Warrior Stand Down

By Gustav Berg

Why aren't we enjoying happy, fulfilling lives? This empowering book argues that maladies such as depression, OCD, Bipolar Disorder, addictions, chronic pains and much more are not what prevents our happiness, but manifestations of unsolved conflicts we carry within us. It explains in clear terms how, in order to go through small developmental blocks up to severe traumatic experiences, we generate during childhood and early adolescence a protective ego-personality that attempts to shield our vulnerable Self from harm. Like an accomplished Warrior, this entity does indeed complete the mission, but at a terrible cost: he takes over our realities and forever arrests the development of the amazing beings we were born to be. But there is hope!

Through a new, dynamic paradigm and techniques Gustav Berg, a survivor of childhood trauma, shares and shows how we can help our Warriors stand down, and rejoice in the advent of a well-earned inner peace. Any long-time sufferer will surely find relief, understanding and hope from the ideas and guidance this clever approach offers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gustav Berg
• Release date: Feb 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301022984

Gustav Berg

After surviving severe childhood trauma Gustav Berg was a sad ghost who refused to give in. Today he is a happy human being and he wants to share with you how he did it! :)

Book preview

Warrior Stand Down

by Gustav Berg

Copyright 2013 Gustav Berg

Smashwords Edition

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The author does not dispense medical advice nor prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The author’s intent is solely to offer information of a general nature to help you work with your doctor in your mutual quest for health. If you use any of the information in this book for yourself, you are prescribing for yourself, which is your constitutional right, but the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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Cover illustration by Martina Cecilia

To Manu, for the repotting.

To Fufu, for the watering and the daily sun.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Bonafides

WSD: THE THEORY

The Formidable Warrior

The People in Our Heads

The Sword in the Stone

WSD: THE PRACTICE

Hands (and heads) on

The Feeling Mind

Anchoring: Hold on to it

EFT: Let it go

Belief Evaluation

Observer Mode

Adult Mode

The Adult Grows Up

The Battle of Midway

Reborn Another Day

WSD IN ACTION

Case Study: Rob me, I like it

Case Study: Economic Guilt

Case Study: Father of the Man

(Un)comfortably Numb

Abstract Aberrations

Chronic Pains

Righteous Anger

Depression, Suicide, Addictions

Creative Block

Low Self-esteem

WELL ON OUR WAY

The Inner Child Arrives

Preface

During childhood and early adolescence, we go through small developmental blocks up to severe traumatic experiences by developing a protective ego-construct that shields us from harm. Like an accomplished Warrior, this entity does indeed complete his protective mission, but at a terrible cost: he takes over our personas, forever arresting the development of our true, genuine Selves. Gustav Berg, a survivor of childhood trauma, offers a simple but amazingly powerful approach by which we can help our Warriors stand down, get back to being ourselves again, and rejoice in the advent of a well-earned inner peace.

Bonafides

Like most human beings on the face of the Earth, I was born into a lot of bad, bad luck. Although I was headed straight for oblivion, it seems I just did not want to give in and die, and so I kept pushing on. I had no idea what was wrong, only the peculiar notion that this was not the real me; that this existence I had been given was fake. I struggled through year after year of misery and frustration, until I found the source of my problems and began to heal.

And today there is nothing I want more in this world than to share with you how I accomplished this, that perhaps this knowledge will help you and others too.

So first I need to tell you briefly where I come from, not because I want you to pity me, but because I want you to know I understand what a long life of despair is like. And then I wish to tell you briefly about my life today and how happy I am to be alive, not because I want you to envy me, but to inspire and motivate you to seek the freedom to live your own boundless, unique, amazing life.

After surviving childhood and adolescence, I found myself pretty much in an autistic state, prone to massive panic attacks that would sometimes last for days. Some distant part of me longed to write, paint, sing, play some instrument, dance; yet I felt no emotion, I was numb. Nothing, no-one could ever elicit feelings or motivate me into action of any kind. I was hopelessly co-dependent, feeling like a rag doll, out of touch with my own body and devoid of a personality if I was alone, and unable to separate my own feelings and needs from somebody else’s when in company. I had absolutely no idea what day of the week I was in, let alone what season. I longed for human contact, but if I somehow managed to get out of the bed and show up at any social gathering, I would spoil it for everybody with my seething despair, negativity, and passive-aggressiveness. Work would be excruciatingly painful and I would not last more than a couple of months at any job. I hated my profession, but could not choose anything else. My friends were few and they handled me —understandably— with the caution reserved for radioactive materials. I managed to avoid addictions, but being awake was so terrifying and crippling that I would have to sleep throughout the day, and most of my adult life. Then I would wander the streets at night, carefully moving aside when people came towards me in the opposite direction; if I didn’t they would literally bump into me; I was a ghost, I had no substance. Ending my life was on my mind often but I never attempted it, because I knew that the reality imposed on me was only a deception, and I would unmask it.

And so I never stopped researching any information I could gather about techniques that would deal with the unification of the mind. In my long quest I tried innumerable approaches and paradigms, both traditional and alternative; all of them helped, some little, others a lot. The results that for me proved most successful were those related to Inner Child work, and I hereby pay due respect to the legendary work begun in this direction by John Bradshaw in his Homecoming and Lucia Capacchione in her The Power of Your Other Hand. The findings shared by these explorers put me in the right track to begin tackling a problem universally suffered by every single human being: that the poisonous leftovers of our childhood contaminate and ruin our lives today.

What I have to contribute in this regard, and I believe with all my heart it can take personal development to another level, initially adheres to the same principle others have observed: that our current misery today is caused by the constant meddling of a powerful residual entity that dominates our realities. Some call it the critic or the maladaptive or not-ok child and many other names, and everybody agrees that it makes us miserable. But whereas others have chosen to see this agency as nothing short of evil to us, and to treat it as an enemy we must trick and defeat, I choose to see as a hero instead. A champion that fought for us when there was nobody else to do the job. And I choose to approach this entity with awe and reverence instead. My take seems to have worked well, because I am here to tell a happy-ending story.