The high alert habit mode could be seen for what it was: sensations associated with danger. In the absence of danger, by simply getting curious about what those sensations felt like, Dave could see for himself that these sensations not only were inaccurate (signaling danger when there was none) but would fade on their own. I sent him home to practice. He just needed some time and repetition to update his brain’s old memory systems from “not safe” to “safe.” Importantly, I wasn’t trying to convince him that he was safe, nor asking him to convince himself. Instead we were training him to give
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