Hi,
This is Guy Finley,
And in this third phase of what we are calling the cycle of stress,
We're going to look at how just as the separation principle that we just looked at works by taking one passing event and enlarging it until it effectively becomes the whole world for whoever is involved in it,
That same internal action of separation produces an isolation,
A sense of being alone with the stress that we're experiencing.
During this stage of the stress cycle that we're going to call the isolation principle,
The same unconscious forces of thought responsible for blowing everything out of proportion in its earlier incarnation now begins to isolate or spotlight,
If you will,
One particular feature within the reduced reality that we're now perceiving as being our entire world.
A quick return to our running example of the instance where someone said something hurtful to us will best tell how this next stage serves as it does to strengthen what amounts to our growing misperception and the stress that it brings about.
It's usually less than a matter of moments after someone makes that cruel comment that comes crashing in on us,
Down on us,
If you will,
A certain kind of internal simmering.
Our heated thoughts range from stewing over the nature of this pathetic excuse for a human being that actually had the audacity to affront us to how he or she doesn't have one redeeming feature and never has.
You know the iteration.
In the midst of this unconscious considering,
We begin to have what looks like 20-20 hindsight.
Now within what feels like our heightened scrutiny,
We're able to see this person as having always been against us.
Again,
Most of us know this drill.
And from this secretly self-punishing perception,
It's just one small step to take to begin berating ourselves for having been so blind about this person that we are now judging.
And so it goes,
Bit by bit,
Slowly speeding up,
These self-protecting thoughts continue to narrow down their consideration of the situation through their limited view of it.
This focus soon finds its way to a kind of bizarre meditation upon one negative characteristic of the offending person or time,
So that this one questionable feature of that person or that predicament becomes literally the very foundation of his being,
Of that situation,
And more importantly,
Of our justification for the war that is now raging within us about that person or that problem.
But there's even more.
Now begins the second to the last stage of this particular unseen stress cycle,
The proverbial icing on the cake that effectively convinces us that not only is our view of this emerging reality a clear and true one,
But given this unwanted circumstance,
We are more than entitled to believe in all the stressful states attending it.
Now in the upcoming session,
We're going to look at how our original molehill gets transformed from being one imagined mountain into the entire range of the Rockies that somehow we've been stranded on.
We're going to look at how all of these things become amplified until the ache of our stress convinces us there's no other way for us to meet the moment,
Let alone for us to be in that moment.
I'll see you in the next session.
