Emotional / mental Contamination

[Olb1]

Hi
I’m posting from the UK. Many years ago when I was about 20 (now 40) I had been working for a few years in IT, I got this job where you were given a company car, at the time I wasn’t excited by this as i liked owning my own cars and couldn’t really keep two. After a while the company bought some new cars which I didn’t really like but for some reason didn’t do enough to stop them as I was still young and a bit shy and afraid of authority. As soon as I was assigned the car I felt bad like this was something I’d regret letting happen. The car was not really a typical company car as it was more of an old mans car, old fashioned looking estate. Certainly not what a 20 year old would want especially me. I continued in this job but was unhappy as I had to drive this car I disliked and was hating more as time went on. I kept trying to suppress my feelings and concentrate on other things instead, there were plenty of other things at that age i was occupied with. Eventually though I kept coming back to the dislike of the car. It got to me after nearly 2 years and I was desperate to get out of the situation and nearly quit the job and told people I didn’t like the car. I was told they would get new cars but it would be a while so I hung on in the hope of the car being replaced. However it got to a point where I started to revile the car and see it as being dirty/disgusting. I started to see things in the car as being contaminated/infected. I would have to have a bath when I got it from work and change clothes. Eventually I got the new car but I had to contend with possessions that had been contaminated , I threw loads of stuff away, especially clothes. I didn’t want anything from the old car to be in the new car. After another year I quit the job as I couldn’t carry on re visiting customer sites where i was in contact with computers and devices which had once been in the old car. To this day i am still aware of objects that are contaminated such as a laminate floor in my parents house. So I try to avoid this.
My question is, is the contamination an emotional issue? Have you come across this kind of mental or emotional contamination before? I think it may be a kind of ocd thing also. I found an article on thought object fusion which explained it well and basically said the problem can only be solved in the persons mind as to a third party the items are not contaminated. I’d love to hear anyone’s opinion on this and how I can move forward as it’s still affecting my life?!

[John Ruskan]

Interesting post. In ECP psychology, when starting to look at any discordant issue, we assume there is some level of projection occurring. This means unconscious negativity stored on the inside is being overlaid on outside objects, people, or situations, even attracting them. Our assumption here is that inner negativity is being projected onto your perception and experience of the car. The car may objectively not be esthetically right for you, but you add to the disharmony with your projection. The key here is to take it to a feeling level. Your initial first-level emotional response to the car is dislike or disgust. What is the core feeling behind that that? That's for you to find out by entering the alpha state and processing the experience, as I describe in detail in my books. As you sit with the experience, eventually the core feelings will come forward, to be taken through the process.

[Olb1]

Thanks John I am reading your book as we speak I suspected it could be a feelings/emotional issue as I don’t often show my emotions, you know typical male thing. Back when this happened I felt a lot of anger and ‘why is this happening to me’ but couldn’t really express it. If I mentioned to anyone that I hated the car they thought I was being somehow unappreciative or silly.
I am going to try the alpha state to uncover the feelings. I just wonder whether I should be trying to go all the way back to when it happened, or instead to focus on the present day situations where it affects me. For example I had avoided the laminate floor for years as I know it once was in the car when it was bought, but I ‘mistakenly’ stepped on it barefooted recently when my dad called me into the room. I had walked in it before with socks and threw them away after but this was barefoot so immediately I had to have a shower and try to ‘clean’ my foot. Crazy isn’t it? On a thought level, I can think ‘a third party uses this floor so why can’t I?’ The problem is I know the floor had contact with the car so my mind tells me it’s contaminated and I should avoid it.
Anyway thanks for your time in responding.