Imagine a device with two hydraulic cylinders.
One is labeled feelings and the other behavior.
Pushing down on one simply cause the other to rise up.
That device symbolizes us.
When we push down significant feelings through repression or suppression,
we do not eliminate them.
Instead, those feelings will pop right back up in the form of symptomatic behavior.
By developing physical symptoms we have another outlet besides behavior for releasing our unacknowledged significant feelings.
Perhaps a third cylinder on the above device could be labeled somatization. It was a common expression of unresolved inner turmoil in Freud's day when a patient might present with symptoms of overt paralysis, generalized body weakness, or vague aches and pains that had no physical cause.
No matter what a person in the present may wish, he must resolve his conflicted behaviors--which are fueled by early survival-oriented perceptions--before he can attain his yearned for goals. All therapies are ultimately oriented toward this resolution, althought not all will directly address the underlying perceptions.
Whenever the mechanism employed, pushing down the 'feelings cyclinder' results in past conflicts being perpetuated in the present through popping up of behavior.
It is akin to using a do-it-yourself crucifixion kit and then anguishing over the pain suffered.
In healing the Child within, a possible resolution of one's childhood conflicts is for the Adult to acknowledge and accept the experience that were the child's.
This means knowing that the past cannot be other than what is was. We can change our feelings about the past, but we cannot change the events of the past.
With this awareness there comes a modicum of healing.
Breaking free and risking going through zero represents this concept;
the path to becoming an Adult.
As Adults we must recognize that what we missed as Children we cannot replace in the present, which inevitably leaves a hole. Paradoxically accepting that there is a hole and understanding why, allows one to become whole and fulfilled.
Breaking Free ~ Kardener & Kardener
One is labeled feelings and the other behavior.
Pushing down on one simply cause the other to rise up.
That device symbolizes us.
When we push down significant feelings through repression or suppression,
we do not eliminate them.
Instead, those feelings will pop right back up in the form of symptomatic behavior.
By developing physical symptoms we have another outlet besides behavior for releasing our unacknowledged significant feelings.
Perhaps a third cylinder on the above device could be labeled somatization. It was a common expression of unresolved inner turmoil in Freud's day when a patient might present with symptoms of overt paralysis, generalized body weakness, or vague aches and pains that had no physical cause.
No matter what a person in the present may wish, he must resolve his conflicted behaviors--which are fueled by early survival-oriented perceptions--before he can attain his yearned for goals. All therapies are ultimately oriented toward this resolution, althought not all will directly address the underlying perceptions.
Whenever the mechanism employed, pushing down the 'feelings cyclinder' results in past conflicts being perpetuated in the present through popping up of behavior.
It is akin to using a do-it-yourself crucifixion kit and then anguishing over the pain suffered.
In healing the Child within, a possible resolution of one's childhood conflicts is for the Adult to acknowledge and accept the experience that were the child's.
This means knowing that the past cannot be other than what is was. We can change our feelings about the past, but we cannot change the events of the past.
With this awareness there comes a modicum of healing.
Breaking free and risking going through zero represents this concept;
the path to becoming an Adult.
As Adults we must recognize that what we missed as Children we cannot replace in the present, which inevitably leaves a hole. Paradoxically accepting that there is a hole and understanding why, allows one to become whole and fulfilled.
Breaking Free ~ Kardener & Kardener
RSS Feed
