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Anxiety, Phobias and OCD - all the answers
Depression - the first signpost
Another word
for depression is disillusionment. Each one of us will, sooner
or later, become disillusioned as a result of our misperceptions.
If we think we are going to find happiness outside of ourselves,
we are setting ourselves up for depressing disappointments. Our
puny, limited understanding of this vast benevolent Universe must
be dispelled. Thank God for depression!
"The 'Dark Night of the Soul' naturally precedes the Dawning
of Enlightenment" - Bible
The medical profession makes a potentially serious mistake when
they blame depression on a chemical imbalance. Most of us learned
at school that every thought creates a chemical change in the
brain. It stands to reason, then, that you must first have had
an imbalanced thought - before a chemical imbalance can be reflected
in the brain.
We may look around us and conclude that others seem to be happy,
or are they just in between disappointments and currently feeling
motivated by their latest attempt to change their miserable lot?
It is a temporary and relative happiness. Relative because if
it is dependent upon rearranging the outer circumstances, it will
never work because it is in time and space and will disappear.
The good news is that happiness is your natural state of being
which has simply been temporarily veiled by your misperceptions.
We could not know what happiness is if we didn't already have
it. Depression is the feeling of loss and hopelessness that comes
when we block this natural feeling of peace and inner contentment.
The fact that the doctors call depression, which is a natural
evolutionary step, a 'disease' is not only a grave misnomer, but
it also causes tremendous suffering. Any good doctor will tell
you that medication is not a permanent cure and can, in fact,
make matters worse if continued for a long time. It is admitted
by these authorities that they do not know the cause of depression
and simply attempt to make the sufferer feel better by doping
them up with drugs.
Experience at The Winchester Foundation has shown that depression
is one of the easiest conditions to deal with, no matter how severe.
In fact the more severe the depression the easier it is to help
the sufferer. When a person reaches the point of suicide, they
are ready to give up completely. They are ready to let go and
allow the innate happiness to come through. This is what religions
have taught for thousands of years.
Anxiety - the fear of nothing
A person suffering
from anxiety cannot tell you what they are afraid of because we
only fear 'fear' itself. This is because, in truth, there is nothing
to fear. Anxiety and depression go hand in hand. It is a sign
reflecting that you have bought into a misperception. Anxiety
or fear occurs when we forget who we are. It is a message prompting
us to pause, step back and put things into perspective again.
As soon as
you pause and stop justifying your misperception you will see
the Truth. You can then turn the negative pattern into a positive
one and the anxiety disappears. The misperception, or negative
pattern, is therefore positive as it is showing us our error.
The Bible supports this when it states;
"The
Devil knows not who he works for"
Psychology, at best, will only help you to identify your faulty
thought pattern and then teach you to cope with it. By coping
with your misperception you perpetuate it. A psychiatrist will
simply prescribe drugs. Obviously, no drug will ever solve your
problem. They only suppress the symptoms, which compounds the
problem, because you do not heed the mind's warning that you are
entertaining a misperception. As a result, you miss the opportunity
to find out the cause of your condition and will therefore continue
to suffer.
We are not setting out to knock the medical profession - they
do a wonderful job and serve a valuable and necessary purpose,
at their level. What we are knocking is man's stupidity in believing
that there is no order in the Universe, and the belief that we
can suddenly get sick for no logical reason. Your body has an
incredible immune system and it is only when you have compromised
this defense mechanism with damaging thoughts that you open yourself
to these opportunistic diseases and disorders.
"Sickness is a choice" ACIM
In order for your depression or anxiety to remain with you, you
will have to re-create it each day, or it simply disappears as
it is not consistent with Truth. When the conventional approach
gives you a bottle of pills and a label for your disorder, you
are led to believe that the problem is real and that you have
no way of resolving it. You are now reminded of the fact that
you have a disorder each time you hear the name, or simply see
the bottle of pills on your bedside table.
Phobia - the fear of something
A person with
a phobia has erroneously blamed their imaginary fear on some external
object or condition. The specific form may vary widely, ranging
from fear of closed - or open - places, heights, insects, animals,
darkness, contamination by germs, etc.
Phobias are "justified anxieties". When you feel anxious,
which is no more than a distorted thought form, you get ready
to fight or flight. If the fear was real, you could deal with
it. You would either kill the wild animal that was about to attack
you, or you would run away from it. Either way the drama would
be over. Your condition would then return to normal.
However, because the fear is not real, you cannot deal with it.
You therefore become obsessed with trying to out-manoeuvre something
that is not really there! To make matters worse, you understand
that your fear is irrational and there just seems to be no way
for you to get a handle on it. This constant energising of a misperception
will cause all sorts of confusing reactions in the body, which
will ultimately cause it to go into spasm - you have created a
"panic-attack"!
"Nothing real can ever be threatened" - ACIM
Because nothing real can ever be threatened, and all fear is born
of ignorance, there is nothing to worry about. If you still worry,
you are choosing to remain ignorant.
Panic Attack -
the manifested fear of something which does not exist
A panic attack
is a natural consequence of a fear manifesting in the body. It
is obvious that the body will go into spasm if it is bombarded
with conflicting messages. You don't know whether you should 'fight
or flight' and you can do neither. Something must give.
The problem
is further exacerbated by the fact that you now fear the 'fear'
itself. You fear having a panic-attack and losing control. It
is one of the fundamental laws of the mind that states:
"Whatever
you imagine, will come about." Bible
You are now
a panic-attack looking for a place to happen!
You will always
get what you want, and you will always get want you don't want.
The natural
consequence of this inner conflict is shortness of breath, dizziness
or faintness, increased heart rate, trembling and shaking, hot
or cold flushes, and a sense of detachment. Other common symptoms
include a fear of dying or 'going crazy', and the fear of losing
control or having a heart attack.
Although it
might appear that the panic attack comes 'out of the blue' it
is triggered by certain stimuli. It could be a thought or an outer
circumstance that triggers the subconscious pattern. Although
the sufferer may not realise it, they do have the choice to reject
this faulty pattern if they wish.
The solution is simple because the problem is not real. The body
is continuously changing, replenishing, and rebuilding itself
at every moment and it has no other pattern to follow in doing
this, except the guidance given to it by the mind. So, once you
have corrected the distorted pattern, the physical tensions that
cause the panic attacks disappear.
In some cases,
a dormant misperception is suddenly triggered by some stimuli.
This is Nature's way of making you aware of an old faulty pattern
that needs to be brought to Truth. One learns to welcome any messages
from the subconscious mind, as this is the natural way of bringing
illusions to Truth. If you choose to fight these subconscious
signals with willpower, you are on your way to developing obsessive
compulsive behavioural patterns…
OCD - the futile attempt to cope with imagined
fears
Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder is the official label given to the disorder
of someone who has become obsessed with trying to alleviate a
fear by applying coping mechanisms or certain ritualistic behaviours.
It is futile to try and combat a fear which, in Truth, does not
exist. The very act of engaging the ritual amplifies the fear.
The use of willpower to try and combat a subconscious thought
pattern has, in fact, the exact reverse of the desired effect.
There is a law of the mind that states:
"Whenever
the will and the subconscious mind are in conflict,
the subconscious always wins"
Evidence of
this fact can be clearly seen in cases of Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder. A 'checker', one of the many manifestations of OCD,
would subconsciously fear that they have not locked the front
door for example. No matter how many times they go back to check,
they are never satisfied. The more the logical, conscious mind
tries to reassure them that they have done what they fear they
haven't - the more the subconscious fear is amplified.
If you are
a sufferer of OCD, which we all are in some form or another, and
you seek conventional help you will be taught 'coping skills'
which will only make matters worse. By trying to cope you are
not only assuming that your problem is real, and you are energising
your irrational addictive pattern each time you attempt to 'cope'.
Sufferers even form support groups so that they can meet once
a month to remind each other how serious and 'real' their imaginary
problem is.
Sufferers
can become very protective and defensive of their disorders and
tend to get pretty upset when you tell them there is a simple
solution. How dare you threaten the belief system that they have
so painfully and expertly developed? They have invested so much
time and money in nurturing this ailment. They often know more
about their so-called 'disease or disorder' than any doctor does.
A sufferer
of OCD will be able to tell you exactly what is happening in their
body with regard to their problem. They will explain in complicated
medical terms how the adrenaline and other chemicals cause the
problem. Such anatomical justification leaves no hope in the sufferer's
mind that their problem could be cured by a simple shift in their
thinking.
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