I think aspergers-friend posted this video, if you get a chance watch it.
I ended up buying his book and on the front cover it had this equation:
Anxiety = Uncertainty x Powerlessness
Now the prevailing negative emotion in my dreams is Anxiety. I like how he broke this down quite nicely. Dissecting emotions and their causes can really help in terms of coming up with a solution. For me the sense of powerlessness goes back to the days when I was a kid and my parents tried very hard to control me. Often I felt powerless or out of control. I also often had issues with uncertainty especially about the future, in terms of relationships and finances. I often was in fear that my parents would put me out on the street, since I was such a rebel child defying their religion and all. My mother used her emotions to guilt trip me to no end, I felt terrible.
Which leads me to something Sage-friend brought up about Landmark. Apparently during the course 30-40+ year old people were breaking down and crying, realizing their entire life and career had been built on premises of some kind of negative experience that usually happened in childhood. Something to the order of “I’ll never let that happen again” …or “I’ll prove them wrong”. Similar to how aspergers-friend is trying to eradicate poverty because he grew up in it. Your limitations as a child become the very thing you embody in your career/life. There is a certain kind of bondage here….Its why 90%+ of doctors had some medical issue in the past, its why most therapists are some of the most psychologically screwed up people, etc.
So I thought, hey I’m not doing something like this am I???
Then i realized I am in a round about kind of way. My interest is Energy and Power. Power & energy specifically represents freedom, from tyranny and control (in this case my parents). Energy represents life force in terms of combating the Chronic Fatigue I had for over 15 years. BOOM!
It shocked me to realize this. And then i began to question…is this ok? Am I being a slave to my past negative experiences? Is that what defines us as people? Is this how we setup our lives? How does personal soul inclinations arise form this with regards to creativity? Somehow I think it’s all interconnected. My favorite sport is Kiteboarding, chiefly because of the freedom you feel when your out on the water at one with Nature. Recently I had a nightmare my parents damaged my kiteboarding gear…..
Over the last decade or so I felt powerless. The chronic fatigue I experienced was debilitating. I had a difficult time working, failed many courses at school. My organic grocery/supplement bill often ran about 2k a month. I felt bound to my parents, how could I survive without their fiscal support? I felt trapped…still do to some degree. My desire for independence is very strong. It seems very unjust to complain about parents that financially support you, however there are emotional strings attached and often it doesn’t seem worth it. And the emotional reality of it all in my case goes back to childhood. Most kids that have Allergies…or immune system problems early on in life become germaphobes. They create undue worry/anxiety for themselves.
It is fascinating to think, how many people out there, their very careers symbolically stands for something they are trying to overcome. Is it working for them? Are people finding resolution? How can we be more free? How do we differentiate between what we truly love to do and what we feel bound to do/resolve because of our past? How many people don’t make the connection….and are forever chasing their tail trying to resolve/control something that can’t be given their methods?
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Not sure if i have covered this yet, but I have thought about it a lot, and that is the concept of social survival and how it is manifest in the body and the nervous system.
You see most people think of survival or necessities like food, water, shelter, etc. However there is another form of survival that is often not considered that is seen by the body as equally important if not more important than basic physical necessities, and that is social survival.
When a child is born into this world is completely and wholly dependent on it’s parents. A child needs to form a strong emotional bond with it’s parents in order to know that it is safe. If however, the parents are depressed, emotionally upset, distant, unloving the child will fear for it’s survival. It can only communicate through emotion, it can’t talk yet. This is often why children cry, in order to get attention. Now depending on the parents, the child as it grows will learn what it needs to do in order to get attention. An empathetic child may try to sympathize with a parent and try to “make it happy” in order to get it’s needs met. Another child may resort to deviant behavior in order to get it’s needs met. Whatever the behavior may be, the child will try various tactics in order to gain a connection for initially its very survival depends on this ability.
Fast forward. The child now becomes an adult. Those tactics and behaviors are not necessary any more because as an adult you are not dependent on people for your physical survival, where as a child you were. The problem is most people don’t unlearn those beliefs and on the nervous system level they still believe they need others for survival. This then manifests itself in a whole host of social related problems and insecurities.
Heroic Mastery 