PD Revelation

[Updated – 6/22/22, 7/9/22]

Update – 6/22/22: This post assumes the presence of Type I PD.

Although I've said only a bit about it here, often on my mind has been how very paradoxical aspects of this process can be. The paradox I have in mind for this post concerns the goal of turning off pause. Paradoxically, you have a better chance of achieving this goal if you don't focus too much on the goal itself. I offered a passing thought on this topic in this post where I mentioned the folly of “chasing an experience.” And past posts on such topics as surrender may at times overlap with it.

I suppose the reason I haven't addressed this topic more directly, more often is that by its nature it can be a slippery, slightly confusing subject. That said, at some risk of oversimplifying, I'll try to summarize here as succinctly as possible what my experience so far tells me about this important paradox that appears in the JWH protocol.

For me there's been little use in chasing the experience

For those following the protocol there can easily arise a temptation to simply turn pause off by directly conjuring up the feelings triggered when pause does turn off. For example, if you have previously turned off pause (and were aware of what was happening at the time), but it turned back on, you may remember some distinctive feelings associated with the process. So now you may try directly generating those feelings to make pause turn off again. Or you may try repeating exactly what you were saying (if you were saying something) the last time pause turned off in a direct effort to trigger it again. Even if you haven't yet felt pause turn off, you've undoubtedly imagined what it might be like. So you might try just to make it happen.

In my experience, these efforts to turn pause off by trying to generate the feelings directly don't work. I've had pause turn off something like 15 times, and not once has it happened through such direct efforts. And, especially for a time, such efforts were admittedly many.

In every case, as best I can tell, pause turned off as a result of strong involvement in the two primary core exercises of the protocol (see RFP, p. 122), i.e, through connecting with my Friend. Supporting this observation was some advice I received in email from JWH during a period when I had fallen prey frequently to the temptation to chase the off-pause experience. She assured me it was a waste of time doing that. Instead, she said I needed to focus on my relationship with my Friend, feeling more connected, opening my heart to my Friend. In doing that, pause would take care of itself when I felt safe.

Another way of putting this is that it's counterproductive to focus on the goal of turning off pause. Rather, we need to focus on the process known to help in achieving that goal. (There is plenty written on this sort of idea, by the way. An online search for something like “don't focus on the goal” will turn up lots of content.)

The ideal, it seems, would be to think nothing about pause. Just connect with your Friend and let pause take care itself. I've found it difficult, though, over a given period of time, not to think at least a little about whether pause might turn off. My guess is that's okay as long as my emphasis is on doing the things I know actually lead pause to turn off. Once again, that's all about connecting with my Friend.

As far as I'm aware, the problem with chasing the experience is not that doing so actively hurts anything. It's just that every minute spent thinking about trying to turn off pause displaces a minute when you could be thinking about the things that do encourage pause to turn off. That said, I can't rule out the possibility that thinking about trying to turn off pause might sometimes become a trigger activating resistance, preventing pause from turning off. Either way, the conclusion is the same: Best to keep the focus on the process rather than the goal.

I think back to this young man described by JWH. He didn't commence the fastest recovery she'd ever seen, right there in her office, because he was thinking about turning off pause. At that point he probably had barely any inkling of what pause even was. Instead, he almost immediately launched into clear signs of recovery because he was able to close his eyes and so fully connect with his deceased grandmother. (Other factors, such as his age, helped as well.)

Is any control possible?

Does this mean we can never develop any conscious control over turning pause off? Not that the the answer to that question much matters if you're fortunate enough to have pause turn off and stay off. The question is primarily of interest to those of us who need to turn pause off quite a few times before it stays off. And I think the answer is... Maybe... Maybe not... Or maybe it depends on what you mean by “control.”

You could rightly say you are taking control of turning off pause by learning to engage very effectively with your Friend to the point that doing so for a brief time reliably turns pause off. In my view, that may be the ideal. Do that repeatedly for a while, and before long pause is bound to stay off lastingly.

Aside from that, I have, a number of times, been aware of what was happening when pause was turning off. And to some extent, by recognizing the “pause turning off” feelings, I may have been able to stay with what I was doing in order to keep those feelings progressing, following through to the full, off-pause state (getting the off-pause switch to flip all the way, if you will). I'll give that a “maybe.” The link is not entirely clear to me. I do know that what I did not have any real control over was that moment when the off-pause switch first began to flip, when the process — which generally takes about a minute — truly commenced.

So if you've turned off pause before, remember what got you there. If you haven't yet turned off pause, be aware you may not be able to just make it happen directly. But if you trust the process JWH provides, eventually good things will happen!

Does this square with or contradict your experience? Let me know!

Update – 7/9/22: I may have been too quick to dismiss the value in “...repeating exactly what you were saying (if you were saying something) the last time pause turned off in a direct effort to trigger it again.” In the latest edition (2022) of SOP, in chapter 12, “Destroying a Problematic Habit,” on pp. 167-168, JH does recommend taking note of what you were thinking and doing just before any episode of “feeling a little lighter and less 'paused'” so that you can subsequently repeat those thoughts and actions. That is very close to what I mentioned trying, though it occurs to me that I may have stuck too stubbornly to the exact same phrases I had been using just before pause had turned off. At any rate, I will probably try the same general approach again, using whatever words (or wordless thoughts) seem best, at the time, to capture the thoughts I'd been having on some occasion before pause turned off.