"BEING NEUROTIC"
OVERWHELMED WITH CONCERNS THAT ARE OF NO CONSEQUENCE
- AND IN THE PROCESS, LOSING THE QUALITY OF LIFE


tba, to be worked on with more examples, but the idea is probably pretty clear.  Email me if you wish this finished.


























































results) in a short period of time.  That is, of course, my absolute intention.


TOO MUCH TO HANDLE AT ONCE - BOMBARDED WITH FEARS

If a person is bombarded with too many fears and threats to handle at once, the person will be overwhelmed with reactions designed to have one go into survival mode - and everything, including having a good life, will be displaced.  That is just the way the mechanical brain works - it is not a pejorative judgment nor is "you shouldn't be that way" implied at all - it's just a description of the mechanical.


SOME EXAMPLES

Here is an example, from a person who is still believing so many "shoulds" and other false beliefs that he is in constant fear and anxiety - which is a horrible way to live life and a terrible thing for somebody to keep allowing to exist in their lives.

Note how each one is "kinda" supported by the culture, although many are misconstrued and resulting from misunderstandings that remain in place.


What is "interesting"?

(What is "interesting" to the primitive brain is anything it interprets to bring it pleasure and/or higher survivability.)

Said to a coach, whose job it is to support the other person:  "You are an uninteresting person.  You never share what bad stuff happens to you.  People in our Anonymous group share their past all the time."  A related version is "to feel comfortable with a person I must know that they are vulnerable to", implying most likely that to be liked and to feel safe with a person they "must be as flawed as me; otherwise I am threatened".  However, one is often, in actuality, safer with a person who has few problems unsolved and who has more wisdom and a good worldview. 

The person failed to differentiate as to the reason it was appropriate and helpful in the Anonymous group, as it helped the person and/or other people get more insight into what occurred and the process one has gone through to correct at least some of that.  It is an exercise in growth.  In contrast, a person who frequently repeats their "story" is most often offering an explanation of why they are so damaged or stuck.  Each time the story is repeated for other than progressive reasons it is "grooved in deeper and deeper", becoming more and more of an automatic thought.  When a person is telling their story in a growth mode, he/she is injecting questions and/or strategies that could make things better - and essentially being a "pattern interrupt", which tends to reduce the "grooving" effect. 

My statement to that person was that "Notice that I never talk about my past" (in our conversations).  I hardly do it at all.  She took it to mean that one should "never talk about his/her past", which in no way did I say.  She then got miffed about that, as if it was another "too certain" statement.  (There was nothing to get miffed about!)  What I said with regard to "storytelling" about one's path is that it should only be done when one is sincerely involved in making progress from it, actually analyzing and re-thinking it.  Repeating anything grooves it further into the primitive brain's recording, so that thing comes up more often and automatically and more strongly.  Breaking that pattern is key.  Talking about one's past for a positive purpose is just fine, as long as the listener is engaged and interested and/or can get something out of it.


You "should"...

"It makes me angry that you won't share with me and be a human being.  People should do that..."   No "it" (the not sharing) isn't the cause of your feeling angry.  The emotion is a "protection" emotion of "fight" - but used wrongly in this case, since there is no one to fight.  A neurotic person might engage in this dysfunctional strategy thinking it will be a successful device to "control" the other to get them to do what makes the neurotic person more comfortable.  It is an ineffective attempt at manipulation, except that it may work with other neurotic people, who will withdraw and comply in order to not be attacked any more.  In the long run, that device will drive people away - plus it will harm the person doing it.   Yes, in some cases, people are not aware of the beliefs behind what they are doing, but it is irrelevant to judge a neurotic person - my point here is that the strategy and the beliefs must be revised or they will keep on doing damage. 


WHAT IS EXCITING (STIMULATING)?

A neurotic person will interpret life as being interesting because of the "drama", which is certainly stimulating - but the trauma is a total misuse of life!  And one does not need it to make life interesting! 

We can live life without the drama and, instead, focus on those stimulations that are healthy - and we'll feel much better.  A person not fully knowing that a better life can be lived will use his same old ways to get relief and stimulation.  A "cutter" gets stimulation, but surely that is not what we want out of life.

People can walk into a room and be quickly drawn into an "attractive" person and "turned on" so that the person interprets the turn on as a "love reaction" or some  version thereof.  But as Harville Hendrix points out in his Imago theory, our brain is "excited" by running into a person that is similar to one of his caretakers and finally having the opportunity of solving the things that he couldn't solve with that caretaker.  (See The Biochemistry Of "Love".)  He/she is most often not aware of this, though.  The brain is "turned on" by anything that helps solve problems that affected its version of "better survivability". 

Of course, people are excited by anticipating how wonderful things will be in an idealized relationship - and then they are disappointed when reality doesn't turn out that way.  The failure to be in touch with reality is a trait of "being neurotic"


YOU MUST INTERVENE...

They are so bombarded and distracted that it is difficult to focus and stay on a continuous path, but somehow they must discipline themselves to practice staying on the path just a little longer as often as they can - for we must intervene in this constant spiraling in order to get out of the spiral.  It takes effort, but it is so very much worth it!


URGENCY AND TOP, TOP PRIORITY

This person needs to go into a "full court press" to intensely work on correcting the beliefs as soon as possible, as too many harmful beliefs are being left intact to function well as a person.  Happiness is not possible without doing so.  One cannot be happy with so many constant fears and anxieties.

Yes, it takes work.  And you can't stop and start or get distracted with other things if you are to make the best progress.  And you can't spend your time on "correcting the symptoms", as you've got to correct the root causes or you'll keep getting the symptoms.

The person must implement journaling and writing down their self-talk and what beliefs must be behind one's thinking - and then correct them as soon as possible.  And the person must be ruthless, determined, and totally intolerant of allowing the crap beliefs to remain uncorrected in his/her life.






Notes for inclusion later

people must be the way the neurotic person thinks they should be as he cannot tolerate the seeming danger of the other people letting them down, failing to approve of them or... (need to learn self care and the paradigms around non-dependency)

as part of paranoid danger conditioning, look for flaws in other person and any dangers in their lack of compassion or caring or in what they do, looking for safety, lashing out against the imagined dangers...

People are really screwed up, the nature of being human...like me, the world is like me.  No
that's our natural way of being - no it is the default without critical thinking.

dependence on another - make them perfect enough to have to be able to give me what I want

So many criteria, people can't meet, fewer and fewer friends, always finding fault

not sufficiently questioning self and beliefs - it take alot of time to have so many neurotic concern

simplify and free up energy. 
condition for being ok , other act and..
alt stside - not able to appreciate , so intent on defending and criticizing as a false strategy of defense.

life is so much simpler with no neurotic beliefs
alot of time to judging people

interesting?  intesting problems, shared problems, life controlling others, dpendence on others s/b
    stmulate myself w compassion, empathy, working for eliminating suffering - interest not defense but growth

most people will be resentful about giving up so much time without compensation...




comms

And I can understand your wanting "editorial comments"if you are htinking about a book or improving the website, but it just doesnt feel comfortable to me to do thumbs up or thumbs down [an opportunity for her to examine the underlying belief]....I often do not have a reaction right way ..and sometimes I am just neutral or sometimes something will hit home....overall,.I find the majority of your writings helpful....tho some like never referring to your past seems a bit "over the top" [the actual thing that was said "You will never speak of it again unless it is for a progressive, positive purpose" in The Past And Now.] 
.....there would be few interesting speakers at al-anon if they did not share what life was like before/after..... And other things such as lifting up for someone (you) that giving alot without payback is the breeding ground for resentment --- this is not taking care of another...this is just a trying to stay tuned in to the relationship and its dynamics, it is being sensitive to the other.....there is this rigidity in the way you view things...spmetimes almost no gray [Actually said:  Giving Advice And Help]--- and that is definitely not helpful.

people hav to be how I want them to be and I have alot of criteria - and few freiends  if any














DEFINITION

Normally defined as a mental illness, but in most cases it is not.  It is a way of thinking (non-thinking) where the person allows old untrue beliefs to remain in place, so that his/her perception of reality is "off".  It is a matter of degree, not absolute or fixed, of being out of touch with reality and having untrue beliefs.

Such a person, because of lots of falsely perceived threats (based, of course, on false beliefs), "experiences strong feelings of fear or worry".

The person is still able to converse and appear normal to others.

It is "accompanied by various physical, physiological and mental disturbances (as visceral symptoms, anxieties, or phobias)" - which can be traced, of course, to the cause, which is excessive fear resulting in other exacerbating reactions and thinking!

Being neurotic is a symptom of a cause, of course.  The cause is initiated by excess fear and alarm reactions which then is exacerbated by other incorrect beliefs and often a story, in a continuing causal chain (that must be interrupted and/or intervened in). 

It is a "protection" mode of thinking, which is perfectly understandable because the first job of our mind is to assure that we survive - the person is bombarded with mostly false fears which must be responded to.  The neurotic however remains neurotic because he/she keeps responding with the same unworkable strategies and untrue beliefs - he/she has not sat down to do the homework of devising coping mechanisms and correcting the untrue beliefs. 

Of course, a defensive mode is accordingly part of a "fixed mindset", where one defends the "status quo" (oneself, one's intelligence, one's knowledge, etc. and etc.) rather than observing what is so and then seeking more workable thinking.  In contrast the person having the "growth mindset" will see feedback as something to be noted and corrected.  The person does not defend but goes on to learn what is necessary.

You can spot a person with a growth mindset, as he/she does in fact grow.  (The effects can always be traced back to the undeniable cause.)  In contrast, a person with a fixed mindset is too busy defending to go on a growth path for long.

The only way out is to use critical thinking to revise any beliefs that cause damage (i.e. don't work to get the desired results).   This MUST be engaged in, as the solution will not happen by itself!!!!!

Again, this is not a pejorative judgment, but an assessment of where one is on a scale, such as that scale included in High Sanity.
"Neurotic"...often a pejorative term, but it is actually a useful descriptor that can lead to good investigation.   It is not something to deride somebody about, as we all have some degree of it - except for the extremely well-trained.  The only way out is to learn and apply critical thinking to revising one's false beliefs related to fear and anxiety.

See the definition box and the following comments.
______________________________

AN UNEXAMINED LIFE

As cautioned by Socrates: "An unexamined life is not worth living. 

Why not? 

Because if we do not examine and question our beliefs, we will be stuck with old and very false and very harmful beliefs - and they will continue to do damage to our lives.

The evidence is super strong that those who are neurotic do not use critical thinking.  A neurotic person will tend to be offended by that statement instead of taking it as a possibility to look at and then to learn more to close the gap!  (He/she will defend, protesting "I am working hard on learning and improving", or something like that.  But the proof is in the pudding.  If a person is still neurotic, he/she obviously has not done enough!)


CONVINCING EVIDENCE

The purpose of this piece is not to just spout of facts and theories but to convince a person who has neurotic beliefs that it is worthwhile to super-prioritize the examination and correction of those - for the damage of not doing it as soon as possible is immense. 

Please write me if you wish more clarification and/or if you are unconvinced.  In any communication the sender is fully responsible for the results.

I am responsible for communicating sufficiently well that you will "get it" at such a level that you solve the problem  as soon as possible, with massive effort (and


If you are sufficiently interested in becoming less neurotic you would study critical thinking:

Videos on the KahunaKeith (no space) channel in 3-6 minute segments:  Critical Thinking, THE Way To A Great Life - Quick Learning Module

Written section:

Critical Thinking (Aka "Effective Thinking").

Dealing With And Changing Beliefs - Very Doable And Very, Very, Very Worthwhile!