The Dr. Zwig Show

Change is a beast. Oftentimes, for something to be born, something must die. Even our bad habits feel like home; every time we discover something new in ourself we resist it because it means leaving our known, familiar way of being. It’s so much easier to just stay where we are. But this is exactly why we need problems, symptoms, and messed up chaos in our life to wake us up and push us into our process!

A problem is the unconscious expression of a new part of you, a new way of being, reacting, thinking, feeling, relating, and experiencing yourself and life. Symptoms and pain are your unconscious process trying to get your attention. They have an inherent drive to become conscious but get blocked by your conscious or unconscious fears and resistances to change.

This episode guides you though a practical exercise which shows you how to work through these blocks so you can connect with the positive growth trying to come forth in your life. Confronting and processing your fears instead of avoiding them leads to healing, inner strength, and success.

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A painful problem isn’t set in stone. To the contrary, it's the negative manifestation of something in your psyche, which, when made conscious, transforms into a positive expression. This is due to the fact that every human process manifests either positively or negatively, in other words, consciously or unconsciously.

For example, you can use your strength to stand up for your feelings. But you could also use it to abuse someone. So, strength in itself is neither good nor bad—it’s neutral. It all depends on how you use it, meaning, how conscious you are of it in yourself.

You can be emotional to share your true feelings but you could also oppress someone with your emotions. You can be rational to figure out the correct answer to something but you could also be rational as a way to avoid your feelings. You can be intelligent to do good in the world or to do bad in the world. Or say you’re a cautious person; this can protect you from a lot of problems but it could also cut you off from fully experiencing life.

The attribute itself doesn’t determine how it manifests—YOU do. Your problem is the negative expression of a meaningful, positive process, and your job is to hunt for the core quality behind the unconscious, negative expression, and integrate it in a conscious, positive way. Today’s exercise shows you how to do this. You can apply it to depression, anxiety, attention deficit, trauma, and many other problems. This will help move you toward healing, growth, inner strength, and wisdom.

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The ancient martial art known as Aikido doesn’t use techniques to battle an opponent but rather employs methods for blending and harmonizing with their energy and movements in order to redirect the force of their aggression. Instead of fighting the enemy, the Akido master observes them carefully, and uses their own actions to transform the situation. It’s a basic process idea which says that a problem contains it’s own solution, and the way to discover it is to integrate, not destroy its energy.

This is a powerful notion when it comes to processing your life issues because what usually happens is that the more you battle them, the more they entangle you. But when you try to ignore them they also get you. It’s like you’re screwed if you do, screwed if you don’t! This exercise will show you a different way to work on what’s bothering you. You can use it to process depression, anxiety, attention deficit, trauma, and many other problems. This will help move you toward healing, growth, wisdom, and wellbeing.

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Change is a beast. For something to be born, something has to die, and this requires letting go of something near and dear. Even your bad habits feel like home. So, if you need to change something in your life—depression, anxiety, trauma, attention deficit, relationship problems, etc.—it can feel like being asked to leave your cozy comfort zone, the known, the familiar, the safe.

It’s so much easier to just stay where you are, and this is exactly why we need problems, symptoms, and messed-up chaos in our life. Without it we’d rot into static beings. We need something to light our fire and push us into our process.

Our fears create a psychological barrier between who we are and who we’re meant to be. Some of our fears are known but are difficult to overcome. Others are unconscious; we automatically resist and block our own growth without even realizing. Fear is one of our most painful experiences but it holds the keys to healing, personal growth, inner strength, and wisdom.

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If you only focus on what’s negative in your life you miss the fact that your symptoms, pain, and conflict contain meaningful messages. These messages manifest as problems because they’re blocked from your awareness. They aren’t intrinsically negative but are rather symptomatic expressions of your deeper self trying to come to consciousness.

When your mind can’t accept, is afraid of, isn’t ready yet, or is simply unaware of how you need to change and grow, it forces the basic emotion driving your growth to mutate. Instead of experiencing power, creativity, playfulness or whatever's trying to emerge into your consciousness, this raw, unprocessed emotion manifests as a disturbance, a problem, a “symptom.” The basic process fueling your issue is right, but it manifests in a negative way.

Conventional mental health practice misses the mark by just trying to suppress this disturbing manifestation of your process. Doing so, throws out the baby with the bathwater. Instead, you must learn how to reverse the mutation by uncovering the hidden emotion driving your distress. This leads to liberation and expansion—the true purpose of your issue.

Just trying to get rid of your pain kills your growth. Your problem is your crucible! Don’t dismiss it or just suppress it; keep working on it to connect with its hidden, transformative meaning. Get fixated on your deeper process, not on its momentary negative manifestation. Doing so, helps transform depression, anxiety, trauma, etc. into healing, personal growth, wisdom, and wellbeing.

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We usually try to suppress or “manage” our depression, anxiety, trauma, etc.  But within these issues lies your positive power trying to come forth. In order to discover it, you have to explore and process the “poison” in your problem, not run from it.

Every human quality expresses itself either positively or negatively, in other words, consciously or unconsciously. For example, you can be emotional to share your true feelings but you could also oppress someone with your emotions. You can be rational to figure out the correct answer to something but you could also be rational as a way to avoid your feelings. You can be intelligent to do good in the world or to do bad in the world.  

This dual, yin-yang nature of human qualities means that when you have a negative experience, either within yourself or in relationship to a person or the world, the negative aspect isn’t the most important part. Of course, it hurts and you want to get rid of it but it’s only the negative expression of a human quality. That quality, when made conscious, transforms into a positive expression. 

Your pain and dysfunction aren’t meaningless mistakes in your psyche; within their poisonous manifestation lies your potential liberation. You must process your issue! This doesn’t mean just thinking or talking about it but rather hunting for your disavowed / suppressed feelings, thoughts, and behaviors by applying processing methods. Doing so, leads to healing, personal growth, inner strength, and wisdom. Today’s episode is a practical exercise for doing this. 

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Therapy is music and music is therapy. They both help us connect with the deeper feelings and thoughts that reside in us but we aren’t aware of. They bring to the surface what’s hiding in the shadows of our psyche.

You know how a song makes you feel a certain way—uplifted, melancholy, spiritual, fun, etc.? This state of mind and body already exists within you but you don’t have conscious access to it. Music magically opens up the experience in a way you can consciously feel. This is why you’re drawn to certain music. Psychotherapy also delves into the shadowed parts of your psyche and brings their contents to your awareness. In both cases, we embark on a path to potential healing, growth, and wellbeing.

This episode explores the interconnections between problems such as depression, anxiety, attention deficit, trauma, relationship conflict, etc, on the one hand, and psychotherapy, music, physics, and mathematics, on the other.

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A life problem contains a victimizing power. No matter how much you try to avoid, suppress, or change the issue, it persists. To heal it, you must transform the victimizer’s negative energy into your own positive power. To do so, you have to understand the fact that every human quality can be used either positively or negatively, in other words, consciously or unconsciously.

For example, you can use your strength to stand up for your feelings or someone else’s feelings. But you could also use it to abuse someone. So, strength in itself, is neither good nor bad—it’s neutral. It all depends on how conscious you are of it in yourself, and how you use it.

The same is true for every human quality. The quality itself doesn’t determine how it’s expressed; YOU do. And why is knowing this important? The dual, yin-yang nature of human qualities means that your problem—depression, anxiety, attention deficit, trauma, intrusive thoughts, etc.—isn't set in stone. Of course, it hurts and you want to get rid of it, however, it’s only the negative expression of a human quality. That quality, when made conscious, transforms into a positive power. Integrating this power leads to healing, change, growth, and wisdom. Today’s episode leads you through a practical exercise for doing this.

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The notion that life issues are meaningless, evil things that need to be eliminated as fast as possible, is as old as humans. But this viewpoint overlooks the fact that your problems contain meaningful information which is trying to point you in the right direction for your growth. To tap into this information you must amplify and process your symptoms, not just try to vanquish them. Amplifying your problem converts it from a mysterious, painful experience into meaningful conscious, content. Then you can process and transform it.

A problem is like a star in the night sky. We experience its effects— meaning we feel the problem / we see the light emanating from the star—but without amplifying the signals we don’t perceive all the information that’s present. We don’t know the inner workings of the problem or the star. To amplify them we must exaggerate their signals, or amplify our ability to pick up the signals, or both.

To study stars we use powerful telescopes that amplify our visual power. We gather all sort of mind-blowing data about the make-up of the star, it’s distance from the earth, it’s birth and death, and it’s implications for the age of the universe. Suddenly, a little light in the sky reveals its whole story. It’s the same with your problem. Amplifying its core elements reveals its underlying narrative, and points the way not only to healing but to transformation of your whole life. Using your problems for growth in this way is a potent path to wisdom, well being, and success.

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Despite the fact that there’s never been a scientific study showing that mental distress is an “illness,” psychiatry employs the disease model used in physical medicine. This is why psychiatric treatment’s main focus is on suppressing symptoms. However, this approach misses the whole point of having a life problem. Distress / dysfunction aren’t “diseases”; they’re potent messages of personal change and growth trying to come forth.

In order to discover and act upon this message, you must strategically amplify, not reduce, your symptoms. This brings the contents of your process to consciousness so you can connect with the changes trying to come forth, transform your issue, and change your life for the better.

Therefore, whether you’re depressed, anxious, can’t concentrate, suffer from trauma, have relationship problems, or any other issue, you must learn how to identify your problem’s core elements, and amplify and process them. This will lead to healing, inner strength, wisdom, and well being. Today’s episode guides you through an exercise for doing this.

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