The Problem
I’m thinking of death. I makes me feel relief. That scares me. What’s wrong with me?
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 of failing to ignore.
- One of these edits/problem-solving responses 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 lies 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”. Others call it “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, or 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. Imagining death while I’m not sad
2.Imagining I cause my death on purpose, even though I’m not sad.
3. My coming actual death
4. Imagining death while I’m sad
Example 1
Imagining death while I’m not sad
Step 1
Pick the thought or feeling I think is a psr. Optional: A useful guide is this page of the website: The Database of Psr’s
For example, I’m sad that I can’t live forever and that everybody dies eventually.
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 (bitch and complain). 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 often 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 check how long famous dead people lived.
I want to know what they died of so I can make sure I don’t have the same thing. Good me.
Good me, I study people who put off going to a doctor and later died of a disease, like heart disease or cancer.
Poor me, I’m afraid I’ll do the same.
Poor me, whenever I’m sick, I’m afraid I will die.
Good me, I don’t wait to see if sickness or pain will go away by itself. I go to a doctor.
Poor me, I’m afraid of flying, heights and speed.
Bad me, predicting the worst case scenario that I’ll crash or fall and be killed.
Poor me, I’m afraid of falling asleep because I might not wake up. (“And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”)
(There’s more but I decide that’s enough for now.)
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 (scare myself by jumping to the worst case scenario: death),
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) observing a problem I can’t solve now: uncertainty about _________ (anything) (in this moment, uncertainty about when death will come.
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 to my true response, which is to not die right now).
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 – observing uncertainty – other than the delay in getting over grief )
mechanically observing this problem I can’t solve now, uncertainty, and then moving on to what I can solve now.
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind.
If another psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2.
If my true response, I will naturally externalize it (act on it): observe the uncertainty and then ignore it by moving my focus onward. As part of my observing, I see I don’t need to solve uncertainty to make me feel like observing and moving on.
Example 2:
Cause my own death even though I’m not sad or mad.
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
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.
Like this
Bad me, I’m imagining causing my own death.
I’m good at coming up with different ways. Good me.
Good me, I keep editing/perfecting the ways.
I tell myself I won’t do it. Good me.
Poor me, people I tell this to try to understand and help me stop it, but it doesn’t work.
Poor me, here I go again!
Step 2
The reversal.
Because poor me if I didn’t (attack myself like this),
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: me failing to ____________ (This could be anything, for example, I just failed to fall asleep.)
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 to my true response),
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 – my failure- other than the delay in getting over grief )
mechanically observing this problem I can’t solve now, my failure, and then moving on to what I can solve now.
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind.
If another psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2, until psr’s stop or until I have run out of time and have to do something else.
If my true response, I will naturally externalize it: observe my failure until I’ve seen what I feel is enough of it, and then move on to what I can solve now.
Example 3
My coming actual death
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
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.
Like this
I’m going to die. I’m going to lose my life. Poor me.
Poor me, I’m in a panic.
Bad me self-attack using the worst-case scenario that I’ll lose control of my emotions, or of my bodily functions, or how much pain I’ll feel.
Good me I don’t want to go through my last moments alone.
Good me, tie up loose ends before I can’t.
Poor me, there are too many to finish.
Good me, I hated doing them when I had more time and good me, I hate them now.
Poor me, regrets coming in (to my mind).
Good me, I don’t want to leave a mess for others to clean up.
Poor me, I’ve accumulated too big a mess to clean up myself.
Good me, trying to see the positive side of life.
Poor me, what life? There’s none left!
Step 2
The reversal
Because poor me if I didn’t (try to solve what I can’t solve),
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) observing a problem I can’t solve now: the coming of my death,
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 to my true response, which I can’t yet see.)
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 – observing coming death – other than the delay in getting over grief )
mechanically observing this problem I can’t solve now (coming death) and then moving on to what I can solve now or to observing something else that leads to me to what I can solve/do now.
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind.
If another psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2.
If my true response, I will naturally externalize it: observe and move on to what I can solve now.
Example 4
Imagining death while I’m sad
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
Classify my emotional response to the psrusing 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.
Like this
Poor me I’m picturing myself dying in an accident, or from an illness, or from just wasting away.
Good me, I’m angry that I’m sad and can’t get any relief.
Poor me, anger doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
I just want to feel happiness. Good me.
Good me, I’ve given up trying.
Good me, I picture ending my pain, and humiliation, and my never ending self-judgement, by ending my life.
Good me, I see that the relief I feel from this fantasy is a good feeling.
Good me, maybe I should fantasize death more often to cheer myself up.
Good me, I’ve explored ways to do it and I like some ways more than others.
Good me, there’s another positive feeling: liking something.
Poor me, weird that I can still feel good, but only with the fantasy that I can get rid of all this sadness on one try.
Good me, I like the fantasy of being a goth, one who is preoccupied with death.
Good me, I would like other things to make me feel good; things other than relief from sadness.
Good me, how do I love thee relief. Let me count the ways: relief from a full bladder or bowel, relief from hunger and thirst, relief from sleepiness and physical tiredness, relief from doing boring stuff, relief from work, relief from loneliness.
Poor me, I’m afraid I won’t keep sadness away,
That’s predicting failure. Bad me.
And bad me, I’m editing endlessly again. This time I’m editing thoughts about sources of relief.
Step 2
The reversal
Because poor me if I didn’t (try to solve my sadness in one try),
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) observing a problem I can’t solve now: ________ (my sadness).
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 to my true response, which is what to do with my life in this moment, since I’m not in the act of ending it).
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 – observing my sadness – other than the delay in getting over grief )
mechanically observing this problem I can’t solve now (sad) until I’ve seen enough and then moving on to what I can solve now or to observing something else that leads to me to what I can solve/do now, since I’m still alive.
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind.
If another psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2.
If not, my true response will come in. For example: I return to whatever I was doing before the psr’s came in.
Or: I notice that a small sadness sometimes brings thoughts of death and a big sadness doesn’t. So it’s not how strong my sadness is that triggers the thought of death. It’s how much I think I can control my sadness. Big sadness I can’t control so I don’t try; little sadness I think I can control so I do try. Either way, I need to b and c that thought of controlling sadness.
Or, put all that simple quiet relief together, and even more times it happens, and I have a life I might want to live for now. So what next to do with that life, since I am, after all, still in it?
Or: I’m just relieved, that by myself, I finally stopped with b and c that uncontrolled momentum of negative thoughts and feelings, alternating with positive thoughts and feelings of ending the negative momentum on one try.
Or: I don’t want to stop my movement toward anything because I was distracted by a psr like death. I want to stop because stopping is my true response. That looks hard to do. But what choice do I have if I’m still in life in this moment. Still being here means I want to move toward something in this short time ahead of me, this moment.
Postscript
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 start 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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