. 

OK let’s look at the next section of your email (by the way, I used to have this problem too):

i was thinking alot analizing alot, so i started picking on my thinking, then made rules up , no more going into detail, no more thinking as much , not more analizing, FROM NOW i would say , but i noticed when i started saying FROM NOW, it has been going on for 10 years and never worked, if i get a doubt thought i cant amalize it , cause i have this rule dont go there, because if i allow my self to think any thing, i will get a doubt thought and think of ways how to mange it, i will think of 2 or 3 ways to perfect it , if i get a bad feeling i will try and think of ways so i dont get this feeling any more, if i get doubt , i panic thinking its ocd, if i get tired , panic its to do with ocd, if i need a bill , panic its to do with ocd, these feelings are normal feelings , but i confuse it for cd cause the ocd causes me the same emotions, my obsesion is to think about my thinking , ways to master it, ,,if i say dont go there, this will work for a week, but i go back as soon as i get tired, if i allow my self to think it , its oges on for ever, i doubt every thing i think , if i think thoughts in detail , ITS WRONG, if i try and clarify what someone has said to me and i think it 2 times to let it sink in , WRONG , since i have said dont go there,its like form what i have read from ur blog is, i am sqaushing these thoughts and emotions dont go there, and when i get a thought close to my thinking obseesion, i panic,im scared of every thought , checking into seeing if its ok to think , cause i dont want to think my obsession, but its not working

You know how when you go into a feeling it shuts your thinking down and eventually all you can see is the image or the painful feelings or the ‘bad thing’?  That’s normal during intense emotional discharge. 

In your brain hormones are released that override all thinking processes and these hormones, for a period, force the entire brain to focus only on the issue concerned.  You are not designed to work in any other way.  During feeling you look at the images and thoughts and you figure out what actions you need to take to stop those feelings being repeatedly generated.  A problem for us though is sometimes we can’t bare to look.  We need to look.

What you should do here is feel it.  Accept it.  Rest if you are tired.

Your current thinking is denying the emotional response process what it needs.  Your thinking is trying to beat your emotional (physical) system into submission instead of working with it.  We have to get our thinking out of the way and FEEL ourselves out of obsession and anxiety conditions.

If you FEEL like resting, rest.  If you FEEL frightened, feel it.  Eventually it feels all the way out of you. 

Anxiety disorders such as this are not driven by thoughts - they are driven by trapped emotional energy needing release.  When you feel you release that energy.  If the thoughts and images the energy is attached to are still coming into your Conscious mind, Kurt, you have not released the energy attached to them yet.  Think ENERGY and only about the ENERGY. 

Emotional problems are energy release problems, not thinking problems.  Thinking they are thinking problems is the problem.

I kept slipping back into my thoughts too but eventually I learned - you have to allow your thinking to close down and go into your feelings and let your body do its job.  It takes several hours to several days to several months of daily work to clear the blocked energy out (when I first started my self work it took me 3 months to clear my first obsession; but I had 27 of them - once I learned the technique though I could clear an intense response in a much shorter time.  One obsession I got rid of in 30 minutes).

Go into the imagery and the feelings.  Stop criticising the process with your thoughts.  FEEL and SEE.

Eventually you will have new thoughts coming up as ‘insights’ and these will change your thinking so you do not have this problem in the future as long as you keep working with instead of against your emotional release process.

Again, this is a very difficult thing to do.  Removing an emotional block is a bit like emptying a reservoir through a one inch hole in a dam wall - all that thinking trains your Unconscious to stop emotional release and now you’ve got to re-train your thinking mind to simply slow down and give in to the natural emotional release process.

This will be very painful and you will need the support of your therapist (well done for having the courage to seek help through one and for being willing to share your current condition with others).

Control

Removal of an anxiety disorder, and eventual total control, is achieved indirectly by giving ourselves permission to work with our emotional responses in private, knowing we have no need to do something in the outside world in order to achieve full release, whenever they occur. 

So, for example, if someone gets me angry this week or a situation makes me afraid this week, real or imagined, I do not tell myself I should not feel these things - I absolutely positively fester on them; I have imaginary arguments with the people I am angry at (and I write my points down and agree with them too) and I explore all the reasons for my fears and angers.

I do not self-criticise or find a way to think myself out of the experience.

You know what happens after I’ve done this?  They disappear.  Once you work with instead of against your internal world this stops your apparent lack of control being a worry. 

We do not directly control our emotions - we cannot stop them once they have started.  It is possible to interrupt negative self-talk now and again to stop negative emotions being produced but if we try to use positive self-talk to block a negative response coming up it actually makes us ill.

Mastering the emotional release process, rather than preventing ourselves from having emotional responses at all, is what brings a sense of control.

Time Involved

You’ve mentioned having made several attempts to ‘go in’.  Well done on that - a lot of people get quite upset about just thinking about doing that but you’ve actually started doing it.  You’ve learned it makes you feel worse and it’s very tiring.

That’s normal.

You need to do this every day for the rest of your life if you want to both cure your emotional block and then remain emotionally well.  If you do this you will get rid of all your anxiety disorders and remain emotionally well in the long term.  It is an on-going process through which you get happier and happier.  I noticed as I processed each emotional layer I started having longer and longer periods of plain and simple happiness.

10%; 20%; 80% …. play the percentages.  It is not possible to be 100% happy all of the time because life throws things up now and again.  But 90% happy sounds great, doesn’t it?  I found if you take up things like yoga it bumps it up another few % too.

Can you see?  You need a permanent approach of dealing with your emotions (everyone does).  At first it is going to get much, much more difficult.  This is a skill that is very difficult to learn but one which will benefit both you and everyone else you come into contact with.

Once you have adopted the new approach for long enough the emotional healing takes care of itself as you see it working and your approach to new emotion-generating situations becomes automated.  It stops being a matter of ‘what do I do?’ and just a matter of ‘when do I do it?’.

Kurt, I don’t think I’ve answered everything in your email by a longshot, but please read other posts on the blog (most of them will be relevant to you) and keep leaving comments and sending emails.

Thank you so much for getting in touch.

Regards

Carl

Here’s Kurt’s full email:

how are you , i was wondering if you could help me with a 10 year problem, i had a panic attack 10 years ago , and after that i was looking for what happend thinking some one put drugs in my beer, as the week went buy i seacrhed for whta happned, then i noticed i was thinking alot analizing alot, so i started picking on my thinking, then made rules up , no more going into detail, no more thinking as much , not more analizing, FROM NOW  i would say , but i noticed when i started saying FROM NOW, it has been going on for 10 years and never worked, if i get a doubt thought i cant amalize it , cause i have this rule dont go there, because if i allow my self to think any thing, i will get a doubt thought and think of ways how to mange it, i will think of 2 or 3 ways to perfect it , if i get a bad feeling i will try and think of ways so i dont get this feeling any more, if i get doubt , i panic thinking its ocd, if i get tired , panic its to do with ocd, if i need a bill , panic its to do with ocd, these feelings are normal feelings , but i confuse it for cd cause the ocd causes me the same emotions, my obsesion is to think about my thinking , ways to master it, ,,if i say dont go there, this will work for a week, but i go back as soon as i get tired, if i allow my self to think it , its oges on for ever, i doubt every thing i think , if i think thoughts in detail , ITS WRONG, if i try and clarify what someone has said to me and i think it 2 times to let it sink in , WRONG , since i have said dont go there,its like form what i have read from ur blog is, i am sqaushing these thoughts and emotions dont go there, and when i get a thought close to my thinking obseesion, i panic,im scared of every thought , checking into seeing if its ok to think , cause i dont want to think my obsession, but its not working, i have seen alot of numerous therapist, i am thinking and changing my mind every day , of which RULE  i should have DONT GO THERE OR GIVE IN , BUT WHEN I GIVE IN , I ONLY LAST 2 DAYS AND GET DOUBT AND GO BACK TO DONT GO THERE, its really annoying i guess im just looking for help from  some one in this 10 years to say , GIVE IN, and say with this , cause if u r not scared it will bore out, but if u keep going back to dont go there, it will keep going on, ,, i have obsession with fixing my self and thinking, and emotions , i just wish i could accept emotions and dont run, accept thoughts and dont run, and to know some times i will think my obseesion, and sometimes i will let them go ,   but dont go there will never work 100 percent cause u need to go throught this to not be scared not run,  sorry about it being so long, but this ocd has cost me a house and my job , and i cant keep ging on , and reading stuff on the internet anymore , i jsut want to give in , what ever what ever please help ,,,,,,,,,  thanks in advance kurt

hi carl thanks for getting back to me, you have my permission to put my name up there or email , i dont mind, one more thing is , the therapist said to me today, just ASK YOUR SELF IF THIS IS CONTROLLING YOUR THINKING,  AND IF SO LET IT GO , BUT NOW I SEE IM OBSESSING IF THIS THOUGHT IS CONTROLLING OR IF ITS CHALLENGING , OR ACCEPTING IT , JUST A NEW OBSESSIION AGAIN,, YES PLEASE MATE, LET ME KNOW HEN U HAVE POSTED IT WITH THE WEB PAGE, CAUSE IM DESPERATE TO READ IT THANKS KURT

The Deliberate Distraction Paradox–a Quick Guide for Obsessives

Whatever you do, do not think about the Pink Elephant. 

Think about anything but the Pink Elephant.

If you do think about the Pink Elephant, criticise yourself for doing so; then deliberately plan to think about something else.

When you fail, because by trying not to think of the Pink Elephant you repeatedly re-create it in order to re-identify what it is you do not want to think about – well, you should feel bad about that.  You failed to control your thinking.  You have lost control of your mind.  You are now weak and there is something wrong with you.

Feel really bad about not being able to think about anything other than the Pink Elephant; focus on your mental failings and do this for so long the habit becomes unconscious and you now have an obsession.

To remove your obsession with Pink Elephants do the reverse – deliberately think about nothing but Pink Elephants and the nasty possible consequences of being squished by one for as long as you can.  Forever, if necessary.

The Pink Elephant will eventually leave your mind of its own accord and will stop thinking you.

This is The Deliberate Distraction Paradox.  Whatever you wish to avoid thinking or feeling about will loom even larger in your mind because your Unconscious sees your Conscious do this and assumes something genuinely dangerous is being avoided. 

The moment you see yourself trying to enforce distraction you need to reverse it and go straight towards the nearest herd of Pink Elephants.

Those Pink Elephants get a bad press.  They do not bite.  Apparently they are not even real.

Regards

Carl

Recognising When You are Being Controlled by or are Controlling Others

We may like and admire a friend who initially seems more caring than most and has our best interests at heart but over time we get a sense we are losing the ability to filter what looks like good advice to our Conscious mind from what is starting to look to our Unconscious like smothering domination - we find ourselves reacting emotionally against this treatment even though we think we are being unfair to the other person. 

 

This is your Unconscious’ way of screaming for release from another person’s sense of reality. 

 

We can also be the would-be ‘Controller’ – you start to get the sense, based on their emotional reactions, you are trying to help people against their will and need to get out of there before it all goes horribly wrong.

 

I came across the article below and thought it worth putting on the blog.

 

Regards

 

Carl

 

 

How to Recognize a Controlling Person

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Those who try to control other people are, simply put, not nice-and probably have deeper issues, most notably 'Codependency'. Here are some ways to recognize a controlling person and respond accordingly.

Steps

1. Think about your own actions. Do you often find yourself altering your own personality, plans or views to fit someone else's, even if you are a strong person? If so, you might have been dealing with a controlling person.
2. Keep track of your relationships. A controlling person will try to cause trouble between you and your family or friends. This is in order to isolate you from others. Be sure to stay aware of these traits.
3. Does the person ignore your experience? Controllers attempt to define your reality. If you say you're tired and the person says you're not, that's a good sign he or she is a controlling person.
4. Notice people who get frustrated with normal questions. Controlling people often assume that they understand how you think, even when they actually don't. They may become frustrated because their constructed image of you is at odds with what you say.
5. Be on the lookout for moodiness. People with moody personalities are often unhappy with their own lives and try to improve their situation by controlling others.
6. Be aware of people who don't seem to understand the word "no" and who will insist until they wear you down to make you give in. Remember it is your right to freely make your own decisions.
7. Consider if you are often expected to change your plans for this person. Let's say you have your day all planned out and then you receive a phone call from a friend, and you tell them your plans. The person wants to join in with your plans, with the exception that your time doesn't work well for them, or maybe that isn't the place they want to go. The next thing that you know, your plans have totally changed. You end up seeing a movie that you didn't care to see, at a time that you didn't really care to go.
8. Listen for compliments. Often people with control issues are not very good at giving sincere compliments. They do not want you to feel good about yourself because it may take control and attention away from them.
9. Remember that controlling people may try to use fear to control you. Notice that this person might make up a lot of stories that will scare you, and if you don't believe them or give in to the fear, they will try to persuade you however they possibly can that whatever they are saying is true. They will try to push this fear on you, and want you to believe it. Don't give in.
10. Watch out for controlling people if you are very attractive, for they can make your life miserable. Your looks will become a handicap in a controlling relationship, for they probably have a jealousy problem too.
11. Be on the lookout for not only moodiness, but temper outbursts by the other person when you disagree with them or don't do exactly what they want you to do. In their minds, you are challenging their authority over you.
12. Remember just because someone is opinionated doesn't mean they are controlling. A good test to tell the difference between someone who is just very opinionated or controlling is if they willingly accept or tolerate differences between you and them and don't try to change any part of your core person or personality.
13. While relationships are not democracies, neither are they dictatorships; seek a balance you are comfortable with.
14. If you really love this person things can be much more difficult. Most people who are controlling always throw in the argument the words "you are the problem" or you have a problem." Nothing is ever their fault.
15. They always use words like " do this" ", "if you leave", "you need to...", etc.
16. They can be very generous and seem to give you lots of things. So you always feel like you're benefiting from them in some way and so owe them something. They then use that obligation you feel towards them to control you.

Tips Controlling people often have difficulty dealing with problems objectively and will manipulate the conversation to blame others when their own mistakes are pointed out. Be prepared to firmly make your point, then end the discussion without allowing the controlling person to successfully shift the blame to you or others.

• If you are a person who likes to control others, step back and take a long look at the stress that you may be causing someone else.
• When controlling personalities sense that they are losing control, they can psychologically induce physical problems such as back pain, stomach pains, fainting or hives. This is simply their way of gaining control of the situation again by gaining the attention, sympathy and concern of others.

• Controlling people often do not have close friends, and rarely are friends with others who are more attractive, intelligent, or well-liked than themselves. They tend to be jealous of popular, successful people, and will criticize those held in high-regard by others.
• Listen for compliments. Controlling people will rarely compliment others as this would divert attention from themselves and their desire to be the center of attention. Compliments, when given, are backhanded and actually point out some flaw or defect in the other person.

• Controlling people often demean or criticize others as a means of building themselves up and appearing superior and in control.
• Trust your feelings and try to be honest with yourself. Don't be afraid to reach out to others you trust for your emotional needs.
• Relationships and friendship are not built on who is in control.
• The stronger a person that you are, the harder a controlling person will work to tear you down. It's like an ego trip for them.
• A controlling person may try to control the way you dress and speak, or they may even criticize your opinion.

• Controlling people can be both male and female; both romantic and platonic. Be just as wary of a jealous friend who hates your significant other as you are of your significant other especially if your friend is unhappy with his/her romances.
• if you are being isolated or pushed into spending time with only "their" family and friends without respect to your feelings or wants.
• It is likely that a controlling person plays head games, in order to hide this major fault that they have.
• Special note: there is a big difference between being in control of one's self, and trying to control other people. Having good self-esteem is a good thing, the other isn't.

• If you are a strong, secure person you may over time start to feel a bit weird about how you can never be correct in much of anything around this person. Especially if it is a topic they feel they know a lot about. Listen to these feelings, they are there to guide you.
• Controlling people are very manipulative. They will not like it when you try to stand up for yourself about something that is important to you. Always try to stay calm in conflicted conversations and do not lose your cool. Keep in mind that they probably will because you are challenging their control. End conversations immediately if they start to get verbally violent either by leaving or saying goodbye and hanging up the phone.
• When possible, force yourself to distance yourself from someone you believe to be controlling you.

Avoid conversations, interactions, mutual interests and friendships/relationships where you are in their presence. Doing so will allow you to gain a more healthy perspective about your life, as well as force you to seek out your own individuality and independence away from this person. Do not provide an explanation to this person for your need for these changes. That will only invoke more attempts at control since they will know what you're up to and their manipulations will prevail. Just make the changes. Remember that the problem of control is theirs and not yours. The goal is to liberate yourself, not fix the problem.

Warnings

• The longer that you allow other people to control you, the weaker you may become.
• If you find yourself changing your interests to those of the other person or giving up former hobbies or friends - you are probably in a controlling relationship.
• Remember: we teach people how to treat us. If you find yourself constantly "giving in" to the other person, you are not being yourself and are being controlled.
• Set firm boundary lines of what is and isn't acceptable to you when dealing with a controlling person. They will push these limits to test you. Stay firm and don't back down.
• Just because someone has a forceful personality doesn't make them a controlling personality. The test is " DO they allow you to be yourself or do they unduly influence your behavior ". You should know this instinctively.
• Watch for people who try to play on the emotional side of you to gain your trust early in the friendship. Such as telling you what a hard life they had because they were bullied 6 years ago but they feel they can only trust telling you. Then when they find out what others have said to hurt you they'll bring it up constantly like
• "How did you feel again when you were cheated on? Don't you think that you did something to deserve it?" They will seem sincere and caring at first but then they bring it up and use it to subtly insult you until you agree with them. This is sort of a mind game, influencing you to think of yourself the way they want you to. You will often find yourself feeling upset, angry and deflated after a conversation and then they will try to persuade you to do other things they know you don't like.

Related wikiHows

• How to Cope With a Controlling Person
• How to Live With a Controlling Person
• How to Recognize a Manipulative or Controlling Relationship
• How to Find Peace
• How to Achieve Inner Peace
• How to Cope With False Hopes

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