I would like to share an experience that helped me see how it is possible to overcome some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that I was experiencing some time ago. Although I was able to quickly resolve my situation through personal study, I realize that this may not be the case for everyone, and I do not intend to provide here any medical advice to people suffering from serious and extreme cases of PTSD.
In a previous experience, I related an account of a car accident that I went through. Luckily, I got away with only some minor injuries that healed quickly and I was physically fine.
Discovering a New Psychological State
But soon after I returned to my daily routine, I discovered that every time I had to cross the street (and that was a few times every day) I would experience a physical and emotional reaction, where I would feel my heart start beating very fast and I would start sweating. At the same time, I would experience a strong anxiety and would repeatedly be looking in both directions even when I was sure there was no car coming.
Overall, I don’t remember thinking or being worried about the accident any more as it had passed. I would have expected to have some fear and uneasiness about crossing that particular street again. But what really surprised me was how strong and ‘physical’ my reaction was. It was as if my body itself remembered what happened and had started an automatic program to invoke that reaction at any cue of a road with cars.
Having this ‘new guest’ in my life was not helpful at all. I didn’t like feeling physically and emotionally stressed out every time I had to perform such a mundane thing as crossing the street, which everyone around me was doing with just using some caution and common sense.
Resolution at My Fingertips
Fortunately, I had gone through Belsebuub’s Self-Discovery course and learnt about self-observation and the elimination of negativity. I decided that I need to observe all the sensations as they appear and try to bring myself back to awareness by asking for help and asking to be relieved from them.
At first they felt quite strong, but in a short amount of time the feelings began to subside, until I was free from both the physical and emotional symptoms. Perhaps, what also made it quick was the fact that it was a ‘new’ pattern within me and it didn’t have time to take deep roots inside.
In the below video, Belsebuub shares insight on how to observe, see and gain personal knowledge about the inner workings and responses of our psychology.
Had I not known about and applied the techniques I learned from Belsebuub’s work during this time, I imagine it could have had a long-term negative impact upon me.
Thanks for your story Pavlin, it’s great that you were fortunate enough to have to correct information/tools to address PTSD before they got a good hold of you. Sadly, many with PTSD never recover.
It’s interesting what you mention about the physicality of the sensations these ego states were causing Pavlin. I also see what an amazingly fortunate thing it is to have the right means to deal with such inner workings, thanks to Belsebuub’s works.
Most of the time it’s seeing the subtler manifestations and catching them, and looking at thoughts and studying where their roots come from etc. For example with pride. But I also remember once specifically where pride was trying to take over in my facial expressions with a smug smile and wanting to manifest other sensations in me and wanting to get into my emotions. The situation was going on for a while so it kept triggering those ego states to come in. At that time I was surprised at what a terrible physical struggle it was! to not let that pride get in, like there was another person trying to control my body and I had to fight and wrestle every single second to keep in control.
It’s also interesting in relation to gluttony, or the whole system that’s in place regarding food. Obviously we need to eat to maintain our body and health. Also, obviously, our body has a natural appetite— an attraction to food let’s say. However beyond the physical needs, and our duty to eat healthy and look after ourselves. There is also a whole system of drives, gluttonous mind images, distortions etc. in place like: fears that we can’t have certain foods we crave, consequent drive to still fulfill that craving elsewhere, fear we won’t have enough, fear of future discomfort because we will be hungry, our intellectual ideas about what our body needs instead of what it actually needs, our intellectual ideas about what we think we need (actually just gluttonously craving) but is actual not good for our body Etc.
Anyway my point is that these ego states related to getting food are also some that can influence us and our physical body a lot underneath the surface without us being aware of it. And it requires quite precise study I find and intelligence to see this objectively within us. Hopefully studying it very precisely and changing can free of such subjectivity and the many inner attachments to food.
Hi Pavlin,
I am glad you shared this experience, because it helped me understand better something I went through recently (though not nearly as intense as what you went through). But I also noticed certain physical responses within me which seemed to also trigger certain emotional responses. It was really ‘captivating’ in a sense to see and feel how the way my physical body responded could also trigger certain emotions and vice-versa. If I had not known about self-observation, I think that I could have likely get into a cycle of stress which would have been completely unwarranted. So having your experience there was really neat, because it was validating in some ways what I also was experiencing in the last couple of months. So thanks for that and I’m glad you were able to get over it so quickly too. Well done because it is not an easy feat 🙂
Hi Pavlin,
thank you for sharing your insights on how you overcame this traumatic experience. You placed a valid focus and determination to reveal the underlying ego states that created these sensations in your body and psyche.
Your story highlights how new ego states can be created even though we are striving to eliminate existing ones and their impact in our daily life and in our consciousness.
Belsebuub’s video on how to observe ego states and remove them is a fantastic reminder to have!
Thanks for sharing, Pavlin.
Traumatic experiences can definitely cause psychosomatic reactions that may seriously interfere with our lives.
I’ve been coping with consequences to a set of bad experiences that took place in my childhood and, probably because I didn’t deal with them right away back then once I had no idea how to do that as a child, they ended up becoming deeply rooted in my subconscious and, even though I have been able to cope with them to some extent so that I can have what seems to be a regular life, I still have enormous difficulties when situations that resemble the original ones come up at any time or place – usually a few times a week.
Applying the knowledge I learned from Belsebuub’s work has helped a lot – it’d have been much worse had I not learned and practiced what I do.
So, yeah, we cannot give our inner states any chance to grow subconsciously or they may take our lives over – they have to be dealt with right away as you did.
Dan
Thanks for sharing your story Dan. I’m sorry to hear about the set of difficult experiences you went through as a child. I also went through quite a lot of traumatic experiences as a child and teenager, which had a major impact upon my later life, so I can relate to what you said about certain events triggering strongly ingrained reactions related to the past. This is something that has affected me a lot over the years, but I’ve only recently started to get a deeper understanding of how complex these connected inner states can be.
It’s interesting how these emotional responses can influence our lives in such a major way, yet we’re not always consciously aware of how they function within us. I had some eye-opening experiences over the last year though, which helped me to see these responses more clearly and then try and move forwards in a more determined way to reduce their grip upon me.
I was faced with a very difficult set of situations, which brought up strong manifestations of these inner states in quite a raw form. For a time, it seemed like I was pretty much stuck in their grip, but I found that asking a lot for divine help benefitted me greatly. A significant part of that was a meditation on an ego practice, which was probably the most revealing that I have ever done. It helped me to understand the subtle connections between certain emotional responses and soon afterwards, the big reactions calmed down considerably.
Although I knew that the past had affected me in a big way, I didn’t fully appreciate the extent to which our childhood can shape our adult lives, until I started to put these events into a wider context. It’s easy for someone who hasn’t gone through similar events to not really understand their impact, and I got used to “putting on a brave face” in order to be accepted socially, whilst never really dealing with the things that were influencing me behind the scenes. As you mentioned, the emotional response can sometimes be so great that it impacts upon our physical bodies, possibly over an extended period of time.
I agree that the tools for inner change from Belsebuub have been absolutely vital, especially if I compare my own life to some of my childhood peers whose lives veered off track in quite tragic ways. I’m glad to be one of the fortunate few who have been given the opportunity to escape those tragic outcomes.
It definitely takes a lot to fully understand ourselves, but despite the suffering that can come our way, I feel we can still benefit from it in the long run. I remember Belsebuub mentioning in his life story that there’s a reason for that suffering, because if life gives us what we need, we can easily stick with that. Whereas, when nothing really seems to go right in our lives, it makes us question our response to events in a deeper way and by doing so, embark upon a spiritual search.
I just thought I’d share those things with you, as I know that it can seem impossible to break out of certain reactions, especially if they’ve influenced us for most of our lives. But I think it’s very important to keep trying and to not give up hope, as by doing that, we can succeed in changing within and moving onto new circumstances and events in our lives, as well as finding different ways of responding to continuing situations.
I wish you lots of strength, determination, courage and guidance Dan and hope you’ll be able to keep chipping away at the reactions to those difficult events in your life until you can be free of their influence.
Thanks for sharing Daniel, it’s great to read that Belsebuub’s works have helped.
Excellent point about how we can’t give our inner states any chance to grow or they may take our lives over.
Inspiring story Pavlin, thank you for sharing.
How wonderful you were able to practically use the techniques you learned to deal with this new inner state Pavlin. I can imagine that people who don’t know about these techniques may just continue suffering, with the ego/inner state growing and being strengthened each time they face the trigger situation… It was also interesting for me to read about how this new ego just appeared suddenly, as a mechanical reaction of your body, without you actually consciously worrying. Like Tina mentioned before, it does look like our bodies also have some sort of memory ingrained in them.
That’s really good to hear Layla. I also found it a huge relief to break free of those strong manifestations of fear, through applying what I learnt from Belsebuub’s work.
It is interesting how you realised that the information about the traumatic experience was recorded by your body., Pavlin. I heard that our physical body stores information and not just our brain so it makes sense that you felt as if your body was producing that reaction.
It is great that you had those tools to observe your actions in those situations and to eliminate them. I can see from my own experience also that things would be a lot more complicated in my life have I not learned about the self-knowledge tools from Belsebuub’s work.
Yes Tina, although I understood about the connection between mind and body, I didn’t realise what a profound influence traumatic experiences could have upon the physical body until fairly recently, when I learnt about some major studies, ranging from at least 15,000 participants to over 110,000, each of which showed a clear correlation between traumatic childhood events and poor health later in life, with a significant increase in many of the most severe illnesses.
Fortunately though, it seems this outcome is not set in stone and working to change our emotional response to events can be of great benefit not only to our psychological wellbeing, but also to our physical health. Like you, I’m very glad to have the techniques I learnt from the work of Belsebuub in order to do this, because as Pavlin showed in his article, they can be of huge benefit in our daily lives.
Thanks very much for sharing your experience of overcoming this pattern of anxiety Pavlin. I also had some unexpected issues with anxiety coming up early in the year, which produced very physical reactions, as well as emotional. In my case, I needed to study these reactions more in depth, as they related to past events, but I was so thankful to be able to remove them using the meditation on an ego practice, which Belsebuub also describes in his work.
It’s such a relief to be able to break free of these negative emotions, which cause so much suffering and can really interfere with our ability to function, as you described with the traffic situation. Thanks again for sharing your experience.
What a remarkable and fast transformation, Pavlin! Given what happened initially, I can certainly imagine that without the proper care to self-observe and eliminate those strong reactions, it may have led to unnecessary turmoil and difficulties doing something as simple as crossing the street – and perhaps even become somewhat crippling psychologically.
I think your remark on catching the ego early rather than allowing it to take root is also a critical one. I can imagine the story would be very different if you allowed yourself to be overcome by the anxiety of crossing the street and only decided to tackle it after a few months… I think in a similar fashion, the same principle applies in day-to-day existence and facing inner negativity. If we let ourselves get taken away, it’s harder to bring ourselves to a state of awareness afterwards, but if we eliminate a negative state as it tries to take hold of us, we can keep ourselves clear.
Yes, I think those are good points Mike. Imagine if we had been working on reducing egos throughout our life and even in past lives. It would make our job much easier! But we all need to start with where we’re at right now and can still make very significant changes with the right efforts.
I’m glad to hear you were able to overcome the effects of that traumatic experience Pavlin, I can see how something like that could strengthen some difficult and raw egos.
It’s funny how anxiety can sometimes take root. I think it must be something that animals use as a sort of training to avoid situations that were confrontational or dangerous, but by overcoming it you can see how humans are meant for a different kind of life. Well done on learning from the situation and putting it behind you 🙂
Life can have pain and suffering and we are so fortunate to have the knowledge to deal with
this through Besebuub’s works,thanks for sharing Pavlin.
That is just so true David!
Pavlin that does sound very traumatic, and so valuable to share how you overcame it. I hope it helps other people so they can see that there is a way to overcome it, as it inspires a lot of hope as well!
It also reminded me of how I was able to overcome panic attacks that I had been stricken with one afternoon many years ago and that last several months. It was this self discovery knowledge by Belsebuub that helped me to overcome and stop having those intense fear attacks.
That’s amazing Layla, very, inspiring, thanks for sharing.