فصل 12

Chapter TWELVE

Do-It-Yourself Tranquilizers That Bring Peace of Mind

Tranquilizer drugs bring peace of mind, calmness, and reduce or eliminate “nervous symptoms” by an “umbrella action.” Just as an umbrella protects us from the rain, the various tranquilizers erect a “psychic screen” between us and disturbing stimuli.

No one fully understands just how the tranquilizers manage to erect this “umbrella,” but we do understand why this brings tranquility. Tranquilizers work because they greatly reduce, or eliminate, our own response to disturbing outside stimuli.

Tranquilizers do not change the environment. The disturbing stimuli are still there. We are still able to recognize them intellectually, but we do not respond to them emotionally.

Remember in Chapter 7, we said that our own feelings do not depend on externals, but on our own attitudes, reactions, and responses? Tranquilizers offer convincing evidence of this fact. In substance they reduce or tone down our over-response to negative feedback.

Over-Response Is a Bad Habit That Can Be Cured

Let us suppose that as you read this, you are sitting quietly in your den. Suddenly, the telephone rings. From habit and experience, this is a “signal,” or stimulus, that you have learned to obey. Without taking thought, without making a conscious decision about the matter, you respond to it. You jump up from your comfortable seat and hurry to the telephone. The outside stimulus has had the effect of “moving” you. It has changed your mental set and your “position” or self-determined course of action. You were all set to spend the hour sitting quietly and relaxed, reading. You were inwardly organized for this. Now all this is suddenly changed by your response to the external stimulus in the environment.

The point I wish to make is this: You do not have to answer the telephone. You do not have to obey. You can, if you choose, totally ignore the telephone bell. You can, if you choose, continue sitting quietly and relaxed—maintaining your own original state of organization, by refusing to respond to the signal. Get this mental picture clearly in your mind for it can be quite helpful in overcoming the power of external stimuli to disturb you. See yourself sitting quietly, letting the phone ring, ignoring its signal, unmoved by its command. Although you are aware of it, you no longer mind or obey it. Also, get clearly in your mind the fact that the outside signal in itself has no power over you; no power to move you. In the past you have obeyed it, responded to it, purely out of habit. You can, if you wish, form a new habit of not responding.

Also notice that your failure to respond does not consist in “doing something,” or making an effort, or resisting or fighting, but in “doing nothing”—in relaxation from doing. You merely relax, ignore the signal, and let its summons go by unheeded.

Today, more than ever, it’s vital to address the bad habit of over-response—to relax from doing—when we are assaulted by the stimuli of email, texts, and all manner of electronic communications.

How to Condition Yourself for Equanimity

In much the same way that you automatically obey or respond to the ring of the telephone, we all become conditioned to respond in a certain way to various stimuli in our environment.

The word “conditioning” in psychological circles grew out of Pavlov’s well-known experiments where he “conditioned” a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, by ringing it just before presenting food to the dog. This procedure was repeated many times. First, the sound of the bell. A few seconds later, the appearance of food. The dog “learned” to respond to the sound of the bell by salivating in anticipation of the food. Originally, the response made sense. The bell signified that food was forthcoming, and the dog got ready by salivating. However, after the process was repeated a number of times, the dog would continue to salivate whenever the bell was rung—whether or not food was immediately forthcoming. The dog had now become “conditioned” to salivate at the mere sound of the bell. His response made no sense and served no good purpose, but he continued to respond in the same way out of habit.

There are a great many “bells,” or disturbing stimuli, in our various environmental situations that we have become conditioned to, and that we continue to respond to out of habit, whether or not the response makes any sense.

Many people learn to fear strangers, for example, because of parental admonitions to have nothing to do with strange people: “do not accept candy from a stranger,” “do not get into a car with a stranger,” etc. The response of avoiding strangers serves a good purpose in small children. But many people continue to feel ill at ease and uncomfortable in the presence of any stranger, even when they know that he comes as a friend instead of a foe. Strangers become “bells,” and the learned response becomes fear, avoidance, or the desire to run away.

Still another person may respond to crowds, closed spaces, open spaces, persons in authority such as “the boss,” by feelings of fear and anxiety. In each case, the crowd, the closed space, the open space, the boss, etc., acts as a “bell” that says, “Danger is present, run away, feel afraid.” And, out of habit, we continue to respond in the accustomed way. We “obey” the bell.

How to Extinguish Conditioned Responses

We can, however, extinguish the conditioned response if we make a practice of relaxing instead of responding. We can, if we wish, just as in the case of the telephone, learn to ignore the “bell,” and continue to sit quietly and “let it ring.” A key thought that we can carry with us to use whenever we are confronted by any disturbing stimulus is to say to ourselves, “The telephone is ringing, but I do not have to answer it. I can just let it ring.” This thought will “key in” to your mental picture of yourself sitting quietly, relaxed, unresponding, doing nothing, letting the telephone ring unheeded, and will act as a trigger or “clue” to call up the same attitude that you had when letting the telephone ring.

If You Cannot Ignore the Response, Delay It

In the process of extinguishing a conditioning, a person may find it difficult, especially at first, to totally ignore the “bell,” especially if it is rung unexpectedly. In such instances you can accomplish the same final result—extinction of the conditioning—by delaying your response.

Mary S. became anxious and ill at ease in the presence of crowds. She was able, by practicing the foregoing technique, to immunize or tranquilize herself against the disturbing stimuli on most occasions. However, occasionally, the desire to run away, to flee, became almost overpowering.

“Remember Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind?” I asked her. “Her philosophy was simple: ‘I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow.’” She was able to maintain her inner equilibrium and effectively cope with her environment in spite of war, fire, pestilence, and unrequited love by delaying the response.

Delaying the response breaks up, and interferes with, the automatic workings of conditioning.

“Counting to ten” when you are tempted to become angry is based on the same principle, and is very good advice—if you count slowly, and in fact actually delay the response, rather than merely holding in your angry shouting or desk pounding. The “response” in anger consists of more than shouting or desk beating. The tension in your muscles is a response. You cannot “feel” the emotion of anger or fear if your muscles remain perfectly relaxed. Therefore, if you can delay “feeling angry” for ten seconds, delay responding at all, you can extinguish the automatic reflex.

The positive effects of counting to ten when you are tempted to be angry—the ten-second delay—can also be greatly enhanced by inhaling and exhaling deeply while paying attention to the breath. Three inhales and exhales is easy enough to “take a step back” and create the space to approach the situation differently.

Mary S. did extinguish her conditioned fear of crowds by delaying her response. When she felt that she simply had to run away, she would say to herself, “Very well, but not this very minute. I will delay leaving the room for two minutes. I can refuse to obey for only two minutes!” Relaxation Erects a Psychic Screen, or Tranquilizer

It is well to get clearly in your mind the fact that our disturbed feelings—our anger, hostility, fear, anxiety, insecurity—are caused by our own responses, not by externals. Response means tension. Lack of response means relaxation. It has been proved in scientific laboratory experiments that you absolutely cannot feel angry, fearful, anxious, insecure, “unsafe” as long as your muscles remain perfectly relaxed. All these things are, in essence, our own feelings. Tension in muscles is a “preparation for action” or a “getting ready to respond.” Relaxation of muscles brings about “mental relaxation,” or a peaceful “relaxed attitude.” Thus, relaxation is nature’s own tranquilizer, which erects a psychic screen or umbrella between you and the disturbing stimulus.

Physical relaxation is a powerful “disinhibitor” for the same reason. In the last chapter, we learned that inhibition results from excessive negative feedback, or rather our over-response to negative feedback. Relaxation means—no response. Therefore, in your daily practice of relaxation, you are learning disinhibition as well as providing yourself with nature’s own do-it-yourself tranquilizer, which you can take with you into your daily activities. Protect yourself from disturbing stimuli by maintaining the relaxed attitude.

Build Yourself a Quiet Room in Your Mind

“Men seek retreats for themselves: houses in the country, sea-shores and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much,” said Marcus Aurelius. “But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere, either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble, does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind. Constantly then give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself.” During the last days of World War II someone commented to President Harry Truman that he appeared to bear up under the stress and strain of the presidency better than any previous president; that the job did not appear to have “aged” him or sapped his vitality, and that this was rather remarkable, especially in view of the many problems that confronted him as a wartime president. His answer was “I have a foxhole in my mind.” He went on to say that just as a soldier retreated into his foxhole for protection, rest, and recuperation, he periodically retired into his own mental foxhole, where he allowed nothing to bother him.

Your Own Decompression Chamber

Each person needs a quiet room inside his own mind—a quiet center within him, like the deep of the ocean that is never disturbed, no matter how rough the waves may become on the surface.

This quiet room within, which is built in imagination, works as a mental and emotional decompression chamber. It depressurizes you from tensions, worry, pressures, stresses, and strains, refreshes you, and enables you to return to your workaday world better prepared to cope with it.

It is my belief that each personality does already have a quiet center within, which is never disturbed, and is unmoved, like the mathematical point in the very center of a wheel or axle that remains stationary. What we need to do is to find this quiet center within us and retreat into it periodically for rest, recuperation, and renewed vigor.

One of the most beneficial prescriptions that I have ever given patients is the advice to learn to return into this quiet, tranquil center. And one of the best ways that I have found for entering this quiet center is to build for yourself, in imagination, a little mental room. Furnish this room with whatever is most restful and refreshing to you: perhaps beautiful landscapes, if you like paintings; a volume of your favorite verse, if you like poetry. The colors of the walls are your own favorite “pleasant” colors, but should be chosen from the restful hues of blue, light green, yellow, gold. The room is plainly and simply furnished; there are no distracting elements. It is very neat and everything is in order. Simplicity, quietness, beauty are the keynotes. It contains your favorite easy chair. From one small window you can look out and see a beautiful beach. The waves roll in upon the beach and retreat, but you cannot hear them, for your room is very, very quiet.

Take as much care in building this room in your imagination as you would in building an actual room. Be thoroughly familiar with every detail.

A Little Vacation Every Day

Whenever you have a few spare moments during the day between appointments or while riding the bus, retire into your quiet room. Whenever you begin to feel tension mounting, or to feel hurried or harried, retire into your quiet room for a few moments. Just a very few minutes taken from a very busy day in this manner will more than pay for themselves. It is not time wasted, but time invested. Say to yourself, “I am going to rest a bit in my quiet room.” Then, in imagination, see yourself climbing the stairs to your room. Say to yourself, “I am now climbing the stairs—now I am opening the door—now I am inside.” In imagination notice all the quiet, restful details. See yourself sitting down in your favorite chair, utterly relaxed and at peace with the world. Your room is secure. Nothing can touch you here. There is nothing to worry about. You left your worries at the foot of the stairs. There are no decisions to be made here—no hurry, no bother.

You Need a Certain Amount of Escapism

Yes, this is “escapism.” So is sleep “escapism.” Carrying an umbrella in the rain is escapism. Building yourself an actual house where you can retreat from the weather and the elements is escapism. And taking a vacation is escapism. Our nervous system needs a certain amount of escapism. It needs some freedom and protection from the continual bombardment of external stimuli. We need yearly vacations where we physically “vacate” the old scenes, the old duties, the old responsibilities, “get away from it all.” Your soul and your nervous system need a room for rest, recuperation, and protection every bit as much as your physical body needs a physical house, and for the same reasons. Your mental quiet room gives your nervous system a little vacation every day. For the moment, you mentally “vacate” your workaday world of duties, responsibilities, decisions, pressures, and “get away from it all” by mentally retiring into your “no-pressure chamber.” Pictures are more impressive to your automatic mechanism than words. Particularly so if the picture happens to have a strong symbolic meaning. One mental picture that I have found very effective is the following: On a visit to Yellowstone National Park, I was waiting patiently for the geyser Old Faithful, which goes off approximately every hour. Suddenly the geyser erupted in a great mass of hissing steam, like a gigantic boiler whose safety plug had blown out. A small boy standing near me asked his father, “What makes it do that?” “Well,” said his father, “I guess old Mother Earth is like the rest of us. She builds up a certain amount of pressure, and every once in a while just has to blow off steam to stay healthy.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful, I thought to myself, if we humans could “blow off steam” harmlessly like that when emotional pressures build up inside us?

I didn’t have a geyser, or a steam valve in the top of my head, but I did have an imagination. So I began to use this mental picture when I would retire into my mental quiet room. I would remember Old Faithful, and form a mental picture of emotional steam and pressure coming out the top of my head and evaporating harmlessly. Try this mental picture on yourself when you’re “wrought up” or tense. The ideas of “blowing off steam” and “blowing your top” have powerful associations built into your mental machinery.

Clear Your Mechanism Before Undertaking a New Problem

If you are using an adding machine, or a computer, you must “clear” the machine of previous problems before undertaking a new one. Otherwise, parts of the old problem, or the old situation, “carry over” into the new situation, and give you a wrong answer.

This exercise of retiring for a few moments into your quiet room in your mind can accomplish the same sort of “clearance” of your success mechanism, and for that reason, it is very helpful to practice it in between tasks, situations, and environments that require different moods, mental adjustments, or “mental sets.” Common examples of “carry-over,” or failure to clear your mental machinery, are the following: A business executive carries his workaday worries and his workaday “mood” home with him. All day he has been harried, hurried, aggressive, and “set to go.” Perhaps he has felt a bit of frustration, which tends to make him irritable. He stops working physically when he goes home. But he carries with him a residue of his aggressiveness, frustration, hurry, and worry. He is still set to go and cannot relax. He is irritable with his wife and family. He keeps thinking about problems at the office, although there is nothing he can do about them.

Insomnia and Rudeness Are Often Emotional Carry-Overs

Many people carry their troubles to bed with them when they should be resting. Mentally and emotionally, they are still trying to do something about a situation, at a time when “doing” is not in order.

All during the day we have need of many different types of emotional and mental organization. You need a different “mood” and mental organization for talking with your boss, and talking with a customer. And if you have just talked with an irate and irritable customer, you need a change in set before talking with a second customer. Otherwise “emotional carry-over” from the one situation will be inappropriate in dealing with the other.

One large company found that their executives unknowingly answered the telephone in a harsh, angry, hostile tone. The phone rang in the midst of a knockdown, drag-out conference, or while the executive was enmeshed in frustration and hostility for one reason or another, and his angry, hostile tone of voice surprised and offended the innocent caller. This company directed all executives to pause five seconds—and smile—before picking up the phone.

Emotional Carry-Over Causes Accidents

Insurance companies, and other agencies that do research on the cause of accidents, have found that emotional carry-over causes many automobile accidents. If the driver has just had a spat with his wife or his boss, if he has just experienced frustration, or if he has just left a situation that called for aggressive behavior, he is much more likely to have an accident. He carries over into his driving attitudes and emotions that are inappropriate. He is really not angry at the other drivers. He is somewhat like a man who wakes up in the morning from a dream in which he experienced extreme anger. He realizes that the injustice heaped upon him happened only in a dream. But he is still angry—period!

Fear can carry over in the same manner.

Calmness Carries Over, Too

But the really helpful thing to know about all this is that friendliness, love, peace, quiet, and calmness also “carry over.” It is impossible, as we have said, to experience or feel fear, anger, or anxiety while completely relaxed, quiet, and composed. Retiring into your “quiet room” thus becomes an ideal clearance mechanism for emotions and moods. Old emotions evaporate and disappear. At the same time you experience calmness, peacefulness, and a feeling of well-being, which will also “carry over” into whatever activities immediately follow. Your quiet time wipes the slate clean so to speak, clears the machine, and gives you a clean new page for the environment that is to follow.

I practice the quiet time both immediately before and after surgery. Surgery requires a high degree of concentration, calmness, control. It would be disastrous to carry over into the surgical situation feelings of hurry, aggressiveness, or personal worries. Therefore, I clear my mental machinery by spending a few moments completely relaxed in my quiet room. On the other hand, the high degree of concentration, purpose, and obliviousness to surroundings that is so necessary to the surgical situation would be most inappropriate to a social situation, whether the social situation were an interview in my office or a grand ball. Therefore, upon leaving surgery I also make it a point to spend a couple of minutes in my quiet room, to clear the decks, so to speak, for a new type of action.

Build Your Own Psychic Umbrella

By practicing the techniques in this chapter, you can build your own psychic umbrellas, which will screen out disturbing stimuli, bring you more peace of mind, and enable you to perform better.

Above all, keep in mind, and hammer it home to yourself, that the key to the matter of whether you are disturbed or tranquil, fearful or composed, is not the external stimulus, whatever it may be, but your own response and reaction. Your own response is what “makes” you feel fearful, anxious, insecure. If you do not respond at all, but “just let the telephone ring,” it is impossible for you to feel disturbed, regardless of what is happening around you. “Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it,” said Marcus Aurelius.

The Ninety-First Psalm is a vivid word picture of a man who experiences feelings of safety and security in the very midst of terrors of the night, arrows that fly by day, plagues, intrigues, snares of enemies, danger (10,000 fall at his right side), because he has found the “secret place” within his own soul and is unmoved—that is, he does not emotionally react or respond to the scare “bells” in his environment. Emotionally, he totally ignores them, much as William James recommended totally ignoring evil and unhappy “facts” to feel happy, and as James T. Mangan recommended—that is, totally ignoring adverse situations in the environment—to feel poised.

You are basically an “actor”—not a “reactor.” Throughout this book we have spoken of reacting and responding appropriately to environmental factors. Man, however, is not primarily a “reactor,” but an “actor.” We do not merely react and respond, willy-nilly, to whatever environmental factors may be present, like a ship that goes whichever way the wind happens to blow. As goal-striving beings we first must act. We set our own goal, determine our own course. Then—within the context of this goal-striving structure—we respond and react appropriately, that is, in a manner that will further our progress and serve our own ends.

If responding and reacting to negative feedback does not take us further down the road to our own goal—or serve our ends—then there is no need to respond at all. And if response of any kind gets us off course, or works against us—then no response is the appropriate response.

Your Emotional Stabilizer

In almost any goal-striving situation, our own inner stability is in itself an important goal to maintain. We must be sensitive to negative feedback data that advises us when we are off course, so that we can change direction and go forward. But at the same time, we must keep our own ship afloat and stable. Our ship must not be tossed and rocked and perhaps sunk by every passing wave, or even a serious storm. As Prescott Lecky expressed it, “The same attitude must be maintained in spite of environmental changes.” Our “letting the telephone ring” is a mental attitude that keeps our stability. It keeps us from being tossed about, knocked off course, or “shaken up” by every wave or ripple in the environment.

Stop Fighting Straw Men

Still another type of inappropriate response that causes worry, insecurity, and tension is the bad habit of trying to respond emotionally to something that doesn’t exist except in our imaginations. Not satisfied with over-responding to actual minor stimuli in the actual environment, many of us create straw men in our imaginations, and emotionally respond to our own mental pictures. In addition to those negatives that actually exist in the environment, we impose our own negatives: This or that may happen; what if such and such happens? When we worry, we form mental pictures—adverse mental pictures—of what may exist in the environment, of what may happen. We then respond to these negative pictures as if they are present reality. Remember, your nervous system cannot tell the difference between a real experience and one that is vividly imagined.

Doing Nothing Is the Proper Response to an Unreal Problem

Again, you can tranquilize yourself against this sort of disturbance, not by something you “do”—but by something you don’t do—your refusal to respond. As far as your emotions are concerned, the proper response to worry pictures is to totally ignore them. Live emotionally in the present moment. Analyze your environment—become more aware of what actually exists in your environment—and respond and react spontaneously to that. In order to do this you must give all your attention to what is happening now. You must keep your eye on the ball. Then, your response will be appropriate—and you will have no time to notice or respond to a fictitious environment.

Your First Aid Kit

Carry these thoughts with you as a sort of first aid kit:

Inner disturbance, or the opposite of tranquility, is nearly always caused by over-response, a too sensitive “alarm reaction.” You create a built-in tranquilizer, or psychic screen between yourself and the disturbing stimulus, when you practice “not responding”—letting the telephone ring.

You cure old habits of over-response, you extinguish old conditioned reflexes, when you practice delaying the habitual, automatic, and unthinking response.

Relaxation is nature’s own tranquilizer. Relaxation is non-response. Learn physical relaxation by daily practice; then when you need to practice non-response in daily activities, just “do what you’re doing” when you relax.

Use the “quiet room in your mind” technique both as a daily tranquilizer to tone down nervous response and to clear your emotional mechanism of “carry-over” emotions that would be inappropriate in a new situation.

Stop scaring yourself to death with your own mental pictures. Stop fighting straw men. Emotionally, respond only to what actually is, here and now—and ignore the rest.

Your Spiritual Thermostat

Your physical body has a built-in thermostat, itself a servo-mechanism, that maintains your inner physical temperature at a steady 98.6 degrees, regardless of the temperature in the environment. The weather around you may be freezing cold or 110 degrees. Yet your body maintains its own climate—a steady 98.6. It is able to function properly in the environment because it does not take on itself the climate of the environment. Cold or hot, it maintains its own.

You also have a built-in spiritual thermostat that enables you to maintain an emotional climate and atmosphere in spite of the emotional weather around you. Many people do not use this spiritual thermostat because they do not know it is there; they do not know such a thing is possible, and they do not understand that they do not have to take on the outward climate. Yet your spiritual thermostat is just as necessary for emotional health and well-being as your physical thermostat is for physical health. Begin using it now by practicing the techniques in this chapter.

PRACTICE EXERCISE

Create in your imagination a vivid mental picture of yourself sitting quietly, composed, unmoved, letting your telephone ring, as outlined earlier in this chapter. Then, in your daily activities “carry-over” the same peaceful, composed, unmoved attitude by remembering this mental picture. Say to yourself, “I am letting the telephone ring,” whenever you are tempted to “obey” or respond to some fear-bell or anxiety-bell. Next, use your imagination to practice non-response in various sorts of situations: See yourself sitting quietly and unmoved while an associate rants and raves. See yourself going through your daily tasks one by one, calmly, composed, unhurried, in spite of the pressures of a busy day. See yourself maintaining the same constant, stable course, in spite of the various hurry-bells and pressure-bells in your environment. See yourself in various situations that have in the past upset you, only now you remain “set,” settled, poised—by not responding.