SON: Exactly.TINA:
And the reason your brain gets so excited when I say
“Dodger Stadium” is because you’ve had good experiences
there. You probably don’t remember every detail of every
game, but still, you just have a good overall feeling about
it.You can see how Tina introduced this issue, just setting up the
concept that certain memories can aʃect us without our awareness
that something is coming from the past. You can also probably see
why her son was nervous about swimming lessons. And one of the
biggest problems was that he had no idea why he was nervous. He
knew only that he didn’t want to go. But when Tina explained
where his feelings were coming from, he began to develop some
awareness that let him take control over what was happening in his
brain, so he could begin to reframe his experiences and his feelings.
They talked some more, then Tina introduced him to some
practical tools he could use when he started feeling nervous about
swimming lessons—some of the very tools we’ll discuss with you in
a few pages. Here’s how the end of the conversation went.
TINA:
OK, so now you know that the reason for your fear is that
you had bad experiences before.SON: Yeah, I guess.But you’re older and wiser now, and you can think about
swimming in whole new ways. So let’s do a couple of
things to help you feel better. One is to start thinking about