What Did I Do Wrong?

Dear A.B. Curtiss

I was reading in your book today because I'm having a particularly bad day/ week/ month/... you get the idea. I've tried to focus enough to use your method but it seems like my mind is like a gear box that has seized. I'm exhausted from a lack of sleep due to the tension/pain I live in with my ribs/back. I am in the most fear I have been in at this point in my life and at the very same time the most peace. It's strange to feel that way. I know that I know everything is going to be fine and at the very same time the background subconscious is running frantically around saying that everything is wrong. I believe in the cool calm conscious part of my mind thankfully but what gets me is the fact that although this is not permanent I need to figure out what work needs to be done so that the primal mind stops harassing me.

Page 268 in your book Depression is a Choice points out that if we have some pressing issues we need to address we had better take care of them or our primal mind defense system is going to keep beating us up. I wholeheartedly agree with that. My issue is, What is my problem? You quoted someone in your book as saying that enlightenment is just the realization that there is no problem. I guess in reality the problem is that my mind has given me thoughts that I took at face value and then labeled problems. so in that sense I don't really have problems only the illusion of problems. Which would explain why, under all this pain and pressure, I feel like everything is alright. It's actually kinda weird. Before reading your book and actually looking at my thoughts objectively I would have been in a serious fix right about now. 

So I guess what I am getting at after all that fluff is... What can I do to stop my mind from racing all over the place trying to find a comfortable/ controlled situation, which only ends up freezing me in more pain? What do I need to fix or take care of? Childhood wounds(I think that's bull)? The back pain ( that might never end because it has been chronic)? The inability to focus? I'm at a loss. This morning my brain felt like molasses. So slow and unable to think. The strange thing is that if I was unable to think I wouldn't be able to write you this email so obviously I can think and obviously it makes some kind of sense so all is not lost. 

Oh yes and another question. What on earth did I do wrong/ Where did I go wrong? I don't know that you can answer that not knowing me at all but I thought I'd ask anyways. –T

Dear  T,

I don’t think that we “do things wrong.” I think that we are always in the right place to learn the lessons we must learn in order to become stronger, wiser and advance to the next level of awareness.  Of course, the lessons are often painful ones.

I also believe that when we are at our lowest ebb, when we think we can’t go on, we can humbly ask for help and help will come to us from somewhere, in some form, to guide us through our difficulty. Whenever I ask for help I protect myself from any possible “dark power “by insisting that any help must be “for the good of humanity.”

For chronic pain I can suggest hypnosis. There are many books on self-hypnosis, tapes, and courses available. I would suggest you take a course in self-hypnosis. Hypnosis is not only good for chronic pain but for learning how to relax. Yoga is also wonderful too for strengthening the body and learning how to breathe properly and relax. A. B. Curtiss