Once more I am feeling a froggy throat and I find myself wondering: is this strep throat? I remember in Paris I went to the pharmacy and got tested for strep. The test came out negative and I remember feeling a bit disappointed. Sounds weird, but as much as I hate strep it gets better very quickly after taking antibiotics.
Why do I want to get better anyway? One answer is obviously I don’t want to feel horribly ill, so there’s that. Another is so I can move on with my life, I had plans to go to Brussels and hang out with Chloe.
Many times when we feel bad, we’re just so sick and tired of it and we just want to move on. There’s something extra to this “I don’t want to feel bad” feeling, it’s more of “I know what I need to go through, let me just pass this period pleasssseeeee can I just go to sleep tonight and wake up when all of this is over?”.
Alas, but our keeper of time (is Chronos the time keeper in Greek mythology? I assume so) only lets time flow in a certain cadence and we have to endure it. So we go for the next best alternative, something that HELPS us pass the time. Sometimes drugs, sometimes games, sometimes dating, whatever works its magic.
Sometimes we approach our inner journey like this. We want to do something about our problem and move on from it. In times of acute distress this is immensely useful, like when you’re having panic attacks from a car accident or you just noticed someone broke into your apartment. Quick remedies that allow you to move on are of great value in these cases.
Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Suppose you have frequent anxiety attacks. This feels like a singular issue of “anxiety attack”, and hopefully we should be able to move past it. But the reality of the matter is, many times these patterns of behavior are the result of an intricate network of interacting cause-and-effect patterns.
For example, John experiences some chest pain whenever he’s in a situation where he feels like he can’t speak his mind. This seems like a heartburn issue or an expression issue, but these cases can unfold to something way deeper than a simple chest pain issue.
Why chest pain? Why chest in particular, why not the throat? This can be the result of early life observations, where parents beat their chest when they feel frustrated. Why pain instead of an itch or a compression? Why is John fine when he is being attentive during a conversation and listening to a friend, but not when he’s listening to his boss talk? Even if we get over the individual cases of when this happens, how can we make sure this doesn’t happen in the future?
This is what I’m interested in solving with you. How can we make sure this doesn’t happen in the future, how do we bulletproof the solution? That is the key feature of my coaching program, developing a way for you to make yourself bulletproof to any kind of a suffering.
But that’s not really the core point I want to make today. The real problem with this “moving on” model is, we don’t really provide the mind with the best alternative after we “move on” from the problem.
Give an alcoholic person a rehab program, and in the program they’re able to keep themselves occupied and not drink. But when they come back to their usual environment, why is it that the relapse rate for most programs are non-negligible? It’s because while you’ve “worked” on the problem, the mind doesn’t know how to think and act in terms of alternatives when you’re re-exposed to your normal life.
If you’re a drinker, you drink for a system of reasons. If you’re angry, you’re angry for a system of reasons. Isolating and removing the problem can often times cause a relapse for the mind, deepening the problem because you feel so betrayed and disappointed by yourself. “I thought I worked on this! But GAH! This feeling’s here again!”.
So we need a more structured, systemized approach to working with life patterns by changing your life itself. In order to do that we need to understand the process of life, the process of the mind, and most importantly: reality itself.
You’re not alone in this journey of life, and there’s more to it than suffering. I know that I write in walls of text and it can seem overwhelming, but consider it a collateral of my passion. :) Let’s stop suffering. Email me at billy@julylifecoach.com to hire me for your life.
Billy Seol
July Life Coach
julylifecoach.com
