Posts
(Click to access!)
My comment:
“Side Effects”
In principle Art is right, of course! To move past unwanted, negative feelings, - “self-distancing yourself” - is a sure way to shorten your lifetime potential. To keep your emotions at arms length and denying feelings makes you sick and you are bound to overtaxing your immune system and your vital body organs like brain, heart, liver, kidneys and pancreas.
So why does it, in practice, not work as Art says and WHY are we continuously fed with all these repressive techniques to deny our feelings? Which are the values behind all that? How has it been possible to accept all the “Side Effects” (Referring to the new Steven Soderbergh-film to be released Feb. 8th, 2013.) caused by drugs and cognitive talk developed to dissimulate and take its toll by “keeping emotions at arms length”? According to an article in NYT, Jan. 9th, 2013, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing of America remains strongly committed to the development of new drugs, including 187 medicines now being developed to aid about 60 million(!!!) patients who have some form of mental illness in the US.
The current treatment paradigm (intellectual talk therapies and painkillers) is based on evolution’s own principle to repress the pain, physically and mentally, at the cost of a shortened life potential. It is a method / “bubble” which is interwoven with the economic / political system we all depend on, and, which gives priority to short-term solutions, which are reasonably possible to manage and control, at least in the short perspective.
During decades, I kept my pain / anxiety / epilepsy at arms length by the help of the Pharmaceutical Industry. I was a prisoner of my own pain and Carbamazepine/ Tegretol. It was the prize I had to pay to act normal and to be able to support myself and those who depended on me. Tegretol rescued short term my life at the cost of Side Effects, which were devastating, and debilitating. My longterm battle to break out of both Tegretol and my nasty birth trauma / anxiety / epilepsy was made possible by Art’s unique guidance over 40 years through the principles of Primal Therapy. Eventually I understood and learned - fortunately not too late - to feel my repressed feelings.
Having a new life style I especially like Art’s word: “Feelings predate thoughts and long before we think they inform us about life”. My new life has plenty of experiences which confirm my feelings and his statement! Having been a longterm prisoner of pain (still having some painful scars) is now a rich experience when I know the value of feelings as the essence of life.
Jan Johnsson
Another kind of Alarmist!
I was just writing on a serious article about the decadence of our western society due to how we keep feelings and emotions at arms length, when I happened to get my eyes on this wonderful article by Woody Allen: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/hypochondria-an-inside-look.html?src=me&ref=general .
Next to you, humor is the best remedy for depression. Though yours is a cure.
Jan Johnsson
