Our potential for suicide, poses these questions:
What really makes us feel that life is livable and that we have what it takes to deal with most anything we'd run up against - including: school, money, relationships, family, work, etc.?
What can really connect us to life when it feels like a doom?
What might pop us out of the nightmare?
So, here are the first of two offerings...
To snap us out of the Survival Brain back to our Higher Brain - The Nuclear Option based in brain science...
It's simple, just put a real life-or-death event next to something like a High-Stakes Test, etc. For example, put your house catching fire next to anything else you are anxious about, such as school, tests, money, relationships, family, etc.
Imagine, a couple is having an intense argument and the realize.. their apartment is on fire. Without hesitation, their concern for each other's lives takes over.. lives are saved.. hearts are opened.. love is clear.. and very possibly, there is space, and good-will for a new beginning.
The revelation in the burning apartment is:
A.) Only the immediate physical danger is truly "real"
B.) Everything else we take too seriously is made up of thinking that is locked down and made way too intense by the survival brain (and the adrenaline, cortisol, etc. it unleashes). The couple's argument was made up of grievances based on memories of past experiences and negative anticipation those experiences would go on and on in the future. They were experiencing emotional-reactive-overlearned-super intensified-patters of thought produced by the Survival Brain.
C.) The good news: As Ken Baldwin saw, such nightmares i.e. school, tests, money, relationships, family, etc., are actually much less substantial than he had believed. Such nightmares aren't made of reality, they are made of thought, they are all fixable.. we just need to access something more helpful than the Survival Brain. It all gets to be better than fixable! We are stepping into the territory where our highest brain functioning & powers of thought can shine.
But let's just stop here and honor that just seeing though our Survival Brain thinking i.e., not being fooled by it and mistaking it for an accurate ( let alone helpful picture of reality.. can transform our lives. All sorts of old memories and stories we believe about ourselves and how life is.. can become lighter... unnecessary. Chronic anxiety, depression, even PTSD can melt.
Indeed this was the experience that started the Innate Health understanding behind this blog. In 1973, when Syd Banks was told by a psychologist ..
"You aren't anxious, you just think you are!"
.. he heard this at such a deep level that he barely slept for weeks and experienced profound peace. Admittedly, his experience was extraordinary, but thousands of others have gotten real benefits just from not having to believe their "anxiety" thinking.
For those of us who are not burning buildings, at least, as we saw in post 1.3, we can step on the breaks of our Survival Brain nightmares by taking our intense feelings and reactions as a sure sign of the quality of our thinking. Our bad feelings are like a check engine light, trying to urge us to slow down.. take a break.
Also we can begin to see though the Survival Brain nightmares by taking a deep breath and tuning into our body-felt sensation. They give feedback on whether our Survival Brain thinking is actually making it harder to be alive in this present moment - with tense muscles, shallow breathing, racing thoughts, etc. -- The Rapid Resets (1.4, 1.5) and EFT Tapping Points (1.7) can also enrich our attention to our body-felt sensations that are so much wiser and quietly more helpful than the Survival Brain.
Of course, accessing our higher brain and thought functioning is what this blog is all about.. so more to come!
PS: As you may suspect, I’m really not recommending looking for an apartment with bad wiring and a gas leak... as a means of experiencing a transformative perspective on our other worries. There are better ways. PB
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