Do It for Yourself Now! - How to Do It for Yourself

Written by Ilan Shalif, Ph.D.

Recycled emotions B - Lost & Found

Often, during the focusing on a felt sensation, or between focusing sessions, we remember emotional experiences of pre-focusing periods of the near or distant past. Sometimes, specific memories become available to the awareness processes only after we have acquired sufficient achievements using the sensate focus technique. An example of this are certain memories of childhood that had not been available to us for years. Whenever this occurs, it is worth treating those "lost and found" memories as treasures.

It is not only worth focusing on these feelings of the past when they have their spontaneous comeback, but it is also worth recycling them often during the next few weeks, before they fade again. Like the feelings accompanying the fresh memories of a dream which tend to fade if nothing is done to treasure them, so are these of the memory which came back. Both can be used as keys to a magic store of trash-programs.

Experiences of this kind are usually denied entrance to the awareness due to the active gate keeping activities of cover-programs. They can enter the awareness after many years of absence for a plethora of reasons. It does not matter whether the memory was allowed to enter the awareness because the covering-programs were updated by focusing, or because they have failed temporarily to do their job. Whatever the reason, do not miss the opportunity!!!

Usually, the lost and found memory is an intimate summary of some personal emotional past, that plays an essential part in an ancient and fundamental supra-program, which has not been updated for many years. Supra-programs of this kind are usually the base, or at least an important component, of many trash-programs that are executed frequently in the present.

As a result of this, the recycling of each of these found memories usually causes change and improvement in a whole series of trash-programs. Consequently, within one successful focusing one can bring about a significant improvement in the emotional climate and a significant breakthrough in the systematic project of improving the quality of life.

Recycled emotions C - Changing behavioral patterns

Very often, during a general "head cleaning", the focuser discovers a habit or an emotional pattern he wants to get rid of, but cannot achieve this through sheer will-power. Often, too, the wish to rid himself of a whole life style or pattern is the initial reason for starting focusing training. It is most commonly to be found amongst those called "introverts", "obsessive" or "compulsives". It is usually clear for those types who are aware of having this kind of "personality trait", that this is the root of most of their emotional problems.

Alas, the organized formation of trash-programs that are responsible for the maintenance of this style of life, do not usually send direct emotional announcements - through feelings and sensations - to the focus of awareness. The announcements related to these trash-programs that do reach the awareness are not directly tied to them. They are nearly always at the end of a long chain of covering programs.

Therefore, the updating processes which are supposed to use the natural biofeedback enhanced by the focusing effort are still hardly able to trace back the whole chain effectively. These "organized crime families" are very hard to infiltrate. If one relies on the usual tactics of focusing alone, one cannot nourish a realistic hope of passing through the protecting barriers.

In these cases, focusing on the feelings that do reach awareness, improves the general emotional climate and the cognitive functioning, but does not solve the main problems. The emotional announcements of the central trash-programs - that seldom enter the awareness - are thinly spread along the time continuum, and one cannot seriously rely on them.

In both cases - whether the direct announcement does reach the awareness or not - special preparations are needed if one wants to succeed in tackling the life style. The core of the preparation is the reconstruction of scenes or scripts relevant to the original socialization pattern suspected of being the root of this lifestyle.

Based on specific private memories (mainly from childhood), personal idiosyncrasies, and on general psychological knowledge - one can build oneself a schedule. It is recommended to include in the list (or script) the most distressing pronouncements, occurrences, expressions and instances of the said life style or behavioral pattern.

If the preliminary preparations are carried out well, and one has the basic know how of recycling emotions, one can proceed and create the suitable felt sensation(s) for the focusing.

Sometimes, all these efforts to reconstruct and recycle fail. This can be the result of too strong cover-programs or too weak "sensual memory" (parallel to the visual, echoic, semantic, etc. memories) or because of both. In these cases, the best recycling tactics are the guided fantasy and imagery. Doing this, one can substitute the reluctant real episodes for counterfeit ones.

One can imagine real or imagined scenes that suit the content of one's problem, but do not necessarily conform to reality. One can use scenes that one is sure never happened. One can even use those one is sure will never happen. For instance, when one cannot reconstruct a violent struggle with a deceased brother, which happened at one's parents' home in childhood - one can imagine the struggle taking place in the new country club one has just joined.

When nothing at all works, when even the combination of imagery, verbal declarations and the simultaneous "opening of the nape of the neck" does not bring to the awareness any felt sensation one can focus on - there is still one remedy left. One (and you too) can always combine the memories, imaginary scenes and verbal declarations, related to the target of recycling, with the focusing on subliminal sensations of the face and vocal cords. After a while - usually less than a month - the cover-programs will start to yield, and the effort needed decrease.

Recycled emotions D - A violent patrol

Frequently, we decide to do one thing or another, but one way or another nothing really gets done. Often, in order to execute a task at hand we only have to sit and write down the things that are already organized and well-phrased in our head, but we seem unable to "do this", as in a nightmare.

When this happens it seems that there is an unsettled argument between the two main subsystems of our mind - the left-verbal-logical one and the right-intuitive-emotional one. It mainly happens when the logical processes and the left side of the brain reach the conclusion that we need to do something: utter a word, write, create, perform a duty, etc.