Reply To: Blushing, how it works and where to start?
Peter BunyanHi Kenshin
Can't help with the download problem Jeff would be the man to ask.
Certain situations make you feel a certain way the behavioural response to this is the blushing, this starts before you are consciously aware of it and when you are it is too late. Being aware of of it only makes the blushing worse. With me so far?
The sorts of situations that trigger the feelings are social therefore subconscious. Also note that every feeling of any sort invokes a behaviour although it might be so slight you would not notice it. These behaviours can take only a fraction of a second to start following the feeling. The intensity needs to get past a threshold at some level before your conscious mind becomes aware of it. Still with me? This makes it impossible to stop by telling yourself to. You can try and get control over the social situation, but if you had that sort of skill the blushing would probably not occur. The next best thing is to escape the situation and walk around somewhere. The exercise will help ease the feelings away.
What I am trying to help you do is de-link the feeling with the situation. When you have done this then the situations will not cause you to blush, problem solved.
Blushing is a natural thing and happens with many people. However with some it gets to be a problem most likely because an event happened when you were say 7-13 years old, at which age you become socially aware, even if you blushed before that age your were probably not aware of the social aspect and therefore it was not a problem. This event or series of events probably close in time would most likely take the form of you being bullied or pushed around or somehow dominated by someone possibly part of a group, this being achieved by them being bigger taller (most people are when you are only 7-13) or otherwise being able to out stare or force you to look down, browbeaten. This forces you to submit or lose control in some way. This sort of event might just be forgotten but at this time someone noticed you blushing and pointed it out to the others, they all then looked and laughed, jeered or some such. This made the situation intolerable for you but unable to escape it and the feelings remained locked-in undissipated. Sooner or later this sort of thing happened again, this time you notice yourself blushing, making yourself feel even worse, now you are a blusher. Does this sound about right?
Please bear in mind that I am generalising this so that others might be able to relate to it and also help themselves.
One aspect of social dominance is the eyes, eyes looking at you, staring at you, the more people looking the worse it is for example being pointed out or being asked to talk or give a presentation. Even the feeling of people looking or that they might look could be enough.
By asking you to imagine a worst case scenario I am in effect asking you to pull together all the worst aspects of your past experiences and blend them into one worst case, this in order to stimulate more powerful feelings. The more powerful the feelings the more PSTEC can get to work and de-link them to your social triggers, being looked at, what ever it is that does it for you. Different social situations might produce different feelings, if they are not wanted then Click Track them away.
Keep trying this Plan A until you find it difficult to “work up” any feelings.
Hopefully this long post has made things clearer rather than “muddying up the waters”.
Peter