(((Rose))),
Yes, unfortunately there are lots of people out there that actually do not know better.
And there has been an established name for these people "AIR HEADS" we call them.
Yes they do exist in rather large numbers I dare say.

Well, I went to see my T today and I thought I would share what he discussed with me today, because I love the way he explained it and also helped me calm down in therapy. I did talk about my day Sunday and how that effected me and as I did that I filled up with a lot of emotion and anxiety.

What my T said is that the part of our brain that carries emotion is actually rather stupid. And all it does is wait for information and pictures to come into our brain and as these images come to the brain, the emotions attach to the images or information.

First he told me to take notice of how my body was feeling. And I did and it was full of anxiety and in a lot of pain.

Then he told me to sit back and close my eyes. He told me to picture a black board in front of me. A big black board like I saw in school growing up. Then he told me to put a piece of chalk in my hand and feel that chalk in my hand and smell it and smell the black board. He told me to take the chalk and write on that chalk board a big number 10 nice and slowly. Then he told me to put a big eraser in my other hand and after I wrote the number 10 to wipe the number away with the big eraser. Then he told me to write the number 9 and again erase it away with the eraser. And he went down every number until I erased number 1.

Then he asked me to open my eyes and tell him how I felt. And I have to admit that I did feel much better.

He explained to me that what I was doing is focusing my mind on an image and an easy soothing task and as I did that I was also allowing the emotions to fade away and I calmed myself down in that process. And when I do that it tells my body and even my liver is allowed to remove the chemicals that tell my body "fright/flight".

What I am discribing is mindfulness and learning how to "not" allow our emotions to take us over and encourage us to feel full of any emotion that can lead to losing control. And when we do this we learn how we CAN take more charge in how we "react" to things that come into our brain where the dumb emotions present and can cause us to feel like we are losing control.

Now, I was already aware of breathing exercises and meditation and coloring books etc for some self soothing and calming. But the way he described emotions being in a part of the brain that had no real intelligence, was dumb, that is what made the difference for me.

And as I drove home and really thought about it, I also realized that often when we have flashbacks and other memories where we do recall images and even how others have treated us in the past, each time we do that we also invite emotions to enter into these memories. And the older we are and more sophisticated we are about appropriate emotions which we continure to learn as we age and by exposure in so many ways, we CAN attach a lot of more sophisticated emotion to memories of our past as well as the flashbacks.

And this is often why we hesitate to recall childhood memories too. Because when we do that we can add more emotion to these memories than we may have had the capacity to do when we experienced our childhoods. Yes, we may have been stressed or frightened or did not receive the right kind of nurturing but at the time we didn't really know what all of that meant. So, when we do look back, we can look back with a lot more emotion and even wonder how we may not have responded better or known better. And yes, it is not fair to judge ourselves with our present more indepth way of attaching emotions to our experiences because we can add more guilt for how we didn't do more to stand up and try harder somehow.

And the other thing he told me is that while we do experience flashbacks and they can stir up emotions and anxiety etc. We can LEARN that when that happens there is a certain length of time to them and by practicing the black board method, we can also learn that we can CONTROL and lower the invasion of emotions that really only come with the visions and information that comes into our minds.

So ((Rose)) that new experience today with this girl still being dumb? You have the ability to be able to disguard the emotions that you can have about that issue. You can close your eyes and go right to the black board and picture yourself erasing numbers and that WILL get that information coming in no power to call forward emotions that present you with anger all over again.

My T told me that as we practice this we become more "in control" of the "dumb" emotions that just are trained to attach to certain pictures in information that comes into the brain.

In a very round about way, that is what I was trying to say about the shoes as well.
Shoes are shoes, it is us that spend emotion on what exact "kind" of shoes they are.
We actually allow ourselves to be trained to feel "relief" and "safety" by thinking that having a pair of shoes that are expensive with a designer name on them allow "positive" emotions to come forward. And that is what "marketing" is all about.

That is what I was trying to say about freeing myself from feeling I had to follow along with some kind of "marketing" idea. An ability to "Laugh" at that and truely feel it to the depth of me.

I was all around what my T told me today about emotions and the fact that they are in a part of the brain that is dumb in and of itself.

Interesting food for thought. Meh?

(((Hugs as always)))
Open Eyes