Knowing Techniques is not "Doing" Techniques

Hi A.B.!  Came across this article and thought you might find it interesting.
Seems the idea is catching on that what and how we think has an impact on our lives afterall!

Warm regards,

Ginger

http://www.economist.com/node/18276234

Dear Ginger,

Thanks so much for the link. The "bias in thinking the fearful rather than the neutral or positive" idea is a good one. Remember that Josef Breuer got his ideas by resurrecting the work of 18th Century Mesmer who profited from Paracelsus' ideas. And later Emil Coue carried the ideas into "suggestion" which became what we know as hypnosis.  Freud came to learn from Coue but he was too neurotic and controlling to understand the principles of hypnosis as a deep relaxation and meditation.

As far as our bias in thinking is concerned, unfortunately because the brain and its product the mind is basically a defense mechanism, our default program is always the anxious "guardian" looking for problems where there may be none. We can override this looking for problems and many people learn to do it as children. Those of us who don't learn to be more pro-active and positively thinking as children have the harder task of retraining our impulse reactive fearful  thinking as adults. It can be done, of course. And we must do it to live calm and productive lives.

My back problem was very difficult for me as I was on drugs and constantly fearful, sometimes actually escalating into panic attacks. Luckily I have done a lot of work in the past years to get rid of depression when it comes, so I had some tools at hand to get rid of the despair and fear. Not easy though. It takes courage and perseverence to insist on managing what you are thinking.

One terrible panic attack happened after I was suffering withdrawal symptoms from the medication because I came off it too fast. I had to say to myself " Hey, you know what this is, this is a panic attack. You don't have to run to the hospital or start screaming that you can't stand it and wake up everybody. But of course I had immediate empathy for those who do rush to the hospital because it is so desperate a feeling, like you are going to die.

So again I said to myself, "Hey you know that for a panic attack you need to do deep breathing, belly breathing, concentrate on your breathing, don't think about anything else but your breathing. Do it!! Do it Right Now!!!You have to take control of your thinking RIGHT NOW! Don't think about your terror. Think about belly breathing. BRAINSWITCH to belly breathing.

So I relaxed my body, took a deep breath, put my hand on my belly and with every breath in I said "in with the white light of healing and love" and with every breath out I said "out with the dark gloom of despair and fear. It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. God, it was so HARD! But I did it. I did it over and over for about twenty minutes. The terror would try to take over and I would switch my mind to belly breathing, back and forth until I could concentrate mostly on my breathing  and I did indeed recover completely, lying there in bed next to my sleeping husband. Of course I wanted to wake him and scream and yell and go crazy and leap out of bed and  insist he drive me to the hospital because "somebody has to HELP me."

So yes, what you think determines your emotional well being. But knowing that is not enough. You must put these cognitive behavior techniques  of brainswitching into practice over and over in your life until you develop tools that you can count on to save your life. A. B. Curtiss