The main key to balancing self is to allow movement so that the various parts, ideas, thoughts and feelings can be arranged such they don't overpower each other. Triggers show us that we hold charges that need release. Like a bullet in a gun, there would be nothing to release if there was no explosive charge involved. Reactions tell us that there is unconsciousness present, since if we were fully conscious we would be responding instead of reacting.
Combining all of this together means allowing stored emotional charges to move and express (safely and in private if necessary), while also being aware and understanding the patterns inside of us that involve unconscious (and perhaps therefore compulsive) behaviours. These unconscious patterns are actually decision making processes that we have not yet been made aware that we are making. The emotional movement opens space for change and the mental/logical changes allow realignments to take place that shift long held patterns. Knowing why we do things is required in order to do different things in a real and lasting way. Otherwise, you are likely just layering new patterns on top of old patterns to try to cope with the old patterns.
One of the reasons why this is not well understood by many people is that humans are polarising between thought and emotion. Some people are very mental and some are very emotional.. and there is a gap between them. So we might understand the benefits of emotional release, but neglect the mental transformations (or vice versa).
The heart brings balance to all things. Self acceptance through the heart opens space for change and also the self respect needed to accept that we have made mistakes that have hurt us for a long time. The heart is also the place where emotional awareness and logical perceptions can bond into felt understanding. So you can understand your patterns and you do need to understand them. You can do this with logic, but the logic has to be felt in order to be correctly reached. Without the combination of feeling and logic, we only have half the story.
Thanks for spend some time to go into detail and share some of your perspective!
I have to say that I couldn't find much that I disagree with, even though I don't claim to be any kind of expert I tend to concur with your sentiments.
However, the woman in the video I mentioned seemed to have success with this technique where she hadn't had any before, and the other guy who helps people heal from OCD also seems to have had success with his patients/clients.
And, interestingly enough this touches on a subject me and you have discussed before in the past... "Knowledge" and what can be known and what perhaps we might think can be known but which are truly beliefs.
I don't have the answer, I know from previous discussions you seem to believe we can know a lot... But, maybe there are some things we just can't know and maybe people who suffer with OCD in some certain situations might benefit more from not feeding into the OCD and just trying to ignore it?
It seems counter intuitive to me and it doesn't make logical sense in light of what you said about a sort of "Healing that lasts", to me based on what I thought I knew I would say that I agree with you and that in order to have a "lasting" success that you should need to understand what you're struggling with.
Though, I've spent so much time trying to understand and it seems like I've never able to 100% fully and completely understand, perhaps in this case and in certain other unique cases it might be helpful to just sort of "let go" of the feeling or desire to "need to know".
Maybe it's this way, maybe it's that way... I don't know for sure and I'm okay with that, I don't necessarily NEED to know. Maybe I'll find more peace if I stop trying to figure out something that could possibly be impossible to figure out.
I like what you said at the end about sort of marrying the heart and logic and that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm going to work on that. Thanks again for sharing some of your thoughts! :)
No problem, you are welcome. It's important to recognise that the 'doing' that is causing compulsive (unconscious) decision making, is invisible to the conscious self until the relevant emotional movement is allowed, which surfaces patterns and parts of self that are stuck, hiding, hidden, denied, blocked and/or forgotten.
E.g. Imagine the following scenario:
Person is traumatised or injured as a child in some way and they feel pain and fear that is overwhelming or just too much for their level of awareness to handle/integrate.
The person chooses to block out the pain and other feelings and/or disassociate from them. We can't ever truly disconnect 100%, but we can do it to the point where we no longer consciously remember the feelings, their causes or even that we have blocked them out.
Now the person tries to 'move on' and not let the past bother them, but the feelings were not processed and they can't just disappear. The impulses that the feelings and lost memories are producing can stimulate thoughts and behaviours in the conscious self, without the conscious self realising. If the signals reflect thoughts such as 'URGENT, NEED TO MOVE..' or 'I AM IN PAIN, FIX THIS' or something similar.. Then the resulting behaviours may reflect this in ways that seem odd but which make sense from the big picture position. Since the mind doesn't know how to calm the feelings down, an obsessive pattern can begin to try to cover up , repress and avoid the original cause of the dysfunctions.
This continues and other people come along throwing in their 2 cents about what causes such things, without the individual ever undoing the blocking out of painful memories and accepting their past, thus never recovering their parts that need to be felt into, understood, integrated and allowed to evolve. We often like simple, short and convenient answers and this is why we have so many millionaire 'therapists' and authors offering simple solutions (that don't really work long term, but work long enough for them to sell books or treatment sessions).
We can also imagine this if the underlying signals come from school, perhaps a fear of being beaten by teachers and a strong thought to 'look busy' / 'keep busy'.. And so the mind, in a panicked state is desperately prioritising 'keeping busy' to avoid more pain - but without doing so in full awareness of it's plight.
There are many other such scenarios, but they all follow the same kind of pattern: trauma -> denial -> denial of denial -> dysfunctional patterns that get stuck.
Ultimately, we are all unique and we all need to find what works for us in our own way - but I am just describing what is essentially a very common and universal pattern of dysfunction that once understood on the surface, can be dived into more deeply to allow holistic and lasting change.
Thanks for taking the time to type all that up. I appreciate it and I found it very interesting to read.
I agree with it like 99%, and I feel like some of it applies to how I handled OCD in the past and it sounds similar to this new treatment I mentioned, however... Maybe not all dysfunction is solved universally in the same way just like you mentioned how we are all unique and need to find what works for us in our own way.
In regard to my experience so far with this technique it has made my brain so much more peaceful it's almost like a miracle.
I don't expect it to work so easily for some of my major triggers and the lady in the video who said it worked for her when nothing else did claimed that it took her a while, so this may be something that takes a while to address... However, just the peace of mind I've received so far from not entertaining or giving further energy to so many of my OCD intrusive thoughts has been incredible.
I'm going to try to withhold my judgment until I experiment with this technique more and for longer, so far it has been amazing... But, it's too early to say much for certain other than in some cases and in some ways it can be extremely helpful for me to know how to not feed into certain kinds of compulsive attempts at problem solving a problem that may be impossible to solve or truly understand and maybe in this case the solution is to just "let it go" instead of to continually try to "figure it out" and "ruminate" and "obsess" over the details.