Most of us want to rid ourselves of mental and emotional pain, but we rarely stop to understand what is actually driving it. In the Thought-Life Connection framework, two specific patterns are at the root of much of our suffering: trauma thinking and unreasoned distortion of judgment. These are two different things — yet when they combine in the mind, they can produce what we recognize as a state of mental illness.
What Is Trauma Thinking?
Trauma thinking is a by-product of how our lives have unfolded — the damages we incurred because of the way we grew up, the environments we were subjected to, or the personal relationships we experienced as children. Because these wounds were never properly tended to, treated, or processed in a healthy manner at the time, they became embedded as characteristics within our character.
Trauma memory refers to those violent emotional twists that took place at various points in our lives — events that discolored our personalities, altered our lives for the worse, and created a negative psychic change that remained with us.
What Is Unreasoned Distortion of Judgment?
Unreasoned distortion of judgment is a by-product of alcoholism or any other addiction. It is when we perceive something in a very stark, negative way that has no justification — when we see something we disagree with and attach a distortion to it that makes it more severe than the reality of what is happening.
A simple example: when someone says “Can I help you?” and you react as if they are telling you that you are doing it wrong. They just want to help — but the addictive mind takes the offer and twists it into a criticism. We react to the twist, not to what actually happened.
Thought by thought and feeling by feeling we change our perception of all situations in our lives.
— K.C. Pierson
How These Two Patterns Combine and Escalate
When distortion of judgment activates, we attach emotions to our perception. Those emotions become so overwhelming that we will do anything to shut them off. The emotion creates a physical charge that makes us unruly, disagreeable, jumpy, anxious, edgy, erratic, and uncontrollable. Then our minds convince us that we will never escape — that we will remain in this state forever and it will only get worse.
Once that process starts, our energy flows toward the most severe trauma we have ever faced. Even for those who are not alcoholic, the process is the same — it is called past trauma thinking or injury thinking. The mind enters this trauma thought realm and generates an incredible amount of anxiety and fear that the trauma will happen again in the current situation.
Scientific America states that the average human being has 64,000 thoughts a day. Just imagine how quickly this injured thinking can overtake all of those thoughts. This process repeats itself in an endless cycle, infiltrating every area of our lives.
Recognizing the Voice of Injured Thinking
We are looking for the kind of thinking that is too aggressive — that passes critical judgment out of nowhere on someone or something. We are looking for when the mind is in a savage state, trying to stir the pot, getting into the mode of “everything is going wrong.”
We hear this voice when it says: “You are totally messed up right now.” “Everything is going to fall apart.” “You are such an idiot.” This voice is very hard to hear at first. You must ask your Creator to help you become familiar with it — so that you can disengage from it. As impossible as it seems, we are actually attracted to these kinds of destructive thoughts. There is a momentary sense of false power before the seed of destruction turns itself on us.
The Three States of Unmanageability
- Mental: a state that distorts our view of everything in a negative way
- Emotional: low energy, a persistent sense of sadness and heaviness
- Physical: colds, illness, aches and pains, the inability to get up and move
When we find ourselves in this state, we must surrender to the fact that we have taken our lives back into trauma lives and fear lives. We have become out of alignment with our Creator and aligned ourselves with negativity and injury.
The Path Back: Thought by Thought, Feeling by Feeling
The key is to get back to your Creator, and offer back everything you have taken — piece by piece. Thought by thought and feeling by feeling, we change our perception of all situations in our lives into what our Creator’s perception would be for us.
Emmet Fox teaches that negative thoughts and feelings are like enemy soldiers. If you pick them off in the open field, they are easy to eliminate. But if you let them burrow in, they can take forever to get out.
When you become aware of negative thoughts and feelings, immediately offer them to your Creator. Ask for them to be removed, and then perform knowing that they have been removed. There is always a positive charge every time you make these kinds of connections. This process can be a fun and exciting internal application — enjoy it. It means you are on the spiritual path and manifesting a positive psychic change.
Much love,
K.C.