Updated November 27, 2025: Feb 3/26
(Short version far below )
The Problem
I get angry too easily and I stay angry too long. Sometimes I take it too far, always to my regret.
The Cause
Not upbringing, not experiences. Instead, psr’s. Psr = inappropriate or imaginary problem solving response. It’s not real solving of real stuff. Ipsr is too long and doesn’t roll off the tongue well, so … psr.
The Solution, The Change
Bitch and complain (synonyms are “flow” or “flow-with” or “deconstruct”) the psr’s, often many times (instructions are in the examples below). The repetitions build a memory centre that pulls my focus into it. While there, I don’t oppose myself by finding fault with every thought that forms my true response/my decision. Instead, I simply externalize it.
Good to know:
- While my mind can go blank more than a few times in a day, most of the time my mind produces a constant stream of thoughts and feelings. This stream causes many distractions, all day every day. In order to survive, (that means not die), I need to be good at ignoring them.
- All loss, no matter how small, causes pain. That pain is the feeling called grief. Thus, loss causes grief.
- Since failure causes loss of what I was trying to achieve, the loss caused by failure causes grief. The most important failure in daily life is the failure to ignore the distractions that appear at the end of my thought that forms my true response, my decision. I call the grief triggered by my failing to ignore distractions,”the pain of failing to ignore”.
- Everyone is born with a different intensity of the pain of failing to ignore.
- If my pain of failing to ignore is strong, I am naturally afraid of it. The appearance in my mind of a decision triggers the need to ignore distractions. Failing to ignore them triggers my high pain of failing to ignore, which triggers my fear of that pain. As a result, I’m afraid of making any decision. When my fear of making a decision appears, I’m compelled to solve the fear. So, I search for the cause of my fear. I find that the cause is problems – faults – with the decision and solve those faults. Solving gets me the positive feeling of relief. Relief replaces my fear and so distracts me from the pain of failing to ignore. The result: I’m always editing (looking for and solving flaws), in other words, problem-solving, the thought that forms my decision. I edit in order to get relief from my normal fear of this abnormally high pain.
- One of these edits/problem-solving responses (psr’s) to a decision is the fantasy that the feeling of relief will make me feel like acting, feel motivated to act, on my decision. (Here lieth the source of the world’s fruitless search for motivation.) But it doesn’t work. As soon as I solve one problem, a new one appears. In fact, solving signals my brain that I want to do more solving, so I can get more relief. So, it brings me more problems. Quickly, the problem solving gains momentum, and becomes out of my control until it becomes frightening and snaps me out of it. I call this constant line of psr’s “fear driven seeking of relief” or “second guessing” or “obsessing” or “bad momentum” about my decision. It’s the outcome of trying to feel like acting on my decision.
- If my pain of failing to ignore is weak, I’m not afraid of it. Therefore, my brain doesn’t produce anxiety – an abnormal fear of a normal situation, and other psr’s that mess around with my decision. I’m free to focus on externalizing it by matching my actions to the image of me acting -my action image, that’s in my mind.
- All emotions, including the grief caused by loss of anything, big or small, will keep coming back if opposed. To solve grief, including by avoiding it, is to oppose it. As a result, solving grief causes it to come back.
- All my problems are caused by me trying to solve/oppose the pain of failing to ignore. Culture says I should fix this pain. My brain says I should feel it, that is, suffer it, and see how it won’t harm me if I do. This will make me ignore it by my moving my focus onward to seeing and externalizing my true response/my decision by matching my actions to the action image of my decision.
The Seeing Sequence is the sequence of bitching and complaining /flow/deconstructing, psr’s in order to see my true response. It gets me to stop believing my psr’s which gets me to stop trying to solve the pain of failing to ignore. As a result, the pain, like all emotion, runs out by itself, most often in bits, not all at once. A good and almost must-read: Why the Seeing Sequence works.
(NB (nota bene, Latin for note well): words below, that are in brackets or separated by forward slashes, mean I can choose from several wordings, or the words are instructions, or blanks to fill in that fit my own experience.)
How to Bitch and Complain/Flow with Psr’s using the following Example List
1. Angry at me failing.
2. Angry at you limiting our good time together. (Or angry at you for hurting me, see “Seeing Sequence Meets Revenge).
3. Difficulty with transitions.
4. I try to fix something I need now but is broken.
5. Mad at myself.
Example 1
I have to solve a math problem before tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I know how to do it. But I predict I will fail to get it right. Then I magnify my failure by imagining someone’s disapproval, which makes me embarrassed. I imagine defensively explaining why I failed, or why others shouldn’t disapprove. Then I imagine them disapproving of my explaining. This blows up in my head to never getting their approval.
Now I’m angry. I imagine saying nasty things to these imaginary people. I imagine they only say nasty things back. I have failed to change their mind, which I wishfully think would have stopped my being embarrassed. Now I’m panicking. I imagine hurting them further and further, until I realize with horror how far I’ve gone. My heart is pounding. I feel disgusted with myself. I look at the math problem. It seems not important compared to what I’ve just been imagining. Again.
How do I stop this from happening to me? How do I change?
Answer: Bitch and complain (b and c, bnc).
Step 1
(Really it’s two steps but they happen so fast, they may as well be one)
Pick the thought or feeling I think is a psr. Optional: A useful guide is this page on the website: The Database of Psr’s
Predicting failure to solve this math problem, leading me to anger.
Classify my emotional response to the psr using three simple classes:
“good me” for feelings that are positive (pleasure) or for feelings that I imagine will solve things fast (anger always comes with the fantasy that I can shake up the environment into going my way),
“bad me” for hurting or judging myself.
“poor me” for fear and for feeling sorry for myself.
(NB. I decide on how many psr’s I want to b and c. It could be just one, or I could do all of them until they stop coming. The more I practice, the closer I get to one, then a ghost of one, then none. The number of practices is like learning to walk, or to play a musical instrument, or to play a sport well or to cook food well, or do anything well. It’s a large number. )
Like this
Bad me, predicting failure to solve this math problem.
Bad me, magnifying my prediction of failure, until I’m afraid.
Bad me, progressing to a worst case scenario.
Good me, angry, because I love the fantasy I can shake up the environment or shake others up or scare them into changing their mind to approving of my point of view that they shouldn’t disapprove of me.
Poor me, my mind is in uncontrolled momentum and has taken me far from math.
Bad me, fantasized standard making me feel even more inferior.
Step 2
The reversal: (find the cause of the psr’s, not by asking why, but by imagining what I would see if I didn’t do psr’s to myself.)
Because poor me if I didn’t (get so angry),
I’m afraid I’ll see I’m in the pain of failing to ignore distractions, (which occur at the end of my thought that forms my true response; that wording is coming below)
namely, the delay in the pleasure of getting over the grief from the loss
of momentum caused by the end of what I was just doing:
(which was) _______.
(
I fill this in using one of five possible “endings”. If I don’t know which one to choose, I can guess.
Endings
1) “the end of what I was just doing, (which was): imagining my action image if I see all the parts of it, or previewing my action image if I see a quick glimpse before I work out the parts”.
Examples:
All parts – doing something I’ve practised many times.
Quick glimpse: I see myself putting down a chopping knife just before I come to the end of using it, but my work surface is crowded and I haven’t yet looked for a place to put it.
2) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): trying and failing to match my action to my action image“.
Example: My failing to look at an object all the way to my reaching for it and grasping it.
3) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): feeling my happiness/satisfaction about my success (at forming and externalizing my true response, in other words, “at matching my action to my action image)”
Example: I look where I’m reaching for an object that’s not easy to hold onto, like twigs to start a cooking fire.
Or “feeling happy/satisfied/content about what just came into my mind without me trying”. This happiness is more passive than me matching my true response. It’s just experiencing, that is, enjoying, receiving/observing-not-solving, not editing, not perfecting, not putting my mark on, what the environment or my mind gives me that fits me and therefore triggers pleasure.
Example 1: something beautiful coming into my view. For this the wording is “the end of what I was just doing: enjoying seeing beauty, or feeling lucky (seeing beauty”.
Example 2: While observing a situation, usually a real problem, I get a bright idea about how to understand it or how to solve it, or both. I use this wording: “the end of what I was just doing: feeling happy that a bright idea popped into my mind.”
4) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): experiencing or observing a problem (or something that is different from what fits me), that I can’t solve now or have no business solving even if I could, or both.”
(Four Examples from an endless list:)
a) observing your lazy consideration (about what you know I need you to consider). (Example: your anger at me for being independent of you.)
b) observing your disapproval. Example: my shun of your lazy consideration.
c) observing your fear of making the transition on your own from awake to falling asleep; and your attempts to get me to fix that fear for you.
d) experiencing a coincidence that doesn’t fit me (bad luck, such as an accident, or anything I have no interest in, like most distractions): This ending is similar to 2) above in that the end is a failure. But the difference is that it’s a failure of the environment to go my way, while 2) is my failure to make myself go my way.
5) the end of what I was just doing (which was): being in a blank, (a state of no thought or feeling).”
A blank occurs when:
a) I don’t know or can’t remember what to think when I need to find an answer. This could be before I’ve tried to figure it out or after I’ve run out of ideas. Example: a math equation.
b) I finish a feeling, say happiness, that isn’t a psr. Or I finish matching my action to my action image, and I haven’t decided what to do next.
Example: A common sequence in me: a blank; then the psr “predicting failure” predicts the blank will fail to be brief; that causes fear which is another psr; then a third psr: fix the fear in the quickest way I can think of – repeat what I just finished thinking or saying. Thus, I often repeat myself to fill in blanks.
)
(End of endings, now continuing with bnc)
(I choose: ____________) experiencing a problem I can’t solve now, failing to see the first step in math thinking.
At the end of my thought that forms my true response:
I’m already dead inside about this act of ignoring. (Dead inside means I don’t at all feel like ignoring)
But I have to ignore anyway (if I want to get my decision/true response out there: even start the math problem).
So start ignoring the delay by moving my focus on to
(ignoring is done by focusing on something other than the thing I want to ignore) (I want to ignore the delay in getting over grief, so I focus on something – matching the action image of my decision with action – other than the delay in getting over grief)
mechanically (which means without feeling like it/without motivation)
(externalizing my true response/decision by matching my external action to the action image of my decision/true response)
______.” (I describe the action image of my true response)
( rereading the problem and searching my memory again for the first step I was looking for, and then looking for help when I see I won’t find it in memory. )
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind next.
If another psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2 until: psr’s run out, I decide I’ve done enough, or I run out of time and have to do something else.
If my true response, I naturally (which means in first-party observing self/un-self-consciously/without stepping outside myself/without thinking)
______ ( I describe my true response)
Reread the math problem and try to remember how to solve it.
Short version 1:
psrs: predicting failure to solve math, bad me
poor me, caught in uncontrolled momentum, in fear driven seeking of relief
distraction: (delay in the pleasure of getting over) grief from loss of momentum (caused by)
end of what I was just doing: trying and failing to remember this step in this math problem
true response/decision: focus on _______( trying again and then admitting I don’t remember and getting help )
Repeat all until I do it.
Example 2
Angry at you limiting our good time together.
I have just finished a time with you I enjoyed. I want to do it again. I imagine saying “see you again sometime”. I imagine you tell me “we’ll see”. You aren’t cool or distant when you say it. You’re casual. And then you leave.
In my fantasy, I feel scared that I won’t see you again. I imagine you don’t care if you see me again or that you don’t want to see me again. I wonder if I did something wrong. I magnify this to you thinking I’m inferior, not likeable.
I feel hurt. I picture trying to make you like me, and you don’t respond. I get frustrated and imagine trying to encounter you on a street. That fails too.
I can feel anger grow. I solve the indifference I imagine you have by becoming determined to make you like me. My pain and anger grow as I picture this failing too.
Now I blow this up to larger anger. I’ve been here before, so I know where it goes: fantasies of aggression, of hurting you or myself or the world.
If anyone knew I went this far in my head, they wouldn’t want to be around me. I don’t want to be around me. How do I get out of this, this crazy pain and anger?
Answer: B and C
Step 1
Pick the thought or feeling I think is a psr. Optional: A useful guide is this page on the website: The Database of Psr’s
Optimism followed by anger at you.
Classify my emotional response to the psr using three simple classes:
“good me” for feelings that are positive (pleasure) or for feelings that I imagine will solve things fast (anger always comes with the fantasy that I can shake up the environment into going my way),
“bad me” for hurting or judging myself.
“poor me” for fear and for feeling sorry for myself.
(NB. I decide on how many psr’s I want to b and c. It could be just one, or I could do all of them until they stop coming. The more I practice, the closer I get to one, then a ghost of one, then none. The number of practices is like learning to walk, or to play a musical instrument, or to play a sport well or to cook food well, or do anything well. It’s a large number. )
Like this
Good me, I magnified my good time with you to “again”.
I love being optimistic it will happen. Good me.
Poor me, I’m scared it won’t happen.
This is me predicting failure to connect with you in the future. Bad me.
Good me, solve my fear by imagining trying to make “again” happen.
Bad me, magnifying to a worst case scenario that you’ll never want to be around me.
Good me, anger to solve it, because I love the fantasy I can shake you up into approving of my point of view that you should want to see me again.
Poor me, I’m shocked at how far my imagination has brought me.
Poor me, I’m loony to think I can control you, or that, if I could, it would be enough to satisfy me.
Good me, thank goodness nobody sees this bad momentum, this fear-driven seeking of the positive feeling of relief that is my escalating anger.
(There are many more but my shock has stopped the worst of them, so I stop here).
Step 2
The reversal: (find the cause of the psr’s, not by asking why, but by imagining what I would see if I didn’t do psr’s to myself.)
Because poor me if I didn’t (get caught up in bad momentum of anger),
I’m afraid I’ll see I’m in the pain of failing to ignore distractions, (which occur at the end of my thought that forms my true response; that wording is coming below)
namely, the delay in the pleasure of getting over the grief from the loss
of momentum caused by the end of what I was just doing:
(which was)
(
I fill this in using one of five possible “endings”. If I don’t know which one to choose, I can guess.
Endings
1) “the end of what I was just doing, (which was): imagining my action image if I see all the parts of it, or previewing my action image if I see a quick glimpse before I work out the parts”.
Examples:
All parts – doing something I’ve practised many times.
Quick glimpse: I see myself putting down a chopping knife just before I come to the end of using it, but my work surface is crowded and I haven’t yet looked for a place to put it.
2) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): trying and failing to match my action to my action image“.
Example: My failing to look at an object all the way to my reaching for it and grasping it.
3) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): feeling my happiness/satisfaction about my success (at forming and externalizing my true response, in other words, “at matching my action to my action image)”
Example: I look where I’m reaching for an object that’s not easy to hold onto, like twigs to start a cooking fire.
Or “feeling happy/satisfied/content about what just came into my mind without me trying”. This happiness is more passive than me matching my true response. It’s just experiencing, that is, enjoying, receiving/observing-not-solving, not editing, not perfecting, not putting my mark on, what the environment or my mind gives me that fits me and therefore triggers pleasure.
Example 1: something beautiful coming into my view. For this the wording is “the end of what I was just doing: enjoying seeing beauty, or feeling lucky (seeing beauty”.
Example 2: While observing a situation, usually a real problem, I get a bright idea about how to understand it or how to solve it, or both. I use this wording: “the end of what I was just doing: feeling happy that a bright idea popped into my mind.”
4) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): experiencing or observing a problem (or something that is different from what fits me), that I can’t solve now or have no business solving even if I could, or both.”
(Four Examples from an endless list:)
a) observing your lazy consideration (about what you know I need you to consider). (Example: your anger at me for being independent of you.)
b) observing your disapproval. Example: my shun of your lazy consideration.
c) observing your fear of making the transition on your own from awake to falling asleep; and your attempts to get me to fix that fear for you.
d) experiencing a coincidence that doesn’t fit me (bad luck, such as an accident, or anything I have no interest in, like most distractions): This ending is similar to 2) above in that the end is a failure. But the difference is that it’s a failure of the environment to go my way, while 2) is my failure to make myself go my way.
5) the end of what I was just doing (which was): being in a blank, (a state of no thought or feeling).”
A blank occurs when:
a) I don’t know or can’t remember what to think when I need to find an answer. This could be before I’ve tried to figure it out or after I’ve run out of ideas. Example: a math equation.
b) I finish a feeling, say happiness, that isn’t a psr. Or I finish matching my action to my action image, and I haven’t decided what to do next.
Example: A common sequence in me: a blank; then the psr “predicting failure” predicts the blank will fail to be brief; that causes fear which is another psr; then a third psr: fix the fear in the quickest way I can think of – repeat what I just finished thinking or saying. Thus, I often repeat myself to fill in blanks.
)
(End of endings, now continuing with bnc)
(I choose: ____________) feeling happy about what just came into my mind without me trying: the lucky coincidence of you connecting to me.
At the end of my thought that forms my true response:
I’m already dead inside about this act of ignoring. (Dead inside means I don’t at all feel like ignoring)
But I have to ignore anyway (if I want to get my true response/decision out there: avoid out-of-control internal anger followed by a severe mood drop, not to mention you permanently avoiding me if I let even a small part of it out).
So start ignoring the delay by moving my focus on to
(ignoring is done by focusing on something other than the thing I want to ignore)(I want to ignore the delay in getting over grief, so I focus on something – matching the action image of my decision with action – other than the delay in getting over grief)
mechanically (which means without feeling like it/without motivation)
(externalizing my true response/decision by matching my external action to the action image of my decision/true response)
______.”(I describe the action image of my true response)
enjoying my luck and looking forward on my own to what it means in this moment.
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind next.
If another psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2 until: psr’s stop, or I decide to stop, or I run out of time and have to do something else.
If my true response, I naturally (which means in first-party observing self/un-self-consciously/without stepping outside myself/without thinking)
______ ( I describe my true response)
I observe the following: our good time together has ended and we have signalled we are parting. You are not initiating any more than that.
I notice that my wanting “again” is a psr to solve my usual difficulty transitioning from momentum through the grief caused by the end of momentum/pleasure (they’re the same) to whatever is next. I need to bitch and complain this psr.
While I may want “again”, I see I have no desire to control my future that much. As for you, I don’t even want to go near the inside of your head. That’s up to you to figure out and show. Not for me to mess myself up by trying to control you. Why would this mess me up? Because I will fail miserably at trying to control your mind, while I have enough of a challenge trying to control my own mind.
I take a deep breath of relief, feel lucky for our connection and carry on to bitching and complaining my difficulty with transitions, thankful I didn’t blow it by showing the control weirdness I used to fix my difficulty with transitions.
(See next example for how I b and c (deconstruct) my difficulty with transitions).
Short version 2:
psrs: predicting failure to see you again. Bad me.
Bad me, blowing that negative up into panic, and then fixing the panic with rage and blame in my head.
Poor me, I don’t even really feel that way.
This state of mind sucks. Poor me.
distraction: (delay in the pleasure of getting over) grief from loss of momentum (caused by)
end of what I was just doing: enjoying time with you.
true response/decision: focus on _______( move on to b and c my difficulty with transition to my plan for the day )
Repeat all until I do it.
Example 3
My difficulty with transitions.
Step 1
Pick the thought or feeling I think is a psr. Optional: A useful guide is this page on the website: The Database of Psr’s
I feel tense when I have to change/transition to something else.
Classify my emotional response to the psr using three simple classes:
“good me” for feelings that are positive (pleasure) or for feelings that I imagine will solve things fast (anger always comes with the fantasy that I can shake up the environment into going my way),
“bad me” for hurting or judging myself.
“poor me” for fear and for feeling sorry for myself.
(NB. I decide on how many psr’s I want to b and c. It could be just one, or I could do all of them until they stop coming. The more I practice, the closer I get to one, then a ghost of one, then none. The number of practices is like learning to walk, or to play a musical instrument, or to play a sport well or to cook food well, or do anything well. It’s a large number. )
Like this
Poor me, the good time is over and thus its good momentum is gone.
Bad me, predicting failure to get over this negative feeling, grief, caused by my giving up this pleasure (of my current momentum) in order to start moving my focus on to my next action image. (This focus on momentum, while sounding strange, is what I’m really struggling with; not anything else.)
Poor me, my prediction of failure has made me afraid.
Good me, I’m tensed up, trying hard to solve the fear by trying to get the momentum back, by being nostalgic.
Poor me, it’s not working.
Step 2
The reversal: (find the cause of the psr’s, not by asking why, but by imagining what I would see if I didn’t do psr’s to myself.)
Because poor me if I didn’t (feel so tense (from predicting failure) when I need to transition from the moment I’m in to a new one),
I’m afraid I’ll see I’m in the pain of failing to ignore distractions,
namely, the delay in the pleasure of getting over the grief from the loss
of momentum caused by the end of what I was just doing:
(which was) _________.
(
I fill this in using one of five possible “endings”. If I don’t know which one to choose, I can guess.
Endings
1) “the end of what I was just doing, (which was): imagining my action image if I see all the parts of it, or previewing my action image if I see a quick glimpse before I work out the parts”.
Examples:
All parts – doing something I’ve practised many times.
Quick glimpse: I see myself putting down a chopping knife just before I come to the end of using it, but my work surface is crowded and I haven’t yet looked for a place to put it.
2) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): trying and failing to match my action to my action image“.
Example: My failing to look at an object all the way to my reaching for it and grasping it.
3) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): feeling my happiness/satisfaction about my success (at forming and externalizing my true response, in other words, “at matching my action to my action image)”
Example: I look where I’m reaching for an object that’s not easy to hold onto, like twigs to start a cooking fire.
Or “feeling happy/satisfied/content about what just came into my mind without me trying”. This happiness is more passive than me matching my true response. It’s just experiencing, that is, enjoying, receiving/observing-not-solving, not editing, not perfecting, not putting my mark on, what the environment or my mind gives me that fits me and therefore triggers pleasure.
Example 1: something beautiful coming into my view. For this the wording is “the end of what I was just doing: enjoying seeing beauty, or feeling lucky (seeing beauty”.
Example 2: While observing a situation, usually a real problem, I get a bright idea about how to understand it or how to solve it, or both. I use this wording: “the end of what I was just doing: feeling happy that a bright idea popped into my mind.”
4) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): experiencing or observing a problem (or something that is different from what fits me), that I can’t solve now or have no business solving even if I could, or both.”
(Four Examples from an endless list:)
a) observing your lazy consideration (about what you know I need you to consider). (Example: your anger at me for being independent of you.)
b) observing your disapproval. Example: my shun of your lazy consideration.
c) observing your fear of making the transition on your own from awake to falling asleep; and your attempts to get me to fix that fear for you.
d) experiencing a coincidence that doesn’t fit me (bad luck, such as an accident, or anything I have no interest in, like most distractions): This ending is similar to 2) above in that the end is a failure. But the difference is that it’s a failure of the environment to go my way, while 2) is my failure to make myself go my way.
5) the end of what I was just doing (which was): being in a blank, (a state of no thought or feeling).”
A blank occurs when:
a) I don’t know or can’t remember what to think when I need to find an answer. This could be before I’ve tried to figure it out or after I’ve run out of ideas. Example: a math equation.
b) I finish a feeling, say happiness, that isn’t a psr. Or I finish matching my action to my action image, and I haven’t decided what to do next.
Example: A common sequence in me: a blank; then the psr “predicting failure” predicts the blank will fail to be brief; that causes fear which is another psr; then a third psr: fix the fear in the quickest way I can think of – repeat what I just finished thinking or saying. Thus, I often repeat myself to fill in blanks.
)
(End of endings, now continuing with bnc)
(I choose: ____________) feeling happy about what just came into my mind without me trying: our sharing.
(or: my happiness about my success externalizing my true response: just enjoy you in the moment.)
At the end of my thought that forms my true response:
I’m already dead inside about this act of ignoring.
But I have to ignore anyway (If I want to get my true response out there: to move through this transition without attacking myself and counterattacking to produce long, bad momentum. )
So start ignoring the delay by moving my focus on to
mechanically
walking away and thinking about what I had planned to do today when this activity was over.
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind next.
If its a psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2 until: psr’s stop, or I decide to stop, or I run out of time and have to do something else.
If my true response, I naturally (which means in first-party observing self/un-self-consciously/without stepping outside myself/without thinking)
______ ( I describe my true response)
I’ve moved on to today’s plan.
Short version 3:
psrs: poor me, the good time is over
Bad me, predicting failure: that it will never come back.
I’m tensing up to fix it, good me.
distraction: (delay in the pleasure of getting over) grief from loss of momentum (caused by)
end of what I was just doing: feeling happy
true response/decision: focus on _______( stick to my plan for the day)
Repeat all until I do it.
Example 4
This is the same as example 1, but with a physical object that doesn’t require as much use of memory as the math equation. It requires reading the context over and over with no sign of success, a common source of psr’s.
Something I need right now is broken. I think I can fix it so I try . I fail. I try again and fail again. I feel pain starting to build. But I got close to fixing it, so I try again, and fail again.
My pain feels more intense. Memories of other failures come in. I predict I’ll fail if I try again. Sadness comes in. I give up, get angry, and then try to solve the anger by trying again. I fail.
The anger balloons to fantasies of smashing the thing I need. And that explodes into smashing the world around me. Or it doesn’t and I still end up in this sick-at-heart, over-driven feeling. Bad momentum; fear-driven seeking of relief, again.
How do I get out?
Answer: B and C.
Step 1
Poor me, feeling sorry for myself that I can’t fix anything,
Bad me, predicting failure to improve what I’ll see on my next try.
Bad me, predicting that after a lot of tries I’ll still fail to see how to fix it.
This scares me. Poor me.
Good me, exaggerating to get sympathy from my second party observing self.
Good me, it feels so good to imagine smashing things. At least I can control smashing on one try, at least sometimes.
Good me, I hate fixing things anyway.
Step 2
Because poor me if I didn’t hate fixing,
I’m afraid I’ll see I’m in the pain of failing to ignore distractions,
namely, the delay in the pleasure of getting over the grief from the loss
of momentum caused by the end of what I was just doing:
(which was) experiencing a problem I can’t solve now – failing to see when I’ll see how I’ll fix this despite repeated tries.
At the end of my thought that forms my true response:
I’m already dead inside about this act of ignoring.
But I have to ignore anyway, if I want to get my true response out there.
So start ignoring the delay by moving my focus on to
mechanically
observing this problem I can’t solve now until I can see what I’m missing or until I see I’ve tried everything.
Step 3
Wait and see what comes into my mind next.
If a psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2 until: psr’s stop, or I decide to stop, or I run out of time and have to do something else.
If my true response, I’m observing the problem until I see what I’m missing or I give up and move on. I see that I may have to b and c / deconstruct psr’s if I have any about failure.
Short version 4:
psrs: poor me, feeling sorry for myself that I can’t fix anything,
bad me, predicting failure to improve what I’ll see on my next try.
bad me, predicting that after a lot of tries I’ll still fail to see how to fix it.
poor me, afraid.
distraction: (delay in the pleasure of getting over) grief from loss of momentum (caused by)
end of what I was just doing: experiencing failure
true response/decision: focus on _______( observe until I can’t see what else to do, then move on )
Repeat all until I do it.
Example 5
I’m mad at myself (this anger could be a range of intensity from mild to violent). Because I made a mistake, or a series of mistakes. This is different than the fixing example because it comes from simple mistakes that don’t have big consequences. Usually this happens when I’ve set a repetition limit or a time limit on something I’m trying to get better at; for example, understanding math, stopping eating, dancing, gymnastics, taking a sports shot, cooking a new recipe, singing, and much more.
Step 1
Poor me, I failed to do well on my last try.
Predicting failure to ever do better. Bad me, jumping to a worst case scenario.
I’m afraid. Poor me.
Good me, angry at myself, to solve my fear.
Because, good me, I love the fantasy I can hurt myself, with the power of disapproval, into changing my mind right now to doing better.
Step 2
Because poor me if I didn’t (love this fantasy),
I’m afraid I’ll see I’m in the pain of failing to ignore distractions,
namely, the delay in the pleasure
of getting over the grief from the loss
of momentum caused by the end of what I was just doing:
experiencing a problem I can’t solve now: my failure to match my action image with my action.
At the end of my thought that forms my true response:
I’m already dead inside about this act of ignoring,
but I have to ignore anyway. (If I want to get my true response out there: not be stuck on this failure that I’ll have to come back to.
So start ignoring the delay by focusing on:
mechanically
observing my mistake and trying again to fix it in the time or reps I have left.
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind next.
If a psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2 until: psr’s stop, or I decide to stop, or I run out of time and have to do something else.
If my true response, I observe my mistake to see if I missed something. Usually, with these kinds of mistakes, it’s easy to see what I missed.So try again. If I fail to see it, move on to something else.
Short version 5:
psrs: poor me, I failed.
I’m afraid. Poor me.
Good me, angry at myself, to solve my fear.
distraction: (delay in the pleasure of getting over) grief from loss of momentum (caused by)
end of what I was just doing: experiencing failure
true response/decision: focus on _______( keep trying until my deadline is up )
Repeat all until I do it.
Postscript 1
Reminder 1 to self:
To b and c or not to b and c. That is the question. To b and c is to suffer the frustration of missing the starting signal – a psr, an astonishingly large number of times. To not b and c is to suffer repeating anxiety and the exhausting work of trying to solve it. Thus, both ways are difficult. And that sucks. But only I can decide which way I want my existence to suck in any moment, when I do catch the signal, the psr.
Reminder 2 to self:
I need to memorize these sentences or I’ll never do them. And even when I do memorize them, it will take more suffering my anxiety before I remember to do them, and even more suffering before I even decide to do them after I remember. Even then, I’ll need more practice to do it live, in the moment. That’s the easiest way? Yup.
Reminder 3 to self:
The above two reminders are about what causes change in my brain: persistent practice that builds alternate memory centres. Change doesn’t come from judgment or punishment or encouragement or copying rules or help from another. So I’m free not to use them, and I’m especially free from needing to judge myself for not using them.
To repeat in another way: the only thing that changes my brain is seeing through the tricks my anxiety plays on me to solve itself, and disbelieving them by b and c, over and over again. Only then will I have built a new memory centre, a new planet, of bitching and complaining/deconstructing that redirects my focus onto my true response.
Reminder 4 to self:
Question
Why don’t I just say what the distraction is? It’s grief. The grief from the loss of momentum caused by the end of whatever I was just doing,
Answer
Because grief would not be a distraction if it went away instantly. While grief is brief, like all emotion, it keeps coming back in waves. While I’m feeling the grief, I’m distracted into checking how long it’s lasting. As a result, the distraction is not the grief. It’s the delay in the pleasure, the relief, of getting it over with. That delay in getting over grief from loss of momentum occurs in the instant I have to transition, that is, change, my focus, from the high return work of forming my true response to the low return work of externalizing it. In other words, to go from fun to boredom without complaint.
Reminder Summary
To take this answer back to where I started seeing. Me being distracted means I have failed to ignore when I most need to ignore. My high pain of failing to ignore is triggered by this failure. Because the pain is intense, it frightens me. To solve the fear, my brain is compelled to use psr’s to fix, not the fear, but its cause, the pain.
But, if I want to avoid disappointing myself by failing to externalize my true response, followed by my scrambling to adapt to the consequences, I must not give in to the fixing of the pain of failing to ignore. Through more repetitions than I ever feared, and in every part of my life, I must train myself to b and c until I can mechanically, like a reflex, focus on externalizing my true response.
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