Shadows Of Acceptance. Nancy Inc. Rockey

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СКАЧАТЬ worth and value, it's time to get out of the shadows and into the light of freedom you will feel when you comprehend the incredible innate value that you have.

      Fear:

      Everyone is born with a few basic fears such as falling and loud noises. All of our fears, whether they are real or just perceived, come from the conclusions we have formed about ourselves, the world around us, and the people in it.

      Real fear is healthy, protective fear and is based on a valid conclusion about the world and its people. It can prevent us from choosing behaviors that will bring us harm, anxiety or other discomfort. It can, for example, prevent us from stepping into a poorly shaped and slippery bathtub without a rubberized mat to prevent a fall or walking out into a busy street without looking both ways first.

      Mythical fear comes from faulty and self-defeating conclusions we form when we are trying to cope with toxic input from our culture or family. It is also a prediction of what will happen if we don’t make a particular choice. It is both limiting and destructive, and can prevent us from enjoying every day pleasures and relationships. Obsessions and compulsions often stem from this type of fear.

      The brain is most impressionable in the first two years of life and learns seventy-five percent of all that is needed for life during that time. Our earliest messages are received through our emotions and experiences, and the most powerful and long-lasting of these become the foundation for our later thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

      A difficult birth can make a lasting impression on the Reticular Activating System, which creates the set-point for the muscle tension or hyper-alertness in the body at the time of birth. If birth was complicated and the child’s life was in danger, fear kick-starts the Reticular Activating System, located at the base of the brain, and the infant’s muscles are set on tight or tense, and fear creates emotional tenseness, making the child anxious. The experiences of childhood or later life can increase or decrease the set point of the body’s tension. It should be noted that it is easier to increase the tension than it is to decrease it.

      Origins of fear include:

      1.Innate - Inborn (falling, loud noises etc.)

      2.Frightening experiences in the womb (mother or child’s health)

      3.Mother’s fears transferred through hormones to fetus

      4.Reality – frightening experiences of life.

      5.Faulty conclusions drawn about the world and its relation to us

      6.Childhood modeling of primary caregiver’s fears.

      7.Thoughts created and exaggerated from past memories

      8.Perceptions – usually subtle associations from experiences

      9.Body sensations which stimulate and cellular memories -- the language of the body telling us that arousal is occurring

      10.Fictitious tales told to us by others, i.e. the “Boogy Man”

      There are really only two basic emotions: love and fear. Fear drives all negative, self-protective and harmful emotions. Some people are totally controlled by their fears, and therefore miss out on a great deal of happy living. Fears make us control freaks, macho men, hysterical women and selfishness, jealousy, envy, anger, and a host of other unpleasant attitudes are ours to experience as a result of fear.

      According to Alice Miller in her book, The Drama of Being a Child,

      “. . . a child who was heavily traumatized at the beginning of his life will be in particular need of care and attention in order to overcome the fears arising out of more recent experiences” (34).

      So, ask yourself when a fear arises: “Is this real or mythical?” “Where in childhood did this fear come from?” “If love is the opposite of fear, what would love do in this situation? Is it possible for me to break out of the shadow and into the light of courage and love?

      Anger:

      Does anger come easily for you? Can you feel it rising within you at the slightest provocation? Do you hand it out to others or do you bury it deep inside you, allowing it to seethe and build as you continually rehearse in your mind the injustice you feel you have received?

      Anger can be both healthy and destructive to the human mind and body. Healthy anger feels an injustice either received personally or dished out to another, and responds by taking some positive action to remedy the injustice. Destructive anger either reacts, lashes out with negative action or it is repressed, and seethes within causing internal stressors that are harmful to both the mind and the body. Built up resentments and bitterness create nasty dispositions!

      Remember that the brain is designed to see to it that the mind and the body will survive? Anger is a survival technique. When anger rises in the human, the adrenal glands produce adrenalin to give the body needed energy to fight or to flee. The adrenals also produce nor-adrenalin and cortisol, two additional stress hormones needed for the body’s reaction to a threat. However, when the adrenal glands produce these hormones in large amounts and when there is no need to actually run or physically fight, they are destructive to the body.

      Danny's anger had raged inside of him from years of physical and emotional abuse received from his father and from repeatedly seeing his mother physically abused by the same perpetrator. When his mother’s death was eminent due to breast cancer that had metastasized to numerous parts of her body, Danny blamed his father for her illness. His rage prompted him to threaten his father’s life, planning his murder in detail. Not heeding the counsel to get psychological help to eradicate his rage, he contained it until it exploded internally and destroyed his physical body. What a loss! A thirty-two year old man, drug and alcohol free, a powerful athlete, executed by his own anger that hid in the shadows of his daily experiences, and showed itself whenever he felt rejection again.

      On the other hand, Anger can be valuable. It can cause the needed adrenalin rush to combat a threat, but when it is contained, the overload of adrenal hormones can destroy a life.

      Anger and the Brain

      It is very helpful to know that the computer-like brain stores experiences and the emotions produced by those experiences. When an event occurs in the present that has within it elements reminiscent of past anger producing experiences, our reactions are not just from the present situation, but from all similar, anger-producing past events. Let’s offer an example: Let’s say that you have had years of being called derogatory names by your father. Now you are working in a corporation where your boss has a short fuse and frequently demeans you, calling you names. You have responded by retreating and absorbing blame. However, one day, he is on a toot and doing his usual raging, and seemingly from nowhere your rage breaks out. You yell, scream obscenities and finally stomp out, quitting your job. You were reacting to all past injustices received from him plus those from your earlier experiences. It was not just the emotions of the day that you were feeling, and that’s why your rage was “over the top!” You were carrying old baggage with you, and it exploded along with your current anger. You see, the mind works that way. It’s designed to remember, not to forget, and when a stimulus comes from either inside you or from an outside source, you automatically go into your memory bank and very rapidly file through your memories, tagging each one that in any way reminds you of the present stimulus. Then you react from the current injustice and every other injustice you have experienced. That’s why it’s so easy to “blow a gasket!”

      Rejection СКАЧАТЬ