Like night and day. You can not imagine a more viscerally and mentally different experience. Throughout my days I pass back and forth between regulation and dysregulation. Some days there's more regulation, while some days more dysreglation.
But this term doesn't mean much, does it? It sounds very general. What kind of experience does regulation and dysregulation describe? What sort of emotions are felts? What is the "affect" state in the body felt like? What is time experienced as? And how do you feel with change of pace? How does being worked upon by emotions feel like opposed to a dissociated hyperaware conscious state?
All these questions revolve about the issue of trauma. Dysregulation and regulation refer to mental responses to bodily viscera. If one feels bad, how does one handle it? If one is able to suppress negative feeling and focus awareness on something feel-good, then you are termed "regulated". If, conversely, you find yourself overwhelmed by visceral experience and unable to mentally handle these feelings, you are dysregulated. These are helpful terms for both clinician and client because they are general.
Our emotions organize our thoughts. Our emotions have a mind of their own. Recent studies in interpersonal psychology has shown that human relationships regulate our emotional states. When people communicate, they have this innate drive to "co-regulate" with the other person. We do all sorts of things unconsciously to carry out these behaviors. In fact, the "social engagement system", as it is called by Stephen Porges, is able to carry out exquisitely nuanced shifts in response to external changes in communication. When two people are oriented toward "positive communication" i.e a state where both people are regulated, their nervous systems literally organize a sweet sounding melody between the two of them. Subtle changes induce responses that support effective social engagement.
What does this experience feel like, viscerally? Generally, a state of calmness. Your body feels light, muscles are relaxed and loose, voice carries bass, breathing is long and deep. These are often in the "background" of your awareness, even though it is the feeling state itself which facilitates connection to "thoughts of interest" to the self and ultimately positive social engagement.
The power of intersubjective field is infectious. When you're around people who are experiencing a laugh, it seems easier to physically feel it. As if their "energy" has begun to regulate my feelings, emotions and thoughts. I engage and communicate considering this behavior run of the mill, to mundane to take particularly seriously. But it is quite impressive beneath the surface.
Human emotionality operates in a very dynamic landscape. The directions are feeling "good" and feeling "bad". Innumerable subtypes exist within and between the directions. But there is always a general "thrust" either 'this way' or 'that way'. What is this thrust?
Of course, people can be dangerously disorganized people, bad people even, and still be emotionally "regulated" in some particular way. What is the hallmark of dysregulation? Dissociation. If you chronically dissociate, you exhibit a present inability to regulate emotional feelings. You are then a) chronically tense, or b) emotionally withdrawn. Dissociation is the mammalian response to painful experiences which can't be emotionally integrated; it both endangers consciousness - can drive it insane, but more importantly saps bodily energy. The dorsal tract of the vagus nerve regulates this autonomic metabolic response to severe levels of stress. If it goes too high, it initiates conscious withdrawal from the body by raising heart rate and releases endogenous opiates. This is the "numbness" feeling that dissociation causes. It distracts and demotivates consciousness from experiencing emotions.
When you're dissociated, the basic "thrust" of energy is towards conservation. Conversely, when you're embodied, in the emotional subjective present, you are living in the moment, in the flow of time. Consciousness is regulated by expansive feelings which enter and exit consciousness with little conscious input. Compared to a dissociated state, embodied awareness feels strange.
When you can't hear yourself think in a loud room, what do you do? You go to go to a quiet place. This is what dissociation feels like relative to a continuous flow of emotion. When you're embodied, all you "hear" is the "sound from without" i.e. the intense visceral feelings emotion produces. Dissociation conversely is like a quiet room. You feel your individuality more clearly, (albeit, it's deepest appearance in expression is pathologically repressed) you feel a heightened awareness of thoughts; you feel like your power of choice and deliberation, and your ability to become aware of all sorts of basic aspects of experience - the tone voice produces, changes in facial expression, etc in eery detail. I believe the pinpoint of deliberative self, the "thinker" is made extra aware of it's existence when you're dissociated. Without emotions to preoccupy you, become extra aware of yourself.
When were in the "flow" of things, were happy, relaxed, and at peace. Only when we resist the flow, only when we reject, resent, hate, do we experience the "tensions" of the world. If someone stays in this state long enough, or if he experiences a shock trauma, his body physically "contains" the undischarged, tense and dysregulated energy within it's neural network.
Monday, 25 November 2013
Friday, 22 November 2013
Monday, 4 November 2013
Wednesday, 23 October 2013
Some Mental Notes
-Amplitude of physiological rhythms (indicated by RSA indexes) reveals ANS stress activity. If amplitude is great, the organism experiences homeostasis. If amplitude is small and restricted, organism is having trouble experiencing homeostasis and is chronically stressed
- Ways to Combat Stress: Seek to experience i.e. emotionally integrate positive external events. Such stimuli heal the body. Physiological dysregulation is marked by low amplitude in physiological rhythms. This means poor responsivity to outside events. Any SNS activation is healing; it takes the body out of its shock/dissociation by releasing undischarged energy. SNS activation subserves homeostasis. Following emotional arousal, PNS tone is normalized.
Quotes from The Polyvagal Theory:
pg. 115
"The two tiered model is hierarchical with priority given to the demands of the second tier. However, without the first tier functioning adequately and regulating homeostasis to maximize life support processes such as digestion, oxygenation, thermoregulation, and perfusion, there would be no "energy" resources available for second tier functions."
pg. 115-116
"Behavior is metabolically costly. For example, behaviors such as fight or flight responses often require massive and instantaneous increases in metabolic output.To successfully accomplish tasks of engagement and disengagement with the environment, the nervous system must divert energy resources from visceral homeostasis (e.g. smooth muscle) to observable behaviors (e.g striate muscle) that deal directly with the environment. The regulation of the vagal brake provides an index of this shift in resources. By instantaneously releasing the vagal brake, cardiac output increases to support the metabolic demands required by the behavior. Thus, the priority of the two tiered system subjugates the homeostatic needs in favor of the immediate environmental demands."
pg. 149
"Excessive sympathetic activity reflects a deviation from normal homeostatic autonomic function, which then elicits vagal activity to self-regulate and return the autonomic state to homeostasis. In individuals with high vagal tone and appropriate vagal regulation capacities, the autonomic nervous system has the capacity to react (i.e appropriate reactivity and expressivity) and to return rapidly to homeostasis (i.e. self regulation and self soothing)"
pg. 171
"Thus cortical regulation of the VVC [ventral vagal complex] requires the setting to be perceived as safe. The perception of safety, or at least, the lack of fight or flight responses, would provide a neurophysiological state in which cortical regulation of medullary nuclei could promote proximity and increase the probability of reproductive behaviors."
pg. 244
"It has been speculated that PTSD may be a consequence of triggering the unmyelinated vagus as a primitive defense system, often in inescapable contexts, when mobilization defensive strategies cannot be employed. In this state a lower brainstem system, more frequently employed by reptiles, is regulated peripheral physiology. This system reduces oxygenated blood flow to the brain and leads to fainting and experiences of dissociation. It is possible that a lower threshold to mobilize and a hypervigilance for danger might have potential survival consequences in this situation. Thus, from an adaptive perspective, the lower threshold to mobilize would protect the individual from recruiting this primitive shutdown circuit."
pg. 260
"In contrast, in a physiological state characterized by an engaged myelinated vagus, sympathetic and hypthalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity are dampened, and that physiological state is experienced as calm. Intrusive stimuli that previously would have triggered aggressive behaviors when the vagal activity is withdrawn will now result in a dampened reaction. Accompanying this change in physiological state are options to further dampen reactivity through social interactions."
pg. 267
"For example, pro-social behaviors cue others that the environment is safe. Safe environments signal the individual to dispense with the hyper-vigilance required to detect danger and allows this precautionary strategy to be replaced with social interactions that further calm and lead to close proximity and physical contact."
Quotes from "The Healing power of Emotion"
pg. 116
"The developmental achievement of a sense of self that is simultaneously fluid and robust depends on how well the capacity for affect regulation and affect competency hs been achieved. When these early patterns of interpersonal interaction are relatively successful, they create a stable foundation for relational affect regulation that is intonalized as nonverbal and unconscious. Thus, successful negotiation of interpersonal transactions at increasingly higher levels of self development and interpersonal maturity is made possible. (Bromberg, 2006, pg. 32)
pg.127
"In terms of regulation theory, defense mechanisms are forms of emotional regulation strategies for avoiding, minimizing, or converting affects that are too difficult to tolerate. treatment, especially of early forming secure psychopathologies, must attend not only to conscious dysregulated affects but also to the early forming defense that protects patients from consciously experiencing overwhelming painful negative affects - dissociation. This bottom-line defense thus represents the major counter-force to the emotional - motivational aspects of the change process in psychotherapy."
- Ways to Combat Stress: Seek to experience i.e. emotionally integrate positive external events. Such stimuli heal the body. Physiological dysregulation is marked by low amplitude in physiological rhythms. This means poor responsivity to outside events. Any SNS activation is healing; it takes the body out of its shock/dissociation by releasing undischarged energy. SNS activation subserves homeostasis. Following emotional arousal, PNS tone is normalized.
Quotes from The Polyvagal Theory:
pg. 115
"The two tiered model is hierarchical with priority given to the demands of the second tier. However, without the first tier functioning adequately and regulating homeostasis to maximize life support processes such as digestion, oxygenation, thermoregulation, and perfusion, there would be no "energy" resources available for second tier functions."
pg. 115-116
"Behavior is metabolically costly. For example, behaviors such as fight or flight responses often require massive and instantaneous increases in metabolic output.To successfully accomplish tasks of engagement and disengagement with the environment, the nervous system must divert energy resources from visceral homeostasis (e.g. smooth muscle) to observable behaviors (e.g striate muscle) that deal directly with the environment. The regulation of the vagal brake provides an index of this shift in resources. By instantaneously releasing the vagal brake, cardiac output increases to support the metabolic demands required by the behavior. Thus, the priority of the two tiered system subjugates the homeostatic needs in favor of the immediate environmental demands."
pg. 149
"Excessive sympathetic activity reflects a deviation from normal homeostatic autonomic function, which then elicits vagal activity to self-regulate and return the autonomic state to homeostasis. In individuals with high vagal tone and appropriate vagal regulation capacities, the autonomic nervous system has the capacity to react (i.e appropriate reactivity and expressivity) and to return rapidly to homeostasis (i.e. self regulation and self soothing)"
pg. 171
"Thus cortical regulation of the VVC [ventral vagal complex] requires the setting to be perceived as safe. The perception of safety, or at least, the lack of fight or flight responses, would provide a neurophysiological state in which cortical regulation of medullary nuclei could promote proximity and increase the probability of reproductive behaviors."
pg. 244
"It has been speculated that PTSD may be a consequence of triggering the unmyelinated vagus as a primitive defense system, often in inescapable contexts, when mobilization defensive strategies cannot be employed. In this state a lower brainstem system, more frequently employed by reptiles, is regulated peripheral physiology. This system reduces oxygenated blood flow to the brain and leads to fainting and experiences of dissociation. It is possible that a lower threshold to mobilize and a hypervigilance for danger might have potential survival consequences in this situation. Thus, from an adaptive perspective, the lower threshold to mobilize would protect the individual from recruiting this primitive shutdown circuit."
pg. 260
"In contrast, in a physiological state characterized by an engaged myelinated vagus, sympathetic and hypthalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity are dampened, and that physiological state is experienced as calm. Intrusive stimuli that previously would have triggered aggressive behaviors when the vagal activity is withdrawn will now result in a dampened reaction. Accompanying this change in physiological state are options to further dampen reactivity through social interactions."
pg. 267
"For example, pro-social behaviors cue others that the environment is safe. Safe environments signal the individual to dispense with the hyper-vigilance required to detect danger and allows this precautionary strategy to be replaced with social interactions that further calm and lead to close proximity and physical contact."
Quotes from "The Healing power of Emotion"
pg. 116
"The developmental achievement of a sense of self that is simultaneously fluid and robust depends on how well the capacity for affect regulation and affect competency hs been achieved. When these early patterns of interpersonal interaction are relatively successful, they create a stable foundation for relational affect regulation that is intonalized as nonverbal and unconscious. Thus, successful negotiation of interpersonal transactions at increasingly higher levels of self development and interpersonal maturity is made possible. (Bromberg, 2006, pg. 32)
pg.127
"In terms of regulation theory, defense mechanisms are forms of emotional regulation strategies for avoiding, minimizing, or converting affects that are too difficult to tolerate. treatment, especially of early forming secure psychopathologies, must attend not only to conscious dysregulated affects but also to the early forming defense that protects patients from consciously experiencing overwhelming painful negative affects - dissociation. This bottom-line defense thus represents the major counter-force to the emotional - motivational aspects of the change process in psychotherapy."
Wednesday, 4 September 2013
Useful Quotes
Studies have shown that throughout our lives, repeated new stimuli trigger genes to transcribe and translate new proteins that stimulate the growth of new synapses - pg 106, healing developmental trauma
Monday, 26 August 2013
Coming To
A part of me feels like I've just woken up from being dead for the past 12 years.
I know sometimes we might "say" something like this, but we may not actually be experiencing that statement in a factual way; there is nothing existentially profound about the experience. I have been guilty of this in the past; language, in its very nature, is very easy to distort. But here, I do not exaggerate. Something trenchantly episodic is happening to me. Two things have happened, and they occurred almost simultaneously.
First, I went on a different drug. I began the new regiment a month ago, went down 75mg of Effexorto 37.5 mg, and have just recently come off the drug altogether. I also have gone on 10 mgs of Cipralex . And second, I have recently begun reading "Healing Developmental Trauma: how early trauma affects self-regulation, self image, and the capacity for relationship" which offers frankly astonishing clarity into the experiences of someone who has suffered developmental trauma. From the very beginning, the book captures the essence of developmental trauma by reflecting on its opposite: "This is a book about restoring connection. It is the experience of being in connection that fulfills the longing we have to feel fully alive". Fully Alive. Those two words feel like a distant memory to me. There was a time where every time I acted, I was fueled by some nebulous impulse to feel alive. Its a basic spark. And this spark facilitates connection. It is the docking bay for embodied experience.
I have begun to feel myself more fully - more intently - and it is a blend of the blissfully nostalgic, on the good side, and a slight terror, on the bad side. When I say terror, I mean it; It's a little astonishing - in a terrible way - to realize how far you are from normal human experiencing. I remember it. I have not forgotten it, thank God. But being back there, being able to maintain it for a few good days straight, it felt both liberating, and scary.
I have woken up to myself because I didn't even realize I was asleep. How many years did I spend wasting away, masturbating in front of a computer, playing video games, watching TV, or going to play Basketball. And how many times was this experienced with strain? With some baseline anxiety, always revolving around the FEAR of not being able to connect; not even realizing that the sense of inability derived from a serious emotional trauma, which had veritably stunned me from experiencing my own reality in an expansive and exciting way. HOW MANY YEARS!!!
I am angry about that loss. I am angry that I have experienced this. And yet, I am felicitously aware of my ability to transcend this problem. I don't know how else to describe it. A few strange things have happened in the past that may have primed me to this perspective, but skepticism aside, this awareness I have that awareness itself transcends all semantics, all emotions - that I can govern myself the way a King would his kingdom, it is a powerful sense; it doesn't seem to be affected by good or bad emotions, which is to say, even if I've had a few disheartening experiences, the "King" is there to offer comfort to his counselors (my mind...) keeping them from further hurting themselves by brooding over destructive matters.
When I think what I've had to go through to get to this moment, to get to an awareness that I have right now. It makes realize how much I have to be proud of. I always had this awareness in me. It was just concealed, clouded by the severities of external experiences; bullying, straining to speak, the myriad anxieties, fears, phobias...the 3 weeks where I didn't sleep and the horror that that brought into my life.
This awareness is the product of experience, but is also aided by the thousands of hours of reading I have done, consuming books in religion, philosophy, history, sciences, and psychology. I have a sophisticated worldview - and I try to say this with all modesty. I say it only with a sense of amazement at my own personal growth; and what I feel is intense compassion for myself - for what I have had to suffer for a dozen years.
I can barely speak of this without contemplating philosophical and theological questions. I wouldn't even be asking such questions - living in such a refined zone of mind - if it weren't for this life circumstance..... Is my compassion for my self sufficient? Or should I proceed further, and assume some ontological predicate for my experience of compassion for myself. Not all people go this deeply, but I can't quite help it. I feel gratitude. And because I feel it, I want to ask WHY I EXPERIENCE it. Of course, asking why does not mean why is begging to be asked. You either feel it is important, or you don't. And if you do, it does not necessarily add anything "more" to your spiritual status. It's a personal decision without moral urgency.
My philosophy has moved over the years from ultra Orthodox conservative, to a middle of the road attitude. It's been influenced partly by my readings of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Steven Pinkers "The Better Angels of our Nature" and other books I can't now recall. My earlier belief that homosexuality was abominable and deserved to be outlawed became replaced by a more liberal understanding, albeit, one sprinkled with subtly. Politically, and emotionally, I feel for homosexuals. My cousin is gay, and he is probably one of the kindest people that I know. However, I have this ongoing fascination with a metaphysics which posits physical reality as indicating ontological laws about reality. For example: man and woman represent cosmic opposites, counterpoles. Yin and Yang; God and earth; philosophically, we could reduce it to the non-deterministic and the deterministic. The semen of potentiality becoming a fixed reality. In any case, my view is closely related to Hal Harzogs concept of the "troubled middle". One part of me wants to entertain the option that God may exist and may indicate proper sexual behavior through patterns he projects into nature; while another, more practical part, can't allow that perspective to distract me from the real human harms that can come from holding so tightly to a perspective, which, in practicable historical terms, is no more viable to implement than Islamic Sharia law in the 2nd decade of the 21st century.
I know sometimes we might "say" something like this, but we may not actually be experiencing that statement in a factual way; there is nothing existentially profound about the experience. I have been guilty of this in the past; language, in its very nature, is very easy to distort. But here, I do not exaggerate. Something trenchantly episodic is happening to me. Two things have happened, and they occurred almost simultaneously.
First, I went on a different drug. I began the new regiment a month ago, went down 75mg of Effexorto 37.5 mg, and have just recently come off the drug altogether. I also have gone on 10 mgs of Cipralex . And second, I have recently begun reading "Healing Developmental Trauma: how early trauma affects self-regulation, self image, and the capacity for relationship" which offers frankly astonishing clarity into the experiences of someone who has suffered developmental trauma. From the very beginning, the book captures the essence of developmental trauma by reflecting on its opposite: "This is a book about restoring connection. It is the experience of being in connection that fulfills the longing we have to feel fully alive". Fully Alive. Those two words feel like a distant memory to me. There was a time where every time I acted, I was fueled by some nebulous impulse to feel alive. Its a basic spark. And this spark facilitates connection. It is the docking bay for embodied experience.
I have begun to feel myself more fully - more intently - and it is a blend of the blissfully nostalgic, on the good side, and a slight terror, on the bad side. When I say terror, I mean it; It's a little astonishing - in a terrible way - to realize how far you are from normal human experiencing. I remember it. I have not forgotten it, thank God. But being back there, being able to maintain it for a few good days straight, it felt both liberating, and scary.
I have woken up to myself because I didn't even realize I was asleep. How many years did I spend wasting away, masturbating in front of a computer, playing video games, watching TV, or going to play Basketball. And how many times was this experienced with strain? With some baseline anxiety, always revolving around the FEAR of not being able to connect; not even realizing that the sense of inability derived from a serious emotional trauma, which had veritably stunned me from experiencing my own reality in an expansive and exciting way. HOW MANY YEARS!!!
I am angry about that loss. I am angry that I have experienced this. And yet, I am felicitously aware of my ability to transcend this problem. I don't know how else to describe it. A few strange things have happened in the past that may have primed me to this perspective, but skepticism aside, this awareness I have that awareness itself transcends all semantics, all emotions - that I can govern myself the way a King would his kingdom, it is a powerful sense; it doesn't seem to be affected by good or bad emotions, which is to say, even if I've had a few disheartening experiences, the "King" is there to offer comfort to his counselors (my mind...) keeping them from further hurting themselves by brooding over destructive matters.
When I think what I've had to go through to get to this moment, to get to an awareness that I have right now. It makes realize how much I have to be proud of. I always had this awareness in me. It was just concealed, clouded by the severities of external experiences; bullying, straining to speak, the myriad anxieties, fears, phobias...the 3 weeks where I didn't sleep and the horror that that brought into my life.
This awareness is the product of experience, but is also aided by the thousands of hours of reading I have done, consuming books in religion, philosophy, history, sciences, and psychology. I have a sophisticated worldview - and I try to say this with all modesty. I say it only with a sense of amazement at my own personal growth; and what I feel is intense compassion for myself - for what I have had to suffer for a dozen years.
I can barely speak of this without contemplating philosophical and theological questions. I wouldn't even be asking such questions - living in such a refined zone of mind - if it weren't for this life circumstance..... Is my compassion for my self sufficient? Or should I proceed further, and assume some ontological predicate for my experience of compassion for myself. Not all people go this deeply, but I can't quite help it. I feel gratitude. And because I feel it, I want to ask WHY I EXPERIENCE it. Of course, asking why does not mean why is begging to be asked. You either feel it is important, or you don't. And if you do, it does not necessarily add anything "more" to your spiritual status. It's a personal decision without moral urgency.
My philosophy has moved over the years from ultra Orthodox conservative, to a middle of the road attitude. It's been influenced partly by my readings of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Steven Pinkers "The Better Angels of our Nature" and other books I can't now recall. My earlier belief that homosexuality was abominable and deserved to be outlawed became replaced by a more liberal understanding, albeit, one sprinkled with subtly. Politically, and emotionally, I feel for homosexuals. My cousin is gay, and he is probably one of the kindest people that I know. However, I have this ongoing fascination with a metaphysics which posits physical reality as indicating ontological laws about reality. For example: man and woman represent cosmic opposites, counterpoles. Yin and Yang; God and earth; philosophically, we could reduce it to the non-deterministic and the deterministic. The semen of potentiality becoming a fixed reality. In any case, my view is closely related to Hal Harzogs concept of the "troubled middle". One part of me wants to entertain the option that God may exist and may indicate proper sexual behavior through patterns he projects into nature; while another, more practical part, can't allow that perspective to distract me from the real human harms that can come from holding so tightly to a perspective, which, in practicable historical terms, is no more viable to implement than Islamic Sharia law in the 2nd decade of the 21st century.
Sunday, 28 July 2013
Relinquishing Control
Watching and listening to myself as I speak obscures the fact that I am strenuously "trying" to "control" the act itself.
My brother came home. I began speaking with him; I found myself letting myself 'follow' the initiating thought that then became voice; it felt embodied; it felt "fast", it felt enjoyable, but most of all, it felt liberating. It's as if I let the dog off it's leash - the prying and obsessive mind took a break from torturing itself with the thought of tension; it took a backseat. It calmed down, and said "you take the reign".
But what is the reign? What, or who, am I referring to? It's bizarre. Both are me. The side that anxiously intends and attends while speaking and the part that pursues it's thoughts without restraint. It's difficult to put it into words what the difference is, but Ill try. The former, aberrant state ruminates about the subject I want to talk about. I put myself in opposition to it, and in that opposition, I build tension. This tension conflates conscious awareness, causing my self to "intend" to speak, and then to "attend" to my speech, all the while anxiously flexing my vocal chords while I'm listening. The healthy and normal self simply avoids all this; I empty my mind - I try to keep it as free from those types of thoughts as possible. When I do speak, I deliberately remind myself to let the speech flow on it's own. This allows me to stay with the emotion - a feeling that cannot be cognized. Feeling and thinking are different states, and it's a paradox that we can think, cognize, and yet be fully "embodied" and feeling ourselves in the moment; its as if feeling were the medium that conceptual awareness passes through.
It feels incredibly good to feel this way, to loosen up my hold on speaking; to let the words pour out without my anxiety about "how i sound" even entering my flow of thought. Liberating. Peaceful. I feel better, sleep better, read better. The only thought I can think when I feel this way is..."Thank God".
My brother came home. I began speaking with him; I found myself letting myself 'follow' the initiating thought that then became voice; it felt embodied; it felt "fast", it felt enjoyable, but most of all, it felt liberating. It's as if I let the dog off it's leash - the prying and obsessive mind took a break from torturing itself with the thought of tension; it took a backseat. It calmed down, and said "you take the reign".
But what is the reign? What, or who, am I referring to? It's bizarre. Both are me. The side that anxiously intends and attends while speaking and the part that pursues it's thoughts without restraint. It's difficult to put it into words what the difference is, but Ill try. The former, aberrant state ruminates about the subject I want to talk about. I put myself in opposition to it, and in that opposition, I build tension. This tension conflates conscious awareness, causing my self to "intend" to speak, and then to "attend" to my speech, all the while anxiously flexing my vocal chords while I'm listening. The healthy and normal self simply avoids all this; I empty my mind - I try to keep it as free from those types of thoughts as possible. When I do speak, I deliberately remind myself to let the speech flow on it's own. This allows me to stay with the emotion - a feeling that cannot be cognized. Feeling and thinking are different states, and it's a paradox that we can think, cognize, and yet be fully "embodied" and feeling ourselves in the moment; its as if feeling were the medium that conceptual awareness passes through.
It feels incredibly good to feel this way, to loosen up my hold on speaking; to let the words pour out without my anxiety about "how i sound" even entering my flow of thought. Liberating. Peaceful. I feel better, sleep better, read better. The only thought I can think when I feel this way is..."Thank God".
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