REMINDER: YOU CAN'T WALK ON HOT COALS BY PASTING ONE BELIEF OVER ANOTHER!

You see, the difference between really working on, challenging and releasing your inner beliefs and suppressed feelings, and just trying to superimpose new beliefs over other ones is that... you burn your feet!

Check out this news item:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Fire officials said 21 people at an event hosted by motivational speaker Tony Robbins suffered burns while walking across hot coals and three of the injured were treated at hospitals. The injuries took place during the first day Thursday of a four-day event at the San Jose Convention Center hosted by Robbins called "Unleash the Power Within." Most of those hurt had second and third degree burns, said San Jose Fire Department Capt. Reggie Williams. Walking across hot coals on lanes measuring 10 feet long and heated to between 1,200 to 2,000 degrees provides attendees an opportunity to "understand that there is absolutely nothing you can't overcome," according to the motivational speaker's website.

Yeah, thanks for the demonstration, Tony!

Listen folks, it is certainly possible to uproot and overcome any belief system, including major collective beliefs like gravity, the need to breathe air and the destructive power of fire on human flesh. What is not possible is to do the above by simply wishing you can or believing in a huckster's rantings when you haven't done the self-work necessary to be that transcendent.

Careful!

REPOST: ADDICTED TO ANXIETY?!

This is a subject that is somewhat difficult to grapple with. When I propose to people I see for therapy that their anxiety is something they're attached to - out of familiarity, for the adrenaline rush, as a distraction from other feelings - the usual responses go something like: "But I hate feeling like this!" It's not pleasurable at all!"

Nonetheless, an addiction to anxiety is very real, and a very real dilemma for a lot of people, just like an addiction to intensity is. (See this very good Pathwork Guide Lecture on that subject)

Here's a link to an article on this very subject by Casey Schwartz, a graduate of Brown University with a Masters Degree in psychodynamic neuroscience from University College London.

And here's some excerpts:

"Considering that anxiety makes your palms sweat, your heart race, your stomach turn somersaults, and your brain seize up like a car with a busted transmission, it's no wonder people reach for the Xanax to vanquish it. But in a surprise, researchers who study emotion regulation—how we cope, or fail to cope, with the daily swirl of feelings—are discovering that many anxious people are bound and determined (though not always consciously) to cultivate anxiety. The reason, studies suggest, is that for some people anxiety boosts cognitive performance, while for others it actually feels comforting."

“Some people get addicted to feeling anxious because that’s the state that they’ve always known. If they feel a sense of calm, they get bored.”

"Wanting to feel an emotion is not the same thing as enjoying that emotion, points out neuroscientist Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan, who discovered that wanting and liking are mediated by two distinct sets of neurotransmitters."

Hey, folks, try to relax!