Definition: Past hurtful experiences projected into the immediate future All anxieties are pictures in the mind.
Once FACT, now unconscious (sometimes conscious) memories controlling the body response.
The adult mind is the mind of CHOICE while the child mind is the mind of FEELING.
If you are experiencing a feeling, that is the child mind at work.
Choice then becomes the healer.
YOU are that chooser.
I ask the question "Are you sure you want to get rid of this anxiety that you have invested in?" There are many sometimes very complicated ingredients for your anxieties.
These are REAL and you are certainly NOT 'making it up'! To show a little of how this could be expressed in a person, let me give you another illustration, this time with a man who was Dutch, living in Australia, and who could NOT eat from a porcelain dish.
He would throw up.
Even when covered and among many other (non porcelain) dishes he could tell with astonishing accuracy which dish was porcelain.
He was taken back to his very early days when he was repeatedly beaten by his father.
He wanted father's attention very much and he loved his father greatly.
Some little boys have that talent.
So his little psyche WOULD NOT accept that father was hurting him and his psyche told him that it was not daddy doing this but the strap.
The strap was made of leather made from the hide of the horses they kept, so it was the horses that were at fault.
But he loved the horses as well (and didn't daddy ride them, and taught the little boy how to ride them? so the little psyche transferred the pain onto a porcelain horse that was on the shelf near the strap.
The fault therefore was in the porcelain, not the horse, not the strap, not the daddy.
After a not-so-deep clearing, he found that he could eat from a porcelain dish with NO unwanted effects.
True story from one of the seminars.
What we have seen here is an illustration of second-line anxiety, but I wanted to show how things are done in our psyche at any level of anxiety.
I also want you to notice that it was NOT the anxiety that hurt the man, it was the symptoms that associated with the anxiety.
The body simply did what was expected of it, to reject the facts, in this case the food that was presented on the objectionable porcelain plate.
This second level anxiety I speak of relates to a later-age introduction to stresses of the psyche.
When a child of around three to around twelve years old receives hurtful experiences of an intense order he or she will try to bury these experiences as did the baby, but with this difference, that there is now a conscious brain activity involved where with the baby there is no such buffer.
Because of this the features of the anxiety remain the same but they are more readily accessed, analysed and removed.
The third line anxiety is introduced after the age of around twelve years old.
This is more a localised anxiety and is able to be released by intelligent application of the adult mind.
This is an anxiety prompted by a horrible experience and the resultant feeling becomes deeply embedded into the conscious memory.
The afflicted person can outline in detail the events relative to that horrible experience, and if a similar situation begins to show the anxiety returns.
That makes sense.
A young woman used to come to our house quite regularly.
She was a strong, energetic person with a forceful personality.
Every time my wife, and only my wife - not anyone else - asked her if she would like a coffee, she would react badly.
Sometimes very badly.
She had done our seminar, and decided one day to resolve this strange anxiety associated with my wife's invitation.
After spending some time on our veranda she came in, asked for a cup of coffee, and had no indication of stress whatsoever.
It seems that she had, when she was very little, an most objectionable uncle who had similar face features as my wife, and who would offer her enticements for his own selfish immoral ends.
She was able to destroy that picture and was free to accept anything from my wife.
However there is also another anxiety, of varying degrees, one where it 'takes over' the emotions and won't go away.
A terrifying emptiness of blackness filled with 'spiders' of our deep inner psyche's creation, not simply one in the bedroom that can be overcome by a bit of reason, muscle and mum's trusty broom.
I would call this first-line anxiety.
This is often very difficult to clear, not because it can't be cleared, but by the very nature of distrust on which all anxiety is founded.
A first-line anxiety regarding a spider phobia (extreme anxiety) would date from inner womb experience of the black huge placenta being experienced as a blood-sucking devourer.
Mother's pain, disappointment or whatever would be translated into a creeping thing that devours the soul.
Ugh! First-line anxiety regarding snakes could come from the cord being tightly wound around baby's throat with a choking, shutting off from life.
Life being strangled.
Later exercised in refusing to be 'strangled with a mortgage' or 'choked with rage' or 'tied up in a marriage' and so on we could go.
A woman once came to us with perpetual 'anxiety' headaches.
It transpired that when she was being carried in the womb, her mother consistently wore a tight elastic band around her waist.
This tightness was translated into physical pain in the baby right through to middle age when she was able to 'change the picture'.
So there are three categories of anxiety and also varying levels within those three.
However there is one method of deleting your anxieties.
And it can also be fun! So how to get rid of ALL anxiety? First second and third line anxieties? Firstly recognise the anxiety has no power of it's own to hurt because the anxiety is a feeling.
It is the associated bodily effects that hurt.
Secondly, we live by pictures.
The role of the unconscious mind pictures is to put the zap, or the hurt, into our life.
Now this is really simple, but profound.
To get back to the child we must become that child.
Remembering that the child has recorded the FEELING, not the fact.
To every feeling there is a shape, a picture.
Pictures! We live by them.
If you want a release from your anxieties then change the picture behind them.
Pictures are the life in our being and the drive for our psyche.
So, CHANGE THE PICTURES! Easier said than done? Let's see...
Firstly, and this is very important, find out as much as you can about your entry into this world as a little baby.
Find out about any circumstances while you were being carried by mother.
Was she happy that you were coming? Was she healthy? Were you wanted? Having found out as much as possible (aunties are a great source of information) get yourself comfortable with as little distraction as possible.
When you are settled, make tight fists of your hands, hold it for about five seconds and then suddenly let go.
Do this three or four times to get into a very relaxed mode.
Next, meditate about what you have learned about yourself.
Then imagine that you are again being born, travelling down the birth canal.
What does it feel like? DON'T THINK IN WORDS.
Think in pictures, use your imagination as the feelings direct.
It may take a little time to get it all together but it can be a lot of fun as well, taking over from the subconscious.
See as clearly as you can that long passage.
Is it a pleasant journey.
Is your head too large? Life is hard.
As hard as trying to push out into the world.
What do you see? What do you feel? Was it a gamble, coming into the world? Is there a tightness around you neck? (The umbilical cord) Is there a large black monster there? (The placenta).
Is it a tight birth or an easy one.
Were you introduced into the world by Caesar section? (An emptiness) Were you separated from mother at birth? (Separation anxiety) As You can see there are many variants available to a birth process, and the picture associated with your birth is then placed into the unconscious part of your mind to recreate again that feeling as an anxiety.
A VERY REAL ANXIETY, because it is YOUR picture Every feeling has a shape, a picture.
What shape does your feeling have? When you get that shape (and if one 'doesn't come' then invent one, it still works!) Talk to it in your mind.
Ask that shape "What are you doing in my mind?".
Now the trick here is important: Listen to the FIRST THOUGHT that comes into your mind.
Don't think.
Ask this shape "How long have you been in my mind?" Again, the FIRST THOUGHT whatever that may be.
When you are done asking questions of the shape and getting answers (even no answer is an answer) then let that shape know that you are going to 'get rid of it' and note its reaction.
Then destroy it with any means you devise.
I use a Buck Rogers Ray-gun.
Very effective.
You may have your pet way to destroy that shape.
How many times to do this? As many times as it takes.
The more times that you practise picture-sontrol, the more effective it becomes as you will be training the unconscious mind to travel the paths you want and not those imposed on you as a little psyche.
Much more effective than affirmations.
Now what to do? It would be most unwise to leave an 'anxiety vacuum' inside you, so again: relax, and picture a really appropriate image or picture that you would want to have there inside you.
One that can foil the efforts of the former anxiety picture.
What would it be? That's your business.
It may be a strong arm.
A personal hero.
The rising sun.
A calming, pleasant scene.
A special goal.
A fabulous floral arrangement.
A star.
Whatever.
At this stage it is a very good thing to say to yourself "I now have the power to choose, and I choose to believe in me".
All your pictures have a meaning that is different to another's similar picture.
The unique YOU translates all your pictures for you.
This is a part of the ego reality.
What you are doing is simply replacing an anxiety picture, VERY real when painted into your little psyche with another of YOUR choosing.
This is thinking in pictures.
As you were very little when all this happened, it became a fixed picture and now as an adult, you want to take control.
Naturally it will be a bit strange at first.
However, keep doing it until you get what YOU want freedom from anxiety.
Anxiety is the lack of hope.
What image does HOPE have? What do you see? Desire restores that hope.
What image does desire have? What do you see? Des\ire is hope with passion.
What image does PASSION have? What do you see? Draw them down on paper?