A Self Analysis

I recently read Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz book "The Mind and the Brain" which concentrates chiefly on OCD and it's ability to demonstrate self willed neuroplasticity. After reading it, I feel compelled to make a distinction between the OCD which involves an outward behavior, and an obsession in thought intimately entangled with one's self esteem.

In my case, there is no action which I feel compelled to compulsively engage in, besides the fact that my obsession with my voice involves an unconscious tension during speech. When the obsession is outward action-oriented, there's a certain freedom, insomuch as action is easier to control than thought. In any case, there's a more stringent type of mindfulness needed to program thinking in a certain direction than there is with action..

However, I did find Dr. Schwartz 4 steps to be edifying, specifically the topic of questioning. A question is a cue; when I ordinarily ask a question, I am highlighting some reality which I expect a certain answer from. Likewise, in our daily living, we all unconsciously pose questions to our environments, such as inquiring thoughts "where will I sit". Or, If I'm looking for a book, my mind all of a sudden becomes cued to the titles on the spines on the book shelf. Even if were not actively posing questions in the form of thoughts, we radiate an unconscious question in some tacit feeling that pops up involuntarily, following a course based upon previous behavior patterns.

As said, my problem isn't your usual OCD thought-behavior; there is a thought "I look insecure" or "I wont speak right" which is fed into my overall self perception - "I am a person who acts insecurely" or "I am a person who doesn't speak with confidence". The ego would be a pointless mental appendage outside of human-to-human interaction, and since the ability to interact relies on the ability to effectively communicate, if your obsession happens to be with the sound of your voice, concomitantly, you will be dealing with poor self esteem. And as we all know, the ego is unstable: it constantly seeks validation, security, power.  I'm not saying other types of OCD cant ultimately be linked to underlying self esteem issues, I'm merely saying my problem feeds into a poor sense of self by inhibiting my ability to effectively communicate - the very mechanism we use to build self esteem and self transcend.

An example from the current moment might help explain what I mean.. I am in the computer lab in the library, with a kid to my left, and two girls directly in front of me. My thinking mind feels inclined to think along ordinarily well established lines: I feel like it is very easy for me to become uncomfortable in this situation, which manifests in thoughts such as a gnawing awareness of my activity and a tendency to criticize myself after any specific action that appeared in my minds eye as "wrong". Being so attuned or "cued" to my behavior in such an environment creates frameworks of cognition which constellate around a general negative emotion or feeling: If I feel "insecure", thoughts will emerge which assess my behavior vis a vis other individuals in my immediate vicinity, in a negative light. If someone happens to look at me, I'll self consciously look back - and it is this "self conscious" part which occurs unconsciously, paradoxically. I'm self conscious out of habit, not out of will. The self consciousness seems to butt into consciousness due to an overall state of bodily tension, a feeling unconsciously cultivated whenever I enter a situation that usually triggers discomfort. Out of this tension arises the medley of thought forms which daily obsess me.

This predicament elicits the question: am I cued to my insecurity because I feel a bodily tension? or am I feeling bodily tension because of an attitude which cues me to the insecurity? It's the proverbial chicken and the egg issue. Jeffrey Schwartz and other researchers maintain that a certain part of the individual (in the dorsolateral cortex) remains apart from the circuitry (the orbitofrontal cortex) involved during obsessing. As such, this part could "commandeer" control of the mind by choosing to focus on something other than what the mind is usually cued to. The tricky part is, how? How do I get myself to attend to thoughts other than the usual insecurity when I feel so insecure? How do I shake off the insistence of the feeling? Especially when the feeling itself conceals the even greater question of Michael the individual? The self esteem question subtends the obsession itself. At times, I can be so excited about the power of effective thinking that the anticipation itself creates a "mental jam", precluding me from moving my mind to a place that will stand apart from the usual grooves hedged out by years of daily thinking.

The answer might lie in the word "feel". Unlike with the obsessive action-oriented thoughts, someone with my particular issue needs to emphasize wholesome, good circuitry. He specifically needs to concentrate on uplifting emotions, which helps to orient him to a whole new realm of thought forms.

When the negative emotion arises, I need to isolate it in thought. I have to recognize it, and by doing so, prevent it's ability to evolve into dysfunctional thought forms. While doing this, I allow myself to relaxingly engage in whatever activity I'm intending to do. If I want to type, as I'm doing right now, I do so without monitoring my physical appearanc - a morbid thought arising from a state of tension. Instead, I almost "unconsciously" act without monitoring myself as I act. I become the actor, the player, the participant and sole creator of my own actions. I am cued to a different world - my thought is "clinging" to something other than what it is usually drawn to Because this is such a fresh feeling, I can sometimes wonder to myself how unusual it is, or rather, how unusual I am in my current mental state.

It's both remarkable and horrifying to see things so clearly from below. I am still experiencing the emotion, and still suffering the reality, of being so inured to an existence which, vibrationally speaking, is depressive. If it weren't for the obsessive routine of my thinking - the fact that I am distracted by an emotional content - I would be far more conscious of the presence of a depression.

Dr. Schwartz rightly emphasizes the need for positive thinking. Viktor Frankl emphatically professed that only a neurotic is preoccupied with the state of his soul rather than something "out there" in the field of reality. I've taken up this motto for living, actually considering of getting a tattoo on my forearm of Kierkagaards aphorism "the door to happiness opens outward".