Day One Hundred and Ninety Seven!!!!

Paralysis 


Have you ever felt paralyzed? Unable to move forward or accomplish anything, that even when you make the decision to do something and even make a start, you end up giving up or redirecting yourself to something else. You might have 25 things started and nothing accomplished. This may be an indication of something called Depressive Living Syndrome. There are four identifying characteristics of this. 


The first is a deep sense of loss. Loss does’t have to be, that you have literally lost something like a house or a job. Other forms of loss are; loss of self esteem, loss of self respect, loss of respect for others, loss of the ability to trust, loss of hopes and dreams, and loss of the ability to achieve success. When people experience this type of loss they actually lose the ability to see the good in life because life becomes a burden. People feel the need to engage in either fight or flight and when fighting for it doesn’t work, and running away from it doesn’t work, the only thing that seems to work is freeze or paralysis. 


When one engages in fight, it’s because they are also engaged in anger. Anger comes from a sense of injustice and is an emotional response to a loss. Something that you feel should come to you and come to you easily, either does not, or is taken away from you and the longer the loss remains unhealed, the greater the increase in anger. With an increasing sense of powerlessness and inadequacy, comes depression and these feelings are painful, and in order to alleviate and avoid the pain, people initiate a development of obsessional patterns, compulsions, such as eating, spending or participating in addictive relationships.


Unfortunately the initial good feelings of engaging in the behaviour ends up deepening that sense of loss, which in turn deepens the anger, and this leads to paralysis. Paralysis is the inability to do anything, and it can be caused by many things, yet the most important is not recognizing what is actually, really causing the pain. These patterns become internalized, they become well learned and well practiced. That is why there is such a high return rate for any type of diet program or addiction program. If the underlying pain isn’t healed, then those patterns resurface because they are well learned and well practiced, and because these patterns become subconscious, meaning that you don't even have to think about your behaviour at all, they become internalized. They become sabotaging plots taking away your ability to choose, and healing is a choice.


Habits are formed as an act to defend themselves, and in order to maintain those habits, people develop elaborate belief systems and self-talk scripts to support the habits staying in control. If you would like to be in power to change your life, it is really important to first understand your own internalized patterns and then to be motivated to do what needs to be done. Here is the key; that motivation has to become your new life pattern, it has to stay around long enough and consistently enough to become your new life plan. 


An important question to ask yourself is, what is my own self sabotaging plot that is paralyzing me?