11 - Counteractive Positivity Can Be A Problem

Direct experience dissolves beliefs yes. But often we resort to some sort of positivity in our actions, thoughts, or emotions in order to counteract or manage the problem instead. That is, we distract, relax, relieve, suppress, or repress symptoms rather than dissolve them. We overlay something on the problem rather than dissolve the problem to start with. Meditation and spiritual practices can be either used to dissolve the "problem" or counteract it.

Transcript

Hello,

This is William Cooper.

Welcome to Awakening Together.

Are you doing okay today?

I hope so.

Well,

Where we left off in the last podcast is the valedictorian of his class,

The kid,

Had his hands out.

I had given him the hypnotic suggestion along with the other ten participants up on stage in the stage show.

I'd given him the suggestion that the number two no longer existed.

So they counted their fingers,

One,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight,

Nine,

Ten,

Eleven.

They were freaking out.

He believed he had eleven fingers and that's where we left it.

He put his hands out and he wanted to place his hands on my hands,

Even though he believed he had eleven fingers.

Somehow he knew if he placed his hands on my hands,

He would have a deeper knowledge.

He would know something.

Knowing always trumps believing.

Can I use that word,

Trump?

I don't know.

Okay.

Anyway,

Knowing always,

I'm going to use it,

Trumps believing.

It will dissolve,

A direct experience will always dissolve simply believing something.

Once I jump into the water and start to swim,

I know more about swimming and no matter what I read about it,

If it's contrary to what my actual direct experience knowledge is,

I will trust my direct experience rather than my book knowledge.

I believe there's a cobra in the corner all night long while it's dark,

The sun rises,

My direct experience I see that it's a rope,

That belief that it's a cobra dissolves once and for all.

Where at the stage show,

I had a hundred,

Two hundred people watching and we were having a great graduation stage show,

So I'm not about to let him have the direct experience and dissolve his hypnotic suggestion.

So I didn't let him put his hands on my hands.

Yes,

Later I gave them all back the number two and we solved the whole problem that way.

But this has something to do with us on a more deep level,

The power of direct experience in dissolving falsehoods,

Beliefs,

The belief that we're separate from ourself,

The belief that something's wrong when it's not.

But we have to experience first directly that everything's okay,

Directly that we're whole and we're not separate.

We're going to get to that probably in the next podcast and talk about direct experiences,

Coherence therapy,

And a number of other things that will make sense of what we're doing and give you a fundamental principle that you can apply across the board.

But today in this podcast,

I'd like to look first at what we traditionally do that doesn't work.

It doesn't work completely.

It works a little bit.

And what that is is typically called counteractive therapy or counteractive action.

And what I mean by that is counteractive does not solve the original problem.

It just layers another action or feeling on top of it.

It's often found in our culture most every way that we deal with things.

It doesn't really solve the problem.

It just gives you something to counteract that problem which still remains.

It gives you a way to counteract it.

I'll give you an example.

Telling a depressed person to go for a jog.

You don't get rid of the original depression,

The reason why it's there.

You're just distracting that person and helping them burn off some negative feelings perhaps.

But they're still at heart depressed or giving them a medication.

You're not solving the original depression.

You're medicating it.

And the same can happen with somebody with anxiety.

We can try to medicate it away.

Anesthetize the person.

Now I know that this is an oversimplification a lot of times.

That sometimes there really is a chemical imbalance.

And in those cases medication can be very helpful.

And also medication can be helpful just learning new behaviors and how to relax even if it is suppressing.

So I don't want to oversimplify and say don't use medication.

Sometimes in fact a lot of times medication can be extremely helpful.

All I'm saying is there's a big portion of that kind of way of looking at things that is counter active and not necessarily dissolving or solving the underlying problem.

Maybe it is,

But often times that's not the case.

So we may take these counter active measures with any of our problems.

Hey go for a jog or take your mind off of it or watch TV or have a drink.

Let's go to happy hour.

Let's have a relationship.

Let's do this that or the other.

These are all counter acting right?

They're distracting us.

They're overlaying other behaviors on top of our original problem.

But they're not dissolving the original problem.

Maybe they're suppressing the original problem.

You've heard of the word repression.

We do that all the time.

There are so many positive ways to counteract but they still do not take care of dissolving the original problem.

For instance you could work at a food bank.

Hey I'm depressed or I'm anxious.

I'll work on a food bank and I'll give to others.

That will help me feel better.

It will help you feel better because you're opening up and letting the natural qualities of your loving being flow.

But it still doesn't dissolve the original problem.

It's like you have two things.

You're feeling the positive aspects of your being but you haven't dissolved the negative things that are going on.

Meditation.

That could be counter active.

I feel terrible.

That's why I'm even listening to this podcast right now or that's why I'm learning to meditate because I feel terrible.

Well meditating under those circumstances you might fall into a solution.

But let's be a little more focused and effective than just falling into a solution maybe.

We'll start with looking at the solutions in the next podcast.

But still at this point looking at how we suppress things,

How we counteract things.

When we have a problem we have this neuro network already built.

That is the problem.

The neuro network.

It's a habit.

It's the way we're wired or have wired ourselves.

So the counter active solution is to put more neuro network on top of the old one without dissolving the original neuro network that we have.

It would be like,

Think of this,

You put a rock in your pocket and you meditate.

After meditation the rock is still in your pocket.

You have a problem before meditation,

You have a problem after unless you've deconstructed it.

Unless you've taken the rock out of your pocket it's still there.

You have awakening.

You have a rock in your pocket after awakening.

If you had a rock in your pocket before awakening.

Awakening doesn't get rid of the rock in the pocket.

It can be quite startling to somebody when they awaken to discover that they have lots of problems and they're suffering greatly at the same time.

What's going on is they're feeling the oneness of all things.

They're awake but they haven't dissolved the rock in their pocket or their problems have not been deconstructed or reoriented to their new clarity of being.

They're still functioning through an old habit,

Habitual way and so they're still causing suffering.

If you're used to punching yourself in the nose every three minutes,

Even if you're awake,

It still hurts when you continue to punch yourself in the nose every three minutes.

Now for reasons we'll talk about in the next podcast,

You may stop punching yourself in the nose every three minutes once you're awake.

Yes,

But we're going to look at very precisely how does that happen so that we can speed it along.

Why?

Because we all want to be happy,

Right?

The point is just because you're awake doesn't mean that you're integrated.

You still are functioning using an old personality that was built from information,

From being informed from a different point of view,

From the point of view of being cut off from yourself,

From being separate.

So that's your rock in your pocket.

This is a personality built on hurt,

Fear and anger.

It hurts.

And until that rock is reintegrated into your awakening,

You have two things going on.

You actually feel the bliss of awakening,

But at the same time the incredibly great suffering of being separate in a distinct and different personality.

So it's a big problem.

Okay,

So that's enough for this podcast.

Let's look forward to seeing you next podcast and we'll pick up with coherence therapy and a number of other things,

Direct experience.

We'll talk about all this stuff.

All right,

Have a great time and I look forward to talking to you soon.

Reviews

William, I do think my meditation practice has promoted my mental health and the quality of my life. It certainly enabled me to finally leave my way-too-long unhealthy marriage and to recognize other unhealthy choices I’d made over the years and make decisions to remedy them. I have a lot less fear and more joy. I can see more clearly when something is my problem or somebody else’s. Are you suggesting I have only hypnotized myself into thinking I feel better, but I’m not? I find this hypnosis part of the story a little odd.
Donna

The ol’ rock in the pocket. Thanks for this.
🙏🏼✨💖

As always great content William! As someone who understands depression both personally and as a clinician, I know how difficult it is when it feels like things won't ever get better. One practical thing I used to use with my clients (and I still use everyday for myself) is writing three things that I feel good about myself. I do this in addition to a gratitude list, but I would write three things that I feel good about myself for and I kept the bar very low lol..Sometimes it would be, " I got up today and went to work" or "I took a shower" I find that this was a very helpful way to "baby-step" someone into little building blocks of self-esteem. Because sometimes the leap from feeling sad and depressed to feeling positive was too big of a jump.
One of the main reasons I gravitated to you and your podcasts is because it appears that you have successfully married the spiritual and the clinical Mental Health schools of thought in a very lovely and cohesive way. 🤗 A nice merger of Eastern and Western philosophies.☯️

This episode was deep. I had to listen to it three times. This episode challenged, in fact conflicted with my understanding from previous episodes. Previous episodes said that awakening meditation enables one to dissolve difficult feelings by observing them without engaging with them. However, I got the impression from this episode that those feelings may not necessarily be dissolved. I think there are gaps in my understanding. I am keen to fill those gaps.
It is notable that direct experience foreshadows beliefs/notions.

Edit after your reply:
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. Yes, I am hoping that as I listen to more, I will get answers.

I feel stuck in the way you speak doing the things with a rock in my pocket. How to dissolve what's underneath?
I've gotten past most my distractions but will notice the ways I still pretend not to see. I worry about direct experiences when something is extremely dark, painful, engrained.
Onward and upward

Oh wow! I talk about nuero-networks all the time and creating new nueral pathways but your analogies make so much sense! Thank you so much for making these “talks!”

Thank you 🙏

As always, you exceed expectations!!!
Valuable insight that would be easy to see, IF not distracted and IF I were more clear. Thank you 🌟 for the messages, insights and thoughtfulness. This is my 2nd time doubling back.

Love your website and readings BTW. I look forward to more episodes soon!!!

Again, Thank You William! Well Done!!!

~ Jennifer 🙏