Getting Off
Brain Drugs
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Getting Off
Brain Drugs
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Life has a way of hiding from anyone not thrilled about entering reality...
but you are designed to live in reality.
Getting Off Antidepressants
A conversation between Devin Gleeson and Gabriela Fagundes
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH RESISTANCE TO THE SUBJECT OF 'GETTING OFF BRAIN DRUGS'?
Bringing up the subject and discussing the possibility of 'Getting Off Of Brain Drugs' in an online WorkTalk has elicited numerous comments and reactions, for example:
WHY WOULD SOMEONE BEGIN USING SO CALLED 'BRAIN DRUGS'?
A CDC report from 2018 found that 1 in 8 American adults was regularly taking antidepressants. This number increased by nearly 20% in the wake of the global COVID pandemic. A recent survey of European countries found that between year 2000 and year 2020, the number of people taking on antidepressants jumped by nearly 250%. The point is, a lot of people are on antidepressants, and the numbers are on the rise. The question is: Why?
If you ask someone who is on antidepressants why they are taking antidepressants, the answer you are likely to get is, "Well, I was depressed, and my psychiatrist suggested I try antidepressants." This answer is self-evident. It makes a lot of sense, but it actually only makes sense in a particular cultural context where 1) there is such a thing as mental illness, 2) depression is a mental illness, and 3) the cure for illness (including mental illness) is medication.
A woman recently told me about her time as a nurse in Ghana, Africa. At one point, she mentioned depression to the village locals. They had no reference for what she was talking about or why she might need to take pills for it. She described to them the symptoms she experienced, and when they heard what she was saying, they said, "Oh, well, when we feel that way, we go visit the neighbors. We spend time with people. We keep each other company!" This story is not unique.
Could it be that what modern culture calls mental illness, depression, anxiety, etc., is actually a result of culture?
In modern western culture, where villaging has been dead for centuries and isolation is normalized to the point of invisibility, depression, anxiety, and other so-called mental illness diagnoses are common.
Allopathic medicine—the medicine practiced in modern culture—has trained patients to take their ailments to a doctor. The doctor knows more than the patient about illness and trauma and the body. The doctor prescribes a procedure or a course of medication. The patient does what the doctor says, because the doctor is the expert in diagnosis and in treatment. The doctor is the authority, and there is a pill for every ill.
Psychiatry borrowed this model. In psychiatry, the psychiatrist is the one who knows about mental illness, diagnosis, and treatment. The patient, trained to trust the credentialed psychiatrist, places their treatment in the psychiatrist's hands. And why shouldn't they? The psychiatrist is the expert, and the expert is saying "you have this illness, and this pill is designed to treat this illness."
"I am depressed and my psychiatrist recommended antidepressants," is the surface answer to the question, "Why are you on medication?" The more foundational answer is a cultural answer, and in modern culture, psychiatric medication is the offered solution when a person experiences certain emotional states "too frequently" or "too intensely."
WHAT ARE THE ACTUAL 'BENEFITS' OF USING BRAIN DRUGS?
Before talking about the benefits of brain drugs, it's useful to say a bit more about modern culture and feelings and emotions.
In modern culture, the thoughtware regarding feelings and emotions is that feelings and emotions are not okay and are a sign of instability. Think about it. If a person is weeping loudly and uncontrollably, isn't the question that usually comes first, "What's wrong?" If someone is angry and expresses their anger, isn't one of the first considerations that they need to handle themselves better? If a person is scared, isn't one of the first things out of people's mouths, "There's nothing to be scared about..."? If a person is over-the-moon glad, mustn't they be out of the touch, or possibly manic?
In a culture where it is not okay to feel, feeling too much of anything too frequently is pathologized. Entire professions are constructed around this pathologization. The goal of the professional is generally to support clients in feeling less so that they can fit back in with the other people in the culture who have also been trained in the thoughtware "feeling is not okay." This is "2 Phase Healing," expanded on below.
Brain drugs are one tool for supporting a person to feel less. This is their 'benefit,' although how well they support a person in feeling less of what they are feeling has been called into question.
WHAT ARE THE UNCONSCIOUS SIDE-EFFECTS OF USING BRAIN DRUGS?
WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE CAUSES OF THE SYMPTOMS THAT ARE OFTEN USED TO PRESCRIBE BRAIN DRUGS?
WHAT ARE MODERN CULTURE'S STANDARD STRATEGIES FOR ADDRESSING THESE CAUSES?
WHAT ARE ALTERNATIVES - IN THIS CASE, THE 'ARCHIARCHY ALTERNATIVES' - TO DEAL WITH THESE CAUSES AND CREATE VALUABLE POSSIBILITIES?
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MODERN CULTURE'S '2 PHASE HEALING' AND ARCHIARCHY'S '3 PHASE HEALING'?
The orientation underpinning the application of brain drugs is 2 Phase Healing. 2 Phase Healing starts with a paradigm of normalcy. A normal, unsick person in modern culture 1) can function and 2) feels good. "Functioning" means that they can perform the duties required of a person living the linear life plan. "Feeling good" basically means being so numb that when someone asks, "How are you doing?" a person can respond "good," without having any sense that what they are saying inaccurately reflects the way of things.
2 Phase Healing begins the moment a client's emotional experience interferes with their functioning and/or they stop feeling "good." This is Phase 1 of 2 Phase Healing. In 2 Phase Healing, the orientation is to get back to functioning and feeling "good" as quickly as possible, "get back" being the operative phrase. Phase 2 of 2 Phase Healing is when a client has been successfully restored to who they were before they began to feel. Anything that returns the client to the state of normalcy that allows them to function and feel good is accepted. Brain drugs are great here because they require little effort to apply (open mouth, swallow) and they are effective at skewing a person's biophysiology so that numbness returns and functioning resumes. When a client returns to numbness and functioning, 2 Phase Healing is complete.
3 Phase Healing has a completely different orientation. Phase 1 of 3 Phase Healing is the same as Phase 1 of 2 Phase Healing: A client begins to have an experience that interferes with their ability to function as they have up to this point functioned. Instead of viewing this as a problematic or aberrant state that needs to be corrected, 3 Phase Healing regards the disruptive experience as a doorway for evolution. A practitioner of 3 Phase Healing holds a space for the client to go through a healing process or healing journey, making use of the evolutionary doorway to enter a Liquid State. The Liquid State is Phase 2 of 3 Phase Healing. In the safety of a process and in the malleability of the Liquid State, evolution and healing happen. Old decisions, invisible through years of use, are made conscious and can be cancelled or replaced. Old wounds are reopened and their poison is withdrawn. In 3 Phase Healing, the client does not return to who or what they were before. Instead, they roll forward into who or what they are becoming. As the healing journey and Liquid State conclude, the client comes back together in a new shape—more evolved, more healed, more grown up. This is Phase 3 of 3 Phase Healing.
WHAT IS THE COMPARISON BETWEEN A 'BRAIN DRUG SOLUTION' AND A 'NON-DRUG ARCHIARCHY HEALING INITIATIONS SOLUTION'?
WHAT ARE THE STEPS OR PROCESSES THAT MIGHT BE INVOLVED IN THE WAYS ARCHIARCHY WOULD DEAL WITH THESE SYMPTOMS?
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS?
WHAT IS THE PROCEDURE FOR UNMIXING EMOTIONS?
WHERE DO THE UNMIXED EMOTIONS BELONG? WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?
WHAT ARE AUTHENTIC ADULTHOOD INITIATORY PROCESSES?
WHAT IS FEELINGS WORK? WHAT ARE EMOTIONAL HEALING PROCESSES (EHP)?
WHAT IF DEPRESSION, ADHT, ETC. ARE SYMPTOMS OF OVERPOPULATION, FAILURE OF GOVERNMENT TO AVOID CLIMATE CATASTROPHE, AND GLOBAL CULTURE SHIFT FROM PATRIARCHY TO ARCHIARCHY?
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO FINALLY GET OFF BRAIN DRUGS?
**After 17 Years, I'm Finally Off Antidepressants** - a celebration from Devin Gleeson 14 September 2022
This topic definitely deserves longer pieces of writing, and I think I'll dive into it more at some point. For now, I want to share a little, and mostly celebrate.
I got on antidepressants when I was 18 years old. I had lots of resistance to pills, mostly because I just did not like the idea that there was some deficit in my body or heart that only antidepressants could heal.
I cannot really say with certainty that antidepressants helped me with depression, or anything else for that matter.
In fact, the only times I remember antidepressants making a noticeable, obvious difference in my life were in my first two weeks of taking them, going through the typical buffet of symptoms people experience (sleeplessness, increased suicidality, etc.), and in the two years I spent weaning off of them going through the typical (but generally unrecognized and immensely under-researched) symptoms of withdrawal (brain zaps, lethargy, apathy, emotional lability, to name a few).
In coming off antidepressants, nothing supported me more than the tools of Possibility Management, and the big global of village of people exploring feelings work, emotional healing and transformation in the PM context.
My experience of modern therapy and psychiatry goes like this:
• There is a thin margin of acceptable things to feel. We typically call this experience, 'Feeling good', or 'Feeling fine'.
• Anything outside of this thin margin is pathologized, meaning that if we feel sad, angry, or anxious, or we experience the mixed emotions of depression, isolation, hysteria, etc., we need to go to an expert whose job is to get us back to 'Feeling good / Feeling fine'.
• Human potential, or even the possibility that these experiences of non-acceptable feelings and emotions might just be nature's way of getting our attention, letting us know we are living out of integrity, letting us know that climate change is real and rage / grief / terror are totally sane responses, letting us know there are doorways to the magnificent hidden in plain sight — these are never on the table.
This is my experience. It may not be yours.
The insanity of this model — the massive and arbitrary rejection of significant portions of the human experience — saddens me and makes me so angry, especially after discovering alternatives that are so much more enlivening.
As I sit here on the other side of 17 years (!!!!) of dependency on antidepressants, I celebrate. I never thought I would be able to stop taking medication, or to do so while also regularly falling in love with the people and world around me.
Thank you to everyone who has held so much space for me, encouraged me, watched me fall apart, listened to my anger. I hope more people take this path.
Thoughtmap Of 5 Bodies
Thoughtmap Of 4 Feelings
Thoughtmap Of Hitting Bottom
Thoughtmap Of Mixed Emotions
Thoughtmap Of Mixed Emotions
Thoughtmap Of Culture Shift
Thoughtmap Of Modern Culture Centered On Child- Level Responsibility
Articles
A new study has been published claiming that antidepressants categorically work. As someone who has had a lot of personal experience with antidepressants, I am worried about this claim. My experience may differ to others, but my relationship with this treatment has not always been positive. Antidepressants are unlikely to work without any other form of treatment.
The study exhibits a narrow view, which I find particularly scary. Even if you are lucky enough to feel better after taking the pills, medication is only a very small part of the battle. For example, if you broke your leg, you wouldn’t expect it to just heal because it was in a plaster cast. To get it healthy again you would expect to be provided with crutches and most likely some form of physiotherapy.
And if you were being treated for other chronic issues, such as heart disease, you would have the opportunity to speak to a specialist. That doesn’t happen so much with mental health and GPs (General Practitioner Medical Doctor) are not specialists in psychiatry.
In other words, you can’t give someone a pill and expect it all to be OK. I found this out the hard way.
When I was first prescribed antidepressants I didn’t feel as though a lot of thought had gone into the decision. I met my GP, had a five-minute chat, was presented with a prescription and told to take the pills every day in the evening and I’d feel better. I followed these instructions. Yet I found that my insomnia and anxiety got worse, and within a couple of months I ended up in hospital.
While I don’t blame the antidepressant itself – it was clear I was severely depressed anyway – I do think that there was a lack of thought behind the prescription, and the doctor’s rationale behind which pill I should take was also unclear.
Even after my hospital stay, I was on high doses of medication. I took it without really thinking about what I was doing. No other treatment paths had been suggested to me and it was only after I had gained two stone in weight, without changing my diet, and was throwing up a few times a week that I realized that maybe my antidepressants weren’t working for me.
I have now stopped taking the pills. Not only has my weight come back down to where it was before but I also have started to feel again. Because what I didn’t realize was that rather than lifting my mood, my antidepressants just made me feel numb. In all honestly, I felt a bit like a zombie, just going through the motions.
But don’t get me wrong. Anything that helps to reduce stigma when it comes to mental health is brilliant. However, what we forget is that medication has an effect on your brain and is not something to be taken lightly. With incredibly overstretched and underfunded mental health services, my main concern is that pills will become the norm and other treatments will be overlooked at their expense.
With only one in six people receiving the care that they need, I don’t feel that the field of mental health expertise knows enough to rely on drugs that can have such a wide-ranging mental, emotional and physical impact on so many people.
I am not ready to put all my faith in a treatment that doesn’t work for everyone – I believe that we need to think of antidepressants as only one part of a much bigger picture when it comes to treating mental health.
Some use scissors. Others prefer a sharp knife. My own weapon of choice was a nail clipper.
Over the six months or so that I took to come off antidepressants, I found that the easiest way to halve and then quarter the pills was to raid the bathroom cabinet. My bedside table became a small pharmaceutical workshop. Eventually, there was nothing but white powder, which I would suck up with a straw when no one was around to avoid looking like a drug addict.
Ironically, I used other drugs, chiefly tranquillizers, to ease the process and reduce the anxiety of withdrawing from antidepressants. Using drugs to come off other pills was not ideal, but it was the way I managed a frightening period. I was terrified that I might fall ill again without medication.
Nearly a decade later, I have avoided becoming so. I have found ways to manage my own depressive tendencies without prescription drugs. But for the seven million Britons who are on antidepressants, research this month made for difficult reading.
A report in The Lancet Psychiatry found that coming off antidepressants can take months, and doctors must not rush patients into stopping. Otherwise sufferers can risk debilitating withdrawal symptoms, such as low mood, dizziness and anxiety. For some, the side effects from withdrawal are sufficiently bad that they stay on the drugs.
My argument here is not to ignore medication. A major meta-study last February reviewed trials of antidepressants, finding that all 21 drugs worked better than placebo, in contrast to earlier studies. But the research, from Oxford and other universities, said the drugs’ effects were “mostly modest”, and reports failed to make clear some of the study’s limitations, such as the variable quality of the trials included. All I know is that when you are suicidal you take the drugs.
Yet in an ideal world, I would have rather avoided the side effects of antidepressants, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medication and the feeling that I had to rely on drug-taking over a long period. I would also have liked to have known more about the scary process of coming off the drugs.
The Lancet report is a reminder of how often a patient’s experience is different from the textbooks: the current National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) guidance says that for most people “withdrawal symptoms are usually mild and self-limiting over one week”. Its advice is to reduce drug doses gradually, a process that should normally take four weeks, though the guidelines acknowledge that some people take longer, and Nice is drawing up new advice on antidepressant withdrawal.
In addition to drug prescription, the second established treatment on the NHS is a course of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Over the years, I have warmed towards various counsellors who have tried to help me by talking sympathetically and listening to my problems. And I have undoubtedly been helped.
So conventional treatments have been of benefit, for those that can access them, (which is another story given long waiting lists and a lack of hospital beds and expert help). My lesson is not to dismiss either drugs or CBT. But I do increasingly feel there is a third element to my own current sense of calm and well-being, and that is a belief in my own agency.
A sense of self-empowerment is at times neglected in the mental health world. It is all too easy to become dependent on others, whether psychiatrists or therapists, especially once you have received a diagnosis of a mental health condition, which can feel like a life sentence from which you will never recover.
I know feeling passive and powerless to do anything about my condition was part of being depressed. The more I discovered my own ability to take action, the better I felt. This insight is the basis for my approach to managing my own mental health. Every day I remind myself that I can make a difference. This begins as soon as I wake up.
The first thing I do is to make my bed – the white duvet perfectly aligned and my pillows plumped. A small gesture to be sure, but one that reminds me that if I take control of small decisions in this way I will feel my own power to affect larger decisions.
As my day progresses, I can take care about what I eat, be mindful of my stress levels, ditch my inner critic and dismiss my imposter syndrome. I have to believe I can make a difference – because I can!
This perspective has also been shaped by my experience running well-being workshops for various mental health charities and in schools and universities. In these workshops I share the kind of lifestyle changes that research has found can help those with anxiety and depression. In my experience, the people who believe in their own agency are those who will benefit the most. Yet often sufferers have been robbed of this sense of their own power after years of conventional treatment.
That is why I have written my first workbook for people who are looking for a way out of depression. The book has practical steps you can take, be it writing an appreciation letter, cooking with your mental health in mind, or composing a poem to process difficult feelings.
In the future, my hope is that we will believe we can affect our mental health in the same way we take responsibility for our physical health. Had I done so earlier, perhaps my own story might have been different. I might have avoided spells in hospital, heavy medication and the battle to come off the drugs. My nail clipper might even have stayed in the bathroom cupboard.
Rachel Kelly is an ambassador for Rethink Mental Illness and SANE. Her latest book, “Singing in the Rain: 52 Practical Steps to Happiness”, is published by Short Books
This article also appears in the 20 Mar 2019 issue of the New Statesman, State of emergency: https://www.newstatesman.com/magazine/state-of-emergency
Archiarchy Healing Resources
Having an Emotional Body with Feelings is not a design error. Feelings are for handling things. Emotions are for healing things.
What is an Emotional Healing Process (EHP)? It is using the intelligence and energy of your Feelings and Emotions to navigate evolution.
Possibility Coaches are trained to safely deliver a large variety of healing and transformational processes.
Offering over 100 demonstration videos of actual Emotional Healing Processes (EHP) from Possibility Coaching.
Possibility Mediators hold space for couples, teams, projects, and organizations to use problems, conflicts and breakdowns as bridges to new Possibility.
You live according to how you are designed. You are designed by your Memes. Memes can be upgraded during Memetic Engineering Processes.
The online dictionary of Possibility Management Distinctions. Possibility Management is Thoughtware for Next Culture - Archiarchy.
S.P.A.R.K.s are Specific Practical Applications of Radical Knowledge, with truly astonishing Experiments to try.
Offering hundreds of inspiring Podcasts for your healing and transformational listening pleasures.
Ordinary healing is '2 Phase Healing'. You get 'sick'. They try to put you back the way you were. In '3 Phase Healing', your imbalance is a Liquid State during an Evolutionary Process.
If you have not Quit School, you are still in school, behaving as if this is a class and there is a teacher. But this isn't, and there isn't. A whole world awaits you after you Quit School.
Articles written by Possibilitators on the Healing and Evolutionary Path.
A common Survival Strategy is to mix your Gremlin into your Adult Ego State, but then your Gremlin has holds the steering wheel.
As a Survival Strategy you may have contaminated your Adult Ego State with your Child, Parent, Gremlin, or Demon Ego State. Then you cannot be Present. Your Adult Ego State can be Decontaminated.
Through schooling and media, modern culture gives you Standard Human Intelligence Thoughtware. You see where this has gotten us... Upgraded Thoughtware is available. Nobody can upgrade for you. More interestingly, nobody can stop you from upgrading.
Modern human beings were not held enough as babies. This lack can be remedied through a course of Holdings.
Between one solid state and another solid state is a Liquid State. No Liquid State, no change. New skills are required to 'navigate to the Liquid State'.
Modern culture offers you a Linear Life Plan. You do not have to accept the offer. Other Life Plans are possible...
Adults are made by other Adults during Authentic Adulthood Initiatory and Healing Processes.
Relating is a verb, not a noun... not a 'thing' that you have or don't have. Relating is a set of skills that you can develop, possibly something that modern culture knows nothing about.
Adulthood is not a given. It is earned. Next Culture - Archiarchy - places Authentic Adulthood Initiatory Processes at its center as its highest value.
S.T.A.R.R.s are Startling Tales About Radical Responsibility.
You are born deep inside nested layers of 8 Prisons, which are your stepping-stones to Adulthood, that is, if you can escape them.
Support fellow Edgeworkers and Possibilitators on their Path of Authentic Adulthood Initiations and Emotional Healing Processes (EHP).
Rage Club ignites your Conscious Anger and sets you into your original life tracks, with plenty of fuel for doing what you came here to do. Your Archetypal Lineage is waiting to be jacked-into.
Fear Club unfolds the truly Magical information and energy of your Conscious Fear. New skills and Practices change the way the world works for you in astonishingly fruitful ways.
The culture you were born and raised in is a Patriarchy. At birth you must join the Patriarchy or die. Patriarchal Thoughtware is so ingrained we do not even know how to meet in a circle. If you do not escape the Patriarchy you remain oppressed in Zombie hierarchies. Is that any way to live?
Here is how to come back into yourself and StartOver.xyz. Three minutes of Rage Work, three times a week, for three months.
A '3Cell' is a close-knit trustworthy Team you always wished you had. Your 'Getting Off Brain Drugs' 3Cell can be a life-saver.
Here is a listing of our favorite healing and Matrix Building books... Legends of the Path.
The StartOver.xyz Spaceport is a platform with hundreds of additional Doorways to Possibilities you may never have thought of. It is all free.
Experiments
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is legally required for you to consult a medical professional before doing any of these experiments.Specifically, it can be lethal to suddenly or erratically decrease your brain drug dosage.Don't be stupid.SECOND IMPORTANT NOTE: Stigmas around 'mental illness' in Modern Culture might have ingrained in you a habit of keeping your inner world private.If you want to experience healing and transformation, you must retire this habit of keeping your inner world a closely guarded secret.For this reason, many of the experiments below are to be done with other people.These two Telegram groups are great resources for finding other people:• Possibility Creation Village: https://t.me/+ViEuN7pEHlcSDlCv• Emotional Healing Process (EHP) Collaboration Group: http://t.me/joinchat/WC5Px3vhJLpGU-Cz
5 BODY CHECK-INS WITH A PARTNER
Matrix Code WALKTHER.01
Contrary to what you may have previously thought, you have not one but five distinct bodies: a Mental Body, a Physical Body, an Emotional Body, an Energetic Body, and an Archetypal Body. Each body requires its own foods, experiences its own ecstasies, and endures its own pains.
For this experiment, invite a partner to join you for two weeks of daily 5 Body check-ins. (If you do not can find a partner in the Possibility Creation Village or the EHP Collaboration group.) Each day, either in person or over the phone or Zoom, meet with your partner for twenty minutes, and one at a time, share what is happening in each of your bodies at that moment. Share about what your bodies need, the ecstasies and pain in each of your bodies, and notice when one body is attempting to do the work of another body.
For instance:
- I notice that my Archetypal Body is well-fed by the writing projects I got to work on today. Saying this aloud brings enormous joy into my Emotional Body because I love my work, and sadness because it took me so long to discover this work. My Mental Body is already thinking about how I might structure a piece of writing I am working on for this evening. In my Physical Body, I notice tension in my lower back from sitting all day. I will stretch later and go on a walk. And when I sense into my Energetic Body, I notice that I have been moving very quickly today. I want to have spaciousness in my calendar and to move more slowly.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.01 in your free account at StartOver.xyz. For proof: Take a photo of you and your 5 Body Check-In partner, post it in a place online with a short description, and then send the link here.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
4 FEELINGS CHECK-IN WITH A PARTNER
Matrix Code WALKTHER.02
Now, and for the rest of your life, when someone asks you what you are feeling, you have just four options: Mad, sad, glad, and scared.
For this experiment, invite a partner to join you for two weeks of daily 4 Feelings check-ins. (If you do not can find a partner in the Possibility Creation Village or the EHP Collaboration group.) Each day for twenty minutes, meet in person or over the phone or on Zoom, and one at a time share the feelings that are present for you in real-time. For instance:
- I feel glad that we are doing these daily feelings check-ins. I feel glad now coming into this space with you. I also feel sadness, because I have wanted to be in connection sharing about feelings for a long time, and now it is happening. Now I notice fear. I feel afraid because I do not always know what I am feeling. I feel afraid I might do this feelings check-in wrong. And I feel angry because I still have it as a possibility that I could do something like a feelings check-in 'wrong.'
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.02 in your free account at StartOver.xyz. For proof: Take a photo of you and your 4 Feelings Check-In partner, post it in a place online with a short description, and then send the link here.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
ONE WEEK OF CONSCIOUS FEELINGS PRACTICE
Matrix Code WALKTHER.03
Either with one partner or several partners, complete a week of daily conscious feelings practice using the Map of How to Consciously Feel from page 113 in Directing the Power of Conscious Feelings. If you do not have Directing the Power of Conscious Feelings, follow the steps below:
- This is a partner practice, not to be done alone. If you are a man, speak with an adult man. If you are a woman, speak with an adult woman.
- Each session has two halves. In the first half do the exercise in one direction, then switch roles. You each play both parts. This avoids the client/therapist ("I'm broken, fix me.") dynamic. Neither of you is broken. You are doing experiments to expand your Box!
- Prearrange a place in person or online where you and your partner can meet and make noise without being disturbed. Feelings can be loud.
- Bring a sturdy hand towel and tissues. The towel can be wrung between your hands for rage work. You know what the tissues are for.
- Sit facing each other in straight-back chairs with no table between. (Sitting on the floor tends to compress the chest and block feelings.)
- One person goes first: The feeler. The other person is the coach. The coach's job is to listen.
- The coach says, "Close your eyes and trust your feelings. Let your feelings lead." In a safe space it only takes a few seconds before the first manifestation of a feeling shows up, such as swallowing, fidgeting fingers, a tapping foot. The coach simply says, "Let the feeling get bigger."
- Do not worry if nothing seems to happen for the first few meetings, or if a feeling only gets to 5 percent intensity. A new kind of trust is being developed. The work goes in steps and layers. Trust the process.
- Even if joy, fear, or sadness appear to be the topmost feelings, I suggest you work with anger first. When you have your anger back, then you can use your anger to assure your own safety while exploring other feelings.
- The coach's job is to:
- Ask to hear the story behind the feelings. Say, "Then what happened?"
- Repeat back what the feeler says to complete the communication.
- Encourage the feeler to stay out of their head and instead say, "I feel mad/sad/scared/glad because..."
- Coach the feeler to unmix their feelings.
- Coach the feeler to gauge the intensity of their feelings (1 - 100 percent).
- At the climax point, ask "What did you decide?" Write down any decisions.
- At the halfway point, change roles and start over.
- Spend a few minutes at the end of each session sharing observations, having a glass of water, and closing the space together.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.03 in your free account at StartOver.xyz. For proof: Write and publish publicly a two to three page article about your experience and share the link.
This Experiment is worth 4 Matrix Points.
EMOTIONAL HEALING PROCESSES (EHP): PART 1
Matrix Code WALKTHER.04
After exploring the first experiments on this website, it becomes useful to recognize that there is a distinction between Feelings and Emotions. Although the experience of the Feelings of anger, sadness, fear, and joy is similar to the experience of the Emotions of anger, sadness, fear, and joy, the difference is actually immense. Feelings arise in the present moment, last for fewer than three minutes, and provide energy and information for action here and now. Emotions, on the other hand, are incomplete feelings from the past. They last for longer than three minutes, and even when you use the energy and information of the Emotion to handle things in the present, the Emotion does not go away. That is because the Emotion is not about what is happening. It is about something that happened in the past. It is not for handling things in the present. Rather, it for healing things from the past.
Start this experiment by creating a page at the back of your Beep! Book titled 'My Next Emotional Healing Processes.' Then, for the next three days, become an Emotion hunter. Any time you notice an emotional experience, write one or two lines about it. For instance:
- Received feedback. Feel sad and angry and have a story that I can never get it right.
- Felt scared to share in the new group. Scared that if I spoke, someone would cut me off, so I stayed quiet.
- My husband interrupted me. Wanted to curl in a ball in hide. Story that no one ever listens.
Capture as many emotions down on the paper as you can. Each emotion you capture is a gateway to an Emotional Healing Process (EHP), to be done in the experiment.After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.04 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
EMOTIONAL HEALING PROCESSES (EHP): PART 2
Matrix Code WALKTHER.05
The list of EHPs that you wrote down in the previous experiment becomes the roadmap for this experiment. In this experiment, go through one EHP with a spaceholder each day until you have gone through all of the EHPs on your list. (You can make a request for spaceholders in the EHP Collaboration group on Telegram.)
When you have completed all the EHPs on your list, immediately start a new list, adding new emotions as they come as gateways for your next EHP.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.05 in your free account at StartOver.xyz. For proof, write a article documenting your days of EHPs and what you discovered.
This Experiment is worth 3 Matrix Points.
READ ANATOMY OF AN EPIDEMIC BY ROBERT WHITTAKER
Matrix Code WALKTHER.06
Where did Brain Drugs come from? Where do they lead? If you are asking yourself these questions, you are not the first. In his book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, science and history writer Robert Whittaker unfolds the history of Brain Drugs. One of the most startling revelations of the book is that over the long term, the outcomes of each class of Brain Drug is an exacerbation of the very illnesses they purport to treat.
Read this book from cover to cover. Feel the rage, fear, and sadness. Then use your feelings to write an article about the book, sharing discoveries, learnings, and about your own story.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.06 in your free account at StartOver.xyz. For proof, share the link to your article.
This Experiment is worth 3 Matrix Points.
SHIFT OUT OF THE IDENTITY OF YOUR DIAGNOSIS
Matrix Code WALKTHER.07
You may have been given a diagnosis by a medical professional. You may have clung to that diagnosis as your primary or one of your primary identities. For instance, you may wear the identity of a person with bipolar, a person with anxiety, a person with schizophrenia, a person with unipolar depression. This experiment is about shedding that identity and shifting to a new one.
For two weeks, drop the identity of being a person who has any of the above diagnoses and instead, shift into the identity of a Emotional Researcher or a Feelings Quester or a Heart Adventurer. The moment you wake up, declare to yourself, "I am a Feelings Quester." When you take your pill, consciously acknowledge, "I am taking this pill as part of my ongoing research into the nature of my heart. What does it do? What difference does it make? I am looking for answers."
When you walk down the street, step into the postures, adopt the gestures, speak with the intonations of a Emotional Researcher or Feelings Quester or Heart Adventurer. The moment you notice that you have slipped back into the identity of your diagnosis, stand up and spin around or click your heels together, and immediately redeclare yourself as the identity you have recently adopted.
At the end of the two weeks of practice, ask yourself: "Does this new identity give me more Possibility in my life?"
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.07 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
FOUR FEELINGS, FOUR STONES
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For one week, carry four stones in your pocket. Make sure the stones are distinct enough that you cannot possibly confuse one stone for another. Assign each of the stones to one of the four feelings (anger, sadness, fear, joy).
Then, throughout the course of the week, at least one time each day, but preferably multiple times, take the stones out of your pocket one at a time at random. When you pull the stone for anger out, close your eyes, navigate to your anger, and say aloud to yourself or someone else: "I feel angry because..." When you pull the stone out for fear, close your eyes, navigate to your fear, and say aloud to yourself or someone else: "I feel afraid because..."
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.08 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
REMOVE THE ENERGETIC BLOCK YOU INSTALLED WHEN YOU FIRST SAID "YES" TO BRAIN DRUGS
Matrix Code WALKTHER.09
A common Survival Strategy you may have employed as a child trying to cope with chaos or expectations or parents who had never been through Authentic Adulthood Initiations was to install Energetic Blocks. Energetic Blocks come in various forms, from pieces of old decisions to Mind Machines to pieces of energetic hardwire soldered to your Energetic Body.
The decision to start on Brain Drugs may have been accompanied by a decision to install an Energetic Block. This could be a block around feeling your feelings, a block around experiencing your own Authority, a block around your heart.
In your next EHP, when the spaceholder asks, "What can I do for you?" say, "When I decided to begin on Brain Drugs, I installed an energetic block. I do not know consciously what that block was, but I want to find out what it was and heal it." With that intention, allow the process to go wherever the process goes.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.09 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
UNMIX YOUR MIXED EMOTIONS
Matrix Code WALKTHER.10
One reason you may have started taking Brain Drugs is that you were unconsciously mixing your Emotions. When Emotions and Feelings are unmixed, their energy and information can be used respectively for taking action in the present moment or healing wounds from the past. When Emotions are mixed, the energy and information is garbled and unusable. For instance, if you mix the GO energy of anger and the SLOW DOWN energy of sadness, you get a strained and pained experience called resignation or depression. If you mix your sadness with your fear, you get the experience of despair or isolation. If you mix fear and anger, you get aggressivity and hysteria.
The only way out of these experiences of recurring depression, resignation, despair, isolation, and the other combinations of mixed emotions is to ruthlessly unmix. Your first step in unmixing is to discover what emotions you are mixing, and then ask a spaceholder (you can make a request for spaceholders in the EHP Collaboration group) to hold space for you to unmix those emotions. And that is the experiment.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.10 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
GO TO THE PHARMACY WITH YOUR FEELINGS DETECTOR TUNED TO EXTRA-SENSITIVE
Matrix Code WALKTHER.11
How many times have you gone into the pharmacy to pick up your prescription? How many times have you gone into the pharmacy and lowered your numbness bar enough to actually feel what that experience is like for you?
In this experiment, plan a trip to your local pharmacy, or wait until it is time to pick up your prescription, and then go to your local pharmacy. Before entering the pharmacy, adjust your Feelings Detector so that you can feel even the subtlest of emotional experiences, all the way down below ten percent. Then, notice exactly how you feel in each moment during your time at the pharmacy.
- How do you feel as you walk through the door?
- How do you feel noticing that alongside medication, this pharmacy also sells candy, potato chips, soda, energy drinks, and cigarettes?
- How do you feel noticing the touched-up images of models for shampoo, cologne, shaving products, supplement products, etc.?
- How do you feel as you stand in line to pick up your pills?
- How do you feel about the complex exchange that happens between you and your pharmacist where you show your ID card, your insurance card, your prescription from your doctor, etc., and they hand you pills?
- How do you feel exiting the store holding this bag of pills?
Write down what you notice in your Beep! Book. Write down what it is like to make this entire experience conscious at the level of what you are feeling.After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.11 in your free account at StartOver.xyz. For proof, share what you were most angry about, what you were most sad about, what you were most scared about, and what you were most glad about.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
HOLD SPACE FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO GO THROUGH AN EMOTIONAL HEALING PROCESS (EHP)
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The hierarchical dynamic embedded in therapist/client and psychiatrist/patient relationships can create incredible experiences of disempowerment for a client or patient. Healing this dynamic and becoming empowered mean rediscovering yourself as a spaceholder.
After going through a few experiences of having space held for you in an Emotional Healing Process (EHP), you are already equipped to step into your first EHP as a spaceholder.
The next time you see someone in the Emotional Healing Process (EHP) Collaboration Group on Telegram ask for an EHP, volunteer yourself as a spaceholder. You can let them know it is your first time holding space and even ask for a co-spaceholder if you want. The point is that you go through the experience of holding space for another person in a non-hierarchical setting.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.12 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
STAY CENTERED, GROUNDED, AND BUBBLED WHILE WATCHING PHARMACEUTICAL COMMERCIALS
Matrix Code WALKTHER.13
Commercials and advertisements of every sort are designed to capture your Attention. When they have your Attention, they have your Center. When they have your Center, they have your wallet.
For this experiment, you will start by entering First Position and becoming Centered, Grounded, and Bubbled. Next, you will watch at least 10 commercials from pharmaceutical companies. As you watch each commercial, notice exactly what in the commercial causes you to compromise First Position. Are there particular phrases that hook you? Does the colorful imagery of a better life fill you with yearning? How does the commercial manipulate you into believing that this pill will give you what you are looking for? Each time you find that you have become snapped into the story of the commercial, identify what snapped you, and then use your anger to return to First Position.
Some commercials are listed below. It is a good idea to watch at least one commercial for a medication that you actually take:
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.13 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
FIND OUT WHO AROUND YOU AS ALSO TAKING BRAIN DRUGS AND CONNECT WITH THEM ABOUT IT
Matrix Code WALKTHER.14
Stigmas around 'mental illness' mean that people do not often share about the fact that they are taking Brain Drugs, what drugs they are on, how they feel about being on those drugs, etc. This experiment is about beginning that conversation. You can open that conversation by sharing about the experiments you are starting with your medication journey.
For one week, carry inside you the intention of speaking with people who are on Brain Drugs. This does not necessarily mean that you walk up to strangers and friends and ask, "Are you taking Brain Drugs?" Rather, hold this intention firmly in you when you enter conversations. Then, when people ask how you are and what you have been up to lately, share with them, "I have been taking a Brain Drug for a while. Lately, I have been doing experiments to find out more about myself on that Brain Drug. The experiment I am doing this week is breaking down the stigma that keeps me and other people from openly connecting about Brain Drugs."
Allow E.C.C.O. to take the conversation from there.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.14 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
DISCOVER WHAT YOUR TEAM IS UP TO ON SURVIVINGANTIDEPRESSANTS.COM
Matrix Code WALKTHER.15
Your Team is already bigger than you think. One place you already have a team that you may not have realized is in the people who have gone before you in getting off of Brain Drugs.
The website SurvivingAntidepressants.Org is a message board and forum of people coming off of all kinds of Brain Drugs. The site is searchable for best practices, research, and recommendations for coming off of specific Brain Drugs as well as more general information, anecdotal reports, and community support.
For this experiment, go to SurvivingAntidepressants.Org, and do the following:
- Set up a free account.
- Introduce yourself in the section for Introductions.
- Read the section on tapering.
- Read 10 articles or posts connected to the Brain Drug or Drugs that you are coming off.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.15 in your free account at StartOver.xyz. For proof, share the link to the introduction you posted on the website.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
ARRANGE TO HAVE YOUR BEING APPRECIATED
Matrix Code WALKTHER.16
You are bigger than your diagnosis, but you might not see that. You might have stories about yourself that you are broken, worthless, cannot contribute anything to the world, etc. You might not realize that beyond your diagnosis, you also have a Being. This experiment is about getting your Being appreciated.
Over the course of the next seven days, ask seven different people to join you in the experiment of helping you give your Being appreciation. Each day, sit down with one of these people either in person or over the phone, set a timer for six minutes, and ask the person to tell you what they appreciate about your Being.
It will be helpful for your people to remember that appreciating your Being is not about appreciating your Doing (your actions) or your Having (what you possess). Appreciating your Being is about appreciating what you are. What walks into the room when you walk into the room.
After you complete this seven day experiment, write a two or three page article about describing the experiment and what you discovered.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.16 in your free account at StartOver.xyz. For proof, share the link to your article.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
ARRANGE HOLDINGS FOR YOURSELF
Matrix Code WALKTHER.17
If you grew up in Modern Culture with parents who grew up in Modern Culture, then you probably have not received enough touch or holding in your life. Even if you have received plenty of touch and holding, this experiment is probably still relevant for you.
For three months, two times a week, arrange to trade holdings with a partner. Make sure to select partners who are the same sex as you (men with men, women with women), to avoid making the Holdings a space of unconscious sexual energy exchange.
When you meet, your partner will hold you first for 20 minutes. After the 20 minutes are finished, you switch directions with you holding your partner for 20 minutes.
After completing this three-month experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.17 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 3 Matrix Points.
CRASH THE FANTASY WORLD ABOUT FINALLY FEELING 'GOOD'
Matrix Code WALKTHER.18
There is a Fantasy World in Modern Culture about Feeling 'Good.' This Fantasy World is visible in commercials and advertisements for Brain Drugs. It also might have been present in promises your doctor or psychiatrist or psychotherapist made to you about what you would experience when you finally started taking Brain Drugs.
For this experiment, take a piece of paper and write down everything that comprises your Fantasy World about finally feeling 'good:'
- What does feeling 'good' mean for you?
- Does it mean you no longer feel sadness, anger, fear, or joy?
- Does it mean you are numb?
- Who and what will you be and be like when you finally feel 'good?'
- What kind of people, places, and things will be in your life when you finally feel 'good?'
- When you will you be able to do then that you are unable to do now?
- When you feel 'good,' will you finally be normal?
Paint the picture of feeling 'good' with as much clarity as you can.When you have finished writing, read what you have written, scanning for gateways for Emotional Healing Processes. As you find them, write them down and commit to doing them.When you have finished documenting your EHPs, bring the paper with your Fantasy World outside, put it on a non-flammable surface, and burn it. Say "Goodbye" to your feel-good fantasy.After completing this three-month experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.18 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
CLOSE YOUR CAFE AND BECOME A TRIGGER HUNTER
Matrix Code WALKTHER.19
Brain Drugs hide or mask a variety of symptoms. As you begin to come off Brain Drugs, these symptoms (along with a slew of withdrawal symptoms) may emerge or reemerge in extreme and unpredictable ways. One way these symptoms may manifest is in the form of Trigger Sentences that you tell yourself. These Trigger Sentences can include things like:
- I am not strong enough.
- I am too weak to even ask for the help I need.
- I may as well be dead.
- What is the point of anything?
- There is something wrong with me.
- I am broken.
These Trigger Sentences are like dinner bells that announce to hungry energetic entities: "Come on over and feast on me! The Cafe is open!" The signs that your cafe is open include inexplicably low energy, difficulty getting out of bed, terror of people and of the world, terror of leaving your room.
The only thing to do here is close your cafe. The process for this is outlined in detail in SPARK 135. Do the first and second steps of this SPARK thoroughly. Then in Step 3, become a Trigger Hunter and do not let your guard down no matter what. Anytime you realize a Trigger Sentence is present again and entities are knocking at the door of your Cafe, whip out your arsenal of bokkens, gatling guns, flame throwers, and fists and scatter the entities with the lethality and fierceness of your roaring rage.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.19 in your free account at StartOver.xyz.
This Experiment is worth 1 Matrix Point.
TAKE YOUR AUTHORITY BACK FROM YOUR PRESCRIBERS
Matrix Code WALKTHER.20
If you are taking Brain Drugs, it is likely that at some point, you gave your authority away. You might have given it away to it away to a psychiatrist, a psychotherapist, a parental figure, a doctor, a prescriber. You might have given it away to a compelling advertisement from a pharmaceutical company (like this one) or to social pressures.
In this experiment, you go through a process to take back your authority. The process goes like this:
- Ask one, two, or three spaceholders to hold space for you to go through this process.
- To begin the process, close your eyes, and go back to the time in your life just before you decided to start taking Brain Drugs. What was happening? Were you suicidal and hopeless? Were you unable to get out of bed? Were you an energetic child with concerned parents? What were you feeling about life? About yourself? About your condition? Share all of this with your spaceholders. Let it be as loud and messy as it needs to be.
- Go to the moment when you gave your authority away—when you said "yes" to taking pills. Remember the exact conversation and who it was with. Remember how you felt as it was happening—the joy or dismay or mixture of emotions. Remember exactly what aspect of your authority you gave away. Was it your authority to choose for yourself? Your authority about what is good for your body and what is not? Did you give your authority away to the 'expert' and abandon your own clarity about what you wanted and what you did not want? Share all of this with your spaceholders.
- Now, using your Clicker, declare in front of you the person or institution to which you gave your authority away. Now speak to this person or institution, saying succinctly what happened. Something like, "When I was 27, I was struggling with depression. I did not know what to do. I decided to give my authority away to you as an expert about emotions. I chose to do exactly what you told me I should do, including identifying with my diagnosis as a depressed person and taking medication." Next, using your anger, say, "I have learned a lot since then, and I have changed my mind about giving my authority away." Finally, using the full force of your anger, take your authority back by declaring it so. Declare what you have authority over. "I take back my authority! I take back my authority about what I do or do not with my body! I take back my authority as a researcher! I am a researcher now. I no longer give away my authority, not even to experts. I choose!"
Let this part of the process be loud and big. Ask for feedback from the spaceholders about how you can make this action of taking your authority back even clearer. Remember, this process is not about revenge or hatred or blame. It is about you taking responsibility for your authority. - When you are complete, thank your spaceholders and allow the process to come to a close.
After completing this experiment, please register Matrix Code WALKTHER.20 in your free account at StartOver.xyz. For proof, record a 2-3 minute video that you post somewhere publicly online, and send the link to us.
This Experiment is worth 2 Matrix Points.
NOTE: This website is a Bubble in the Bubble Map of the free-to-play massively-multiplayer online-and-offline thoughtware-upgrade matrix-building personal-transformation real-life adventure-game called StartOver.xyz. It is a doorway to experiments that upgrade your thoughtware so you can relocate your point of origin and create more possibility. Your knowledge is what you think about. Your thoughtware is what you use to think with. When you change your thoughtware, you go through a liquid state as your mind reorganizes itself. Liquid states can bring up transformational feelings and emotions. By upgrading your thoughtware you build matrix to hold more consciousness and leave behind a low drama life of reactivity. No one can upgrade your thoughtware for you. More interestingly, no one can stop you from upgrading your thoughtware. Our theory is that when we collectively build 1,000,000 new Matrix Points we will change the morphogenetic field of the human race for the better. Please choose responsibly to read this website. Reading this whole website is worth 1 Matrix Point. Doing any of the experiments earns you additional Matrix Points. Please use Matrix Code GETOFFBD.00 to log your Matrix Point for reading this website on StartOver.xyz. Thank you for playing full out!
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