Living life with grace & harmony

 

Thomas Lee Abshier, ND
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Psychopathology
By: Thomas Lee Abshier, ND
 

1) Psychopathology: When one mate has an extreme number of issues, situations, irritations, and sensitivities, this can create a relational imbalance and depletion of affection that may only be resolved by therapy.  Personality and cognitive-affective disorders make satisfying relationships extremely challenging.  The normal expectation of a reasonably need-satisfying, supportive relationship is disappointed by the distortion of relationship dynamics produced by these emotional and cognitive peculiarities.  All relationships are subject to peculiarities of like, dislike, perception, processing, and reaction, but, when these peculiarities reach far outside the norm, the expectation of fairness cannot be satisfied.  Skillful supportive interpersonal relationships and therapeutic intervention can lessen the pain of the relationship dysfunction.

a) Development of Psychopathology: Many psychopathologies, especially the personality disorders (as opposed to the more organic defects of schizophrenia) can develop around sin.  Sin is any life action which violates the principles of Godliness.  For example, a person may be violated physically, sexually, emotionally, or mentally, and develop fear, unforgiveness, anger, etc in response to the violation.  Or, a child may have been exposed to trauma, or been trained in the ways of crime.  Strong trauma, chronic negative emotions, and training can each distort the subsets of personality such as: feelings, thoughts, actions worldview, attitudes, desires, and habits.  

i) Personality Disorders: There are 14 personality disorders, and each corresponds to a particular set of thinking and behavioral patterns.  The stronger the personality disorder, the less flexible is the person, and the more he will require a specific set of TSA on your part to relate to him in a satisfying manner.  Each personality disorder has its own center of gravity, meaning that is identified by its own specific set of behaviors.  

ii) Neuroses: This is an older psychological term that in general captures the idea that a person has peculiarities of habit, reaction, and processing.  All these habits have feelings associated with them, and needs/desires that cause the person with the neurosis to want to satisfy that particular feeling/drive.  The social implication of neurosis is that the person has huge requirements for other people’s behaviors that are beyond the normal level of accommodation for taste.  Thus, a person with large neurotic demands causes the other person to essentially be their slave as they have so many requirements on the other person’s behavior to satisfy their needs to avoid pain and feel pleasure.

b) Healing Psychopathology: The solution to resolving psychopathologies, neuroses, and personality disorders is to: 1) identify the: bad habits of life, strong negative reactions, vows, spiritual forces, and bad programming of life and release them by various processes, and 2) Replace those bad habits and forces with new and Godly habits.  These two steps summarize the process of changing personality habits.  The specifics of healing involve identifying the many bad behaviors, speed, and thoughts and replacing them with the good TSAs.

2) Past Trauma: Extreme sensitivity to many items may indicate the presence of subconscious associations with childhood pain and life traumas.  These associations and their associated sensitivities and reactions can be released and resolved using various tools of cognitive, behavioral, and spiritual therapy.  The steps of resolving past trauma may include: 1) accepting the reality of the past and its unchangeability, 2) recognizing the errors of past actions in terms of their violation of Godly righteousness, 3) learning the lessons of the past and becoming comfortable with this new response to bad situations, and 4) letting go of the pain of betrayal, violation, and loss by forgiveness.

3) Working out Feelings: Unprocessed past hurt, wrong vows, bad programming, and sin will eventually produce negative feelings.  The intensity of the feelings can vary from a minor sense of stress, to life-controlling fears, anger, guilt, etc.  Unless the sin is renounced, forgiveness given, the vows broken and opposed, and bad programming identified and replaced, these disturbing feelings may continue an entire lifetime.  

a) But, these feelings need not be life-controlling forces.  It is possible to take authority over the spirits and disengage from them and disconnect from their power to stimulate our emotional/limbic nervous system.  The process of changing the feelings involves the following steps:

b) Examine the life events where we learned unhealthy messages that improperly limited our flexibility of life-options by imprinting fear, depreciated our self-image, or imprinted us with unGodly patterns of response.  

i) Replay those past life-events.  Meditate and pray for revelation about what was the proper response or action that I could have taken in that situation.

(1) In the case of wrong teaching, I could see myself correcting the error of the philosophy.

(2) In the case of trauma, I can rewrite the script where I allowed the perpetrator to go unpunished by seeing myself turning him into the authorities, exposing him to public shame, and confronting him with the unrighteousness of his crime.  

(3) Consider the case of humiliation over body deformities, strength, skin color, beauty, or other God-given characteristics.  I can visualize myself speaking to the verbal abuser and confronting him with his error in criticizing God’s creation.  Such people cannot create even the simplest form of life, and yet they stand in judgment of God who created all.  Their judgment is flawed by the distorted lens of human experience, and such judgment deserves only compassion.

(4) Consider the case of poor athletic, dexterity, speech, or academic performance.  Judge whether the poor performance was due to a lack of personal effort, a physical or mental birth deficit, an inappropriate challenge for that stage of life, or simply misjudged.  

(a) Embracing Reality: Replay the situation exactly as it was.  Replay it with the full range of sensations as you felt it originally.  Tell the truth about every aspect of that situation.  Do not recoil from any aspect of the facts of what happened.  Let the reality of the circumstance flow deeply into your body.  Do not deny the reality of the situation.  The feelings may be strong, the situation may be unpleasant, but the fact of every aspect of it should be fully embraced, felt and included as a part of the life story.  Accepting the reality of one’s life history, and one’s current condition, is akin to finding where you are on the map.  It is impossible to aim toward the destination properly without locating one’s current location in relation to the destination.

(b) Rewriting your personal history: We develop our self image and habits based on our past performance.  If we have been a high achiever and well liked, we will have a high self image, and vice versa.  Victimization: If bad things happened in my personal history, then the mind could assume that I deserved them because of my past failures and violations, that I had a spiritual curse acting on me, or that I had bad habits and character.  Or, I could have just been a victim of another person’s bad character and uncontrolled passions.  Personal failures: Or, I could have simply been lazy, undisciplined, unskilled, or ignorant.  Get Real: Regardless of the reason, tell the truth first.  Don’t recoil, go to sleep, pretend it didn’t happen, forget it, or make excuses for the perpetrator.  Rewrite your story: After getting real about the facts, and accepting it fully as reality, then rewrite your story in the most edifying and perfect way you can.  Rewrite it from the child, adolescent, and adult perspective.  If the incident happened as a child, then see yourself as a child responding in the most appropriate way for a child of that age.  Give your inner child the full wisdom and perspective of the most mature adult, but with the physical capabilities of a child.  See yourself responding in the best way you could possibly respond.  See yourself as functioning as you would like to respond in all situations of this type throughout your entire life.  See yourself judging people accurately for their motives, character and spirit.  See yourself judging your own abilities and deficiencies realistically.  See yourself judging the environment accurately, with its limitations of finance, comfort, and security.  Work hard: See yourself exerting the maximum amount of effort that you could expend.  See yourself using all your strengths and gifts.  See yourself gathering up allies and support to make up for your deficiencies.  Have Faith: Pray for God to work a miracle.  Then, stand on that faith that He will in fact intervene.  Really feel and know that God always does work in our situation according to His will.  Expect that by faith and works that He can make up for our deficiencies of knowledge, skill, power, and position.

ii) Replace the Past: Replace the past feelings of fear, anger, guilt, etc. with these new thoughts.  Realize that the past lessons we learned had become our programs of expectation for our future life.  We adjust our current performance to accomplish our expectations.  Thus, if we have expectations of bad things happening, it is possible to subconsciously manipulate the current situation so that we actually perform in ways that will manifest an outcome similar to that expectation.  Thus, it is important to truly have a new expectation of reality placed deeply in our subconscious mind.  When reality begins to veer from our expectations, if we are willing to fully participate, have faith for God’s miracles, we will begin to act in ways that are truly effective to produce the our expectation.  Thus, the importance of replacing the past programs of failure, victimization, and skill-less ignorance with competence, force, and overcoming performance.  Ultimately this all requires strong and forceful action in the real world, but without being committed to right behavior, it will never happen.  Dwell on how you can realistically be successful in dealing with the various past events so that you can be successful dealing with similar future circumstances.

iii) Imprint the program: Dedicate yourself to repeatedly visualizing yourself being successful doing this new behavior, and responding properly and effectively to previously difficult and painful life-circumstances.  Dealing with internal resistance and doubt: There may be feelings that I am just telling myself a lie, and that I don’t really believe that I could act in this new way.  If you have doubts, then look for the aspect of this past scenario that you really feel that you couldn’t do better in the current situation.  If there is something at that level, then it must be identified and examined to determine if that doubt is in fact a realistic deficiency.  If it truly is a structural deficiency, such as an inability to perform physically at a high level, then alternate strategies must be used to compensate for a true deficiency.  If a skill needs to be developed, then embark on a program of skill development.  If an ally or support system is necessary, then find it and use it.  If a past unrealistic fear is stopping you trying, then replace that fear with the new visualized behavior.  

(1) Commit to doing these new behaviors, and visualize yourself having the positive, healthy, life-giving response associated with Right behavior.

(2) Dwell on those new healthy responses frequently and bring up as much intensity and reality as possible in the visualization.

(3) Apply these new responses to current life situations in all TS&As.

c) Don’t Violate God’s Laws:

i) Identify the sin: I must identify the habitual and occasional sin in my life.  What are the patterns of thought, speech, and action that God has warned us about?  Read the Bible, meditate on its words, attempt to identify the patterns of Truth and right behavior about human relationships as revealed in scripture.  Know that sin extends to the obvious violations of Godly relationship.  Sin includes the obvious violations of righteous relationship such as fornication, theft, lying, and murder, idolatry, disrespect, and greed.  But, it also includes disrespectful speech, harsh words, prideful attitudes, and lustful thoughts.  Sin means to “miss the mark” of perfectly respecting, honoring, and dancing with each other’s space, boundaries, needs, and desires.  This is important because the human heart is happiest when the Godly patterns of life are honored.

ii) Use an external reference: As humans, we tend to self justify our violations as necessary or unavoidable.  We tend to minimize them and compare them to other people, and say that they are worse violators than I, so there is really no need to change or apologize.  But, any violation of boundaries or social protocols is worthy of considering as a habit to change.  Stay awake and open to feedback from your elders, peers, friends, parents, children, counselors, superiors and subordinates, etc.  Carefully consider the source, the situation, and the absolute standards; attempt to determine if the feedback is accurate and the habit worthy of change.

iii) Stop violating relational protocols, boundaries, and Gods Laws: 1) Once you identify a sin, the first step in making change is to be aware of it.  2) The second step in change is to stop doing it.  3) The third step is to do something else.  

(1) Sometimes old habits are hard to stop because we are not aware of them.  Thus, the need to get continuing feedback and perspective from the Absolute source (the Bible – God’s Word, and the voice of a conscience led by the Holy Spirit), from relative sources such as other people’s opinions and their feelings of pain and pleasure, and the perspective of self observing our thoughts, speech, and actions.  

(2) Using Triggers to stimulate awareness of habits: Staying aware of our habits can be challenging because we are used to doing them automatically without conscious intention.  Our habits are largely invisible to us, but they can be seen and brought to awareness if we make the commitment to be aware of them as triggers for awareness.  

(a) An example of using a trigger: When a person has a habit of chewing with their mouth open, the trigger for awareness can be eating.  An example of the self-talk the person could use is, “I’m eating, therefore I may be chewing with my mouth open.  I have a commitment to making that change, and I know I will only make that change if I consciously choose to do something different in the times that I would have done my old habit.  Therefore, I will use the trigger of “eating” as my reminder to be aware that I may be chewing with my mouth open.  Therefore, when I’m eating I will stay awake to the possibility that my mouth may be open while chewing.  I will concentrate on keeping mouth closed while chewing.  By chewing with my mouth closed consistently I will I will eventually develop new neural pathways that make this habit seem natural, and I will have embedded the new habit of keeping my mouth closed.”  

(b) We need to keep reminding ourselves to look for an indication of the old habit being “acted out”.  Triggers remind us to wake up and look for indicators of that old habit.  

(c) Look to others for feedback and support: When making changes we must continually check in with self, others, and God to see how we are doing in being aware of our “acting out”, and choosing alternative behaviors.

(3) Replacing bad habits with good habits: A habit cannot usually be stopped satisfactorily without consciously choosing to replace it with a desirable habit.  A behavioral vacuum will be filled by other convenient behaviors, and if we don’t choose to fill it consciously with a more Righteous pattern.  Thus, consciously and willfully choose to replace those sinful habits, patterns, addictions, and illicit pleasures with Right and Godly conduct.

d) Renounce wrong vows: Identify wrong vows and renounce them.  

i) Examples of Vows: The vow to never let anyone hurt me again.  The vow to never show vulnerability or confusion.  The vow to never trust a man/woman or anyone ever again.  The vow to never be controlled by anyone or be submissive.  The vow to never do anything short of perfection, etc.  

ii) The effect of vows: Vows cause us to eliminate possibilities of life which may be necessary and appropriate in certain life situations.  Thus, we reduce the dimensions of possibility we have at our disposal in responding to our life stressors and circumstances.  Definition of Health: Full health is defined as the ability to exercise all the options that God has given us.  A healthy person is able to be optimally flexible in response to the stressors of a multidimensional world.  The perfect dance of life: Choosing a single habitual response to all similar situations leaves us acting out with only an approximation of the perfection of the relational dance that God has called us to.  Perfect expression of the relational dance is an expression of love, since it is the most pleasurable gift we can give our fellow man.  Living in the zone: We all feel best when we are in the “zone” of the Holy Spirit led life, and we feel some of that ultimate perfection when people are around people doing the perfect “dance”.  Dancing it step with the perfect Holy Spirit led life is a gift to both self and others.  Peace that passes understanding: When we give the gift of perfect relationship, God’s automatic programming of feelings rewards us by giving us the feelings of peace and the joy that passes understanding.  

iii) Finding the way of the Kingdom of Heaven: God has given us free will, so we are free to choose to follow any path of life, to rebel against His way, to pursue Godly perfection, or to pursue the fleeting pleasures of the flesh.

iv) Submit yourself to God, and resist the devil: God wants us to resist the temptations to follow seducing spirits, and instead seek for the pearl of great price, which is the Kingdom of Heaven within our hearts.  He wants us to develop the ability to hear, the desire to follow, and the will to act on the direction of the most subtle guidance of the Holy Spirit.  God’s desire is for us to experience full happiness and fulfillment.  

v) Mutual Fulfillment – God and Man: This feeling of joy is both a reward for loving and obeying Him and an enticement to come to Him in full and perfect relationship.  God desires our relationship: it was for this purpose that we were created.  In perfectly meeting His needs our deepest soul needs are fulfilled.  Thus, perfect relationship both fulfills God and man, and is the high calling that our loving God created us to attain, live, and enjoy.

e) Develop flexibility, resist the spirits, and adopt new habits: Our habitual feeling and responses to life can change.  1) Resist acting on the spirits that tempt us to various unhealthy TS&As, 2) Cast them out of our soul/spirit space by commanding them to leave, in Jesus’ name.  3) Follow God’s guidance in properly living life.

i) Put in new TS&As, and feel new feelings: Habitually choosing to act on new TS&As produces new feelings appropriate to a life lived with proper judgment, right action, and the good fruit they produce.  

ii) Resist the negative spirits: Resisting the spirits of fear, anger, and guilt, etc leaves one’s emotional space open to actually feeling the feelings that naturally arise with good actions.

(1) Withdrawal Symptoms: Be warned that breaking a habit of submitting to spirits can produce painful and strong withdrawal and reaction responses, both internally and externally.  

(a) Resisting sexual temptation: A man in an improper sexual relationship may get negative feedback when he chooses to readjust the level of intimacy to the level appropriate for the commitment.  

(2) Breaking Codependency: Codependency is a term used to describe a person who enables an addict in his dependency.  The addiction can be to literally anything.  

(a) Addiction is present when the substance, stimulus, or activity distorts life so that the Holy Spirit cannot be heard because of the use of that addictive agent.  We are commanded by scripture, Ephesians 5:18  Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.  The difference in the spiritual effect and influence is clear, we get the best results in life by following the Holy Spirit.  All other methods are suboptimal.  

(b) Retaliation can be expected if a man stops enabling an addict, and confronts him with fact of his dependency and broken life.  The addict will often retaliate by withdrawing love, and by making accusations of victimization for breaking the implicit contract of support.  Breaking the bonds of codependency requires resisting the temptation to return to the conditional love given in return for supporting the addiction.  Standing against the forceful retaliation of people and spirits to return to the previous behaviors is integral to breaking codependent patterns.  

(3) Spiritual Healing: All healing involves creating a right relationship with the spiritual forces that underlie the creation.  Just just casting out spirits cannot do a complete and deep healing, but without cleansing and casting out the spiritual element the healing is incomplete.  In other words, faith and works are both necessary to effect complete healing.  We must take authority over the spirits that have taken control of our soul (mental-emotional space) and place them in proper relationship to the God ordained nature of the universe.  There is a place for all created things, all spirits, and all things, but when a spirit takes improper ascendancy over another, a chaotic brew ensues.

(a) Relationship with Lower Spirits: The lower spirits (i.e. earth spirits, animal spirits, demonic spirits, and all spirits other than the Holy Spirit) have a proper place in the universe where they are authorized to act and react.  All parts of the creation were created for a purpose, and there is a right and good way (time, place, and intensity) that the spirits should act and respond.  All spirits have the rudimentary drives of survival and control, action and reaction, and desire to be in relationship.  Thus, the spirits do not want to be alone, or to be without power and effect.  They enjoy being in relationship with the spirit of man and controlling his life.  God has created all spirits, and implanted the desire for relationship in all.  Each spirit desires to have a type of relationship according its own nature, and thus gravitates toward that which is similar, and attempts to control or change a dissimilar spirit into acting according to his agenda.  (Giver vs. Taker Spirit: In the case of the “Taker” spirit inside of men, this spirit seeks to direct life to satisfy its needs.  Not all people submit deeply to this spirit, but it operates in all people to an extent.  The “Giver” spirit competes with the Taker, and people become satisfied different levels of equilibration between these two spiritual pulls of desire.)  In short, the lower spirits all attempt to direct us into action and behavior that satisfies their own set of natures and desires.  These spirits will produce suboptimal satisfaction and disease if allowed to dominate the human soul, or to function at a level or in a place outside of its proper Godly domain of action.  Only the Holy Spirit directed life guides men in the way of the most fulfilling and healthy experience of life.  

(b) Spiritual influence: The lower spirits are capable of influencing the mind by stimulating the soul and brain to generate thoughts.  The thoughts ignite the desire of man for the illicit and improper use of the desire of the flesh.  (James 1:13  When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me."  For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.  Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.)  If a man’s will is weak, he may act on those temptations and become the willing tool of the lower spirits.  The spirits associated with a particular mental-emotional soul discomfort must be commanded to leave and assume a place of proper relationship.  The effectiveness in commanding spirits to move is based on the power of the intent and will of man to influence the spiritual realm.  Experiments have shown how focused intention can produce effects in the physical world (Ref: A New Copernican Revolution by William Tiller, Ph.D.), which gives plausibility to the idea that human commands could influence the spirit realm.  As Christians, we use our personal power to command the spirits.  But, we command them in the name of Jesus and implicitly give Him the authority to move the spirits to reestablish their proper relationship.  All this is possible because man was created to speak with power in the spiritual realm in a manner similar to how God’s creative commands organized the universal substrate into particles and life.  

(c) Original Sin – the disturbance of universal harmony: We live in a universe spoken into existence by God, which was created for the purpose of mutual joy (God, man, and the creation) when living in right relationship.  The lower spirits were originally in harmony with God, man, and nature and functioned in their proper place.  All creatures in the creation operate naturally according to their natures, except man.  Man has the ability to see possibilities in the spiritual realms like, and he can thus choose to exercise his free will to choose options of behavior outside of the natural flow of cause and effect.  Thus, even in a world operating fully in perfect spiritual harmony, sequence, and hierarchy, man can chose to choose behavioral options which violate the perfect harmony of a God-directed universe.  The original harmony arose naturally from God’s creative word and was based on the righteous and peaceful relationship that followed from His rules, way, and embedded programs.  In its original state, the universe operated in a hierarchical manner, with relationship proceeding on a perfectly balanced and Godly manner.  But, when Adam and Eve rebelled, it disturbed the perfect relationship of the creation within itself.  The forces of spirit were disturbed in their sequential hierarchical relationship, and there was now a disharmonious force operating in the creation.  

(d) Healing and Forgiveness of sin: The intervention of unGodly choices into the sequence and hierarchy of creation freed the spiritual forces to attack and tempt the mind of man.  Jesus spoke and said, “Matthew 9:5  Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?”  The Pharisees called Jesus a blasphemer because only God has the power to forgive sins.  Thus, in this statement He was declaring himself to be God.  From His perspective, healing and forgiving of sins were intimately connected.  In another scripture Jesus said, “John 9:1  As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"  "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.  The source of mental, emotional, and physical illness can be sin, but it can be source of irritation that causes us to grow.  But, if we have sin in our lives, we must cleanse that sin.  

(e) Forgiveness of sin: The question is thus, what is it to forgive sin?  Confessing our sins, asking God for forgiveness, accepting payment for the debt in Jesus name, cleanses us from the influence of the spirits of sin (the lower spirits).  It is then our job to, “go and sin no more.”  We must choose to act anew and with righteousness, otherwise, we authorize the reinvasion of the spirits into our heart.  Thus, a necessary step in the process of healing is resisting the spirits that have invaded and now are involved in the daily conduct of life and feelings.  By dwelling on the good, and resisting the sinful, we are reprogramming our neural connections, and reinstating the natural Godly order of life.

(f) Sin and Disease: Man must resist the temptation of the lower spirits since they cause disease when they influence a man’s mind, body, and heart.  Sin is the doorway that gives them authorization into the soul/spirit/body space of man.  The spirits cause disease because they organize cells, thoughts, and emotions in a way other than the healthy and perfect way planned by God.  As humans, we must take back the authority of the spirits over the body by casting them out of the high place they occupy in the mind, soul, and body.  In turn, we should dedicate our body, mind, and soul to the service of Godly control.  

(g) Distraction, Retaliation, Cover-up, and other Defenses: The spirits do not want to be identified and cast out.  When the spirits come under scrutiny by a therapist, friend, parent, teacher, or even by introspection, the spirit stimulates the production of thoughts that defend the spirit in various ways from being convicted.  Example: If a husband was accused of spending too much time watching football, he might be immediately prompted to retaliate with various justifications, arguments, and retaliatory comments about fairness.  Such responses keep the spirit in place.

4) Neuroplasticity: The process of healing and changing feelings is deeply connected with the neuroplasticity phenomenon.  The brain is constantly remapping itself in response to signals generated by the sense organs and by our thoughts.  By choosing to dwell on new outcomes to old situations, the brain can reconnect with its limbic (emotional centers) in new ways.  Thus, healthy thoughts are an important part of the process of generating a new healthy remap of the feeling-response brain function.  Remapping is based upon connecting good feelings with good actions and intentions.  This must be done with single-minded intensity, repetition, consistency, and over an extended time.  The more intense the imprinting process, the greater the duration of the retraining.

5) Thinking: Thinking is the process of consciously comparing our perceptions of the external world with our beliefs, meanings, and philosophies about life.  We have the ability to watch our thoughts as pictures, words, and/or feelings as we make these comparisons.  The brain may be responsible for the entirety of all cognitive functions, or it may work in conjunction with the soul and spirit to produce the spectrum of mental phenomena including: consciousness, moral sense, memory, comparison, choice, will, sensory perception, volitional movement, emotion, and artistic appreciation.  The brain-mind does the following: 1) It de-emphasizes unimportant issues, and emphasizes important issues, thus giving each issues in the current mental awareness landscape a sense of cognitive and emotional magnitude.  2) It uses the knowledge of the experience and consequences of past similar situations to judge the magnitude of the current situation.  3) It uses emotional stimulation to give weight, emphasis, and color to the current drama.  The emotional tones experienced by the body are somewhat like an internal sound track.  The emotions give a sense of a mystical fantasy to the factual objective experience of stark reality.  Realize that the emotions and thoughts that come up about objective reality are all layered on top of reality, they are not inherently present in the reality.  

a) Emotional Programming: The neocortex, the frontal brain, is the location of many of the higher processing functions.  As children we should be taught to discipline our thinking, say yes to right behavior, no to wrong behavior, and modify our mental and emotional response to fit the situation.  Everyone develops some errors of belief from wrong or misunderstood teaching along with pain and the associated events.  

b) Erroneous Judgment: We can be seduced by our self-centered perspective of life into perceiving and believing that we are Right in judgment and response.  But, even when we believe we are right, we may in fact be wrong.  This easily leads to self-righteous judgment and pronouncements of error upon other people for their perceptions, beliefs, and reactions.  Given the limited nature of human perception, experience, knowledge, and processing, we can be almost certain that we will all fall short in meeting the standards of perfection that we judge others for missing.  Our blindness to our own errors is the first step we must take toward correcting them.

c) Rational Beliefs: Rational beliefs about an adverse event cause us to properly evaluate a situation as right or wrong and significant or insignificant.  Rational beliefs are the basis upon which we properly judge the moral tone and magnitude of significance of each life event.  This implies a single “right way” that everyone should respond to everything.  The hypothesis of a perfect God, who has a plan and perfect order of life, leads us to postulate that at every single moment and in every circumstance that there is a perfect rational belief, which corresponds to God’s evaluation of the circumstances.  When a man processes life this manner, he is thinking, judging, and processing based on perfect rationality.  But, attaining perfect rationality at every moment is not possible, short of our perfection in walking with the Holy Spirit.  Nevertheless, we all strive for perfect rationality, and perfect expression of our emotional response.  

d) Perfect Process: At each moment, if we were to behave Rightly, we would be walking in a perfect process, which includes: 1) rational belief, 2) accurate perception, and 3) perfect reaction for each moment.  But, as imperfect humans, no one can walk in it perfectly.  One aspect of the perfect process is not being excessively judgmental of ourselves and others for their errors, and fill the gap between Godly perfection and human imperfection with compassion and forgiveness.

e) Accurate Perception: Perception is the foundation of all response.  The 5 physical senses, plus possibly a directly experienced inner soul-spirit 6th sense, give us input from the external world.  We take that input and compare it to our inner model for various purposes.  1) Is this how reality should be?  2) What does this reality mean?  3) Does this external reality meet our needs?  The comparison of perception with concept will produce the best results only when the perception is accurate.  Accurate perception is defined by how God perceives the universe, from our particular perspective.  The color blind person will not perceive red and green properly, and will hence not respond properly to a stoplight until he learns to compensate by learning the position of the lights.  A person with hyperacousia will respond to small noises as though they were large noises.  A person with phantom limb syndrome will feel sensations as though he were actually being touched on the amputated limb.  The philosophy underlying the concept of accurate perception is the existence of an actual underlying reality that God has created.  If our perception of the universe is the same as His, then we have accurate perception.  If our erroneous perception we will probably form an improper perspective.

f) Proper Perspective: God defines the proper perspective of a situation.  The consequence of inaccurate evaluation and reaction can be: 1) Expending too much or too little energy, 2) Eliciting unpleasant responses in people, and 3) Creating inharmonious physical effects.  Adverse events will happen in life, but their effects are usually limited to a particular domain.  Even an atom bomb only affects a limited diameter with its damaging effects.  In other words, be realistic about the situation.  When very strong fear, anger, happiness, or sorrow come up, an irrational belief about the size of a problem may be influencing the appearance of the actual size of situation.  Looking at things with absolute reality will often bring the emotional reaction under control to the proper response.

g) Proper Response: Emotions are hardwired into the human heart to react to various types of circumstances, stimuli, and positive & adverse events: (e.g. loss: sadness, experienced pain: anger, impending pain: fear, satisfied need: happiness).  The Proper Response is determined by how God would respond to that situation, if he were that person, and that moment, with that cultural context.  Each individual has an emotional response to stimuli that corresponds to their physiology, genetics, spiritual patterns, life lessons, training, and traumas.  The proper response varies with each person depending on their level of experience with a particular type of adverse events and the cultural norms surrounding that adverse event type.  The each culture has a concept of the spectrum of normal and healthy emotional response, which converges to the Proper Response at its apex.  The Proper Response is a theological concept dependent upon the existence of an absolute God-ordained perfection.  We shall postulate that as a normal, healthy, and psychologically well-adapted person, in any particular cultural context has a “proper response.”

h) Triggers & Pattern Disruption: The disrupting process for stopping this irrational belief includes:

i) Become convinced that I am susceptible to Improper Perspective thinking.  This is a habit, a neural pathway, a way of thinking, processing and evaluating life, and I will continue to do automatically and naturally until I develop a new habit that I can access just as easily and automatically as this current habit.  

ii) Develop a trigger system that reminds me to put in the new behavior, thought, and perceptions.  This trigger-cue can be anything that is associated with the environment, lead in to the behavior-thought-emotion (BTE), development of this BTE pattern, or actual experience of the pain associated with the BTE.  Of course, disrupting the pattern earlier is better, but when first starting to become aware and healing this pattern, it is necessary to learn to do it earlier.  

iii) Put an alternative response in its place, act in a healthier and more moderated way, interrupt your thinking with different self-talk, or adopt a new behavior-thinking strategy.  Replace the old habit with a new set of thinking, behavior, speech patterns that reflect the new mind.  When you act out the new thought-speech patterns, the brain will remodel and develop neural tracks that reflect the new desirable habit, and eventually your feelings will follow.

i) Compassion and Forgiveness: The distance between perfect process and our and other’s performance should be filled with compassion and forgiveness.  We simply cannot do life perfectly.  We understand the passions that distort perception, errors of knowledge that distort judgment, and deficiencies of mind and body that inhibit proper behavior.  And for those souls that aren’t even trying to live Right, they are still God’s children, and it is our job to be kind, give a kind word of correction and encouragement to righteousness, and then leave them to God for His administration of justice and correction.