PD Revelation

Though I'm only part way through this new edition of SOP (2022), one major takeaway is clear. JH drives home the fact that self-induced pause is a habit. It acts in the brain as a habit, and must be eliminated by replacement with a new habit. JH makes this point repeatedly throughout the text. (see, e.g., SOP, 2022, Chap. 3 Self-Induced Pause; Chap. 10 Self-induced Pause: a Habit) I'll summarize here in my own words, but please see the book.

When a person gets stuck on self-induced pause the neural pathways that support pause mode become better established over time until pause becomes the pathway of least resistance, the brain's preferred neurological mode.

Working with your invisible Friend you can eventually arrive at a point where pause turns off. But pause remains the well established path of least resistance. It has been your dominant state for some time, long ago overtaking the off-pause state as your brain's default. Its pathways are entrenched and well worn. And that, in essence, is why pause is apt to turn back on until the cycle repeats itself and you manage to get off pause again. And so it goes, pause turning off and reasserting itself repeatedly until you have practiced turning off pause and being off pause enough that the off-pause state has a chance to strengthen its own pathways sufficiently to compete with those of the on-pause state.

Even then you may need something more to help prevent pause from turning back on. Once you can turn off pause almost at will, JH provides a technique to help with that.

I had more or less gleaned something like this from a careful reading of portions of RFP. But this new material in SOP really illuminates it, reassuring me that my experience of turning off pause repeatedly is a perfectly normal part of recovery. That's a confidence boost!