Saturday, March 10, 2012

Addendum to "Skipping Steps"


This is an addendum to Frank's story.

Since writing Skipping Steps, the insights keep coming. The meds slow me down so I can be more conscious of what’s going on around me. Of course, by that I mean that I feel more as well as become more aware. My first insight was patience, I don’t have to get this over with as fast as I can. I’m more grounded in the present and I’m not quite so controlled by the panic and terror of the past. I can let other people be where they are at and join them there. And then the big (to me) insight of Don’t Skip Steps.
Since then I recently had another big insight: Softer. I admit that you’ve really got to be inside my skin to understand what that means to me, but I’ll try to explain. When I hold a pencil, or mouse, or almost anything, I grip it like someone is trying to take it away from me, or that my life depends on not letting it go, or that I’ll lose control if I relax my grip. When I type, I strike the keys hard to make sure they do their job, and harder after mistakes. When I write, I feel like I’m holding on to a plow being pulled by a wild horse, dragging me all over the place while I’ve got to keep the rows straight. This leaves my writing with a hard, coarse, jerky somewhat illegible appearance. When I talk, I’m desperate to make sure I’m heard, making my voice louder and sharper than it needs to be.
Oddly enough (to me) I’ve been somewhat aware of this for a long time, but this is the first time I’ve been able to feel how unpleasant it is to me in the doing, not just the result. And this leads me to another insight. I’m always careful. But it is a carefulness born of fear rather than love. It arises from wombs eye fear that something terrible is going to happen to me if I don’t watch out. I want to remain careful, but in a positive way born of love for myself, and for what I’m doing, along with love for those with whom my life transpires. It’s a carefulness that comes from within rather than from the outside.
I also have to add that this change doesn’t happen cleanly, and instantly. It is a slow process of being more conscious and noticing those things that sabotage my daily life, and applying conscious effort to change. Because the truth of the matter is that I’ve had over 72 years practice reinforcing these imprints, and my only advantage is that I feel what they do to me, and also feel what it’s like to relax and go slower, softer, and consciously careful.

8 comments:

  1. Love.. beautiful Art, enjoy being soft xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. About “skipping steps” and where they begins!
    When I experience where the step begins... my everyday life is beset with suffering. Being rejected... left and ignored in a very subtle shape is the most mundane events as the first step... it rose by the greatest importance to be the first steps... they bear as much pain as what the cause of the suffering caused
    If we have our behavior as a defense against suffering... we must also change behavior in order to feel that we suffer. Something as I think… a professional has extremely difficult to do. A professional has usually a behavior where also power plays a significant role ... to be seen ... to feel successful… and with the political support is the illusion "perfect"... he/she is prepared to do anything to keep their support. That is the reason why it is so difficult for them to accept primal therapy... they must give up a near-perfect defense against suffering ... if so… by denying sciences and to exterminate their own people.

    Frank

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Frank: This is a very simple truth that I must include: If our behavior is a defense against the suffering, why not go after the suffering, the base, and not the behavior? art

      Delete
  3. Hi Frank, Art & all,

    -"If we have our behaviour as a defence against suffering... we must also change behaviour in order to feel that we suffer"-.

    -"Frank: This is a very simple truth that I must include: If our behavior is a defense against the suffering, why not go after the suffering, the base, and not the behaviour? art"-.

    That's called a 'paradigm shift'.

    basically I agree but also Art your reply is a bit of a discussion stopper because, well, I mean, in the interim period (in the absence of an appropriate therapeutic vessel) whilst we struggle with our 'façades' we will inevitably try to adapt (our behaviour) to better manage our neurosis in whatever way we possibly can. Living with the truth is not easy, particularly if you really want to be conscious of it (the truth) that is.

    Much easier to carry on as before, steaming on ahead regardless.

    We are faced with our recurring act outs and their inevitable consequences.

    We seem to be like the Titanic, too long, too fast and not enough rudder to change direction, nor foresight to see the icebergs ahead (and frankly without enough 'primal life rafts and boats some of us will inevitably drown or freeze to death when the crash comes).

    As Frank says though, or implies, it is only the captain of the ship that stays on board till the last soul is off. . . . These other 'technicians' and 'tycoons' are well away first. . . They don't 'need' a primal life raft.

    Paul G.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes that sounds simpel and easy and is so relieving to be in when we are there… tears flowing in a never-ending stream.
    If you could give us the key to how we sink into suffering… a key to understanding what the child in us says… then would the world be "blessed" and healed from all sufferings.
    But if we do not know that we suffer and we defending ourselves by beeing religious and professional... professional in whatever it is that "professionalism" alleviates suffering from... then what?
    If we can’t get that key we will suffer untill the day we die… we will be mad as professionals… religious... mad with a pore little child in us who wants to se the light of the day.
    Thank “god” Art that you hav done what you has… I also know that you have a key… a key we need to hone to become so perfect that no resistance is when we turn it on… or so rough in a scientific way that no one can stop it.

    Frank

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dr. Janov,
    by going after the basis of suffering, the base of all “evil”, you hand out many pink slips - to all cognitive therapists, police, Judges and perhaps, close all jails.
    Exactly this will never happen.
    Behavior can be corrected with behavior management, bad behavior must be corrected by the law.
    Sieglinde

    ReplyDelete
  6. frank, i hope you have many more years to live and continue to get better.

    ReplyDelete

Review of "Beyond Belief"

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Quotes for "Life Before Birth"

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Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D.
Bailey Endowed Chair of Animal Well Being Science
Washington State University

Dr. Janov’s essential insight—that our earliest experiences strongly influence later well being—is no longer in doubt. Thanks to advances in neuroscience, immunology, and epigenetics, we can now see some of the mechanisms of action at the heart of these developmental processes. His long-held belief that the brain, human development, and psychological well being need to studied in the context of evolution—from the brainstem up—now lies at the heart of the integration of neuroscience and psychotherapy.
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Lou Cozolino, PsyD, Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University


In Life Before Birth Dr. Arthur Janov illuminates the sources of much that happens during life after birth. Lucidly, the pioneer of primal therapy provides the scientific rationale for treatments that take us through our original, non-verbal memories—to essential depths of experience that the superficial cognitive-behavioral modalities currently in fashion cannot possibly touch, let alone transform.
Gabor Maté MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction

An expansive analysis! This book attempts to explain the impact of critical developmental windows in the past, implores us to improve the lives of pregnant women in the present, and has implications for understanding our children, ourselves, and our collective future. I’m not sure whether primal therapy works or not, but it certainly deserves systematic testing in well-designed, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trials.
K.J.S. Anand, MBBS, D. Phil, FAACP, FCCM, FRCPCH, Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Anatomy & Neurobiology, Senior Scholar, Center for Excellence in Faith and Health, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare System


A baby's brain grows more while in the womb than at any time in a child's life. Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script That Rules Our Lives is a valuable guide to creating healthier babies and offers insight into healing our early primal wounds. Dr. Janov integrates the most recent scientific research about prenatal development with the psychobiological reality that these early experiences do cast a long shadow over our entire lifespan. With a wealth of experience and a history of successful psychotherapeutic treatment, Dr. Janov is well positioned to speak with clarity and precision on a topic that remains critically important.
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His new book “Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” shows that primal therapy, the lower-brain therapeutic method popularized in the 1970’s international bestseller “Primal Scream” and his early work with John Lennon, may help alleviate depression and anxiety disorders, normalize blood pressure and serotonin levels, and improve the functioning of the immune system.
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After explaining how hormonal and neurologic processes in the womb provide a blueprint for later mental illness and disease, Dr. Janov charts a revolutionary new course for psychotherapy. He provides a sharp critique of cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, and other popular “talk therapy” models for treating addiction and mental illness, which he argues do not reach the limbic system and brainstem, where the effects of early trauma are registered in the nervous system.
“Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” is scheduled to be published by NTI Upstream in October 2011, and has tremendous implications for the future of modern psychology, pediatrics, pregnancy, and women’s health.
Editor