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 (also called “flow” or “flow-with” the psr’s, often many times (instructions are in the examples below). The repetitions build a memory center that pulls my focus into it. While there, I don’t find fault with every thought while I form and carry out, externalize, a decision. In other words, I don’t oppose myself.
Good to know:
- While my mind can go blank, it’s rare compared to my mind’s almost constant stream of thoughts and feelings. This stream causes many distractions, all day every day. 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.
- Failure causes loss of what I was trying to do. Therefore, failure causes grief. The most important failure in daily life is the failure to ignore distractions which occur at the end of my thought that forms my true response, my decision. My decision is not a psr. It’s the real true me. I call the grief from failing to ignore distractions, at the moment my true response appears, 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. Since a decision triggers the need to ignore distractions, which trigger my high pain of failing to ignore, which triggers my fear of the pain, I’m afraid of making any decision. When my fear of making a decision appears, I’m compelled to solve the fear. So, I find problems – faults – with the decision and solve them. I get 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), that is, problem-solving, my decisions 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. I call this constant line of psr’s “fear driven seeking of relief” or “second guessing” or “obsessing” about my decision.
- If my pain of failing to ignore is weak, I’m not afraid of it. Therefore I don’t produce anxiety – an abnormal fear of a normal situation, and other psr’s that mess around with my decision.
- All emotions, including grief caused by loss of anything, big or small, will keep coming back if opposed or avoided. 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, suffer it, and see how it won’t harm me if I do. This will make me ignore it by my moving on to seeing and externalizing my true response/my decision.
The Seeing Sequence, which is the sequence of bitching and complaining /flow in order to see my true response, 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 but not must-read: Why the Seeing Sequence works.
(Notice: words in brackets below mean I can choose from several wordings, or the words are instructions or blanks to fill in that fit my 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. (For angry at you for hurting me, see “Seeing Sequence Meets Revenge).
3. Difficulty with transitions.
4. I try to fix something I need now that 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 adding someone’s disapproval, (PF 4, finding fault in myself through the eyes of others) until I’m 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 them. But I imagine they only say nasty things back. I have failed to change their mind, which 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).
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
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 others up 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.
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 4 lines 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:
(namely)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 even start the math problem).
So start ignoring the delay by focusing on
(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 true response to not seeing the first step in math thinking with action – other than solving/opposing the delay in getting over grief)
mechanically ( 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.
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 will naturally, (meaning without thinking about it) reread and try to remember.
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 likable.
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”.
Poor me, I’m scared it won’t happen.
Bad me, this is me predicting failure to connect with you in the future.
Good me, solve my fear by imagining trying to make it happen.
Poor me, I failed.
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 loony to think I can control you or that if I could it would be enough to satisfy me.
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 4 lines 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:
(namely)experiencing a problem I can’t solve now, (you not going my way, my way being that you show me you want “again” like I do.)
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 avoid out-of-control anger followed by a severe mood drop).
So start ignoring the delay by focusing on
(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 – thinking what I will do next – other than solving/opposing the delay in getting over grief)
mechanically (looking forward on my own).
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind.
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 I’m in my true response,
I observe and see the following: our good time together has ended and we have civilly signaled 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. My true response is to bitch and complain this.
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 more by trying to control you.
I take a deep breath and carry on to bitching and complaining my difficulty with transitions, thankful I didn’t blow it again by showing my control weirdness.
Example 3
My difficulty with transition.
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
The moment I was into is over and I feel tense.
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 my next good momentum. (This focus on momentum, while sounding strange, is what I’m really struggling with; not somebody’s disapproval. I can see this struggle with transition caused by loss of momentum if I look for it.)
Poor me, now I feel tense.
Good me, solve it by trying to get the moment back in my imagination or in action.
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 when I’m in a transition from one moment to the next),
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:
(namely) sharing with you.
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 move through this transition to finding my next good momentum without attacking myself and counterattacking to produce long, bad momentum).
So start ignoring the delay by focusing on
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.
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 its my true response, I’ve moved on and into today’s plan.
Example 4
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. Again.
How do I get out?
Answer: B and C.
Step 1
Poor me, I can’t fix anything.
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:
(namely) experiencing a problem I can’t solve now – failing to fix this.
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,
So start ignoring the delay by focusing on
mechanically observing this problem I can’t solve now until I can see what I’m missing or until I move on to something else.
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 move on to something else.
Example 5
I’m mad at myself (this 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.
Step 1
Bad me, I made a mistake.
Good me, angry at myself,
Because 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 mistake.
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 not be stuck here).
So start ignoring the delay by focusing on:
mechanically observing my mistake in order to see if I can fix it.
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind next.
If a psr comes in, 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 comes in, I observe my mistake to see if I missed something. Usually, with these kinds of mistakes, it’s easy to see what I missed. If I fail to see it, I move on to something else.
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 signal – a psr – to b and c an astonishingly large number of times. To not b and c is to suffer constant anxiety and the exhausting work of trying to solve it. Thus, both ways suck. 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 centers. Change doesn’t come from judgement or punishment or encouragement or copying rules or help from another. So I’m free not to use them, and I’m especially free of 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 center, a new planet, of bitching and complaining that pulls my focus into it and emits true responses.
Reminder 4 to self:
Question
Why don’t I just say what the the distraction is? Grief. The grief from the loss of the 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 that don’t go away instantly. Therefore, it distracts me from focusing on my true response. Thus, the distraction is not the grief, it’s the delay in the pleasure of getting it over with in the instant I have to transition, that is, change, my focus from forming to externalizing my true response. My high pain of failing to ignore that delay compels me to fix the pain. But I must not give in. I have to train myself to suffer that pain through that instant by mechanically focusing on externalizing my true response. Tall order.
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