CONTENTS
Responsibility plus circumstances
There is always a series of causes
Sleep
Calmer
Tension
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RESPONSIBILITY PLUS CIRCUMSTANCES
It is easy to blame "the physical" for all things. But "the physical" is a circumstance and it is unworkable to blame circumstances and to use them to justify the negative or the "why not". The responsible person says, yes, I may have this circumstance or handicap, but I will also choose to do what I can to make things happen, just accepting the handicap as the base reality. AND I will also take responsibility for learning and knowing enough to either overcome the handicap or to be a master of managing life with it.
Responsibility is a "no matter what" way of dealing with life. No matter what occurs, I will do my best to create all the good in my life that I can - and such is life.
Instead of seeking sympathy for her "conditions" and her symptoms, she needs to swear off the sympathy part and totally only focus on what can be done not only about the symptoms but most certainly about the causes. Her speaking must be "responsible" speaking: "I will look at how I am creating this and I will figure out a way to create the best result I can. I see that I am the one creating this."
And she would say things like "today I created hyperventilation and the way I did it was...."
THERE IS ALWAYS A SERIES OF CAUSES
Every condition comes about because of a series of causes. In Buddhism, this point is emphasized, for if one is not aware of this one will create personal suffering.
Failing to look for and note the causes creates a passive, victimish stance toward life. It also allows for "magical thinking": that somehow this condition came about and I am a victim of it. An example would be "I just all of a sudden started hyperventilating, there was no cause or gradual build up. [I am just a passive victim. It is the problem. It is controlling me. I am not the master of it. All these are "justifications" for passiveness - and ultimately for not being responsible.
SLEEP
"I had a wonderful sleep last night. It made all the difference in the world. Yes, I can do it without meds. Sometimes I can't sleep, but I'll make up for it."
Not where I want to be, but that's ok. A little disappointed, would like to be further along. The impatience screws me up, so I have to be patient."
CALMER
"I went to church and had a shift, a different mindset, I did beautifully."
"A shift, and I give myself credit. and I felt a sense of gratitude that I've never been able to feel gratitude before."
"I analyzed problem with my blood pressure - I think it was due to too much thyroid, and shift to T3 - and I read and it affects B/P upward."
"Good session with the breathing practitioner. Good insights."
TENSION
"The tension is just there, my chest is so tight. I can't control it. It just happens to me. It is a condition."
The truth is that, though there could be a physical gene component or a condition because of poor self management, she has control over many elements that create the tension - and she can also 'decondition' herself, though it takes work and practice to develop new habits.
Because of the chronic effect on breathing and energy, handling the tension should be a huge priority, but it seems to be shuffled aside, almost as if the conversation is 'I'm stuck with this and I can't do anything about it.' The latter would be so rarely true that I suspect, given other signs, that there is no way that that is true.
She needs to do the 'awareness' thing, where she checks and monitors her body (even if it takes a timer/reminderalarm system) to see if and where it is tense - and then to do deep breathing and relaxation, and definitely progressive tensing and relaxing). If she does this, she will note, over time, that her habitual way of being will include the checking and staying relaxed behavior - and it'll be automatic and effortless.
She has so many poor habits that this "condition" is based on so many factors that we have to unravel them one at a time - and therefore it will take some time to do that. But she must somehow get to realize that there are causes and that she needs to deal with the causes instead of always dealing with the symptoms as 'that's the way it is, so I'll just put up with it and try to ease it as well as I can' [total malarkey!].
