6. Phobia: let the spiders talk to you
If you have a phobia for spiders and you go to a therapist, there’s a big chance that he will subject you to a ‘systematic desensitization’. This is: you are gradually brought into contact with ‘spider’ until you can stand its presence or even touch the real thing. Simple procedure, no? And doesn’t it work? Just like that.
◊◊◊
Of course, your phobia itself is not generated by the spider. As with any fear/anxiety, this phobia exists inside you, not outside you. The spider is not inside your brain. The perception of spider is. Your phobia, in short, is generated by your perception of the spider.
◊◊◊
Well then, the question is important: is the phobia somewhere hidden inside a well circumscribed part of your brain (mind)? Or is it part of the way you are as a total person? In the first hypothesis, a plug-and-play change of this faulty part is possible and recommended. Someone else could do this for you, or almost. In the second hypothesis however, not so. Here, a growing-beyond is very clearly the only really worthwhile solution. Now, this is a totally different matter of course. You have to do this very much yourself. The help you can get for this is also of a completely different nature. You see: these are completely different points of view, with very different consequences.
◊◊◊
According to me, the second hypothesis is true. After all, human mind is nature’s product, not a technical product. This, together with its extreme complexity, makes it almost impossible for something like a phobia to exist as a distinct part, unrelated to the rest of mind. In the real world, mind is not a clockwork-like device.
◊◊◊
This means that you can best evolve beyond the phobia through changing as a total person. You do this inasmuch as you ‘let the spider talk to you’, whether or not you are involved in a systematic desensitization process. This means: let its meaning become clear to you in a natural way, by itself. You have the possibility to accomplish this. This means: not getting rid of it, but letting it ‘organically’ transform itself and you. Give it the energy and the support that are needed for this. A plug-and-play change is not enough.
◊◊◊
Use autosuggestion.
◊◊◊
Related Posts
Resistance to Change
People may want to change at the surface, but not in-depth. If the cause of some maladaptation lies in depth, change may be simultaneously sought and resisted. Resistance as fence >< as lack of motivation A particular reason for not wanting to change is like a mental fence that protects the person from uncomfortable feelings Read the full article…
Tuberculosis and the Mind
Suspected since millennia, nowadays backed up with scientific data, the influence of the mind on tuberculosis is a fine example of the complexity, as well as the importance to take this seriously into account in many domains. Pertinently Despite modern treatments, tuberculosis is still one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and – at Read the full article…
A Disease is a Continuum, Not an Entity
Medical textbooks generally list diseases as crisp entities. This may be OK in a book, providing exemplars of reality. However, real reality is different. This has several far-reaching consequences. To be or not to be? Many diseases – if not all – are not binary conditions. To be or not to be, is not the Read the full article…