Gabby Bernstein, is a popular self-help author/teacher, who a colleague just sent me an email fwd from Bernstein's daily mail out. She talks about people being addicted to fear in the Oct. 1, 2016 mail out, and how we are often "resistant to being happy"-- and then she tells how we can get around that problem by valuing ourselves etc. All that human potential and new age discourse, of which I find so "white bread" shallow these days. Any how, most intriguing was her start of the daily mail out around her shocking surprise. She was a participant in her regular yoga class (a very upper middle class thing to do these days), and all of a sudden they were doing a posture and Bernstein was feeling an intense pain going through her body, and she got out of control with it and they had to rush her to the hospital, did several very expensive MRI tests and other examinations, and the doctor told her within 24 hrs of the event, there is nothing wrong with you physically; but you had a panic attack!
What? She says it was "one of the scariest times of my life." And she had not a clue of where this came from? She remarks of her reflections on this event, "I had an amazing and supportive husband, a thriving career, a healthy body, and a loving family. In fact, I was living a life far beyond my wildest dreams. What happened?" Her conclusion, was that part of our mind, her mind too, is "addicted to fear" because she had been reading and thinking about fear and terror and anxiety. However, the more you read on, she completely avoids discussing what her panic was about. She talks about one of her employees and so on. The article is focused on happiness.
I kept thinking how Bernstein is a classical archetype of the "self" enclosed individualist that Western society (especially, USA) promotes in its worldview... and, one can pump themselves up to being "perfect" as her picture shows... (I photoshopped in the text)... and underneath all that willed personal control (ego?) is the unconscious... the big Reality... which she was in denial of. And it came and bit her in the butt... knocked her off her 'game.' This is a classic example of how Westerners are living such dissociated lives, ignoring the unconscious (in the largest sense) and pretending they are "happy"... it won't last! The "terror" and "panic" as extreme forms of fear is everywhere in the society, in the 'air' so to speak, as part of the Anthropocene (see my earlier blogpost)-- we are all connected in this 'mess' and no amount of 'happy pumping up' will hold when the "crack" inevitably takes place... Bernstein experienced the "crack" but she decided not to investigate it, seal it over quickly, and just tell everyone in intellectual terms we have this part of us in the brain that is addicted to fear.
That so misses the point Gabby... not the least to say, it contradicts your new book "The Universe Has Got Your Back" (optimism you spread, so shallowly, and arrogantly... that is, if you really think about that claim). Panic attacks are a great "truther" (humbler and tumbler) don't you think?
Comments
Michael, Thanks for putting into words what I was thinking. I have not had panic attacks, but i have felt anxiety very well. And yes, I agree, the root of the anxiety is something worth investigating. It was for me. I hope that Gabby will get to the root of her problem, now That would be an interesting article to read!