Real growing and healing

[frank_D]

Jeff223 suggested I read something that has really resonated with me, and explains where I've been. Here are some excerpts that have been helping me to understand why I have felt the way I have and done the things I've been doing - or not doing.

This is from 'Mind OS' (http://doctorpaul.net) section on Anxiety.

When someone is depressed and inactive he "thinks too much" and takes no action. He stores his anger inside and doesn't act on it - getting depressed. With anxiety, he does manage to keep it inside, think about it, not acting on it, thinking in a destructive way, a masochistic way.

What do you think happens when we are lazy with our minds? When we don't think before we act? Our anxiety gets channeled into all kinds of impulsive behaviors that don't necessarily benefit our lives.

Because we are on "autopilot," whatever is in front of our faces is where we spend our anxiety energy to try to lower it. We overeat, overspend, overwork, get addicted to drugs, alcohol or other behaviors as unconscious ways of lowering our anxiety through spending it on these physical activities. They are all temporary fixes that lower our anxiety, but if the original sources of that anxiety are still present - loss or fear of loss, or lack of confidence about a particular aspect of life, then we see a rise of anxiety again soon after indulging our addiction.

This so much describes the way I've been feeling for so long - always thinking / feeling like I can't ever get things to 'work out'. Like my W will leave me 'any time' since she's done it before, like I can't 'get working again' and I've 'lost my edge'.

Zoning out, avoiding the things I need to do because I don't believe I can do them.

I got some sense of 'feeling better' when I help others. But still feel stuck.

When we think destructively with anxiety that is "victim-thinking", "martyr-thinking", or masochism. It is where you take on a "poor me" attitude, erroneously believing that you are truly hopeless, or helpless. You worry about the future and complain without offering solutions. You regret the past, and essentially are wishing you controlled the uncontrollable, "dumping" your anxiety into someone else's boundary. Doing all this may seem harmless, but it is not. You are dumping your anxiety into someone else to let them worry about for you. It is childish, win/lose behavior, where you win relief but someone else loses their sense of peace, by absorbing your negative energy.

Note that all the traits that go with playing the victim are also characteristics of nonbiological depression, and they are an illusion. We complain to the boss, we whine and moan about how helpless we are, we allow ourselves to believe there is no hope, and finally find ourselves winding into masochistic depressive thinking.

When we have this attitude long enough, people will get sick of it and turn on us, abandoning us and leaving us with even more loss than before. Complainers, whiners, moaners and masochists attract the attention of soft-hearted friends in the short run, but tire them out and lose those friends in the long run. So a negative feedback loop occurs where we get negative momentum for our personal growth. We started to make a "mountain out of a molehill" that drives friends and solutions away...

I don't need to say more. This is where I've been asking her to 'help me'. What a fool I've been.

Anxiety is not good or bad, it is a signal. It tells you something is wrong and needs to be done. Anger signals you that you have unmet needs, anxiety signals you that you have fears, challenges, changes or risks to face and rise to.

I was sitting stuck in 'helpless' instead of 'challenged'. Now I'm in between. At least I can see the interaction we've had.

Courage is the only way out of problems with anxiety, victimization, impulsivity, addictions and lack of confidence. Interestingly, the film, Saving Private Ryan defines courage very succinctly: "Do the Right Thing". Consider that knowing "the right thing" to do comes from your two inner decision-making resources, conscience and intuition! Courage then, is not bravery, not fearlessness or any other thing we lack or acquire - it is a decision!

We have no excuses. Courage is a decision, and if we are alive, we are capable of decisions, by definition. Every time we make a decision, we have to be in the "present moment," and therefore also have access to Observing Ego at those times. Courage is a constructive way of thinking before acting, done in a win/win way that sees the world as a place of abundance.

This is where the notion of faith comes in to intertwine with courage. To have faith in something, we need to have some degree of belief that our actions in the future will work out, even if we don't have conclusive proof they will. That takes some Observing Ego, first off—a "bird's eye view" of our abilities and function. But then we have to decide to think and act according to that faith.

Interestingly, we are most alone in the world when we act with courage, but after the moment we do it, the whole world wants to join us.

Courage is simply "doing the right thing, no matter how you feel, and even if you are afraid."

Yeah, right now I'm trying to figure out what 'the right thing' is. It's confusing in this context.

This next point is the answer to the question "What could my Wife have done to 'help me'?"

What in the world do we do for a person who uses anxiety in masochistic ways? The person who gets an "anxious depression"? Well, remember that these people are thinkers, so they need to be spurred into action. Then they need to do the right action to get out of depression and masochism.

Notice how a masochistic person is primarily anxious, but a little bit angry about it too. They are think-ers, not do-ers, so they need to be jolted into action. However, that action must attend to their needs - to pull themselves up out of victim-mode a little by showing them they can actually feed themselves what they need rather than complaining that they are helpless.

The first step to the answer, then, is assertiveness. Once out of that victim mode though, they will need to vanquish their anxiety
through courage, doing the "right thing" in a way that helps not just themselves, but others, too. Courage leads us to be champions of others instead of just victims or martyrs.

And my wife HAS 'spurred me into action' now and in the past. But that's the problem we've had, she is passive and doesn't 'spur me into action' until SHE has had enough of the situation and is ready to bail. That's the dynamic that has to change.

And it has to change with me. I have to do something I've never done before and that's let other people support me and KNOW me. Like FaithIsBelieving says, I need a 'Betterman' to keep me in check. It's just too easy for me to get stuck in the anxiety and inaction because I have so much childhood and other history where I have been overrun by others and even after all these years, I haven't mastered the 'confidence' part. I used to have it but it's been eroded away over time.

Maybe if you have a WAS that is in this same emotional place you might think about what you could do to 'spur them into action'. What could you do to help them see that they can 'feed themself'?

Thanks Jeff.