FROM BILL: For you to get the distinction, you’d have to understand what it means to be dogmatic. Dogmatism is believing something because a powerful leader or authority figure told you that it’s true. I’m suggesting that you find out for yourself what’s true through your own personal investigation–in this case, meditation or other spiritual practice. What I write about is (hopefully) designed to get people to do their own investigation into who they are, what it’s all about, what is true. I have said over and over: “Don’t believe me. Find out for yourself.”

PS: you should do a post called “Seeing Things the way They Really Are Part two: the whole universe depends on me”.

FROM BILL: You should call the Centerpointe support coaches. That’s why access to them is part of the course.

FROM BILL: This isn’t the forum for such questions. Please ask your question through the LPIP website.

FROM BILL: If you were really in the voice of fear, you’d be afraid, and you WOULD be focusing on (making internal representations of) what you are afraid of. The more you speak from that voice, however, the more distance you get from it. As that happens you HAVE fear, but you no longer ARE fear. Fear happens, but you aren’t identified with it. Big Mind starts with identifying with a voice, but as you speak from it you create distance from it, which is the processes of moving from being it, which involves being on unconscious autopilot, to having it, which means realizing that fear, and all the other voices of the self, are mental events rather than who you are.

FROM BILL: This attachment problem is likely the result of some sort of trauma you had while growing up, probably when you were very young. If you haven’t done so, it might be a good idea to find someone who specializes in treating people with attachment disorders and work with them.

From my point of view, the past can only influence what you do now–which would include the feelings you have about intimacy and attachment, your behavior in that area, and which people you find yourself attracted to–if the internal cognitive processes that generate these things operate outside your awareness. If, for instance, when you are feeling lonely, you are able to see “how you do feeling lonely,” you gain choice over whether or not you generate that feeling. There is something you do inside (certain internal respresentations–pictures you make and internal dialog you have, for instance) that directly lead to the feeling of loneliness.

If you see yourself 1) being triggered by something in your environment (something that makes you think about this problem, such as, for instance, seeing a happy couple in a restaurant), 2) make certain internal representations of what you don’t want (beling lonely, etc), 3) and then you observe the feelings that are generated by these internal representations, you begin to have choice about whether or not you generate these feelings.

When this process happens outside your awareness, you have no choice about it; when you learn to observe it as it happens, you do have choice, and you will tend to choose what serves you rather than what makes you feel bad.

If someone doesn’t bond normally with their mother, for instance, there is an underlying feeling of danger which tends to generalize itself to all human relationships. This usually happens because of some emotional problems the mother has, where for some reason she cannot bond with the child. This is very difficult for the child, who then feels an underlying sense of danger, as I said, in most human relationships. When you feel danger, you tend to focus on avoiding it, which is what creates the internal representations I was talking about above. These internal representations lead to bad feelings, unresourceful behaviors, and an attraction to people who help you “be right” about not being able to connect with people.

Though I’m sure there are other treatment modalities that those who specialize in such things use, I think that the root cause is as I stated above, and that one way out of this is to see how you generate the negative feels, behaviors, and attractions. The danger reaction is programmed into a person who has been traumatized, whether in this or some other way. That programmed response just runs automatically UNLESS you can become aware enough to watch yourself do it. When you do this, the part in the process where you generate the result (where you make the internal representations that create the result) become a choice, and people tend to choose, when they have a choice, what serves them.

If you believe that you cannot connect with people, you will, in addition to making internal representations of what you don’t want regarding intimacy, you’ll also act in certain ways that make your belief come true, or at least seem to be true. This includes being attracted to people who are difficult to connect with for anyone, interpreting what happens in relationships as evidence that you can’t connect with people, and even acting in ways that sabotage your ability to connect. Taking the process off autopilot is the only thing I know that really works, and you do that by learning to watch it with awareness.

I strongly suggest that you take my Life Principles Intergration Process online courses, where I go into this in great detail: http://www.centerpointe.com/life/preview (for a free preview lesson).

I also had one other little question for you, although I understand if you can’t get around to it, as you’ve already given me so much attention and help! My question is about your explanation of anxiety, how you say that it is caused by some sort of traumatic childhood experience, which causes you to make negative IR’s. For me, I am not so sure this is what caused my anxiety, because my childhood was actually really good. I had a great, supportive family and grew up in a great community, and my childhood was actually really incredible. I didn’t develop anxiety until around age 15 when I got to high school, and I really think that it was inevitable for me, like it was just a consequence of my nature. As a kid and still now, I have always been very sensitive, intense, and perfection seeking. I think the stress and pressure I put on myself drove me to anxiety, but I think this would have happened regardless of my childhood experiences.

In the one psychology class I took in high school, we always talked about one central debate in psychology, nature vs nurture. Your explanation of anxiety basically says that it is caused by nurture, or the experiences and environment around us, right? Well is it possible that anxiety can also be caused by simply our nature, meaning that for some people it would happen regardless of our environment and experiences as a child? I was just wondering your thoughts on this. It really doesn’t matter as either way holosync works, but it is just something I have been thinking about lately and was wondering what your take is.

Thanks a lot Bill, Brian

FROM BILL: Regardless of your subjective impression of your childhood, I suspect that something led you to put so much pressure on yourself when you started high school. Your parents’ expectations could have put pressure on you, even though they were kind and supportive. You could have had some minor failures that caused you to conclude something about yourself. It doesn’t need to be some sort of grim beatings or being locked in the basement. What traumatizes someone is often invisible to eveyone else. It could have been that your parents protected you in many ways an that when you got to high school you were less prepared for the expectations you had to meet. I don’t know you, so all of this is guessing, of course.

Certainly it is possible that for some reason you have a more sensitive nature. What part of this somes from early experiences (which you may not even remember, because you were an infant, perhaps, or which seemed benign but nevertheless had an impact on you) and what part is genetic is unknown. I do know, however, that the part you can do something about is the part generated by your internal processes, and the way to have choice about that is through becoming more aware, and then going inside and finding out how you “do”, in this case, anxiety.

If I haven’t said so before, I strongly urge you to take my Life Principles Integration Process online courses, which teach you how to do this (among many other valuable things). http://www.centerpointe.com/life/preview