My feelings of sadness are bad—not in a conscious way, but implicitly. And because that experience is too painful for me to tolerate for very long, eventually a strategy will develop: I will try not to have feelings of sadness. During their training, most psychologists are taught cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT was first developed to treat phobias such as fear of spiders, airplane, or heights, to help people compare their irrational fears with harmless realities. Many are gradually desensitized from their irrational fears by bringing to mind what they are most afraid of, using their narratives and images (“imaginal exposure”), or they are placed in actual (but actually safe) anxiety-provoking situations (“in vivo exposure”), or they are exposed to virtual-reality, computer-simulated scenes, for example, in the case of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD, fighting in the streets of Sacramento that broke out at the state Capitol a few weeks ago. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 6

The idea behind cognitive behavioral treatment is that when people are repeatedly exposed to the stimulus without bad things actually happening, they gradually will become less upset; the bad memories will have become associated with corrective information of being safe. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) also tries to help patients deal with their tendency to avoid, as in: I do not want to talk about it. It sounds simple, but, as we have seen, reliving trauma reactivates the brain’s alarm system and knocks out critical brain areas necessary for integrating the past, making it likely that people will relive rather than resolve the trauma. From this perspective, our wound is not what happened to us in the past; it is that we were unable to stay connected with our deeper nature in the face of what happened to us in the past, which is our disconnect from the truth of who we are. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 6

Prolonged exposure of flooding has been studied more thoroughly than any other posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment. People are asked to focus their attention on the traumatic material and not distract themselves with others thoughts or activities. Looking more closely into the phenomenology of our loss of being, we can see that our conditioned identities always come in pairs: one that is more conscious, and underneath that, one that is less conscious. The more conscious identity—the one that we create to cover up our loss of being—could be called our compensatory identity, because its basic function is to compensate. The less conscious identity—where we have identified with our loss of being—could be called our deficient identity. The deficient identity that goes with no having pain would be something like: I am someone whose pain is too much; if I allow it, it overwhelms and alienates those I need and love. So underneath: I am someone who does not have pain is I am someone whose pain is too much. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 6

For every conditioned identity then, there are always two poles; the people of who we are hoping we are, and the deeper pole of who we are fearing we are. This is an intrinsically untenable situation, because what we are trying to be does not rest on any actual confidence that we really are that; we have to continually work against the deeper fear that in fact we are not that. That is why our intrapsychic loops—our dual conditioned identities—are inevitably self-undermining. There is nothing we can ever do to prove that we are something as long as our deeper belief is that we really are not that—especially when our activity to disprove that deeper belief only reinforces it. When we reject our pain as too much, for example, then when it finally does break through it probably will seem like too much—both to ourselves and to those around us. This is the self-undermining part of our loop. However, then because we cannot tolerate the experience of our pain as too much, we are thrust back into our strategy of repressing it. And the momentum created by this mind activity that both defeats and perpetuates itself is inexhaustible, until we begin to bring awareness to it.  #RyanPhillippe 4 of 6

While our own personal loops can create tremendous suffering and bring us to the outer layers of uncomfortable darkness, to really go all the way this pit of darkness requires another human being. Nonetheless, research has shown that up to one hundred minutes of flooding (in which anxiety-provoking triggers are presented in an intense, sustained form) are required before decreases in anxiety are reported. Exposure sometimes helps to deal with fear and anxiety, but it has not been proven to help with guilt or other complex emotions. In contrast to its effectiveness for irrational fears (keep in mind every fear can be considered rational in some context) such as the first day of school, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has not done so well for traumatized individuals, particularly those histories of childhood disturbances. Only about 33 percent of those with PTSD showed some improvement. However, those who complete CBT treatment usually have fewer PTSD symptoms, but they rarely recover completely: Most continue to have substantial problems with their health, work, or mental well-being. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 6

So the thing to take away is that different methods of healing work for different people, and not everyone is going to react the same to treatment. Nonetheless, seeking help, regardless of if it is talk therapy (which I do not recommend because you have no idea what the agenda of the person treat you is or what notes they are putting in your files), finding a hobby like walking in a safe park with a friend during the day time, painting, or reading a book, or even watching funny movies that are for a general audience, find a way to relax and take your mind off of whatever is bothering you is a way to recover from trauma. However, if you are constantly focusing on your problems or around people who are mistreating you, it will take you outside of your character and cause you to do things that are not typical of you. So if people or situations are not bringing out the best in you, trying to find something safe and sane to focus on so you can heal. Remember, there is always someone who will care about you and wants to see you be successful. (www.thedeedle.com) #RyanPhillippe 6 of 6