CURAGA - Antaeus’ E3 Journal

[Shannon]

It sounds like you're just trying to find a way to deal with all this to me.  Making progress into unknown territory means you have to learn a new set of skills to deal with what is new.

To be honest I’m not quite sure where to start. At least aside from what I’ve described in my last post. All this healing stuff is really kind of new to me. Are there any other tools you could recommend to help me develop the skills that I need? Or is this all dependent on the person?

It is very much dependent on the individual.  I can suggest asking yourself why.  Why is X so?  And then trace that back, and ask again... why?  Until you understand more and more, which will reveal how and why you "tick" to a better degree of understanding.

Here is an example.  I used to have a thing about ripping off the edges of pages and rolling them up.  One day I realized this had become a habit.  I wondered where it came from.  I thought about it... why do I do this?  The answer was that it produced a sensation in the act of rolling the bits of paper up that I enjoyed.

But why do I enjoy it?  The answer, after long thought, traced back to when I was 2 and 3 years old.  I would play with my mother's hair, which was fine and soft.  It reminded me of the sensation of rubbing my mother's hair between my fingers.  

But why does that matter?  The answer turned out to be that a part of me associated that tactile sensation with the feeling of safety and security I got from being held by my mother.

So ultimately, I subconsciously developed this method of achieving that state subconsciously by replicating the sensation I associated with the experience to recreate and relive it subconsciously.  Why did I do it?  Because it made some part of me feel safe and secure.

From that question "why", I came to understand myself much better, and at that point, getting rid of the behavior was a relatively simple option.