Safety Thoughts

[rivergirl]

Beautiful pochi bukuro and safety thoughts, Beany.

[Beany Boo]

Thanks rg

[Beany Boo]

This safety thought doesn’t really have a context but it feels safe:

“Not all my thoughts are ready.”

Including this one I guess.

[Beany Boo]

Whilst holding some of it together, let some of it fall apart.

(Not all my thoughts are ready)

[Beany Boo]

So I have a theory.

When I go to be happy I reach for a full uninterrupted feeling. Unfortunately the only feeling in my repertoire that matches that description is humiliation. My brain receives my prompt, and returns “‘happiness’ does not exist, ‘humiliation’ is this what you’re looking for?”.

This is sort of simplified. My point is I may be constantly trying to access happiness and my brain is constantly trying to furnish me with it based on all previous experience.

Maybe I can start sending a new query, “please cue ‘happiness‘, does not contain ‘humiliation‘“.
Hopefully it doesn’t crash my brain, and just generates a paradoxical object; “‘happiness’, attributes uploading, please stand by”.

[manuel_moe_g]

i would like to know more about what happens with your query "please cue ‘happiness‘, does not contain ‘humiliation‘"

for me, i would like to use the query "please cue 'happiness', does not contain 'anxiety' or 'doom'"

great stuff as usual, Beany

[snoringdog]

Hello Beany,

How can humiliation be a substitute feeling for happiness? Hard to understand.
When I've been or felt humiliated, it was quite painful. Similar to shame.

Happiness for me is fleeing, but it's there....as long as I don't think too much.....

[Beany Boo]

Hi SD,

I don’t disagree that it’s difficult to understand how happiness and humiliation might be linked. But they both are stimulated by arousal. If arousal of any kind is triggering for you that might be an intersection.

If you were shamed, for a prolonged period, in an environment of hardship, for displaying any outward signs of joy, that’s a point where they could form a link.

If someone is openly and deliberately kind to you (a therapist for example), and the kindness is a shocking, novel experience, it may cast your previous experience of life, in a more realistic light, where what you thought was happiness, may have been actually, dissociation, from humiliation.

I don’t know if this clarifies at all. It may be too much to share on a public forum. But you’re right it’s complicated. I’m just relating my own experience.

[snoringdog]

Hmm, I see

If you were shamed, for a prolonged period, in an environment of hardship, for displaying any outward signs of joy, that’s a point where they could form a link.

What an awful thing to have to endure!

I've been shamed as part of a group for not being "X" enough (fill in the Christian-related adjective), but fortunately the sermons/sessions were sporadic and short, and didn't lead to that linkage in me...

[Beany Boo]

Safety thought:

Too much is going to be alright.

(Not all my thoughts are ready)