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Healing and our Brains, Moving to a stress-free reality

A Recipe you may find tasty

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I was recently talking with someone about how to have a better life, one in which returning past issues did not get in the way of being productive and happy, generally speaking. In the course of our conversations, a rough recipe for progressing in this direction developed. While I don’t consider the recipe definitive and welcome feedback so I can refine it, a good starting point it certainly will be.

Figuring out how to begin when we want to move from where we are to where we want to be is often a challenge.  When we have not dealt with certain events in our lives and our feelings related to those events, these feelings and thoughts tend to accumulate within us and start to have an impact on our thought processes and behaviours.  We’ll be puttering along in our everyday life, something will happen that triggers an exaggerated emotional response and eventually we’ll realize that we are feeling just as awful as we felt ages ago in a similar situation. “What the…??” we might ask ourselves, having thought  that issue X had been long gone and yet here it was popping up into our lives, uninvited and disruptive. Regardless of how much we try to fool ourselves, any unresolved issue from the past can be triggered back into our lives at any moment. All it takes is the right trigger. What follows below is a recipe for consciously dealing with those past issues in a systematic and caring way so that they get resolved and lose their potential to cause more problems.

Know where you are going

A journey without destination is fine so long as you don’t mind the wandering. In our case, this journey is more like baking a cake, hence the recipe analogy and the need to define some sort of desired result or outcome. A destination/outcome for this journey could be something as simple as “I want to spend much less time feeling sad and much more time feeling peaceful.” Or it could be something along the lines of “I want to remain calm and centered when someone does or says something which today would trigger anger in me.” The destination is important, but there is no need to spend a lot of time on defining the “perfect” or most important destination. Pick any destination/result which will enhance your life and then follow the recipe below until you get there or reasonably close. You can always pick another destination in the future, and repeat this process/recipe as many times as you like. Each time you consciously release stored feelings, you will lighten your load and there will be a cumulative effect.

Ingredients Needed

Like any recipe, it helps to have some basic understanding of what is involved before beginning. You’re going to need some ingredients and some will have to be prepared in advance of the recipe itself so you don’t get bogged down in the middle. Each of these ingredients will help the other, so they are all important and interdependent. At the same time, being human, you are allowed to cultivate these ingredients as you go along, so there is no need to have them all “perfect” before starting.

Patience –  All personal growth/change takes some time. Sorry, no magic instant cures here. And, truth be told, most of the instant cures you’ve heard about don’t work that well, if at all. There might be one that truly does exist, but it has yet to become a panacea, so in the meantime, let’s just accept that we’re going to have to take some time to get to our destination. After all, we have spent most of our life until the moment we start to effect change establishing patterns and habits and world-views and beliefs which are so ingrained that we hardly notice them. Be patient, and don’t try to become someone new in a few days – life does not work that way. Think of how a ship turns at sea – it takes some time, but it turns, gently and steadily, until it is in the right direction. Sudden change = disruption, water splashing all about, and struggle against what is there. Change is also not about abruptly stopping what we have committed to in our life, but about evolving toward a balance between our existing commitments and our envisioned future.

Awareness – If we are not aware of where we are, it is next to impossible to get anywhere new, except by accident or happenstance. When we embark on a journey of change, we need to notice where we are, notice what is happening inside us, and notice our progress.   Becoming aware of the need to make changes in our life is the first step, and  once one does this, one becomes more self-aware all the time. The main things that we will be paying attention to on this journey are what I call the BETIS: Body Sensations, Emotions/Feelings, Thoughts, Images in our minds, Sounds or words we hear in our heads. Each of these is a form of inner communication and once we start paying attention to them, we are on our journey.

Persistence – If you seriously want to get to a better place, then you must do the work involved, as often as it takes. It can be hard to move on from a habit or reaction to which we have an established connection.  But, as the saying goes, when you wake up in the morning, you are faced with the same swamp as yesterday, filled with the alligators of life to fend off. One of these days, you will start to drain the swamp and that will aid in the alligators disappearing. Draining the swamp is key to being alligator free or at least reducing dramatically their presence in your life.

Acceptance – Accept that it is human to feel anger or any other feeling. You are human and we humans have emotions.  Do not try to control your feelings or resist them. Just feel them, notice them, feel them, notice them. Eventually, if you accept and allow those feelings & thoughts, they will dissipate, on their own. If you try to suppress them, control them, or make them go away, you will only delay this process and will be fighting with yourself, which usually results in frustration and feeling drained.  Yes, we live in a world in which we are taught to fight with our emotions, and look how well that is working… not!   Acceptance also means that you do not try to make sense of anything that happens at this time. Whenever you have strong emotions your brain is designed to help you survive and there will be more confusion than clarity.  Once the feeling has been released, you’ll have plenty of time to think clearly, so give yourself a break and just accept the feeling as it is, without analyzing prematurely. You can stop trying to figure it all out – the answers you seek will come in due course, as any confusing mess will disappear once you release the stored emotions.

Allowing – Your journey is not about trying. It is not about effort, but about allowing.  Feelings which are uncomfortable are normal and human. Allowing them to arise and then flow through you and out of you is the only way for them to pass, even if that takes a while. Do not try to stop yourself from feeling or thinking. Fighting your experience only delays the resolution you desire.   Allow yourself to feel anger and other feelings that you might normally avoid because they are uncomfortable. Allow yourself to feel them for as long as it takes for the feeling to flow through and out. There are techniques such as AER which can speed up the release process around a feeling, but you can also simply sit with the feeling. It is human and natural to feel anger, sadness, guilt, etc.  If you often feel guilty when you say NO, well that is just being human. What is also human and needed is to allow yourself to feel any emotion and then move on without judgment of having had that feeling.

Focus –  Concentrate, as best you can, on just one feeling at a time. Feelings are often interlinked, but if we pay attention to just one at a time it is easier to notice it fluctuating and eventually dissipating. Notice what is arising in you emotionally when you pay attention to your inner world. Those emotions are what will keep you in the old. Releasing them, will enable you to move a little bit ahead on your journey.   When you have released a feeling, you can take a break or allow the next to arise. But do not worry if feelings jump around, seeming to increase and diminish. They are like bundles of energy in flux, and when you allow them to flow, they will discover that you are OK with them being and OK with them leaving, and they will go on their way.

Time and space – Setting aside some time and having a space in which you can take this journey is very important. You want to be able to be relaxed and to be undisturbed for at least 30 minutes each time. Invest in yourself by putting aside the time and finding a private secluded place to relax and notice.

Commitment – When you start paying attention to what is happening inside, a lot of buried feelings will probably want to come to the surface. They want to escape, to be free and your role is to allow that to happen. Starting on a journey of self-healing is often like opening the door to the basement – you never know what you might find down there, and it is often more than we remember having put down there. For many people, feeling something that has been buried for years can be scary or uncomfortable at first and there will be a tendency to stuff those feelings back down. Stuffing feelings down inside us only results in more pain, as the pressure will build until it suddenly explodes. Staying committed to the journey is critical, even when it feels hard to do. The reward is freedom from each of the stored feelings that you will release and their reduced impact on your life.

Impartiality – Judging our feelings as good or bad and reacting to them only causes us to have relationships with them which keep them stuck inside. Being impartial or neutral or non-attached to these feelings will greatly facilitate the release of them. So, just notice them. “I am feeling sad”, for example. You are not your feelings, so it is not correct to say “I am angry” as that suggests a permanent condition rather than the temporary experience you are really having.

Emotional support – As anyone who has seriously tried to do anything new has discovered, most of the people around you will find it hard to accept your attempts at change. They will resist them overtly and covertly, all under the guise of wanting “the best” for you. They can’t help themselves – they want things to stay  in the “devil-known” zone. You will find it much easier to effect the change(s) you desire if you have an ally, someone who will be on your side and encourage you to stick with it when the going is not so smooth.

Environmental support – If you live in the middle of a whirlwind of activity, or eat junk food too often, or have any other elements of your life that are constantly disruptive, then this journey will be harder. Diet, for example, has been shown to have a direct effect on your mental state, so eating foods which give you a mental boost, both for mood and for concentration, will be an essential part of the support you create around you. For some interesting reporting on the diet connection, see the film Super Size Me in which the author finds himself feeling lousy after eating a lot of fast food.

How to bake your new life

Now that you have a notion of the ingredients needed, you can bake your cake, embark on your journey. Here is the recipe, and it is very simple and straightforward:

All you have to do is pay attention to your inner world and allow whatever feelings come up to be just as they are and then  flow out of you. That is it. The “tricky” part is that the normal human approach to life is to avoid discomfort, and so we normally do not willingly sit with our uncomfortable feelings, allowing them to be and to flow out of us. We run away from them, distract ourselves, medicate ourselves, stuff them down and out of sight in our inner basement. For this journey, it is crucial to pay attention and stay in the feeling, no matter how counter-intuitive that may seem at first. Eventually, like riding a bicycle, you’ll be doing this naturally.

To begin, write on a piece of paper (or copy this to a word processor and print it):

ALL FEELINGS ARE NORMAL AND HUMAN.

IT IS OK TO FEEL WHAT I AM FEELING.

JUST FEEL ONE THING AT A TIME.

ACCEPT WHAT COMES UP  – IT IS ALL PART OF BEING HUMAN.

ALLOW THE FEELING TO BE.

ALLOW THE FEELING TO LEAVE.

STICK WITH IT UNTIL IT LEAVES, AS BEST I CAN.

WHATEVER I AM ABLE TO FEEL TODAY IS OK

Have this paper in front of you when you are in the process of being fully aware, to remind you that it is OK to feel whatever you are feeling, as millions of other humans have felt before you today and millions will feel tomorrow.

Now go and bake

Go to your secluded place, get comfortable and if you want, listen to the guided relaxation meditation found on this page:

http://www.vibert.ca/mp3/

Here is a direct link that you can use to download it directly:
http://www.vibert.ca/mp3/relaxation-meditation-with-Robert-Vibert.mp3

As you listen, you will notice the BETIS I mentioned above. Just notice them. If you find yourself getting distracted, just notice that. If you don;t want to listen to that recording, then sit in silence or listen to some instrumental music.

To track your progress, start a journal and note down what feelings come up during an awareness session, giving each feeling a subjective intensity rating on a scale of 0-10 when you start to pay attention to it, and then when you finish noticing it for that session. Perhaps it will be 6/10 when you start and 4/10 when you finish. That’s OK. Perhaps it will be 4/10 when start and 6/10 when you finish, and that’s OK, too. There is no right or wrong, there is only noticing what is there. Just the act of conscious noticing is enough to facilitate the natural human process of release of those long stored emotions.

Do this noticing each day if you can. Notice what comes up for you and allow it to flow through and out. Just do your best, whatever that is for you each time. No judgment, no analysis, just notice and just be.

After a while of doing this awareness exercise, you will start to notice that some feelings that used to pop up don’t do that so much anymore or not so intensely. Others will arise for their turn at being released. You’ll get a bit closer to your destination each time.

Copyright 2010 Robert S. Vibert, all rights reserved. Constructive feedback and suggestions welcomed.

Healing and our Brains, Moving to a stress-free reality

Excuse me, my past is calling…

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Excuse me, my past is calling

by Robert S. Vibert

Has this ever happened to you?  There you are having a perfectly normal conversation with someone and all of a sudden your past calls you up, grabbing your attention and hijacking your focus! Those uncomfortable feelings from the past surge inside you, maybe prompting your stomach to knot up, your face to flush, your body to feel strange. Or maybe it is an emotional response that pops up, with anger, embarrassment or sadness flooding over you.

You knew that it was your past calling, using it’s speed-dial right to your core, right?

Maybe the feelings were so strong that you missed the connection and thought that these were feelings caused by whatever was happening in the present. This is one of the most common things we humans do – conclude wrongly that our feelings (emotional and bodily) are solely about the present.  Hey, popular magazines are always telling you how to “deal with” these feelings, but based entirely on the current situation. This “what to do when this happens” approach ignores the profound impact that our past has on us. There are numerous studies which show how the experiences of our early years have significant effects on us for the rest of our lives (or until we resolve those injuries).

Those who have resolved past issues find that new problematic situations have much less, if any, impact on them as the cumulative effect is now absent. Our past no longer gets to mess with us, throw us off balance or trigger all those feelings that we would prefer to not have.

On the line to the past

Although there is a huge industry of babble-therapy – excuse me,  talk therapy, that has people tell their stories over and over, that approach is popular mainly due to some good marketing. Edward Bernays, who was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and the main developer of public relations, invested a lot of time, money and clever marketing techniques in promoting his uncle’s ideas on human psychology as valid and useful. Psychotherapy became accepted and then preferred. This steamroller of “talk therapy is the best way to solve your problems” continues today to be promoted in films, TV and other media, even though there are numerous other methods which are as or even more effective.

One of the major issues that people have with talk therapy is that clients are often called upon to talk about what is bothering them. There are a few major concerns one should have with this, including

Examining our past in detail is often a futile effort, as many influential events are not stored in our brains as conscious items, especially when they happened during our earliest years – how much can you really recall of your time as a baby?  And, even if we do have some conscious memories of a traumatic event, the story is pretty much irrelevant anyway as our brain keeps changing the details. There are many influences on our memories, and the conclusion of those who study this area is that memories are unreliable indicators of what actually happened. In fact, if you take the approach of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) or hypnotherapy, one can rewrite or overlay an awful story with a better one. (There is a better approach than this application of “good memory” whipped cream on “bad memory” cow patty.)

The other major concern is the PPE (Problem Processing Engine) in our brain which will invent a reason for these feelings so that we can “solve” that problem of where they came from. Someone in a position of authority (“therapist”) asks us to talk about our problem (uncomfortable feelings) and our PPE will kick into high gear trying to “figure out why” we feel that way. The answers it comes up with are often superficial and shallow, along the lines of “I feel this way because Johnny said something nasty to me.” Applying a little emotional detective work to this initial conclusion might reveal that the feeling actually has nothing to do with Johnny or what he said but really arises from some incident that occurred ten, twenty or even fifty years in the past. Our PPE is good for many things, but emotions are not problems per se , so it often reaches the wrong conclusion about what gave rise to the feeling.

Talking about some issue or painful event mainly serves to reinforce those neural circuits so that memory is kept alive, along with all the pain that is associated with it. This is actually counter-productive, as the goal should be to move on from the pain, not keep that fire stoked.

The bottom line is that while talking about something painful does offer some relief (we feel acknowledged and accepted by the listener if they are skillful, and we may learn that others have had similar feelings which means we are not uniquely cursed), this is really only temporary as evidenced by the extensive number of talk therapy sessions “required” to feel better and the reports of those who finally resolved some issue using some other approach after years of “therapy”. Of course, feeling better is what we reach for when we are in pain, but just feeling better for a little while is only a stop-gap measure, not a real and long-lasting solution.

The normal human revulsion to the concept of constantly dredging up the pain of the past in the hope of fixing it and the much better results obtained from methods which aim to liberate the person from the pain instead of teaching someone to “manage it” have combined to lead many people to look for problem resolution approaches that are fast, effective and cost-effective. And, fortunately, they are finding them.

Disconnecting from the past

How does one disconnect from that call from a painful past? The principles are the same no matter what specific technique one uses. These are the principles embodied in the Awareness Expression Resolution process:

  1. Become fully Aware of the pain. Notice it, as it is, without judging it or wanting it to go away or trying to figure it out.
  2. Acknowledge the pain. It is there every time you look, so you gain nothing from denying it or avoiding it other than delaying the inevitable encounter.
  3. Accept the pain as normal and human – we all have pain and it is entirely likely that many, many people have felt exactly the same as you. Accept it as it is, with no attempt to rationalize, explain or understand it.
  4. Allow the pain to be and allow it to go. Feelings come and go and if we allow them, they will flow through and out of us. Pushing it away will only create more neural connections to it, keeping it firmly in place.
  5. Express the pain. No need for any big production here – just writing it down or saying it out loud (alone or with a trusted person) is usually enough. No need to tell the story, just report on the pain itself – “I feel sadness” or “I feel anger” are good examples of simple, clear and precise expressions of the pain. If a name or exact description of the pain escapes you, then use something generic, such as “I feel yucky” or “I feel down” or “I feel stuck.”
  6. Experience the pain, for a few moments. While there is no need to stay in the pain for longer than a few moments, it is necessary to experience it just long enough for the brain circuits where it is stored to become engaged and then release it.
  7. Consciously Release the pain.  Let go of it and let it go on its way. Think of this as being like letting a pebble drop out of your hand. You do not throw the pebble or make it go away – you simply let it fall naturally when you open your hand. Painful feelings can be released just as easily.
  8. Stay in the process until you reach full release – there is nothing left of the pain and the memory only contains data, not emotional content. You can see the scene but are no longer involved or emotionally engaged in it – it is like a boring movie that has no interest to you anymore.  At this point, that pain is resolved and you have reached Resolution with regard to it.

Reaching Resolution on an issue is the key to not having this pain from the past speed-dial you in your present. Once you have released the emotional energy around an event from the past, it can no longer make that call to you in the present. As one releases more and more of the painful episodes from the past, the present becomes more pleasant and balanced – there is little if any interference of the past and its pain and whatever happens today is seen and responded to as just that today. This is much better than responding to a current situation with today’s emotional response compounded by past pain from similar situations.

Free of our past pain, we start to see people as they really are, with our vision and interpretations no longer distorted by past pain and memories.

The main thing getting in the way of more people using this sort of approach is that we’ve been sold two erroneous messages which make it hard for us to accept the simplicity of just letting go of the past:

Life problems take a long time to be solved and require a lot of effort.

We need to understand why we feel a certain way in order to get past it.

Both of these messages are baloney. I know of many people who have released painful memories in minutes. And, they did not need to talk about their past or pay someone thousands of dollars or euros to effect that release or give them some explanation. They just needed to commit to trying a little experiment and allowing themselves to take a walk down Release Lane.

Releasing stored pain from the past is really something that needs to be experienced to be understood – no volume of words can describe how free one feels after releasing some past pain that has been calling us far too often.

Copyright 2011 Robert S. Vibert, all rights reserved.

 

AER is a system to enhance the natural human release mechanism. One of the recorded AER sessions is available for FREE at my Facebook public page. Other AER recordings are available for the low cost of $10 each.

Moving to a stress-free reality

How to Successfully Ruin Your Life in 3 Easy Steps

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How to Successfully Ruin Your Life in 3 Easy Steps

by Robert S. Vibert

Here you will find exactly what you’ve been searching for! This vital information is not covered by those magazines at the checkout counter that you have been browsing through for years, nor those hundreds of websites and books you have been reading. Here you will also discover the latest and greatest details on what you absolutely need to do. And, best of all, it will be explained in three easy steps! Read on!

If you have paid any attention to the average recent article on just about anything, then you’ll not be surprised by the claims made above. They are rather routine and common while still being new and improved! And, best of all, they are not to be found anywhere else! They are yours exclusively… not counting everyone else who is reading this, of course.

Now, on to the meat of the question, or the pumpkin, if you are vegetarian. How exactly does one ruin one’s life in three easy steps? You may be surprised to discover that it is very easy and requires no initial investment. In fact, it will cost you nothing at all! (Unless you want the hard copy, which is available for a modest processing fee…)

Without further ado, here is what you’ve been waiting breathlessly for all your life, or at least since you started reading this. (Do take a breath now, as it will make it even easier, if that is possible, to take in all this wonderful material.)

Step One: Pay no heed to what is going on with you and the world

Even though there are all kinds of important things happening around you all day long, you really should ignore them as much as possible. If you pay any attention to them, you might make informed decisions, and you certainly don’t want to do that. Ignorance is always the best defense!  You can claim that you did not know that products go on sale at the supermarket every week, and that is one of the reasons why you are always short on cash.  You can also state for a fact that you have no idea why your car keeps breaking – who knew it needed to be serviced regularly??! Generally speaking, you want to be as oblivious as possible to the happenings of the world.

With regard to your self, it also best to completely ignore the signals your body and emotional heart are giving you. Numb down those physical pains with massive doses of painkillers and distractions, as you don’t want to know that you might need to change your habits or get out of that chair and exercise a little. And, if your heart is complaining of emotional distress or pain, do your best to medicate that as well, using as many substances as you need, ranging from chocolate to ice cream to brownies and if that does not work, bring out the heavy guns: alcohol and drugs.

For good measure,  distract yourself with massive doses of TV, sports, romance novels, and any other distraction you can find. The last thing you want to do is look at what might be troubling you. After all, if you notice anything about your life, you may have to own your part in it, and have to resign your membership in the Professional Victim of Circumstances Beyond Our Control Club.

Step Two: Focus exclusively on the small stuff

There are significant changes happening in the world today, including pollution, growing inflation, widespread bankruptcies, food shortages, catastrophic natural disasters, severe depletion of fish stocks, and increasing contamination of food by toxic industrial chemicals, to name just a few.  To be successful at ruining your life, you should have ensured that your mind wandered off in the middle of that last sentence. After all, you do not want any more than milliseconds of your attention to be on these sorts of problems. They are serious ones, so best you make sure to only pay attention to what immediately concerns you.  You know, stuff like the sports game on TV, what your favorite  celebrity is up to, and how traffic is flowing on the roads and behind the checkout counter in your local big box store. You can also add to this collection of minor stuff that you pay excessive attention to your latest sitcom and “reality” TV programs, fashion trends, computer games and anything else which is really not all that important to your survival or personal growth, but that does provide for mindless distraction.

You want to keep your attention firmly on those things which will keep you away from noticing that the world you live in is being neglected and abused at a wholesale level. Surely someone else will take care of all that boring stuff so you can focus on “whatever”.

Step Three:  Gain more skills

This last step is not so obvious to many people, as it has become part of the mantra of modern life. Much of the “education” we receive is based upon learning and perfecting skills. Day after day, we learn more and more skills and credential-ism reinforces this trend, as getting a new job often requires that we can list off an impressive group of skills and courses that we somehow managed to complete.  Whether or not we can actually remember and apply these skills in an effective manner or even judge when to apply one or none of them is usually ignored, so best you ignore that too. Just keep on acquiring more and more skills until you cannot remember when to use them or even how to really use them. You need to stockpile them, like arrows in your quiver, ready to be shot at a moment’s notice.

If you are trying to improve your relationship, for example, the Relationship Obtaining, Improvement, and Repair (ROIR) industry has dozens and dozens of skills they want you to learn as they are sold as absolutely essential to relationship success. You read about these all the time in the magazines of impeccable research sold at newsstands everywhere – you need to communicate better, you need to tickle more, you need to pander to your partner’s insecurities by constantly telling them how wonderful/pretty/thin/handsome they are, etc., etc.  Never mind that most relationship problems are caused by unresolved  inner emotional pain and traumas, and no amount of skills will fix that. The ROIR folks want you to learn these skills which are actually pretty useless for those who are suffering from the wounds of their past (i.e. about 99% of the population), so get out there and do that! Read another magazine article about how to fake it until you make it, even if that is a dismal approach to real success.

And, there you have it! Three simple steps guaranteed to make it easy to ruin your life. Consistently applying these steps will ensure that you regularly get sideswiped by things that happen in your life, that you waste a lot of time and energy on activities and substances that provide only temporary relief from what ails you, further draining your bank account and spirit. In short order, you can join the hordes of happy sufferers who spend most of their time complaining about the sad state of their affairs, looking about puzzled at where they are in their life. If you really want to ruin your life, there are many more steps that you can take, but given that they actually might require some effort, best we leave them for another day.

What’s that you are saying? You don’t actually want to ruin your life?  Then why did you read this article? Were you enticed by the “three easy steps” and missed the part about it being an article on ruin, not on success? Oh, you are actually looking to improve your life? And you noticed how many of the resources you have been consulting are like recipes that require lots of steps and skills you must develop and yet you wonder how they could actually work.

Well, far be it from our normal procedure to present more than one main concept in a single article, what with all the union rules on that sort of thing, but here’s a hint:

When you find it hard to improve on any life skill, look for what is blocking that effort. More than likely, it is an emotional issue with that subject. Once you resolve the emotional issue (usually by simply releasing the stored emotion) you can then get back to improving your life and developing whatever it was you were trying to, without that major distraction getting in the way. Succeeding is not complicated, but it does require that you put some effort into it, and stay focused on the important things in life, which are not money, celebrities or entertainment.  Any time you find it hard to focus on the bigger life picture, look inside and see what is being stirred up. Take care of that and the rest will much easier fall into place.

If on the other hand, you do want to ruin your life and remain a victim, then please diligently follow the three steps above and successful ruin is yours to be had!

Copyright 2011, Robert S. Vibert, all rights reserved. May be posted elsewhere with proper attribution and a link back to this blog.

 

AER is a system to enhance the natural human release mechanism. One of the recorded AER sessions is available for FREE at my Facebook public page. Other AER recordings are available for the low cost of $10 each.