One thing I’ve realized lately is just how powerful a thought can be. When you think about being in pain you project pain upon yourself. You start to feel pain. When you think about the fear of dying you begin to feal that fear. You begin to die. The thought process is the same. You are actually preparing for your impeading doom and the fear of death is realized fully and in reality.
So. You have to train yourself to let go. To move away from that reality and tell yourself that it is enough to face it when the time comes. When you actually are in pain or when you are actually facing death. It is enough to experience and live through it when it happens and there is no need to go through an imagined projection of the situation.
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February 11, 2007 at 11:35 am
Alex
I like that very much. That is true. It is enough to die once.
February 13, 2007 at 7:08 am
Sonya
HEAR HEAR!! I totally agree - if only it was that easy to let go of the fear
February 13, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Eliot
This is such an important topic. I have been focussing on this a great deal. My spirituality suggests that what I focus on ‘expands’. It is a difficult discipline and practice to apprehend and change those thoughts. What has been helpful is to meditate in the morning and ‘grab’ them right upon awakening and then begin the process of focusing the mind on the positive, the joy, the peace, the courage. It has been very helpful. But keeping at it during the day is a big challenge. Best.
February 13, 2007 at 9:43 pm
SA Dave
I can’t say I totally agree with your thinking Jonah. If you are climbing a tall ladder, lets say, what is it that makes you take great care not to upset the ladder? It’s fear of falling. But what is that fear based on? It’s based not on the fall, but on the pain and injury that will occur upon hitting the ground.
Every day, we employ different levels of care with the things we do, based on the outcome of being careless. We assess risk by considering the possible outcomes. Have you ever imagined cutting the end of your finger off while chopping vegetables? The thought of that pain is what makes us take care not to inflict the injury. It is the thought/fear of dying that likely keeps us alive to a ripe old age by making us take precautions against it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for positive thinking and breaking negative thinking habits. I just think that it’s not so bad to acknowledge one’s fears.
Dave
http://social-anxiety-matters.blogspot.com/
February 14, 2007 at 4:34 am
Jonah
Hi Dave.
You’re describing healthy situations and how they are dealt with by healthy minds.
I fully understand your reasoning and where you are going but my post was aimed at the anxious. Like me. People that obsess. People that would stop climbing the ladder or cutting vegetables because the they are consumed by their thoughts of fear. People that go to bed and instead of falling asleep they think of all the ways they could die the next day… or during the night. You know… anxious, compulsive people.
It’s normal to get these ideas in your head. These images of pain and death. Some situations warrant it. But it is very abnormal to dwell on these thoughts. Even after the situation that triggers them passes.
So my post focused on letting go. Not stopping or denying. Letting go. That is normal and I belive that is what most people do automatically but we have to train ourselves to do it. The first step is to realize just how painful it is to dwell on something that has no meaning or bearing. To realize that when you spend a few hours thinking about an agonizing situation that ultimately leeds to death, you are projecting yourself into this hypothetical situation - the pain, the agony, the darkness and fear.
February 14, 2007 at 9:38 am
SA Dave
Totally getting you now, Jonah, thanks. I think I was missing it because it’s not something that affects me. I often struggle with anticipatory anxiety and post event over-analysis, but never about things like pain and death. I’m more apt to obsess on how many different ways I might humiliate myself or get rejected if I go to that social event tomorrow, or how I behaved at that other social event last night.
Dave
http://social-anxiety-matters.blogspot.com/
March 1, 2007 at 5:05 am
Jackal
The mind is a powerful tool - so often our best friend and worst enemy.
October 18, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Mary Falconer
Hello; what can I say? I have been having a terrible problem that is now getting much worse. I don’t know who to turn to, because I have in the past turned to many doctors who just put me through more agony and can never find what is harming me. They then question the fact that I have been useing a popular over the coundter drug to subdue my symtoms and bring me relief. Totaly ingnoring the fact that I tell them time and again that I had this medical problem first, not before I started taking the over the counter medication. I have been through scopes and tests and nothing ever reveals anything. However, they can not deny that real blood is present in my stool, and kidneys. Now I suffer terrible attackes of pain, and I know the day is coming quickly that I will die in pain and agony alone, on the toilet. My over the counter med. is failing to releive symtoms and there is no where else to turn. I am in horrible fear of doctors and hospitals and tests and scops and have this sick feeling that they all hate me. It is not death I am afraid of, but rather the PAIN, the terrible pain. Yes, I will have to try to see a doctor AGAIN, but I dread it because I know what will happen. Any ideas? Even just to calm my fear of pain.?
Mary