Running to your problems or (PI) Paradoxical Intention

Paradoxical Intention means "moving toward what a person fear[s], rather than running from it." Viktor Frankl coined the term to describe a very effective way to use a  problem to overcome a problem.

PI  allows your mind to relax so your body can naturally thrive. Like a judo black-belt you embrace problems as necessary and beneficial.

Examples:

You can't sleep so you try to stay awake and thus fall asleep.

You can't keep your weight at your optimal level so you eat more meals and keep your ideal weight.

You feel overwhelmed by debt so you study your debt, chart it and thereby pay it off.

You feel stressed with too much to do, so you do more to handle more (thus raising your threshold/ homeostasis for stress/ Allostasis)

You only like certain food so you purposely try different foods and thus begin to enjoy many types of food.

Paradoxical Intention is overcoming fear by doing and learning correct principles instead of fearing symptoms.

Often our worst fears contain the seeds for victory. Don't run from your problem, run to the solution found in your problem.

 

 

(Photo courtesy Danilo Rizzuti)

Comments

[cool flash games]

This is a good post on this topic.

Regards

[Ryan]

Glad you like the post. Let me know what other topics you'd like to see discussed.