One telegroup participant said, "Why can't people do the right thing and get vaccinated?" Another was quiet, full of questions about unshared problems with the vaccine. Another had the loss of their parent due to COVID activating emotional bombs in her mind.
It's stressful, and I found myself irritable today. You know the feeling when even small things bug you, like tripping on the carpet or finding that your glasses somehow got smeared with toothpaste. Then being forgetful and leaving the sink water running while in the shower. Yes, there is a drought with water shortages, too.
Think of EBT as acquired secure attachment, all those Survival Circuits that were encoded when our mothers dropped us or our first date in grammar school mocked us, and many thousands of other moments of terror, shame, and general overload. Every time one of them happens to us and we don't process the emotions, straighten up the "crooked" unconscious expectation, and thereby clear the physiological stress, we come unhinged even more easily.
So, the point of EBT is to do some emotional cleanup and clear all those buggers, and, as we do, encode a secure attachment – an inside solution. In telegroups, I often laugh and say, "At EBT we're a neuroscience-based subculture. We use moments of stress to rewire for secure attachment."
It's funny when I'm not at 5, but today I was running at 4.5 with this irritability issue, and it wasn't amusing at all. In fact, I was grateful beyond belief to be EBT-savvy. I asked Walt to listen to me do a Cycle ("make a Community Connection"), and he did. He sat in his chair and I sat on the sofa, and I didn't know what I was stressed about – other than "everything" – but I went through the lead-ins, realized I was pretty sad, that is, after the prickly anger left, and I even shed several tears.
I remember learning from a dean in the medical school about the chemical benefits of tears, so I appreciated them. And went through the emotional flow all the way to joy and purpose, which for me was Authenticity. I expect myself to process all my feelings was my expectation, and one of my favorites – I'm not in complete control – came up as my essential pain.
We had been ready to go swimming, go out to dinner, and, in general, run around, and I turned to Walt and said, "How about a nap?" Afterwards, refreshed, feeling 10 years younger, we were off and enjoying ourselves. I keep thinking that if I didn't have EBT, I would have done what I did in my pre-EBT years: endured. shut down and stayed irritable.
I think this Delta variant is pretty scary, but even more frightening is the stress overload. If we can't control the pandemic, at least we have tools to control the loving connection we have to the deepest part of ourselves. That is bankable, and I'm grateful for the skills – every single day.
If you have not asked your partner, spouse, or best friend to listen to you do a Cycle (they can follow along on your mobile app), consider asking them to learn, as when two or more people gather to use the skills, there is some magic to it, the magic of loving connection. We ALL need that . . .