[DemolitionRed]

I disagree but then I'm a big fan of The Chimp Paradox. Its a book my father gave me years after I went through a 'real' trauma. Its about our inner mind, emotions, thinking and memory. The author, for simple understanding uses the Chimp (mind monster) the Computer and the Human. The chimp is the emotional machine and offers emotional thoughts that can be constructive or very destructive. It can be your best friend or worst enemy. The Human is the logical thinking side of the brain and the Computer logs information and stores what the human and chimp feed into it.

The Chimp does not necessarily work with facts but it works with what it believes is the truth or with a perception of the truth or, even worse, with a projection of what might be the truth. Its quick to form an impression on little, if any, evidence and usually won't give way. Some impressions that the Chimp gives us are accurate and helpful, but they can just as easily be wrong.

The trauma I suffered included 'real' and reasonable fear. Because that fear was logged in my memory forever, my chimp started to weigh up future situations as potentially dangerous. I tried to suppress those feelings but I found myself failing again and again. The Chimp was playing havoc and the more I tried to destroy it, the stronger it became. What I've learnt from that book is, you can't ignore your most primal instincts because they are an integeral part of you. Our instinct for survival is stronger than any other instinct and so if anything is going to warn us of danger and help us survive its our Chimp. The problem is, the Chimp so often gets it wrong.

With the help of that book I learnt to harness my Chimp and its helped me in so many situations.

[Ammi]

..I think that's it though, logic can be applied in different ways to combat fears and it's like most things in life..not a 'one size fits all thing'...for me, when I had my brain tumour..that for me was something that I didn't fear at all because that was out of my control, it was in the hands of all of the medical people ..but my fears came afterwards, through just basically 'not being a part of the outside world' for so long, almost 2 years and pretty much just fearing that stepping outside what had become a place of safety/a cocoon...just seeing people, going back to work etc all became 'monsters' to me...what gave me myself back was CBT and hypnotherapy...that's how I broke all of my fears down, which of course weren't real but just bridges that I hadn't crossed and was fearful of crossing....anyways, it's never going to be the same for everyone for the very reason that we're all entirely different..so I guess what it really is, is applying the logic that personally works for us...

[Ammi]

..I will read up on the Chimp Paradox sometime btw because these are things that I'm always interested in...

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Ammi

..I think that's it though, logic can be applied in different ways to combat fears and it's like most things in life..not a 'one size fits all thing'...for me, when I had my brain tumour..that for me was something that I didn't fear at all because that was out of my control, it was in the hands of all of the medical people ..but my fears came afterwards, through just basically 'not being a part of the outside world' for so long, almost 2 years and pretty much just fearing that stepping outside what had become a place of safety/a cocoon...just seeing people, going back to work etc all became 'monsters' to me...what gave me myself back was CBT and hypnotherapy...that's how I broke all of my fears down, which of course weren't real but just bridges that I hadn't crossed and was fearful of crossing....anyways, it's never going to be the same for everyone for the very reason that we're all entirely different..so I guess what it really is, is applying the logic that personally works for us...

It's interesting you mentioning hypnotherapy as for that to work you're allowing yourself in essence to be rebooted by a force greater than your own conscious self, and you have to 100% be open and receptive to it therefore proving that the paradox in the OP is at work.