I must have missed your thread when it was first posted, so have only just read it today. To be honest, I know virtually nothing of the origins of the philosophies you mention, but despite that, much of what you have put forward there is very similar to stuff I've written on the site myself over the last few years, albeit not so condenced and precise as what you have stated in your post.
I agree with you. I put this very same philosopy into practice to beat what was a lifelong and truly crippling severe facial blushing problem. I used basic CBT to change my attitude to the blushing, in so much as I learned to see the blush differently than I did before.
I went from being on the list for ETS surgery to erradicate blushing, and that is an operation with all sorts of possible risks, to actually beating blushing on my own, and without surgery at all. I did it through acceptance of the blush as an exaggeration of what is essentially normal. The exaggeration came from my fear of the blush. My fear fed the anxiety and fed the blushing. As soon as I accepted it and let it happen without fear was the day it stopped being a problem. When I didn't fear it anymore, it lost it's power over me. If I blush I just ride it out and let it go. I don't feed it with fear so it is shortlived or fails to appear at all. The very same approach can be used on social anxiety itself, with great result. I am having such results myself today through the very same approach.
Feed the monster and it grows. The SA monster is fed on fear. Take away it's food and it grows weaker.
Erradicating all anxiety is impossible, simply because anxiety is natural and part of the mechanism that protects us and keeps us alive. I used to make the mistake of thinking that beating SA meant erradication of all anxiety, but it is not the case at all. If I felt any anxiety at all I felt my efforts were a failure, but of course they were not. Beating SA is in the acceptance of normal levels of anxiety, not in repelling it with the aim of the erradication of it so we become biological robots. Acceptance of anxiety strips away the fear of it, and if we don't fear it we don't build it up into irrational proportions that take over our lives. This takes time to get right, but it is achievable. This is how we reach the point of feeling the fear ... but doing it anyway. We are then accepting that anxiety may be present, but we are prepared to work through it. Working through it proves that it can't actually harm us, so the fear reduces accordingly over time.
All in all this backs up what we say as counsellors - That we have all the resources within us to change ourselves if change is what we desire. Counselling can be helpful in assisting a person realise that they do actually have the inner resources to deal with their issues. I stumbled across the approach you mention through doing CBT on myself and through my own observations of life. When I had personal counselling it also helped me access my own resource pool. Doing so helped me adopt the approach you put forward, and my results over the past 4 years have vastly eclipsed those of the previous 40 years put together.
I often say on the site that when SA we sort of have a certain mindset. I just call it the SA mindset. We often spend a lot of time and energy justifying and backing up that mindset. Yet in order to beat SA we have to dismantle it and not give it too much credibility. It's the same with the symptoms. We have to stop throwing petrol on the fire in order to try to extinguish it, because all it does is fuel it further.
_________________ I once suffered from OCD, Socail Phobia and Depression and now have completely recovered
msn:binjk1980@gmail.com
mail:binjk1980@gmail.com
Everyone, let’s calm down and look back, to our childhood. I remember I once saw a situation on TV: a boy, running, jumping and smiling, he entered a room full of strange adults who he had never seen before, suddenly he felt nervous, he blushed to the extreme degree, and he didn’t do anything to conceal his nervousness, he just showed all of his bad feeling on his face, after seconds of awkward situation, he left the room, after that, he soon recovered from the embarrassing moment, as if it had never happened, he was still running, jumping and smiling, the awkward situation didn’t leave any trace in his mind, he was still that happy boy. So when he entered the room for the second time, he might still be nervous, but he still didn’t think that it did matter, he didn’t care about that at all, never took it seriously. If he felt nervous, just let himself be nervous, if he blushed, he just blushed freely, even if people laughed at him. All in all, he had no mental conflict in his mind, he didn’t want to repel or suppress his anxiety. Therefore, after many times of entering that room, he grew familiar with the environment, he was not afraid of it any more, he can behave freely and in that environment naturally. Actually what mentioned above is the typical way many people grow up, people grow from timidity to bravery, grow from being ignorant to being knowledgeable, grow from being unfamiliar with the environment to being familiar with the environment, it is a natural process, but we social phobia sufferers are different, we are too sensitive, when we first met such awkward situation, in our childhood or in an earlier stage of our lives, we took it as a sort of demon, when we felt nervous, we thought to ourselves, “how can I behave like that.”, when we blush, we think, “how can I do that, people will think of me as a freak.”, when we felt we are stupid in other ones’ eyes, we tried to repel or suppress such thought in our mind. You see, we are making a battle against ourselves, we are attacking and trying to defeat not the outside world but ourselves, just like that we try to pull our own hair, wanting to lift us up away from the ground, according to Newton’s Law of Force & Counter-force, we will never succeed, what’s worse, we will suffer additionally by doing that because we are trying to break the law of nature. In the case of Social Phobia, actually we are making the same mistake, but we don’t realize that, we are always doing the same thing as air-pulling, we fight against ourselves, we try to escape from ourselves, we try to break the law of nature, so we will be punished by the nature, the punishment is Social Phobia.
So, now, it is time to turn back, it is time to retreat, it is a battle we will never win, because it is a battle against ourselves, against the law of nature, how can we defeat ourselves, just like that we can never lift ourselves up by pulling our own hair.
How to turn back, contrary to what we did in the past, we should learn to accept ourselves now, accept the real ourselves, accept our embarrassment, accept our nervousness, accept our blush, and accept our stupidity, saying to ourselves, “OK, I am nervous now, it is true, it is myself, why I must pretend not to be nervous, why should I pretend not to be myself “, “OK, I am blushing, it is true, why I must pretend to be calm, why should I pretend not to be myself." Etc.
Just like what that boy does, we accept what we are like, by doing that, we stop fueling our social anxiety any more, and it will gradually be alleviated to the normal degree, because we set ourselves free, we don’t force ourselves to repel or suppress our social anxiety, we stop fight against the law of nature, the nature will stop punishing us, after some time, sooner or later, we will find our Social Phobia has disappear, we come back to normal again.
_________________ I once suffered from OCD, Socail Phobia and Depression and now have completely recovered
msn:binjk1980@gmail.com
mail:binjk1980@gmail.com
The core of Heixi Therapy (Oriental Philosophy Therapy) is “Acceptance”, but what does Acceptance mean anyway, some people in this forum have asked me “I have accepted for years, why I haven’t recovered at all”, so today I will try to explain “what is the real acceptance”, due to language barrier, I don’t know whether I can perfectly make myself understood, but I will try my best.
In the case of treatment of Social Anxiety, some people thinks of “Acceptance” as a sort of method or therapy, they may say to themselves: “I accept myself, I accept my flaw, accept my blushing, accept my nervousness, then I can recover”, actually most people can alleviate their symptoms by thinking so, because they have fought for so long, such way of thinking can give them a sound rest. Then after some months, some of them found such way of thinking will not work when they felt timid, shy or embarrassed, they still blush before people, they still feel they are stupid in people’s eyes or in public situation, so they feel that “acceptance” is the wrong way. What a pity, they never realize “Acceptance” is the only way out, the problem is that they have misunderstood it, they have taken “Acceptance” as a sort of method, in their minds, consciously or sub-consciously, they want to use this method to cure “Social Phobia”, obviously it is a self-contradiction, since you accept it, why you want to cure it? Since you want to cure it, actually you still cannot accept it. Buddhism tells us: “all the troubles come out from desire” In the case of Social Phobia, I dare say, the very reason we get Social Phobia is that we have a desire to cure it or eradicate it, the very reason we have Social Phobia is that we cannot accept Social Phobia.
So, how should we comprehend “Acceptance” in the case of Social Phobia? The answer is “surrender”, yes, surrender, and surrender to your Social Phobia, saying to yourself, “OK, you win. I lose, I don’t want to struggle with you again. Accept it, accept it not for curing it, accept it because you despair of curing it. Even if the Social Phobia will accompany you for the rest of your life, you don’t care about it because you have no way to cure it, “no way” is the only way out.
Next time when you are attacked by Social Phobia, say to yourself: “yes, it is me, I am a nervous person, I am a timid and shy person, why should I pretend to be brave and talkative; I am so nervous, why should I pretend to be easy; I am so anxious, why should I pretend to be calm.” I am myself, not anyone else, why should I pretend to be someone else, no one in this world can be anyone else, and we can only be ourselves.
Some people may blame me for my radical view, if I had heard such perspective, I also would not have believed it, however it is just how I have recovered. Some people may think if they don’t have a desire to cure Social Phobia, they will stay in this prison for ever, but I can assure you that such thing will never happen.
Take myself as an example, when I truly accept myself under the guidance of Mr. Heixi, realizing that I can only be myself rather than anyone else in this world, I was suddenly free, I didn’t try any means to consciously cure my Social Phobia, I didn’t have a desire to eradicate those symptoms such as blushing or shyness. When I talked with people or see them in their eyes, I still felt shyness, I still want to hide away from them, but I had no mental conflict in my mind, I didn’t think how to repel or cure such problem, because I thought I was just a such person, so I didn’t force myself to do anything, if I wanted to hide away, I just hid away, if I felt I could persevere, I just persevered. Maybe I would still be laughed at, still be ridiculed for my bad performance, but in my mind, I was free, I didn’t have a desire to solve my problem, although on the surface, I was still the same, but in my mind, I began to make the first step towards “acceptance”. Even if I blushed to some extreme degree, I didn’t care, I knew I was just such a person, even if sometimes I felt extremely embarrassed, I didn’t care, because it was me, I was just such a person.
When I got into this path towards Acceptance, then after some time, gradually, because I am not afraid of blushing, I blushed less and less, and finally, I seldom blushed naturally. Because I was not afraid of feeling embarrassed, I felt that way less and less, and finally I felt quite easy and I was able to control myself . etc.
I just wish Heixi Therapy and my own recovery experience can shed some light on the treatment of Social Phobia, for many years, what people are thinking is how to control it, we have gone the wrong direction. We have to start with “not controlling”, then we can finally get control of it. Actually this simple phenomenon can be found everywhere. Sometimes when we are extremely afraid of writing or typing mistake, we tend to make more mistakes when typing or writing, when we are extremely afraid of slip tongue, we tend to say more wrong words, when we are extremely afraid of not sleeping well, we tend to suffer from insomnia.
So, now, could you understand, what acceptance means here now? Ask questions if you have, I hope I can make myself understood.
_________________ I once suffered from OCD, Socail Phobia and Depression and now have completely recovered
msn:binjk1980@gmail.com
mail:binjk1980@gmail.com
I didn't read everything from your posts, because I'm too tired to read right now but I agree with the basic principle to 'cure' SA and all sorts of anxiety, that is : acceptance.
Often you will read on this forum 'we will beat this' , but I firmly believe that with that attitude it can only become worse.
One thing I would like to ask is, why do you always refer to the person who helped you, so overtly respectful as if he stood above you *Mr Heixi*
Another oriental therapy is mentioned in the following web site, however the site does not give much information about the treatment itself, however makes the advertisement of it.
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but I agree with the basic principle to 'cure' SA and all sorts of anxiety, that is : acceptance.