> Erwin Hessle erwinhessle.com> writes:

>> On Mar 17, 5:08 pm, HG wrote:

>>> I tried that again.  This time, I started thinking: what if the
>>> irrationality and inscrutability of the fear is a clue to something?
>>>  What if it's *pre-verbal* - like a terrified baby who cries for help,
>>> but cannot communicate in words?

>

>>> So I started treating it like a frightened little child, taking the role
>>> of a parent who soothes it until it stops crying.

>

>> Not everything is a problem that needs to be solved, you know.
>> Oftentimes the distress at being frightened is a lot more debilitating
>> than the fear itself is.

>

>> "The only thing to fear is fear itself" is one of the stupidest ideas
>> out there. Lions might eat you; being frightened of lions is never
>> going to hurt you.

>

>> So you get frightened sometimes, for reasons you don't always
>> understand. Big fucking deal. The fear itself is likely causing you
>> far fewer problems than the simple fact you're so freaked out by being
>> frightened. Being frightened doesn't make you any less of a human
>> being, and there's no shame in anything that happens inside your head
>> (or outside it, for that matter), so just stop thinking that there's
>> something wrong with you because it happens. This in itself will
>> likely to most of the way towards "solving the problem."

>

>> You can't sensibly be surprised at the fact that your fears freak you
>> out if you keep poking at them all the time. Just let them be for a
>> while, and they'll probably soon get bored. Think of your irrational
>> fears as a leaky tap; slightly annoying, but nothing to get too
>> excited about as long as you don't work yourself up into a fret about
>> it or go out of your way to try and convince yourself that it isn't
>> leaky at all.

>

>> It's your reaction to the fears that are at the root of this
>> "problem," not the fears themselves. Accept the fact that you get
>> frightened sometimes, and that there's nothing necessarily wrong with
>> that.

>
> ...And therefore the reason I'm having an inordinate amount of trouble
> solving my problems, is because I'm trying to solve the *wrong* problems?
> Makes sense.  Makes all kinds of sense.
>

>> All that stuff is just your mind working, it isn't you doing
>> anything.

>
> If I understood you correctly, you're saying my main problem is that I think
> I *am* my mind, instead of "I *have* my mind".  And if I think I *am* my
> mind, I pay a lot of attention to all kinds of stuff that actually doesn't
> exist outside my mind.
>
> And therefore when I'm looking for solutions to my problems, I'm looking for
> the famous imaginary mongoose to kill my imaginary snakes.  And I feel happy
> and proud to have such a great mongoose, and despair when the mongoose goes
> away.  :-D
>

>> Erwin Hessle, 8=3

>
> You really got me thinking.  Not bad from a guy with a fake GD degree.  ;-)- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -