|
You can
influence your own state of mind by choosing to aim attention toward a
particular stimulus. If you want to make yourself miserable think of
everyone you know that is younger than you and makes more money.
Teenaged boys have been known to purposely focus attention on sexually
provocative material – either external events [e.g., magazines, movies] or
internal events [e.g., thoughts, images] – in order to become sexually
aroused. They don’t have to look very hard, to a horney teenager nearly
anything is sexually provocative. Likewise, anxious individuals tend to be
particularly sensitive to threatening aspects of the stimulus field.
Similar biases maintain clinical depression and chronic anger. One
difference between masturbation and cycling through the recursive sequence
of a Mood/Addictive Disorder is the former is generally voluntary while the
latter is not.
The
path to self-determination requires the ability to voluntarily aim your
attention to stimuli that produce states compatible with good outcomes for
you. While there may be several healthy emotional reactions to a given
provocation, the ability to produce a relaxation response voluntarily is of
particular value when the goal is to loosen the knot of a Mood/Addictive
Disorder. The exercises in this section are designed to strengthen your
ability to elicit a relaxation response intentionally. |
