PSYCH 101 BASICS

For you to read if you're curious about the basic principles of Psychology "in a nutshell"

This is the CARDINAL RULE, to deal with and hopefully resolve pain at the moment it arises. It is remarkably simple: Awareness in the moment is the key to feeling your feelings and not numbing thus distorting them.
The real feeling leads you to being brave; the false perception leads to panic. Following this RULE is the source of Emotional Maturity & Personal Growth.
Stripped to their basics, feelings arouse only two sensations: pain and pleasure. We tend to avoid pain and seek pleasure.
To be free of the past requires you to resolve and release the stuck thoughts and feelings that keep you in emotional debt.
This debt is an accumulation of unresolved feelings that require resolution, completion and release.
These old feelings cause you to distort your perspective of the present.
The origin of these issues can go back to your very first memories or any unexpressed, suppressed injury.
The goal is for you to become open to your feelings.
Holding your feelings inside causes a blind spot on that issue, a defense against that hurt that becomes part of your "false self" or the armor that stops your access to feelings to the extent that you keep them buried.
We are capable of behaving in unconscious ways from that false self, that contradicts what we are consciously aware of, because that part of the self was formed in the past.
At one point in your history it helped you get through conflict, but since that time of need, you and the world have changed, while the false self stayed fixed in that time.
What you are willing to take responsibility for gets you to the truth that frees you from past hurts.
You can be emotionally free and mature only if you assume responsibility for your emotions as a right and a privilege, not as a duty or burden.
Releasing claims the past has on you will help you be more resolved in your journey's lessons, and more complete in your expressing feelings in each moment, which reduces emotional debt as well as immaturity.
Pain is an inevitable part of life, thus the wise suffer with the purpose to learn.
You don't have to look outside for the truth (except for the triggers); it is within you in how you feel, your truth.
We're not taught to talk about our feelings openly to facilitate healthy connections.
Self-therapy is not the answer to life; but being honest is actually and ultimately the answer to the problems of the world.

The journey to EMOTIONAL MATURITY is a lifelong one, but the rewards begin as soon as you commit to taking it.
The adult growth and development journey is determined and defined by childhood injuries which become our flaws as we enter adulthood. We must accept our flaws as the guides to where emotional growth is needed and to what lessons need to be learned.

Emotional complexity can be reduced to a single progression of 5 feelings, represented by The Feeling Pathway, that gets repeated countless times in everyone’s life. The Feeling Pathway that you are learning in the app begins in the present, where only pain and pleasure are felt. It ends up with the complex feelings centered exclusively in the past, such as guilt and depression. Anger happens in the moment to give you the energy to get to the loss underneath it. But anger ages immediately.

Unexpressed, aged anger, redirects inward against the self or is sustained unprocessed as rage externally, or held inside, within, as the origin of guilt. Chronic guilt depletes energy and ends up in depression which is the message from the psyche to go back to the blueprint of your life and examine it for what changes need to be made. Buried, denied hurt disguises itself as chronic anxiety, anger, guilt, shame and depression.

Repressed feelings comprise emotional debt, those feelings that we cannot feel, that create our psychological defenses. Symptoms of defenses (avoidance, evasion, angry outbursts, addictive behaviors, etc.) make up a false self, extremely clever at hiding the pain from us. We distinguish the false self from the true self so that we may understand the part of us that is psychologically tasked with keeping us from pain/feeling, recognizing/being overwhelmed by it: unhealthy ways of dealing with conflict.
This false self armor of defenses eventually takes over to manage the personality, to keep thoughts and emotions at the surface level where the ego can manage living with the help of the survivalist brain. It is possible to navigate through an entire life at this surface level of personality without ever deepening below the ego's control and repetitions. To the extent that the personality functions on this superficial level is the extent to which the person is out of touch with reality and disconnected from others.

Thus we understand EMOTIONAL MATURITY as a state where an overblown ego is not in charge of the real personality; where the true self is and allows our interactions to happen at an authentic level. Only timeless awareness of being-here-now in each fleeting moment, and the higher self, that exists in timeless awareness, are truly real. The "now," where all love, happiness, and fulfillment are actually experienced, must be grasped as timeless.

Your true self is a witness that doesn't get stuck in drama or distracted by the stickiness of strong momentary emotional experiences. There is deep peace in the now, which eternally renews itself instead of running after illusions that come from the past and deserve to remain there.
You are not the person you were as a child or adolescent; obviously, but what's less obvious is that you aren't in need of the defenses that got you through the painful trials of childhood without going insane. Thank your false self for its heroic service to you to hold you together through those first two decades. Gently, with kindness, you will be giving that part of you a new job -- to be part of your personal repertoire of skills to help you, upon request, in situations where it would be dangerous to be your true self, or when it is necessary to wear a "mask."

Unless you are centered in a reliable sense of self, your old conditioning, family setting, strong impressions, and social background, all of which come from the past, imprint on your expectations, not you. This App will ask you to examine feelings that may make you uncomfortable, and to look at aspects of yourself that you may not be proud of.

To do this you will take a unique look at yourself and discover where you can still grow and how to take the next step toward achieving emotional freedom, belief in yourself to become free.
Your "road map,"The Pathway, provided by this App helps the user learn to free themselves emotionally to be in the moment, to overcome self-limiting doubts, guilt and anger, to learn to sit and stay with uncomfortable feelings, and thus to be fully alive to love, create, and to be able to achieve personal fulfillment.

EMOTIONAL MATURITY facilitates you to be able to respond honestly to events in the present without the intrusion of biased beliefs from the past: the capacity to act in your own best interests without seeking approval or permission. It is the result of resolving and completing life’s conflicts as they occur rather than avoiding or displacing them. Emotional freedom stems from self-acceptance, nothing to prove, having removed the obstacles that keep you in emotional debt (the unresolved old feelings that cause you to distort your view of the present).

In emotional debt, you spend so much energy burying old feelings that you have insufficient energy left to love with genuine commitment and authentic intimacy.

When you’re emotionally indebted, you distort the present with your old, unfinished emotional business that contains your unlearned life lessons.

To be free of emotional debt you must understand the meaning of your feelings and learn to express them directly. There may be amends to make to people whom you've hurt and didn't realize it until now.

FAQ: FAQ

10 basic truths that can change your life (Emotional Resilience: Simple Truths for Dealing with the Unfinished Business of Your Past by David Viscott M.D., 1993)

1. Tell the truth

2. Face life openly because what you avoid imprisons you

3. Say what you mean, feel, believe; do what you say

4. Accept yourself as you are

5. Accept others as they are

6. Know and accept your weaknesses

7. Stop trying to prove yourself

8. Let go of the past

9. Give up false expectations

10. Take responsibility for your life and how it turned out

10 Basic Truths for Mental Health

FAQ: Quote

PSYCH 101 BASICS

This is the CARDINAL RULE, to deal with and hopefully resolve pain at the moment it arises. It is remarkably simple: Awareness in the moment is the key to feeling your feelings and not numbing thus distorting them.

The real feeling leads you to being brave; the false perception leads to panic. Following this RULE is the source of Emotional Maturity & Personal Growth.

Stripped to their basics, feelings arouse only two sensations: pain and pleasure. We tend to avoid pain and seek pleasure.

To be free of the past requires you to resolve and release the stuck thoughts and feelings that keep you in emotional debt.

This debt is an accumulation of unresolved feelings that require resolution, completion and release.

These old feelings cause you to distort your perspective of the present.

The origin of these issues can go back to your very first memories or any unexpressed, suppressed injury.

The goal is for you to become open to your feelings.

Holding your feelings inside causes a blind spot on that issue, a defense against that hurt that becomes part of your "false self" or the armor that stops your access to feelings to the extent that you keep them buried.

We are capable of behaving in unconscious ways from that false self, that contradicts what we are consciously aware of, because that part of the self was formed in the past.

At one point in your history it helped you get through conflict, but since that time of need, you and the world have changed, while the false self stayed fixed in that time.

What you are willing to take responsibility for gets you to the truth that frees you from past hurts.

You can be emotionally free and mature only if you assume responsibility for your emotions as a right and a privilege, not as a duty or burden.

Releasing claims the past has on you will help you be more resolved in your journey's lessons, and more complete in your expressing feelings in each moment, which reduces emotional debt as well as immaturity.

Pain is an inevitable part of life, thus the wise suffer with the purpose to learn.

You don't have to look outside for the truth (except for the triggers); it is within you in how you feel, your truth.

We're not taught to talk about our feelings openly to facilitate healthy connections.

Self-therapy is not the answer to life; but being honest is actually and ultimately the answer to the problems of the world.

The journey to EMOTIONAL MATURITY is a lifelong one, but the rewards begin as soon as you commit to taking it.

The adult growth and development journey is determined and defined by childhood injuries which become our flaws as we enter adulthood. We must accept our flaws as the guides to where emotional growth is needed and to what lessons need to be learned.

Your true self is a witness that doesn't get stuck in drama or distracted by the stickiness of strong momentary emotional experiences. There is deep peace in the now, which eternally renews itself instead of running after illusions that come from the past and deserve to remain there.

To do this you will take a unique look at yourself and discover where you can still grow and how to take the next step toward achieving emotional freedom, belief in yourself to become free.

In emotional debt, you spend so much energy burying old feelings that you have insufficient energy left to love with genuine commitment and authentic intimacy.

When you’re emotionally indebted, you distort the present with your old, unfinished emotional business that contains your unlearned life lessons.

To be free of emotional debt you must understand the meaning of your feelings and learn to express them directly. There may be amends to make to people whom you've hurt and didn't realize it until now.

10 Basic Truths for Mental Health