P.I. (personal involvement) could not be overestimated for its importance, and here it will be approached from the standpoint of authenticity. In other words: what is the connection between the ability of the person to be true to himself and P.I.?
Well, to begin with, P.I. limits the ability of the person to be himself, and this is because our real self, our essence, is in prison, ruled by emotional pain, being full with the feeling of misjudgment done to him, and frustration.
When the emotional pain is in control – the connection to the being of oneself is severed.
P.I. is a ruthless merciless enemy, and as long as the person is based there (even if for every once in a while) – the only way out is not to let oneself get lost in the downhill slid towards the present one way street of P.I.; not to let oneself get drifted and even addicted to that overpowering feeling, there is a temptation to let it take us over, with the self-justification that it is our right to feel hurt; dwell in, and become totally washed by, those waves of self-pity.
And there is great self-delusion in all this; the person who cannot stope dwelling in it , again and again – feels that by that he is actually dealing with it, that this self-dwelling is treating the issue, but the further he will dwell in it –the more he will sink into it.
One must be able rise above the childish feeling that it is his right to carry the flag that says: “a wrong was done to me, it is unfair, and therefore I get divorced from the world and myself because of this injustice”. As though world has to stop in front of this injustice.
Growing up internally means knowing that the world is unjust, especially for the sensitive, and it is no one’s business to bring back peace to our being, but our own. As grownups we need to swallow the unjust hurt and carry on. And doing it more and more until we get used to it.
A mature person in his emotions, feels glad and satisfied that he managed to ascend above the injured and hurt feelings, and to carry on. In doing that the person is loving the non-personal truth more than his ego-self; the childish self.
This transcendence above the weeping emotions is coming from the growing higher self and not from the old, immature self.
One of the more important ways in overcoming this is by self-preparation, being ready for the next insult. It is very difficult, for we would like to believe that the bad feelings are behind us and from now on we will not be hurt again. Being ready for the next blow is an immunity against the next emotional blow that will put us (again) in a state of shock.
But even if we are not prepared, it is not too late, we can still admit that we fell again to that dich of self-pity and remorse. And this is instead of repressing it and refusing to admit it, which will only make it worse, for in the darkness of the subconscious the hurt feelings will only intensify.
The good news is that the more times the preparation and the taking of responsibility about our injured emotions – will take place, the less we will be addicted to the P.I.
Accept being ready and prepared, there are few practical practices which can help in decreasing and blocking the effects of P.I. – this practicals are done in the way of guided imagery; Guided imagery is a relaxation technique that uses positive mental images to influence how you feel. Guided imagery is an ancient practice that includes simple visualization. It is a safe and simple technique.
It is important to visualize the elements in the practice as real as possible, with colors, and texture, as exact as possible, this will contribute to it being successful.
The first practice begins with ‘catching’ the P.I. already at the very beginning, when it is just a stimuli that can cause an emotional hurt; when one feels this threatening attack, the first thing to be done is to imagen a thick wall between the source of the threat and oneself. It is important to do it as many times that it is needed to block the threat.
If this is not successful and he feels the threat coming in, he should through the threat behind his back, again and again until the threat diminishes.
When the threat actually enters in (which means that the first two actions were not successful) – one should push the feeling of hurt down his body and out through the legs, the object here is to eliminate the hurt feeling from reaching the head. The pushing down should continue until the sensation hurt disappears.
To conclude: unless we deal with the weakness and the emotional pain, in an unbiased way – we would be still subjects to personal insolvent.
Gabriel