What Makes Emotional Healing So Hard?

When I was 5 years old our family moved to Starkville, Mississippi.  My dad had secured a position as a research scientist at Miss. State Univ. that was simply too good to pass up.

Starkville was a small town like many other small towns across America.  Life was slow and safe and predictable.  All in all, not such a bad place to live.

For the next 12 years, I was a Starkvillian.  Like so many other young boys I spent most of my free time exploring the world from the comfort of a bicycle seat.

Life was full of adventures.  Looking back now, it resembled a series of Norman Rockwell paintings.

But it wasn't always so idealistic.  In fact, for over 20 years after leaving that small town I hated everything to do with Starkville.  I called it a nightmare existence in a God-forsaken town.

So why do you suppose I hated it?

I Focused On The Negative

Like children everywhere,  my wonder years consisted of good events, bad events, and many mediocre and neutral events.  Good times that made me feel good. Bad times that made me feel bad.  And many events stirred little emotional reaction at all.

However, my problem was that I discounted the good events, while elevating the bad ones.

The painful events on my past became like anchors - the pillars of the past.  The defining moments of my life.

Certain events would happen, and rather than simply feeling the pain and moving on, I would suppress and repress those painful emotions.

Paradoxically, while I denied the feelings, I elevated the events.  I would take a painful situation and make it much worse than it really was.

I Embellished My Past

How do you embellish a painful past?  Intentionally exaggerate its stature and importance.  Like a playwright constructing a play, I would add drama for the effect it created.

I would set the stage.  Get the lighting just right.  Play suspenseful music in the background.  Create a prologue -

"The story you are about to hear is true.  Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent..."

Like one of those old Dragnet TV shows!

I built it up anyway I could.  I made it sacred.

And no matter what, I could *NOT* feel the feelings of those past events and let them go!  I needed those unresolved emotions to breathe life into an otherwise-dead past.

I spent way too much of my time giving CPR to a corpse of the past.  Ever given CPR?  It'll wear you out!  It's hard to do it for very long; it's just too much work.

Imagine doing it for decades.

I defined my life by those highly selective events of the past that were being kept alive ONLY by my emotional energy.

I Was Giving My Power To The Past

Thoughts and feelings are the very source of your power.  Your power - your ability and willingness to act - comes about because of the constant stream of your thoughts and feelings.

Thoughts and feelings are constantly and consistently springing forth into your consciousness.

A stream of thoughts. A stream of feelings.  Together they are the source of your power.

If you're using those thoughts and feelings to hold onto the past, then you'll have less power available to you now.  The power that could be used to heal your emotions instead becomes diverted into holding the past in place.

I Built My Past Into A Frankenstein's Monster

Out of that handful of painful events, I created a backbone.  From the backbone, I grew a skeleton. Surrounding the skeleton I grew muscles and skin and internal organs.  I gave it a heart.  I gave it a voice.

All that growth required a conscious effort on my part. I had to keep reminding myself of those painful events.

"I really was wronged."

"I really was shamed."

"I really was abused."

Building them up and fleshing them out took a lot of my power.  But it was worth it.  I got to feel like a victim.  I got to hide in my self-pity.  I was entitled. Hey, I EARNED the right to engage in any errant behavior I chose!

I earned the right to blame, to struggle, to manipulate and punish anybody I wanted.  I earned my righteous arrogance because of my embellished pain of the past.

I was powerless as a result, but that's okay.  I earned the right to be weak by all the effort I was expending to try to keep the past alive.

***
I took the best of me and gave it to a past that didn't even exist.
***

It takes constant effort to keep the past alive.  You can't just set it and forget it - like a thermostat on the wall.  You have to keep remembering it.  You have to keep using today's power to reinforce the imprisonment of yesterday's power.

We Invest In The Past

The past is over, yet so often our power remains trapped in the emotional investment we've made in certain painful events of that dead past.

The past is over.

But the very power we need to break free of those memories is instead being diverted into a much more sinister goal.  We invest a lot of time and energy creating a Frankenstein's monster of the past, and it's become too big to handle.

The power you need to heal the past is instead being used to try to keep it alive.  It becomes a tangled mess.

You can't heal the past until you get more power.

You can't get more power until you heal the past.

So what's the answer?  First, you heal a little bit, and you retrieve a little power.  Then, in your empowered state, you heal a little more and get back a little more power.  It happens layer by layer.

And it all begins with a willingness to change.

By: Mark Myhre

Author Bio
Mark Ivar Myhre, The Emotional Healing Wizard, author of the highly acclaimed - Emotional Healing Quick Start Guide - what to do right now to feel better. Go to www.join-the-fun.com

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What Purpose Does Fear Have?

I became interested in the nature of fear and its impact on human happiness while doing research for a fiction novel I recently published. In the story, there is a contagious disease called khaos. Those infected with khaos are prone to destructive emotions such as hate, anger, jealousy, and insecurity. Let's call these khaos emotions.

I discovered that fear is the underlying cause of khaos emotions. Not all fear; just unwarranted or misdirected fear. Let's call this illogical fear.

When is fear logical and when is it illogical? Imagine a predator is chasing you; it could be human or animal. You should be scared! That fear is logical. You need to think fast and consider your options for survival. Fear alerts you to a threat and provides you with increased levels of energy and motivation to help in coping with the threat.

Now imagine you're home safe in your bed and you're feeling uneasy about decisions you made or events that occurred. What is there to be afraid of? You might say, "It's just worrying thoughts." That's illogical. Why worry about the past? If it's related to a problem, then direct your thoughts to a solution. If there is no solution, then worry won't help; and you must accept the things you cannot change.

Now imagine you're home safe in your bed and this time you're feeling anxiety about the future. Are you worried about something that may never happen? That's clearly illogical. Are you worried about an actual future event? You might say, "There's a real possibility something bad will happen." It's still illogical. Preparations and precautions are productive; worry is illogical to fear.

Worry is only one khaos emotion. Let's look at others.

Fears of rejection or disapproval may trigger feelings of insecurity or low self-esteem. Common compensatory behaviours - such as criticising others, arrogance, or shyness - may push people away all the more. All of this is illogical.

What about envy and anger? When humans feel fear, they experience a fight-or-flight reaction. This is appropriate for life-threatening situations, like being chased by a predator. Most situations in life are not of the 'chased by' sort. Envy and anger are old 'fight' emotions which once served humans in the struggle for survival. Envy resulted from the fear of not having enough of something. Anger resulted from fear related to a threat. To feel envy or anger, when not necessary for survival is chaos.

So if envy and anger are caused by a fight reaction, what's caused by a flight reaction? Other than the obvious - like running away - using drugs or alcohol 'to escape' is a flight reaction and khaos based. Substance abuse can't solve threats, life-threatening or otherwise.

Logical fear helps keep you from harm; not illogical fear. Without logical fear, humans as a species would never have evolved and survived. So why do we feel illogical fear? What causes the brain to confuse stimuli and trigger a fight-or-flight reaction when there's no real threat or danger? The answer lies in neuroscience.

Thoughts occur when brain neurons produce ('fire') signals and form connections. There's a tendency for neurons that 'fire together to wire together'. Meaning: connections between neurons are strengthened when stimulated repeatedly; and a strong connection between two neurons makes it more likely that if one of the neurons fires, it will stimulate the other to fire. As a result, the brain doesn't have to make a new decision with each stimulus; because with repeated experience, it forms associations. Consequently, repeating patterns occur and similar thoughts, feelings, and reactions are maintained. We can infer that if you practise fearful thoughts, you will have stronger neuron connections to support these emotions and they will become more natural to you. Therefore, to overcome illogical fear, you must train your brain to not react in a fight-or-flight manner when there is no real threat; and perhaps even more importantly, to not perceive a threat where there is none.

Illogical fear sabotages success. Think about it. You hope you can get promoted at work, and you fear you can't. If fear causes you to abandon hope, you are processing information in a distorted manner. Your fear is a perversion of reality. Your brain's repeating neural patterns of illogical fear want to keep firing together. Fear equals fight-or-flight. You unwittingly perceive obstacles and find diversions and you abandon your goal.

Now to address the question posed in the title of this article: What purpose does fear have? The answer: Logical fear helps you perceive and react to danger. Illogical fear serves no such purpose.

If you let your brain get into the habit of using illogical fear as a substitute for good sense and judgement, it will bring you discontent. Your thoughts will be of past disappointments and future anxieties. Mishaps will generate more fear. Your love of life and of adventure will be lost.

Eliminate illogical fear. You can accept your history, live in the present, and plan for the future. You can view mishaps as experiences that generate wisdom. You can be happy and adventurous.

Khaos emotions can be overcome if you don't give in to illogical fear. You have nothing to fear except illogical fear.

By Denise Lammi

http://ezinearticles.com/expert/Denise_Lammi/65109