The Inevitable fallout bourn by Highly Adaptable Humans.

97% of us grew up struggling in some way. There wasn't enough food, shelter or love and attention. We adapted. We got used to it. We accepted that this was "life," and unless we felt some level of dissatisfaction or pain, something was wrong and we'd better prepare emotionally for the worst.

A stress-free life that feels great, where we can't immediately discern what's missing or needs fixing, is the most common anxiety trigger there is, among humans all over the globe. It’s a programmed, automatic response to disappointment and setbacks we had to consistently endure as young children. Doesn't this seem sad to you?

When pain or disappointment becomes the norm for us as kids, we either have to take it for granted and accept it as such, or take a dive off a tall building. History has shown that humans can adapt to literally anything, even when they've been held captive and tortured for any period of time (and if you’ve ever loved an emotionally volatile Borderline, I rest my case).

You've heard me speak to Anxiety Disorder and its etiology a number of times already, and of course, I cover this extremely common trigger in my online tutorial designed to get you healthier, so your symptoms can mitigate. It's still challenging however, to unhinge our expectation of doom that rears its ugly head on the heels of occasionally getting to feel light, happy and stress-free!

Pavlov's dogs were taught to salivate in response to a bell that was rung right before they were fed. They were conditioned daily, to expect food every time that bell was rung, due to consistent programming. They learned to associate getting fed and feeling satisfied, with the sound of that bell. This expectation got hard-wired into the brains of those dogs.

The same thing happened to us, as children. We started noticing that soon after we felt relatively stable, and perhaps even good for a brief time, there was inevitably a setback, a disappointment or a disaster... and the worst part was, we had to cope with having our emotions dramatically jarred, all on our own! Nobody noticed our pain, confusion or bewilderment and soothed and reassured us that everything would work out fine, and we'd be okay (“children are resilient,” hadn’t ya heard?).

So as we grew, whenever we began to feel light, good feelings, we immediately began preparing ourselves for disaster in order to save ourselves from feelings of shock and surprise. We envisioned all kinds of things that could go wrong that would surely wrench our few moments of bliss or joy away from us. We did this to survive the terrible emotional devastation that had always foiled our few moments of peace or serenity, and forced us to once again accept that Life Is Painful~ and it’s pure folly to anticipate that it could ever be different!

By now, we'd learned not to trust good, light feelings, because they were always followed by pain. We started pushing love, opportunity and monetary success away from us in subtle ways, so as not to "invite" the unknown and intimidating BAD that would surely follow.

This is your coping mechanism. It's how you learned to survive your emotionally chaotic, tragic life as a child. I'm no stranger to this, either. This reflex still occasionally rears its ugly head when everything in my world feels wonderfully Right. So deeply programmed are we all, that most of us have learned to live with and normalize this anxiety, and we're resigned to keeping it. This relationship with our anxious feelings has in fact, given us an emotional safety net. If we can expect disaster to follow positive experiences, we at least know we can rely on something. Alas, even Prophesy Fulfillment can feel self-validating and comforting.

Resignation is very different from Resolution. Often in the course of psychotherapy when we seem to have reached a plausible, logical reason to attach to our inner pain, we experience relief from long-standing confusion about it. Even though the pain hasn't mitigated, we can finally RESIGN ourselves to living with it. We've accepted that this is as good as it gets for us...

which is inevitably our PAYOFF for having learned to accept that life is painful, and we should never let ourselves hope for more. But have you ever actually considered what it might feel like, to completely resolve your anxiety issues and panic attacks?

Maybe we should connect soon, and discuss it one of these days. 323 936-3637