There is a difference between pain and suffering, and sometimes individuals create more suffering than the initial pain warrants. Emotion pain literally hurts because it can fire the same brain areas that are activated for physical pain. This brain functioning shows the reality of emotional pain. This makes sense evolutionarily because physical pain came first, so the emotional parallel evolved to just use the same brain circuits.
What is languishing and how could defining self help overcome it? A 2021 New York Times article discussed the concept of languishing and suggested that it could be the dominant emotion of 2021. If Bowen Theory is accurate and if languishing is real, then understanding how systems thinking and defining self apply to languishing should be useful.
In Donella Meadows’ book “Thinking in Systems,” there is a list of things one can do to affect a system. It counts downwards from less impactful, possibly harmful actions, to the most impactful actions. One of the most impactful is “change your paradigm”. This is because how one thinks about a problem can often be the problem. It always allows one to think completely differently about the original problem. This different thinking leads to different approaches to solving the problem. Or maybe the problem just goes away. This is definitely true with a shift to systems thinking away from a cause-and-effect type of thinking.
Chronic anxiety is the outcome of the emotional programming that occurs for everyone, mostly from their family of origin. Learning how to be and what to pay attention to early in life programs our type and level of vigilance. Like a shadow, it's always there. For example, there is a large body of research that supports the finding that early childhood adversity affects the programming of the stress response system. To put it another way, our family programmed our level of sensitivity into our physiology. And they taught us what to be sensitive to.
Anxiety is a self wanting to be defined is a phrase attributed to Dr. Bowen. It actually makes sense if you understand Bowen Theory.
Our past experiences may have influenced our “orbit” but that doesn’t mean we can’t change things in the present. Working to change in the present is the high road to resolving the past.
901 3rd Street West, North Vancouver
(at Hanes and 3rd St W, behind Capilano Mall)
Telephone: 604.926.5496
info@livingsystems.ca
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Living Systems Counselling and Training is a registered society since 1974, charity# 107784308RR001. We offer affordable counselling for individuals, couples, and families with a wide range of relationship and mental health issues in various locations in the Lower Mainland.
We thank the BC Gaming Commission, District of North Vancouver, City of North Vancouver, individual donors, and our members for their support.
Living Systems gratefully acknowledges that our organization operates on the unceded and traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. This acknowledgment is a small part of the ongoing work to foster reconciliation.
