Our Boundaries Move.

Our days teach the relation between control and letting go' in many ways. In our usual form, we play by the rules.
Then we embed the form in our muscles and neurons. Only when we've achieved some degree of mastery can, we let go. That's why custom builds the classic test of skill around the question: Do we have the skills to let ourselves be out of control?
We recall our times we took the test that points toward our joyful calm. All the forces of: tradition, timing, fitness and geography "attack" us. As we spar, we give our all. Many weeks pass, and we feel our strength beginning to wane.
We'll have a moment when we have no choice. We give up using our muscles and our will. We let our reflexes, our body, do what they can do on its own. Moving without thought, we best four of our "attackers," before finally being put to the floor by the fifth.
We're sure that we've failed til we hear our inner voice' cheering. We pass with flying colors. Our win' scares us. What will we do next?
The point of our scene is to give us the chance, when faced with unbeatable odds, to recognize that our personal strength is insufficient. We let go. We trust the power that we've built and rehearsed. We've practiced so it will uphold us. It does. Our body, moving on its own, executes our wishes, our urges, natural flow. We yield to the control of no control and find our balance.

Separate And Connected.

If our Protective Millisecond Reactive Husk is about how we're separate, then our spirit is about how we're linked. It will reply to this query. "Who are we that is related to all those others out there?" When we dwell in our PMRH we know that we're unique. When we dwell in our spirit, we know that we're related. We dance with each other. The dance creates us. We're together, a unity. We live alone, to be sure. Still, we're not irreducibly alone. We're also tied together as one whole being. We will indeed die alone, but if we can grasp the truth of our spirit that we're all one beneath the skin, then we die into love.
We note that we'll not suggest that either our PMRH or our spirit is in any way a disembodied being temporarily trapped in our flesh. They're but ways of having a notion, or so, about ourselves and of relating both to ourselves and to the world. They're both needed for our grasp of how it is that we exist. We're separate and we're linked. After all, it takes binocular vision to see depth.

Balance Dependence . . . and Independence.

As human infants we're the most helpless mammal on Earth. We fully rely on our care givers to exist. Our label is " We' not me'." As we shift to needed levels of free will,' we start to test the waters of independence. These times are stages when we begin to harbor the notion of a separate "Me." We need to assert a huge dollop of rules over our own lives. We need to form our unique sense of who we are. We need to set up our own ways to choose. Our care givers will hear the word "No" more. We'll assert our own taste and notion of what suits us. With too many "No's" our independence can be stifled. Not enough "No's" leads to poor boundaries. This is a series of steps. It'll help balance our dependence with independence. This goes on thru our early times. It peaks while we boost our search for independence and as we form our identity. We must disengage from primal care givers in preparation for independent living.

To Manage Affect Flash Backs

1. We say to ourselves: "I am having a flash back." Flash backs take us into a timeless part of our psyche that feels as helpless, hopeless and surrounded by danger as we were in some early time. The affect and senses we go thru are past memories that cannot hurt us now.
2. We remind ourselves: "I feel afraid but I am not in danger! I am safe now, here in this minute." We're now in a safe time zone. We're far from the danger of the past.
3. We own our right and need to have boundaries. Remind ourselves that we do not have to allow anyone to mistreat us. We're free to leave mean scenes and yowl at unfair acts.
4. Speak reassuringly to our Primal heart. It needs to know that we love it unconditionally. Our primal heart can come to us for care and security when it's lost and scared.
5. Deconstruct eternity thinking. In early times, fear and abandonment feels endless. A safer future is impossible. Still, flash backs will pass as they have many times before.
6. Remind ourselves that we are in an adult body. We have allies, skills and resources to protect us that we never had before. To feel small or little is a sure sign of a flash back.
7. Ease back into our body. Fear launches us into "heady" worrying, or glazed numb and frozen space out.'
8. Gently ask our body to relax. Feel each of our major muscle groups. Softly encourage them to relax. (Tightened musculature sends unnecessary danger signals to our brain.)
9. Breathe deeply and slowly. To hold our breath also signals danger.
10. Slow down. To rush presses our psyche's panic button.
11. Find a safe place to unwind and soothe ourselves. We wrap ourselves in a blanket. We hold a stuffed animal. We lie down in a closet or a bath. We take a nap.
12. Feel the fear in our body but just watch it. Fear is just an energy in our body. It cannot hurt us. We'll not run from it. We'll not react with self harm to it.
13. Resist our scolding Grouch catastrophic fear.
(a) Use thought stopping to halt its gross over fear of danger and need to control the uncontrollable. Refuse to shame, hate or give up ourselves. Funnel the anger of self attack into saying "No" to unfair self scorn.
(b) Use thought substitution to replace negative thinking with a written list of our qualities and accomplishments.
14. Allow ourselves to grieve. Flash backs are chances to release old, unexpressed feelings of fear, hurt, and abandonment. Then we validate - and then soothe - our primal heart's past times of helpless hopelessness. Healthy grieving turns our tears into self compassion. It turns our anger into self protection.
15. Push for safe relations and seek support. Take time alone when we need it. Don't let shame isolate us. To feel shame doesn't mean we're shameful. Train those close to us about flash backs. Ask them to help us talk and feel our way thru them.
16. Learn to know and label our kinds of triggers that lead to flash backs. Avoid unsafe people, places, acts and any tricky course of action. Set up preventive maintenance with these steps when triggering scenes are unavoidable.
17. Figure out what we flash back to. Flash backs are a new chance. We find out, make valid and heal our wounds from past misuse and losses. They point to our still unmet growth needs. They can offer a motive to get them met.
18. Stay cool with a slow recovery process. It takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized. It takes ample if not a huge chunk of time in the future to bit by bit lower the nasty, mean affect, length and rate of flash backs.
19. We don't beat ourselves up for having a flash back. Recovery is a bit by bit process - often two steps ahead, one step back.

Affect Flash Backs.

We've gone thru steep learning curve times. Times when our affect was skipped over. Times when we misused our strong points or natural gifts. No care giver was available. Times when no support, comfort nor safety comes to us. We long to feel that others like us, welcome us, or listen to us. We long to feel empathy, show warmth, or invite closeness. We long to feel cared about. We seek others so they'll know what we think, feel, do, want, or dream of. We, who go thru this trauma, learn early. No matter how hurt, alien, or terrified we feel, to turn to a care giver will make worse our sense of rejection.
We, who go thru this trauma, see the world as a terrifying place. We're wired to feel scared when left alone. We're wired by DNA to cry and protest to alert our care givers when we are. But when our care givers turn their backs on such cries for help, we're left to cope with a nightmarish inner world - the stuff of which affect loaded flash backs are made.

From Our Spirit to Eros.

Our desire to love always finds a way out of any trap. To keep our desire for love captive for long is not possible. When our desire to love does not come out to make babies, we show our desire to love in every other way. We're money gathering, altruistic, the arts, family nurturing, philosophy, science, politics, empire building, charity, war, abuse, crime . . . you name it. Much of it is good. Some of it is horrid. For better or worse, it is all an aspect of the life force in us. It's the display of our desire. Our great bounty of desire to love is DNA driven. It's built in. We own it.
The key to manage the desire of our spirit of love is not to squelch or medicate it. Let's find a natural channel that will fulfil our deeper urges. This takes some wilful thought. We need a better system of self care. It can help us expand our desire to love in a new, sweet manner.
If we really want to, we can know the truth and be set free, just like Jesus said. The core element in this is our desire. We can open our gate way to the divine if we choose to.

Wounds in Early Times.

Let's plan to reframe affect flash backs. They're a signal series from the wounds of our early times. They're shaped to challenge denial or the ways we ignore our trauma. It is as if we clamor to make valid our past care giver gaps, omissions and misuse. This is how bad it is. We get flooded, in terror, shamed and lost in our own chaos! We feel this too much of the time. When seen in this light, affect flash backs are a signal. They're from our early times. We sense that many of our needs to grow have not been met. Most important among these are the needs for safety and for good enough' attachment. We've no needs with more power than those of a care giver's safety and empathy. Without them we cannot own and develop our habits of self protection and self compassion. They're the corner stones of a healthy ego. As we do not waken to the need for this kind of primal self advocacy, we remain stuck in learned self abandonment. We rarely develop effective resistance to internal or external abuse. We seldom gain the motivation to consistently use the tools to manage affect flash backs.