Анна Давыдова-Городецкая – Ouroboros or the world inside out (страница 5)

We have demonstrated this proposition: reality stops auto-aggression, or at least significantly reduces it. It's complex, I must admit. But let's try to understand it in detail.

A person spends an overwhelming amount of time in thoughts that are far removed from where their body is. The mental eye sees illusory pictures of the past or fantasies about the past, the future, or things read, heard, or seen once. However, what is happening at the current moment often goes unnoticed. Sight seems to serve merely to avoid collisions with obstacles. People mostly see their mental pictures and hear their inner dialogues. Meanwhile, thoughts, like a balloon on a long string, constantly drift into fantasies, news, or other geographies, depending on the whims of the mind. These thoughts lack weight and sense.

In this endless illusory marathon of thoughts, the main theme is self-importance and rightness – repeating or reliving successful moments and reimagining unsuccessful ones with better outcomes. These thoughts confirm one's coolness and charisma or, in case of failure, inferiority – attempting to replay or sadistically picking at wounds. Almost always, we live in a separation of mind and body. There seems to be no escape from this as thoughts keep slipping into imagined superiority over others. Reality is often perceived as boring and uninteresting. This may be due to self-devaluation – I am not interesting; real life is not interesting – but in the mental distance beyond the clouds, I am great and beautiful.

In this case, the separated body is like a house without a roof – gradually collapsing due to inadequate sensory control. If thoughts are combined with the body in the present moment, both illusory superiority and vulnerability disappear, leaving only reality. When thoughts and body are connected, the system becomes functional; thoughts gain weight, and the body gains control and regulation.

The body given to us at birth is our highest value. It is only with the help of our body that we can do anything. Yet, the body is often maximally devalued. Remember how ashamed Adam and Eve were of their bodies after eating that ill-fated apple? It often seems that our bodies are mistakes; however, there will never be another one like it. Therefore, we must treat it with maximum tenderness and care.

Nevertheless, the infantile personality abuses its body through overloads, improper nutrition, sleep deprivation, etc. Lack of communication with the body leads to ignoring its voice. And the body responds with pain. These are all auto-sadistic moments within auto-aggression. The outcome is natural – the body first hurts and then gets sick.

So, disease arises:

– as a consequence of auto-aggressive attacks on one's psyche, manifesting through psychosomatics;

– as a result of sadistic but unconscious attacks directly on the body through overload, deprivation of rest, exposure to risk, improper nutrition, and direct poisoning by alcohol, smoking, or drugs;

More often than not, both factors are combined and completely unrecognized by the individual. The connection to the body is lost because an overwhelming amount of time is spent outside of that connection – in the past, in the future, in fantasies and plans, in the news, and in other people's lives.

To regain this connection, one should spend more time where the body is physically located – in reality – listening to it and integrating into consciousness all the signals sent to the brain by the senses. I believe that staying in reality, identifying and controlling the “stream of consciousness,” and stopping internal accusatory dialogues are what effectively stop auto-aggressive manifestations. Practicing these skills is necessary, and you need to start now!

Anxiety

A person may be given a long and happy life without shocks and losses, but if they are anxious and depreciating, they will live this life unhappily, constantly worrying about the future and devaluing the present. The expectation of unhappiness is actually unhappiness – one experiences similar emotions. When they look back in old age, they will think: “Where was life itself? I didn't live at all”. So, the reward of a peaceful life can be poisoned by the venom of Ouroboros, because anxiety spoils the happiest life with the expectation of trouble, and devaluation turns it into “nothing.”

So, what is anxiety? I think it is defenselessness against the pressure of external reality. This pressure is the same for everyone, but some people feel it as excessive – it seems so to them. Apparently, this is an echo of the instability and unpredictable behavior of significant adults in childhood. Such people look at the world through the prism of illusion, where absolute happiness, peace, and security are perceived as the norm – this is the state of a baby in the womb. Anything that differs from this state of infantile “paradise” shifts the psyche into the area of fear. “What if I can't handle the pressures of reality?” – “Disaster will happen”.

A person who feels the excessive pressure of reality will feel defenseless and therefore anxious and will look for protection externally. However, any source of that protection will be felt as pressuring. Thus, for someone seeking a protector, the situation will probably be worsened by the fact that, in addition to the pressure of the outside world transforming into anxiety, the pressure of the protector will appear. A paradox arises, in which the defense only increases the pressure, and thus anxiety. A vicious circle is formed: anxiety → search for a protector → increased pressure → increased anxiety. The protector will seem to be an authoritarian, freedom-restricting, rejection-inducing mentor. Therefore, if a person seems controlling, we need to examine whether we depend on them totally, strongly, or at least in some way. If we do, then perhaps it seems to us that they only press us. If we do not, then apparently this person is like that, and it is worth limiting communication with them. The only effective way to reduce anxiety and external dependence is to seek protection and support within ourselves.

An accumulation of anxiety leads to an anxiety affect that I have named the Catastrophizer. I will discuss the Catastrophizer in detail in the chapter about illusions because it is entirely deceptive. For now, I will only say that the Catastrophizer is the most severe form of anxiety and, accordingly, auto-aggression, with the longest trail. In this state, it is impossible to think productively; the flow of dragging dialogues cannot be stopped. There is a feeling of stupor, as the Catastrophizer cuts off access to reality, forcing you to sink deeper into illusions, watch TV series, and flip through news feeds to distract yourself from fear.

Ouroboros, our purveyor of illusions, has many faces, and it is not easy to defeat him. The battle is not for life, but for death, and it is necessary to keep track of all the various tricks by which he can instantly turn from a cute lizard into an all-devouring dragon. Anxiety is another such trick because it increases the “stream of consciousness,” which indicates the intensification of illusions. And where illusion is activated, auto-aggression is invariably activated.

In auto-aggression, there is no exit to reality – it is an enclosed space where the personality beats itself up. If one traces the moment of appearance of this inner “aggressor” in consciousness – the moment when reality does not correspond to illusion – then there is a chance to stop, by an effort of will, the mental dialogue that has begun. If this is not done, then the sense of reality will be lost, and one will have to go through the whole cycle of ouroboric affect.

Thus, auto-aggression arises from the impossibility of reaching the ouroboric “paradise” – an illusory dream of an ideal life, i.e., from the impossibility of uniting with one's Reference Image. Anxiety arises from the prospect of reaching the ouroboric “hell.” The argumentation of the Ouroboros, which inspires us with both illusory dreams and illusory fears, is similar – “look at others – see, they got…” and further depends on the context of a particular illusion:

To “paradise,” i.e., they've fulfilled their dreams, live happily, are rich and famous, or

To “hell,” meaning they've had a catastrophe, lost everything, which means you have a chance to fulfill your “dream” or face “disaster.”

So, it doesn't matter whether we dream or worry, auto-aggression will always happen in the end.

Insomnia

If we pay attention to ourselves, we will realize that at the moment anxiety intensifies, the flow of thoughts increases significantly. If we try to trace the direction of this flow, we will find that it is directed towards the negative. Mentally, we are constantly replaying probable unpleasant scenarios and trying to prevent their realization. But all this is completely pointless – it is not a plan of deliverance, but an agonizing merry-go-round on which the consciousness tries to find a way out of a situation that does not even exist in reality.