Written by: Giuseppe Tavella, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
They call it dissociation. Depersonalization. Dpdr disorder. With many names and few solutions, this little known condition has baffled the best minds for decades. Until today. So what is dpdr, really?
I’m smart, a career on the way, a family to take care of, a nice house why do I feel wrong, so weird, as if I’m not here?
Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure to answer these and many more questions and work with amazing people.
Important what you’re about to read and in my work I keep this assumption, that what you’re experiencing is 100% mental and emotional and has no medical, chemical or neurological causes. I’m not responsible for the conclusions you’ve drawn about your problem.
I will also show you options to get expert guidance should you wish to accelerate your progress, as well as video interviews with my students.
Let’s dive right in.
Step 1: Listen to subconscious messages
Most people with DPDR are focused on fixing symptoms.
Months go by, not feeling that progress you desperately want, simply because you don’t yet know something that I call “symptom reverse engineering”.
I won’t go through the list of symptoms, there’s plenty of stuff online. Go here to know more about symptoms.
Here’s the thing. When parts of one’s mental and emotional world are experienced as weird, crazy, and dysfunctional, we often refer to it as symptoms.
A symptom is a message of how one feels inside, when something inside is out of balance and has been pushed out of awareness, it starts showing up to conscious awareness causing problems in a repetitive, random, sometimes chronic manner.
What a symptom really is, it’s the subconscious trying to convey this message in ways that are more acceptable, or that contain a similar message but not quite the original one. What do I mean by that?
If I never allowed myself the chance to express how angry I am with my dad, I will not feel anger towards my dad, I will feel its symptom such as intrusive thoughts about hurting people. It’s ok to hurt people, but not your dad.
If I never allowed myself the chance to feel happy, I may feel its symptom such as constant, unexplainable sadness. It’s ok to feel sad but not happy. The details and stories of these sad thoughts are not important as much as their message. Message: the world is a scary place, life was always tough, you can’t be happy, so let’s confirm that.
By definition, at first, a symptom will always seem cryptic, weird, and random. If the message it’s trying to communicate were that obvious, it wouldn’t need to be hidden in the first place.
Since people can’t quite logically, directly figure out what is the function of this symptom and what it wants to say, or because the message is too painful to face simply out of ignorance and denial, they obsess over it.
Thus making this symptom speak and show up even stronger. The more you fight thoughts the stronger they get kind of thing.
As a matter of fact, I often get asked "how can I get rid of anxiety/ dissociation/ negative emotion/ thought".
That's exactly the point. Getting rid of your emotions is exactly how you got here. It seems like people want to be more unconscious of themselves, by removing the awareness, distracting and numbing of parts of themselves in that painful or uncomfortable to face, to feel.
How can I get rid of this, how can I get rid of that etc.
In my 10 years immersed in the wonders of emotions, a symptom is (+ 2 examples):
protection. Shut down emotionally not to get hurt. Feel nothing instead of shame, anger, pain.
diversion. Anxiety as a way to drive you to achieve more so you’ll be accepted. Perfectionism to avoid feeling average and inferior.
accumulation. Burnout as a result of not expressing how you feel. Body tension as a result of always anxious.
Whatever your symptoms, it might be helpful to use this formula or exercise to draw out the protection, diversion or accumulation that drives it. Symptom:
as a result of.
as a way to.
to avoid.
to help me with.
to help me when.
By defining the context, usefulness, function, and need it’s trying to fulfil or replace that’s part of what we call ‘healing’.
Whatever the symptom, rather than seeing it as information and opportunity and listening or observing, the uneducated person interprets it as threat and reacts. This is simply due to:
ignorance. I don’t understand what this symptom means yet, so I react to protect myself from what I don’t understand when the mind doesn’t know or understand, it resorts to a fear-based reaction as a fallback protection mechanism. Simply put it gets scared, and you choose to prolong it
denial. Tuning into the message but it’s too painful, uncomfortable. The symptom is more acceptable, helps me remain unconscious of my emotions by distracting and numbing myself, or by entertaining myself with irrelevant details, questions and fantasies
Information about what’s going on in the subconscious that you likely weren’t aware of, and an opportunity to grow and get to know yourself more.
I’ve also been blessed with the opportunity to share “what makes the difference”, by working with so many people.
Sahira, one of my students, shares her appreciation and how our work has changed her life in one of the many interviews on my channel.
In fact, the difference between someone who is constantly struggling with their mental health and someone who experiences calmness as default is how aware you are, and how much you face these often uncomfortable messages from your subconscious.
The unaware person says that their mind is going crazy, that they need to ‘get rid’ of their negative emotions etc. Their emotional world is full of reactions, drama, fears, generalisations, projections, trying to get rid of parts of themselves; it is internally experienced as chaotic and detached.
Their default consciousness is one of reacting, denial and projecting, and symptoms are simply a consequence of that.
The aware person has already metabolised how these negative emotions and symptoms are opportunities to grow and evolve.
Their emotional world is internally experienced as calm, with plenty of space, clear and peaceful. Their default consciousness is one of welcoming one’s experience, holding space, observing and learning. There’s no getting rid or fixing anything.
So here’s the bottom line.
Every symptom is a message, information, opportunity to grow by listening and observing. It is revealing to your conscious awareness what was previously hidden.
You can learn more about the subconscious mind.
Step 2: Embrace asynchronous solutions
You’d love to connect with people authentically, with your heart, deeply. But you don’t, you are scared of getting too close and being hurt. Your mind starts privately fantasising about connecting with people, perhaps impressing them, proving them you’re worth something, etc.
Then you fight that because you need to “stop overthinking” and I need to fix it, followed by a sentimentalistic explanation of your old self versus now.
Rather than listening compassionately to what’s really happening, you’re just disconnecting from yourself more and more, commenting on what’s happening, reacting to what’s happening, instead of feeling and listening to what’s happening.
The “real problem” is that you simply want to connect, but instead of connecting in real life (with the possibility of being hurt) you do it in your head where you have control over what happens and can mentally edit reality as you please, skipping the “painful bits” and manufacturing this fantasy world in your head.
With professional guidance, by exploring this experience with being hurt, understanding what it’s all about, releasing any stuck emotion, and recontextualizing it in such a way that connecting with people in real life is now pleasurable, now the symptom of overthinking/ fear of getting too close is gone.
Which leads me to the next point. Many people who know a thing or two about anxiety and dpdr have this idea that “I need to do something to fix it”.
As if a specific technique or advice, directly applied to the overthinking/ anxiety/ disconnection symptom, could magically make it away. Hey anxiety, now I will snap my fingers and off you go!
That sounds ridiculous, but it’s also the fantasy world most people entertain themselves with about what it really means to solve a symptom, heal and truly get better.
Instead, a real solution, always listens to the symptom, to the unmet need it’s trying to fulfil, what it wants to say:
It is never symptom -> ‘solution’ -> symptom fixed
but more like symptom -> unmet need, usefulness, subconscious message -> new way to fulfil that need, integration of message -> symptom gone indirectly
It is asynchronous and indirect.
Step 3: Reconnect with your emotions
You’re asking how to overcome dpdr by reconnecting with your emotions, I get you.
How obvious that the symptom is not the real problem, even more so as you get in touch with your emotions and listen to these subconscious messages!
In fact, people that truly heal are the ones that allow themselves to feel their original emotions. That’s why I will introduce something called “reactive feeling”.
A reactive feeling is pretty much a comment, resistance, avoidance on the original feeling.
I feel sad that I feel alone. I feel angry that I shouldn’t feel sad. I feel ashamed that I shouldn’t feel angry, hey I’m a nice person! I’m convincing myself I don’t feel ashamed because I can articulate, impress, prove, achieve etc. I can’t feel anxious I need to let it go, how can I let it go, oh no I can’t let it go what if it will stay etc.
This is so, so much simpler than you think. So let me ask you this, how do you really feel?
Not what you think of it.
Not how you should feel.
How you’d like to feel.
What other people say.
What you’ve read in that popular book.
What the latest theory on trauma says.
What you’d like people to think.
How you’d like to appear.
How my friend feels.
The most articulate explanation that would impress yourself. How I’d like my friend to feel.
How I’d like people to see me.
The closest logical explanation that could make sense.
How do you really feel?
My ex cheated on me, I feel betrayed. I don’t trust anyone, the world is a scary place. I feel there’s something wrong with me, he hurt me so much, I feel I don’t know how to be. I want people to like me, I feel ashamed for being myself. That’s it.
My mum never loved me, I feel uncomfortable receiving love, feeling loved means pain, if I let my guard down people will hurt me. I feel this pain in my heart, it hurts. That’s it.
I feel alone, I don’t feel good enough no matter what I do. I don’t feel safe on my own, I feel I have to constantly escape from my body. I’m scared of my feelings. If I stay alone I will have this inner critic that makes me feel bad, ashamed about myself. I can’t stay alone I just go in my head and dissociate. That’s it.
It’s not that I want to be perfectionist and high achiever, it’s that I want people to like me. I want to get everything right to be perceived as smart. I want people to see me as brilliant, that I always have my shit together, if they think I’m average I’m a failure. That’s it.
It’s not that I’m an overthinker, actually you know what, I want to control everything. I’m scared of losing control. Losing control means you could be attacked at any time, it means being powerless. Feeling powerless means being defeated, weak, with my guard down, it feels people could take advantage of me. That’s it.
From symptom to “real problem”. That’s it. How long will it take for you to admit the often uncomfortable truth and call out your own agendas, is as good as it gets as long as you feel good about it.
Does that take years of therapy and talking about problems every week?
In my work my approach is, let’s go straight to the point. In the same time you wake up, get dressed, have breakfast and go to work, we could do a session and be well on our way to solving this for good.
That’s why my clients often experience life-changing breakthroughs in a few hours working together.
If you go on my website you’ll see an option to learn more and talk directly to me and how to take advantage of this unique opportunity.
Step 4: Evolve beyond healing
I was so much into the habit of healing and introspecting “what may be wrong” that I would spend my days trying to fix something and when I could not find anything precise, secretly justifying its usefulness. Also known as “in your head”.
I feel anxiety now, so it must be because I have unhealed childhood trauma. I need to read this book to fix it. Since I cannot fix it, what I can do is attribute a usefulness, a story as to why it exists.
Now, do you know why I feel anxious? Because I’m a caring person. Do you know why I’m anxious and overthinker? Because I’ve always been like that, been raised that way you know.
You have to understand my brain is in a fight/flight state, that’s why I’m thinking these things etc.
The distorted pleasure of drama. The secret sense of attention and pride in labelling oneself. Let’s give that a thought or two shall we?
And also “How is the anxiety doing? Have I healed or not? What do I need to do to get rid of this feeling? Will it go away? How can I fix it?“ you get asked.
Although the logical answer to that may reassure you with an expiry date, it is assuming lack. It is still assuming there’s a problem.
How is the anxiety doing assumes there’s a problem, that it’s important to solve, assumes only the resolution of this problem/nondesirable feeling will lead to a desirable feeling, assumes distance.
Have I healed or not assumes you are not healed, assumes a desirable state to achieve, and a non-desirable state to escape from, one is problem one is a solution, assumes distance.
How can I get rid, will it go away assumes this feeling cannot be felt, assumes a desirable feeling to achieve, and a nondesirable feeling to escape from, assumes distance.
You feel me? It all assumes distance, lack, a problem, a supposed resolution to ‘unlock’ a feeling, self-generated waiting rooms and prerequisites before accessing one’s emotions!
This sort of ‘projection’ or whatever you want to call it, promises to get to a desirable feeling and escape from a nondesirable feeling, but it’s all the same really!
Years go by, with this projection going through infinite permutations of logical details, perceived symptoms and problems to solve, new shiny obsessions, an endless marathon of things to learn and fix whose finish line seems to move away as you get closer, only to find itself back to square one.
This has a lot to do with this self-constructed, time-bound, popular concept called healing.
Well, it’s not that there’s a stage after healing, where you neglect your emotions because you’re doing great, and a stage of healing where you listen to your emotions because they told you “it works”.
You are repeating stuff with your head because it leads to a promised outcome, not because you’ve actually metabolised and felt it.
One of the biggest shifts for me was to evolve beyond this paradigm of healed/non healed and I’m fixed. I need to get rid.
Because in that old paradigm you were in, all kinds of fears would arise, right?
If I’ve fixed the anxiety, I want to make sure it’s really not there. If it’s not fixed, how can I fix it. If it’s healed, I want to make sure of it. If it’s not healed, I can’t move on until I get rid of it. If the symptom is still there, I will obsess until I fix it. If it’s not there I’m scared it’s going to come back.
Healed or not healed, fixed or not fixed, it’s the same thing really. And you guessed it, it never ends.
You can be in the worst moment of your life and feel blessed you’re handling it beautifully, with confidence and appreciate that pain is letting you know a thing or two about letting go of the non-essential.
You can be in the best time in your life and feel scared you’re going to lose it. You can be ‘half’ healed and enjoy life taking it one step at a time.
You can be ‘completely’ healed and still believe there’s a problem with you and spend all your day trying to fix this imaginary problem to fix.
With the ever present, crystal clear intention of expanding my consciousness and refusing to react to circumstances and feelings and instead genuinely tune into what’s really happening, this sort of contrast of experiences that I myself have experienced, has somehow revealed choices that were already there.
And to realise that what is happening right now and how I’m choosing to respond is all I need to know, is an achievement you can access at any time.
Step 5: Evolve beyond functionality
If you really want to overcome dpdr naturally, then you need to take a step back and reconsider the whole paradigm that you’re experiencing this in.
In fact, the uneducated person interprets ‘improvement’ within a functionality-based consciousness, paradigm, perspective.
A functionality-based perspective comes with this package: start date, expiry date, trigger, action, reminder, problem, solution, quality of application, expectation, before healing, in healing, after healing, etc.
This is what’s happening within this kind of limited view of oneself. You have a negative emotion. Then you need to fix it with a solution. So you have to remember if you applied the solution well. When you applied it.
If you are well. If you feel bad. If you’re still healing. If you’re fixed. If you’re not fixed. Immediate result from application. Expectation of result. Fear of ‘incorrect’ application. Reassurance for ‘correct’ application. When you feel ‘well’ you will forget about what you’ve learned and go right back to square one. When you feel ‘bad’ you need to urgently apply it before it gets worse. Fear of it getting worse I need to remind myself of a ritual. I need to get there to my ideal self. Oh my old self I’m sad for them.
You get the point. Pretty much, within a functionality-based perspective, you have the illusion you are fixing something just because you feel internally busy doing and thinking something, in reality you are just creating a more complicated version of the same problem.
Until one day, you choose to evolve to a more principle-based consciousness. It does not contemplate fixing or healing, it does not contemplate an ideal mental place to be or a past experience to escape from, as much as it appreciates learning from what’s happening right now.
A functionality-based consciousness tells the typical story that I’ve heard enough times to assume it is the normal consciousness for most people. It goes like this. There was a time before healing when ‘everything was fine’ and I was confident and happy, then there was this moment where ‘everything changed’ and I’ve never been the same since then, then all attempts of the logical and reactive mind to figure out symptoms and its obsessions, as well as descriptions of an ideal self that you need to ‘get’ to and ‘achieve’ by ‘getting’ rid of parts of oneself such as thoughts, emotions and symptoms, explaining how that will lead to this ideal self, and finally a time after healing where it’s all gone and finally you can enjoy the present moment and I will be able to do all things with my life.
Little does this person know that this is part of the problem, and should they choose to remain within this stage of evolution, they will always go right back to square one, you see them desperately trying to enjoy more space by rearranging the same furniture.
A principle-based consciousness tells the story of a continuous journey, where the present symptom is connected to the stage ‘before healing’ and now.
Realizing that they were avoiding their emotions even before, that what they called happiness was a distraction from their sadness, that what they referred to as confidence was constantly impressing people, thus the present symptom tells the story of past habits that existed before you even knew what they were or how to call them, and that this symptom will always be available as an option ‘after healing’, should you wish to protect or numb yourself from uncomfortable feelings or avoid subconscious messages, and that in reality there is nothing to fix because now I choose to listen, avoid, let go, deny, learn which are options that existed ‘before’ healing and ‘after’ healing, thus it is my choice how I feel right now, and how I choose to respond to what’s happening right now is an option that was there before, now, and after.
Did you feel the shift in consciousness, how it’s all interconnected? A ‘real healing’ is not in the problem you fix and its logical details, but in the consciousness you elevate.
Spiritual or scientific, all roads seem to lead to Rome. Here’s the scientific explanation of neuroplasticity by Dr. Sydney Ceruto.
Thank you, but quick fixes and magic tricks are closed for business.
I could tell you more about the many stories of my students, like Estelle who after 40+ years she’s permanently overcome dpdr and anxiety naturally, of course.
So here’s another inspiring story on how to overcome dpdr naturally
What you’ve learned today is a very small fraction compared to the databases of knowledge I possess about the fascinating, at first mysterious world of the mind and emotions, that’s why I’d love to extend you the invitation to book a call, tell me about your unique goals and see if I can help you achieve your goals faster just like many people before you have done.
Permanently, naturally, quickly.
Giuseppe Tavella, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Giuseppe Tavella, is an emerging leader in emotional wellbeing. He is best known for his pioneer work with dissociation, a little known condition that has baffled the best minds for decades. An emotionally challenging childhood allowed him to develop unique gifts, he is renowned for his unique ability to explain and solve the often unexplainable mysteries and complexities of one's mind and emotional world. With hundreds of proven success stories and in-depth documentaries, his 10 years crafting cutting-edge solutions, he is the go-to expert for permanent relief from emotional issues including anxiety and dissociation. His students feel a new quality of life, inner peace and empowered.
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