Negativity is the "Default" Position of the Mind

Hi Mrs. Curtiss,

My name is D----- G------. A few years ago I read your book DEPRESSION IS A CHOICE. It is the first book about depression that I have read that gave me hope. I resonated with your family history of depression. I recently got your book BRAIN SWIITCH. I have been doing the directed thinking. However, I have a few questions.

Did you relapse along the way before you were able to stay in that place of 'I am"? I call it 'I am' and I also wonder if when one gets identified with the place of 'I am' if it has an energy of its own? I experience low energy and high energy. But, does the place of 'I am' have an energy place of its own, that is a constant supply of energy without the energy being either high or low?? I hope I am making my questions clear.

I have been using the directed thinking. I have been moving my attention to the upper part of my brain (the thinking part, the neocortex) and then speaking to myself that "I am space and healing conciousness" or sometimes I just continually speak the name of Jesus over and over. I also sometimes use hippity-hop (I just love that HA!).

I seem to be just speaking about “I am” rather than moving into the place of “I am.” Did it take awhile for you to actually dis-identify from the depression identity to living in the “I am” identity???

I grew up in a family where my dad did all the ruling and I just obeyed. Now my will seems to be stuck in "I don't want to" to my detriment. Well, really I want to thank you for your books. They are excellent and mean much to me. My copy of DEPRESSION IS A CHOICE is well worn so much so it is now falling apart. I have high-lighted , colored, and written many notes in it. Well, thanks again and I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, D. G.

Dear D. G.

I will try and answer your questions. I realize that, as an academic description, all these answers are not terribly helpful. But when you actually do the exercises, and become more observant about your emotions, then these answers will be more connected to some actual experience of your own and therefore may be of some help.

YOU ASKED: Did you relapse along the way before you were able to stay in that place of 'I am"? I call it 'I am' and I also wonder if when one gets identified with the place of 'I am' if it has an energy of its own?

MY ANSWER: Yes, at first I went back and forth from anxiety and depression to okayness like a see-saw. As I became more practiced with the exercises and formed new neural patterns in my brain that were more productive than the old depressive patterns, I was able to stay out of old habitual depressive and anxious patterns for longer and longer times as the new patterns became the “new norm.”

I never really thought of the place of essential okayness (which is what I call it) being the same as the place “I am.” But I can see where you might choose the “I am” place as being the place where you feel you are “finally okay.”

YOU ASKED: Does the “I am” place have an energy of its own?

MY ANSWER: Since you are using the “I am” place to describe your grounded center, as your arriving at your place of essential okayness, it would therefore have a pure energy that was not clouded over by fear. Usually our various states of being in anxiety or under stress have a more chaotic energy. There is a lot of energy but rather than us using the energy, the energy of these more anxious states are actually “using” us in that we head in emotional directions we really don’t want to go. The “I am” has an energy that is calm and tranquil, rather than either high or low energy that you experience in mania or depression. That’s why I call it, essential okayness.”

As you learn to insist upon turning away from depression and anxiety, the "I am" reveals itself more and more readily. I would say, rather than the “I am” having just an energy of its own, it also reveals itself as having an intention of its own which can help over-ride the mind's intention to think negatively.

YOU ASKED: Did it take awhile for you to actually dis-identify from the depression identity to living in the “I am” identity???

I still get pulled into the depressive thinking. But I no longer believe in it as some kind of reality so therefore, lacking a real belief in it, it is hard for me to self-identify with it as “my life” or “me” as I used to. I no longer succumb to it. When it occurs, I acknowledge it, and turn away from it to an exercise, or more productive thinking and behavior, concentrating on what I am doing or thinking and ignoring what I am feeling.

YOU ASKED: I seem to be just speaking about “I am” rather than moving into the place of “I am.”

MY ANSWER: I think this is because the “I am” is always there. You never lose your essential okayness, it’s just that your fear covers it over so that, concentrating on your fear, anxiety or depression, you are no longer “in touch” with the “I am.” When you turn away from your fear and anxiety, use some dumb exercise to stimulate the neural activity in the neocortex, you are able to reconnect with present reality. In a way the “I am” is an action, an ultimate intention, it is you connecting again with present reality where you are “essentially okay.”

YOU ASKED: Now my will seems to be stuck in "I don't want to" to my detriment.

MY ANSWER: Negativity is the “default” position of the mind because it is your psychological defense mechanism, always looking for problems. Also your psychological defense mechanism is an instinct, it triggers on its own. You don’t have to work at getting your subcortex to produce anger, or depression or fear. Any self-focus sooner or later triggers the fight or flight response and there you are, plunged into the emotional subcortex. It’s easy to be depressed.

The neocortex is different in that it is a later development of the brain, not an instinct, it is your higher reasoning faculty and doesn’t necessarily trigger on its own. It MAY trigger due to learned association (the way we automatically move from one thought to another), but to be sure it gets activated, you have to “will” your functioning from your neocortex. So it takes more effort. The easiest way to activate your neocortex is to give it some task (an exercise) or do any kind of non-emotional, objective thinking. This will get you out of the emotional, subjectivity of the subcortex, where all the anxiety is being produced. Then, situated from the neo-cortex, you have the opportunity to connect with present reality again. A. B. Curtiss