GETTING UNHOOKED FROM
HANG-UPS
and HABITS
Prescription for Chaos
Early
in life we were all shocked into error, and with that first fall away from our
true selves, the fault took root and grew into the multi-layered ugliness that
we find ourselves composed of , when we first (if ever) start looking for what
went wrong.
The
seeker should bear this basic principle in mind: a human being can be shocked
excited angered, stimulated, distracted, entertained, emotionalized, and so
on. The very moment that happens true
values are displaced, and the shock, the excitement, the anger, etc… is
substituted for those true values.
In
most of us, these displacements have become the long forgotten experiences of
childhood, forgotten because associated with those traumatic events is shame.
Instead
of facing u to the weakness associated with the corrupting event, the ego tries
to assert, or maintain, a posture of original innocence. All those friends and relatives who aid you
in maintaining this charade of innocence succeeds only in violating you more.
Before
true maturity, all friends are really fiends. All excitement, entertainment,
drugs, pills, counseling, encounter and group therapy, sensitivity training
etc. work toward the same result: they help you feel secure and
"right" while actually helping you to grow more wrong.
Once
you fall to accept any form of comfort, you associate growth with the feeling
of comfort. Without re-experiencing that comfort, you sense that original
anxiety, or loss, that has actually grown more severe through your use of those
assorted false comforts, and—lurking behind those comforts-are the frozen
smiles of the professional comforters, ready to assure you at every turn that
you are perfectly all right the way you are. All you really need is just a
little more of their services and help.
Doctors of Doom
"I
smoke two full packs of cigarettes a day," a man complained.
"Don't be so concerned," assured the doctor. "I smoke three
packs on a bad day!"
A patient-parolee in a therapy group was instructed not to repress anger but to
let it out, express it! Now she is back in jail.
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