Understanding.

Hi All. Dr. Weekes regarded UNDERSTANDING as one of the most important parts of her teaching. What does it mean "to understand?" One of the dictionary definitions is "To know and appreciate what is happening or why it is happening". I have always found that an explanation of something, which may appear awful at first, takes a lot of the fear from it. We are able (at a certain stage of our illness) to reason about 'IT'. For a lot of us, at the moment, this may seem irrelevant. We are suffering too much to reason. so put this in the bottom drawer to be looked at a later date. My old Councillor used to say we have three drawers.(This is about advice and helpful suggestions). One for "Use Now" another for "Look at Later" and another for "Discard". Think carefully about what you are told about your illness then use one of your drawers. If we understand that nervous illness is an illness about the way we THINK then perhaps we can change our way of thinking. I am not talking about CBT but something much more profound. What is 'thinking'? Most people are autonoma.They wake up in the morning and go through the motions in the way they have been programmed by the events in their lives. They may do this all their lives and never be "challenged" as we are. Good luck to them I hope they never are. But remember. You do not get Gold unless you dig for it but the incentive to 'dig' must be there. People think they have "Free Will" but they are so conditioned to believe certain things that they always act through this distorted thinking. They do not look at something and reason why it is happening. They just take it for granted that it is so. Do we do this? I feel most of us do. All the "Oh dear, I will never get over this", or "My goodness it is worse today than ever" are part of our programming. We believe it to be true and so it is. FOR US. We act on it, live it, and so make our lives miserable. When you were well what happened? You went about your life doing what needed to be done with hardly a thought. So why do you feel the way you do now? You have, for one reason or another, become sensitised. You re-act to things that you would have just passed by before. This is important. You re-act! Why? Because your "habit" of negative thinking has taken over. Your negative thinking has become your "habit". You have 'programmed' yourself to think this way and this goes on throwing up the symptoms of anxiety because you do not UNDERSTAND why it is happening. To dispassionately look at an emotion without being moved by it is a great gift which CAN be achieved. To understand what is happening is of great help. So I have found.

The above will have no effect whatsoever if you are deep in the anxiety state or depressed so put it in the drawer marked "Look at Later". You may then find it of interest. Good luck to all. jonathan.

[daisy459]

Thanks