Amin gave a beautiful yoga class yesterday on the differences between classical yoga and tantric yoga.
He asserted that classical yoga, like Astanga, was focused on mindfulness. The focus of the practice is the breathing and keeping the focus of the mind on the breath. The asanas are a means to keep the body busy so that one may focus This is akin to mindfulness meditation. The goal is to cultivate detachment from preconditioning and to learn how to be present in the moment.
In tantric yoga, the focus of the breath is on the difficult areas of the asana. One focuses the mind's eye on stiffness, tightness, discomfort. Prana is directed to these areas to deepen the pose. This builds the habit of understanding that difficulties in life always come with a blessing as well. The difficult poses are often the ones that build strength where we need it - they shore up weaknesses. By concentrating and focusing on them, we learn that pain is not to be avoided but to be embraced and accepted.
In one's life, it is not only the people who support that help, but also the people who criticize or challenge. The latter set of people may have pushed one to try harder, or at the very least provided such an inhospitable environment that one is forced to take drastic action such as changing their life.
Yesterday and again this morning, I realized something in savasana. I have always valued symmetry and comfort in savasana. I have always found it difficult to relax without a blanket, without an eye pillow, with my arms not in similarly symmetric distances and angles from my body. And it bothers me if I am slightly off-center and one hand is further off the mat than the other. These two days I practiced accepting these differences. The fact that they bother me is a challenge: imperfections are part of life and learning to notice the imperfections but not let them bother me is a practice. I am learning to not see them in a negative light, but to recognize their existence, the feelings they evoke, and then accept them and move on. It is a practice that can be applied to life.
It is interesting that so many hatha yoga classes mix these two philosophies which are very different. At once we are told to focus and concentrate on the breath, and again we are told to deepen our poses and concentrate on the difficult areas. I am unconvinced that a mix like this is more helpful than separate yoga practices. Mindfulness meditation deepens with practice and habit. Likewise a true astanga session of 90 minutes with the focus on only the breath brings about a very different sense of being than a typical vinyasa hatha practice. The mind enters a different state. Cultivating awareness and acceptance in a full tantric yoga practice rather than shifting back and forth between the two styles most likely deepens one's practice of love, as well.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Beliefs
The following is a story by Thich Nhat Hanh, from his book Being Peace:
A young widower, who loved his five year old son very much, was away on business, and bandits came, burned down his whole village, and took his son away. When the man returned, he saw the ruins and panicked. He took the charred corpse of an infant to be his own child, and he began to pull his hair and beat his chest, crying uncontrollably. He organized a cremation ceremony, collected the ashes and put them into a very beautiful velvet bag. Working, sleeping, eating, he always carried the bag of ashes with him.
One day his real son escaped from the robbers and found his way home. He arrived at this father's new cottage at midnight , and knocked at the door. You can imagine at that time, the young father was still carrying the bag of ashes, and crying. He asked, "Who is there?" And the child answered, "It's me, Papa. Open the door, it's your son." In his agitated state of mind the father thought that some mischievous boy was making fun of him, and he shouted at the child to go away, and he continued to cry. The boy knocked again and again, but the father refused to let him in. Some time passed, and finally the child left. From that time on, father and son never saw one another. After telling this story, the Buddha said, "Sometime, somewhere you take something to be the truth. If you cling to it so much, when the truth comes in person and knocks at your door, you will not open it." Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge. You have to be able to transcend your knowledge...understanding is always letting go of our views and knowledge to transcend. This is the most important teaching.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Intimacy Dream
We were in a huge lecture hall - and bidding... bidding on WoW gear. There was the teacher up front, and he had two exceptional sub-rogue daggers. He asked for bids. I knew Christina, who was sitting on my right wanted it, and I bid for her. She bid herself as well. It soon became apparent that 8+ people wanted the daggers. I also realized that many who weren't sub-rogues were bidding. They random rolled the first dagger and a combat rogue picked it up.
I spoke up. Since there was no cost to bidding, anyone could bid, so non sub-rogues were bidding. I asked for a new bid from only sub-rogues. Two of the same hands went up, including Christina's. Three more new hands went up. I realized then that it might not be an upgrade for those three people, so asked again for sub-rogues for whom the dagger was an upgrade. All five hands stayed up. There was momentary confusion.
I knew I continued to be out of place in speaking up, but had to try once more. I asked for only sub rogues who had bid the first time. Finally, it worked. This screened out the non sub-rogues who bid initially, and the later sub-rogues who reacted late. Only one person raised a hand. It wasn't Christina. Everyone in the audience was relieved the bidding had turned out well. The audience started getting up and parting.
My anger surged and turned on her, asking why she didn't bid. She didn't want it anymore.
"It was an enormous upgrade."
"No."
"Whatever," I told her, and stood up with her to walk out. "I may be quitting anyways."
She reacted poorly, and sat back down in a seat. She started crying.
I asked her what happened, and she admitted that she didn't know what to do. She didn't want me to quit. She felt like I would be abandoning her. I asked her about the other men in her life. I don't remember her answer, but it seemed like she said she was noncommittal towards them. I held her in close, kissed her cheek and forehead and neck, holding her, shushing her.
The next thing I know we're in bed, both in a partial state of undress. She sidles up against me, clinging to me, molding her body against me. It is intimate, but we don't kiss, and only intend to sleep. It is a very non-sexual intimacy, like roomates seeking each other for comfort, but this comfort was in the touch of flesh to flesh and bodies embracing each other.
Christina is one of a handful of college friends I haven't found in my recent surge to re-ignite old contacts. She was never that close to me, but we did confide secrets to each other - about relationships and gaming. It is fairly obvious whom she represents. I thought, at first, it was S, but no, S would never have refused to bid like that. It is K who would, and K is the source of all my relationship/intimacy problems recently.
I spoke up. Since there was no cost to bidding, anyone could bid, so non sub-rogues were bidding. I asked for a new bid from only sub-rogues. Two of the same hands went up, including Christina's. Three more new hands went up. I realized then that it might not be an upgrade for those three people, so asked again for sub-rogues for whom the dagger was an upgrade. All five hands stayed up. There was momentary confusion.
I knew I continued to be out of place in speaking up, but had to try once more. I asked for only sub rogues who had bid the first time. Finally, it worked. This screened out the non sub-rogues who bid initially, and the later sub-rogues who reacted late. Only one person raised a hand. It wasn't Christina. Everyone in the audience was relieved the bidding had turned out well. The audience started getting up and parting.
My anger surged and turned on her, asking why she didn't bid. She didn't want it anymore.
"It was an enormous upgrade."
"No."
"Whatever," I told her, and stood up with her to walk out. "I may be quitting anyways."
She reacted poorly, and sat back down in a seat. She started crying.
I asked her what happened, and she admitted that she didn't know what to do. She didn't want me to quit. She felt like I would be abandoning her. I asked her about the other men in her life. I don't remember her answer, but it seemed like she said she was noncommittal towards them. I held her in close, kissed her cheek and forehead and neck, holding her, shushing her.
The next thing I know we're in bed, both in a partial state of undress. She sidles up against me, clinging to me, molding her body against me. It is intimate, but we don't kiss, and only intend to sleep. It is a very non-sexual intimacy, like roomates seeking each other for comfort, but this comfort was in the touch of flesh to flesh and bodies embracing each other.
Christina is one of a handful of college friends I haven't found in my recent surge to re-ignite old contacts. She was never that close to me, but we did confide secrets to each other - about relationships and gaming. It is fairly obvious whom she represents. I thought, at first, it was S, but no, S would never have refused to bid like that. It is K who would, and K is the source of all my relationship/intimacy problems recently.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Blogging as an outlet for sleep
I've been going through so much emotional upheaval lately that I've been having problems falling asleep. Firstly, I stay up way too late due to more pressing relationship priorities. Secondly, once I do attempt to fall asleep, it doesn't come.
What happens to me when I lie there, unable to sleep. My mind spins at 100 rpm. It wanders through all the various thoughts, emotions, goals, failures, successes of the day.
I have a hypothesis that if I get up and write it all out, my mind will be at peace. So, tonight, if I lay my head on my pillow and fail to sleep, then I will get up and write, then go back to sleep. Hopefully dreamless bliss will then overtake me.
What happens to me when I lie there, unable to sleep. My mind spins at 100 rpm. It wanders through all the various thoughts, emotions, goals, failures, successes of the day.
I have a hypothesis that if I get up and write it all out, my mind will be at peace. So, tonight, if I lay my head on my pillow and fail to sleep, then I will get up and write, then go back to sleep. Hopefully dreamless bliss will then overtake me.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Torrential downpour
Southern California is deluged. Tornados, floods, thunderstorms. As it rains upon the earth, my emotions have chosen to rain upon my soul. I feel detached, brooding, emotionally wrung out. So much has coursed through my mind and my heart in the past 24-48 hours, I do not even know where to begin. And so I will begin with the present.
A liquid shuddering starts in my diaphragm, moves up through the leftside of my chest, running through my heart, up my neck, and out the top of my head. The emotions lie there... having been expressed, having overwhelmed, and having no closure. Tears well up in my eyes. I mourn my brother. He should not have left 11 years ago.We were destined on this earth to be together - born two years apart - playmates... who should've grown into touchstones for each other as we navigate this Earth. I cried back then... woke in the middle of the night crying in grief ... bawled in the dewey grass of his grave one year later cursing my abandonment, hating the loss. I don't want to lose my sister - my best friend.
Deep, shuddering breaths... collecting myself - semblance. thought. I'm overreacting - I want, no need, to bring her to happiness. I've experienced such highs this week - and I know the agony of the lows she's in. That was my goal. It was slowly planted there throughout the budding of our friendship - friends help each other out. It was expressed in words scarcely more than a week ago - I would pull her along with me on my journey. It crystallized two days ago late at night - I would help her heal herself like I healed and help her experience happiness. Prior to that night it was simply to help and encourage, now it's to heal.
Since the break of the new year, I've metamorphized. Twenty days, and I've experienced such bliss - and come to touch true happiness. I've never been happy before. Now I am. In this same span, she's gotten steadily worse. Each one of my steps forward has been a step backwards for her. As I advance, she retreats. We marched in lockstep once upon a time. Now I look back and can barely see her at the end of the horizon, the lifeline between us stretched taut to the point of breaking. Indeed, it is fraying and everytime I pull, more individual fibers unravel.
Enough metaphors. The facts. I came home from a blissful experience last night. Something wondrous, ethereal, gossamer. She had missed me while I was gone, and wouldn't talk when I got back. She had wanted to play WoW, but I was away. And besides, scarcely hours earlier I had decided that I was done enabling the escapism that it represented for her, and would try and help her back on her own two feet directly. I told her such, but she never wants to talk about such - about her emotions - her situation - where to go - what to do. I know the feeling - facing any of it feels like a mountain coming down upon you - there is no light at the end of the tunnel, in fact there is no tunnel. the earth is collapsing on top of you and the air is siphoning away. Yet I pressed her anyways, and she withdrew even more.
Why must I press knowing that she will withdraw? Perchance a small hope that my words will sink in and she might listen - perhaps I'm desperate and don't know what else I can do.
She said she didn't want to talk about it - that she was going to give up. She would go give up her life to another and let him tell her what to do. Just last week, she had confided that it wasn't the life she wanted - it was a life she knew she could grow accustomed to - a life she could settle for, but not something she wanted, and certainly not a life of her own choosing. I became frantic, desperate - enraged, furious, pleading.
Looking back now, I believe that my brother's death influenced me. During the evening I had allowed myself to feel grief for him for the first time in years, and I was suddenly confronted with another loss in my life. No, she wouldn't commit suicide, but I felt like she was committing spiritual suicide. Hence, my overreaction.
She was on the phone with him, and could only type to me. My emotions raw, eating away at me. I needed her to understand how I felt - needed to hear the authenticity of her voice, the tenor and tone that would belie the truth beneath her words. I raged, and she relented. Now I could hear her voice, and she could rage back at me. This was her life, her decisions... why am I interfering? If she choses to deal with her state by escapism, then I shouldn't lecture, I shouldn't preach.
I'm sorry - I know the solace of pushing everything away. I just don't want the mountain to suffocate you. I don't want to look up one day and see you gone. That's why I'm trying to pull you up. Trying to give you air to breathe, trying to find you another route. But denial and escapism enshrouds you. If you refuse to see the tunnels I'm trying to carve for you, then you don't have to hope, and don't have to see the rest of the mountain.
We argue. I am timid. I try and be strong. I am afraid of losing her. She explains that her decision won't jeopardize my visit in two months. How can it not? If she moves with him, it will be after. I had thought it would be immediate. No, he's trying to protect her, too. He wants a safe haven for her like I do. A place where she can heal and grow. We are two sides of the same coin, he and I. At least it seems that way. But only one side can face up. Where is the difference? I tell her I don't want a romance. I have just healed and am learning to walk again and exploring the limits of my healed body. She is still wounded and bleeding. I know the sorrows of a codependent relationship - it is not something I will ever allow myself to enter again. He wants her to live with him, to raise his son with him. So that's the difference we propose. Am I disillusioned to think that my offer is better? I love her and yet deny my love through reason. Can I really give her the space she needs to grow? Can she really heal better without the romantic attachment to another to spur that healing? Am I right to think the romance will warp the healing into enmeshment?
I concede, and we retire for the night. Awkward and stilted. She wants to talk to him before he sleeps. As she talks to him, she offers to play Second Life with me. Desperate and craving, I agree. I need to sleep, my whole body is telling me such, but I need her more.
Second Life is something awkward, yet refreshing. But it is far past my bedtime, and every moment that passes my body is telling me to sleep, and I don't value the time in game as much as I value the time spent talking. Wow. Therein lies a truth I did not see. I stayed up late the night before helping my cousin. I loved myself for that, and it empowered me, despite my lack of energy and sleepiness the day after. Was it that much later than the night before? No. And yes, two nights in a row is more difficult, but it was more than that. My own prejudice taints the activity. I feel the activity is not as healing. I should know better. By my own healing and history, I should know better. I do find some small solace in the places we visit. She talks to me by voice again. My heart sings. We talk and explore and some small contentment seeps into my heart. She needs to go for a bit, I tell her I'm going to sleep.
I couldn't sleep. Agony and anxiety ripped at me. Clawed their way deep into me. I resolved to tell her how I felt. It was unfair that she confided in him before me. It was unfair that she makes time for him and not for me. It was unfair that she chose to spend time talking to him and the only time she wanted to spend with me was to escape. I worried for her. I felt her drifting away and didn't know what to do, and I needed to stop it. I ... I didn't know anymore. I only knew the anguish.
She came back, and fear gripped me again. She doesn't want to talk about these things. But I need to tell her how I feel, right? It's not about her, it's about me. But it is about her, too. It's about us. Talking would drive her away. Admission makes me vulnerable. What if she didn't care that I felt hurt?
Hence courage comes first... we talked. More upheavals, but at least an understanding at the end.We play more; we make tentative plans. I understand how hard it is for her to keep plans as she is. I wake this morning. I let myself sleep late. 1pm meditation. She's put it in the calendar. My heart glows. My own anxiety. How can I do yoga and shop and be back in 2 hours? I will not abandon her. I must be back. What do I sacrifice from myself to do this?
She is still awake? She did not sleep? My brow furrows in consternation. Yet her sleep schedule is fucked. I know this, and she's awake - she's trying to fix it. I tell her my time problems, and she gives me wisdom. Wisdom that I should have known but couldn't access. The yoga is optional - especially the yoga class. The 21 day challenge puts a superficial veneer on it that adds expectation and pressure that, although supposedly to encourage, can also promote desperation, pressure, and unreasonable expectation. I agree and go shopping.
On the way back, I call her. All those times she dialed me driving to and from work - I need to talk to her more. She didn't answer. Was she asleep? Pulling into the garage, past the doorstep, to my computer. She is barely awake, but wants to sleep. Meditation in 20 minutes? No answer. I understand, and I love her for it. My best wishes go out to her, sleeping snug, enraptured away from the troubles of reality. I leave her a note to sleep through the night if she can. I hope she will. I dream that she will be up when I am up tomorrow morning, and that we can connect once again on that same wavelength we once shared .... two souls connected and tied together before either one even knew what happened.
A liquid shuddering starts in my diaphragm, moves up through the leftside of my chest, running through my heart, up my neck, and out the top of my head. The emotions lie there... having been expressed, having overwhelmed, and having no closure. Tears well up in my eyes. I mourn my brother. He should not have left 11 years ago.We were destined on this earth to be together - born two years apart - playmates... who should've grown into touchstones for each other as we navigate this Earth. I cried back then... woke in the middle of the night crying in grief ... bawled in the dewey grass of his grave one year later cursing my abandonment, hating the loss. I don't want to lose my sister - my best friend.
Deep, shuddering breaths... collecting myself - semblance. thought. I'm overreacting - I want, no need, to bring her to happiness. I've experienced such highs this week - and I know the agony of the lows she's in. That was my goal. It was slowly planted there throughout the budding of our friendship - friends help each other out. It was expressed in words scarcely more than a week ago - I would pull her along with me on my journey. It crystallized two days ago late at night - I would help her heal herself like I healed and help her experience happiness. Prior to that night it was simply to help and encourage, now it's to heal.
Since the break of the new year, I've metamorphized. Twenty days, and I've experienced such bliss - and come to touch true happiness. I've never been happy before. Now I am. In this same span, she's gotten steadily worse. Each one of my steps forward has been a step backwards for her. As I advance, she retreats. We marched in lockstep once upon a time. Now I look back and can barely see her at the end of the horizon, the lifeline between us stretched taut to the point of breaking. Indeed, it is fraying and everytime I pull, more individual fibers unravel.
Enough metaphors. The facts. I came home from a blissful experience last night. Something wondrous, ethereal, gossamer. She had missed me while I was gone, and wouldn't talk when I got back. She had wanted to play WoW, but I was away. And besides, scarcely hours earlier I had decided that I was done enabling the escapism that it represented for her, and would try and help her back on her own two feet directly. I told her such, but she never wants to talk about such - about her emotions - her situation - where to go - what to do. I know the feeling - facing any of it feels like a mountain coming down upon you - there is no light at the end of the tunnel, in fact there is no tunnel. the earth is collapsing on top of you and the air is siphoning away. Yet I pressed her anyways, and she withdrew even more.
Why must I press knowing that she will withdraw? Perchance a small hope that my words will sink in and she might listen - perhaps I'm desperate and don't know what else I can do.
She said she didn't want to talk about it - that she was going to give up. She would go give up her life to another and let him tell her what to do. Just last week, she had confided that it wasn't the life she wanted - it was a life she knew she could grow accustomed to - a life she could settle for, but not something she wanted, and certainly not a life of her own choosing. I became frantic, desperate - enraged, furious, pleading.
Looking back now, I believe that my brother's death influenced me. During the evening I had allowed myself to feel grief for him for the first time in years, and I was suddenly confronted with another loss in my life. No, she wouldn't commit suicide, but I felt like she was committing spiritual suicide. Hence, my overreaction.
She was on the phone with him, and could only type to me. My emotions raw, eating away at me. I needed her to understand how I felt - needed to hear the authenticity of her voice, the tenor and tone that would belie the truth beneath her words. I raged, and she relented. Now I could hear her voice, and she could rage back at me. This was her life, her decisions... why am I interfering? If she choses to deal with her state by escapism, then I shouldn't lecture, I shouldn't preach.
I'm sorry - I know the solace of pushing everything away. I just don't want the mountain to suffocate you. I don't want to look up one day and see you gone. That's why I'm trying to pull you up. Trying to give you air to breathe, trying to find you another route. But denial and escapism enshrouds you. If you refuse to see the tunnels I'm trying to carve for you, then you don't have to hope, and don't have to see the rest of the mountain.
We argue. I am timid. I try and be strong. I am afraid of losing her. She explains that her decision won't jeopardize my visit in two months. How can it not? If she moves with him, it will be after. I had thought it would be immediate. No, he's trying to protect her, too. He wants a safe haven for her like I do. A place where she can heal and grow. We are two sides of the same coin, he and I. At least it seems that way. But only one side can face up. Where is the difference? I tell her I don't want a romance. I have just healed and am learning to walk again and exploring the limits of my healed body. She is still wounded and bleeding. I know the sorrows of a codependent relationship - it is not something I will ever allow myself to enter again. He wants her to live with him, to raise his son with him. So that's the difference we propose. Am I disillusioned to think that my offer is better? I love her and yet deny my love through reason. Can I really give her the space she needs to grow? Can she really heal better without the romantic attachment to another to spur that healing? Am I right to think the romance will warp the healing into enmeshment?
I concede, and we retire for the night. Awkward and stilted. She wants to talk to him before he sleeps. As she talks to him, she offers to play Second Life with me. Desperate and craving, I agree. I need to sleep, my whole body is telling me such, but I need her more.
Second Life is something awkward, yet refreshing. But it is far past my bedtime, and every moment that passes my body is telling me to sleep, and I don't value the time in game as much as I value the time spent talking. Wow. Therein lies a truth I did not see. I stayed up late the night before helping my cousin. I loved myself for that, and it empowered me, despite my lack of energy and sleepiness the day after. Was it that much later than the night before? No. And yes, two nights in a row is more difficult, but it was more than that. My own prejudice taints the activity. I feel the activity is not as healing. I should know better. By my own healing and history, I should know better. I do find some small solace in the places we visit. She talks to me by voice again. My heart sings. We talk and explore and some small contentment seeps into my heart. She needs to go for a bit, I tell her I'm going to sleep.
I couldn't sleep. Agony and anxiety ripped at me. Clawed their way deep into me. I resolved to tell her how I felt. It was unfair that she confided in him before me. It was unfair that she makes time for him and not for me. It was unfair that she chose to spend time talking to him and the only time she wanted to spend with me was to escape. I worried for her. I felt her drifting away and didn't know what to do, and I needed to stop it. I ... I didn't know anymore. I only knew the anguish.
She came back, and fear gripped me again. She doesn't want to talk about these things. But I need to tell her how I feel, right? It's not about her, it's about me. But it is about her, too. It's about us. Talking would drive her away. Admission makes me vulnerable. What if she didn't care that I felt hurt?
Hence courage comes first... we talked. More upheavals, but at least an understanding at the end.We play more; we make tentative plans. I understand how hard it is for her to keep plans as she is. I wake this morning. I let myself sleep late. 1pm meditation. She's put it in the calendar. My heart glows. My own anxiety. How can I do yoga and shop and be back in 2 hours? I will not abandon her. I must be back. What do I sacrifice from myself to do this?
She is still awake? She did not sleep? My brow furrows in consternation. Yet her sleep schedule is fucked. I know this, and she's awake - she's trying to fix it. I tell her my time problems, and she gives me wisdom. Wisdom that I should have known but couldn't access. The yoga is optional - especially the yoga class. The 21 day challenge puts a superficial veneer on it that adds expectation and pressure that, although supposedly to encourage, can also promote desperation, pressure, and unreasonable expectation. I agree and go shopping.
On the way back, I call her. All those times she dialed me driving to and from work - I need to talk to her more. She didn't answer. Was she asleep? Pulling into the garage, past the doorstep, to my computer. She is barely awake, but wants to sleep. Meditation in 20 minutes? No answer. I understand, and I love her for it. My best wishes go out to her, sleeping snug, enraptured away from the troubles of reality. I leave her a note to sleep through the night if she can. I hope she will. I dream that she will be up when I am up tomorrow morning, and that we can connect once again on that same wavelength we once shared .... two souls connected and tied together before either one even knew what happened.
Community Darshan
I went to something called a Darshan on Tuesday. It was an amazing experience. There was a group of 8 people who each took turns sitting on a shrine of sorts. When you were on the shrine, your job was to engage each person and lock gazes with them for about 60 seconds or so, in turn. That person was to then write down and remember what they saw in you, expressing it as "I am XXXX." So each person sat there, and spent a minute or so, looking at everyone else... and when you weren't sitting on there, you were watching, watching the person on the shrine locking gazes with someone else, and then with you... and then you experience the gaze, and write down your own thoughts.
The feedback, however, is self-referential. It is expressed as "I am ...", not "You are ..." Why? Because our perception of others is inevitably colored by our perception of ourselves... by our moods, feelings, philosophy, insecurity... What we think and judge in another person is different than what a third person would think and judge of that same person. So in essence, our judgements and what we see in other people is as much or more a reflection of ourselves than of other people. And the exercise illuminates that. People recite out what they saw and observed at the end, and the self-reflection is glaringly obvious. Yes, multiple people will say similar things about one person who sat on the shrine, but even more so, one person will have observations about many different people that all have a similar feel.
The feedback was not all positive. You were supposed to write whatever you felt or saw about the person on the shrine, positive or negative. In truth, the 8 people gathered there were all of a like-mindset - so most of the comments were positive. Some people had 100% positive comments, and other people had mostly insightful, descriptive comments, but there were a handful of negative comments, and of those, most were less judgmental, and more descriptive/observational.
The practice can be done in a different manner, as well. One participant said she had participated in a gathering where they spoke the feelings as they felt them, and directly to the other person, not in a self-referential manner. She described the gathering as very raw and emotional.
People were inspired by me last night, which I find ... very difficult to comprehend and accept. I have been mired in such an inconsequential self-image for so long that to think that people could meet me and be inspired by what I'm doing - my actions and talk - is incongruous with my world-frame. I am a participant, and I am learning from others. There is a shift there wherein I not only participate but also lead, where I not only learn but also teach.
I have had roles in the past where I have done both - I have taught in university classrooms - I have lead a guild. But this was an interpersonal, social setting - and their words caught me entirely by surprise. I was honored.
My journey has been a very personal one. It's one I never expected. This juice feast - I'm on day 12 now - has been tulmultuous and cathartic... It's changed (I haven't written about this yet) into a treatment for my psoriasis into something much more than that. It's become the beginning of a journey. But it's a very personal journey, and it's my own. I've known that with the insight and wisdom and experience I've gained even from just these past two weeks, I can help, advise, and influence others. I just never expected that the influence would come without effort - that by simply talking to people, I could inspire them. I am a deeply flawed person, still, and that I could walk into a room and tell them about my life and they would be touched is incongruous.
The feedback, however, is self-referential. It is expressed as "I am ...", not "You are ..." Why? Because our perception of others is inevitably colored by our perception of ourselves... by our moods, feelings, philosophy, insecurity... What we think and judge in another person is different than what a third person would think and judge of that same person. So in essence, our judgements and what we see in other people is as much or more a reflection of ourselves than of other people. And the exercise illuminates that. People recite out what they saw and observed at the end, and the self-reflection is glaringly obvious. Yes, multiple people will say similar things about one person who sat on the shrine, but even more so, one person will have observations about many different people that all have a similar feel.
The feedback was not all positive. You were supposed to write whatever you felt or saw about the person on the shrine, positive or negative. In truth, the 8 people gathered there were all of a like-mindset - so most of the comments were positive. Some people had 100% positive comments, and other people had mostly insightful, descriptive comments, but there were a handful of negative comments, and of those, most were less judgmental, and more descriptive/observational.
The practice can be done in a different manner, as well. One participant said she had participated in a gathering where they spoke the feelings as they felt them, and directly to the other person, not in a self-referential manner. She described the gathering as very raw and emotional.
People were inspired by me last night, which I find ... very difficult to comprehend and accept. I have been mired in such an inconsequential self-image for so long that to think that people could meet me and be inspired by what I'm doing - my actions and talk - is incongruous with my world-frame. I am a participant, and I am learning from others. There is a shift there wherein I not only participate but also lead, where I not only learn but also teach.
I have had roles in the past where I have done both - I have taught in university classrooms - I have lead a guild. But this was an interpersonal, social setting - and their words caught me entirely by surprise. I was honored.
My journey has been a very personal one. It's one I never expected. This juice feast - I'm on day 12 now - has been tulmultuous and cathartic... It's changed (I haven't written about this yet) into a treatment for my psoriasis into something much more than that. It's become the beginning of a journey. But it's a very personal journey, and it's my own. I've known that with the insight and wisdom and experience I've gained even from just these past two weeks, I can help, advise, and influence others. I just never expected that the influence would come without effort - that by simply talking to people, I could inspire them. I am a deeply flawed person, still, and that I could walk into a room and tell them about my life and they would be touched is incongruous.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The twists and turns of life and fate befall me
The past few days have been filled with elation, upheaval, turmoil, love, catharsis, and healing.
Just as the rains have deluged California, so have emotions deluged me. These last 3 days have been a hurricane, and I have been buffeted about. Miraculously, I think I have come through alive and well. The juice feast is an emotional healing as well as a physical one, and old scars have been ripped open to be redressed and to heal correctly. Suppressed secrets and desires have surfaced to wreak havoc, but exposed to the light of consciousness, they lose their power and wither. Acceptance helps immensely. Acceptance and courage. Courage to tell the truth, no matter your fears, and the courage to face ugliness.
Stay tuned... I will post more in a little bit.
Just as the rains have deluged California, so have emotions deluged me. These last 3 days have been a hurricane, and I have been buffeted about. Miraculously, I think I have come through alive and well. The juice feast is an emotional healing as well as a physical one, and old scars have been ripped open to be redressed and to heal correctly. Suppressed secrets and desires have surfaced to wreak havoc, but exposed to the light of consciousness, they lose their power and wither. Acceptance helps immensely. Acceptance and courage. Courage to tell the truth, no matter your fears, and the courage to face ugliness.
Stay tuned... I will post more in a little bit.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The difference between laziness and self-acceptance
A reader asked:
I accept that I did not achieve a goal and did not accomplish something I wanted to. That is ok, and I still love myself despite that. When something is in the past, there is no use punishing yourself for it. So accept it, soften, and embrace yourself for everything you did accomplish.
I do not accept that I will not achieve my goals in the future. I will not be lazy. That is, in fact, a poor way of saying it. It is better to say I will be proactive and energetic in achieving what I want.That is the future. Do not accept failure in the future, so feel free to press yourself as hard as you want for things you intend to accomplish and do in your life.
Laziness is a state of being that predicts the future. The fact that I didn't finish the last page of my thesis tonight wasn't laziness. It was fact. It's also fact that I did finish 3 pages before that last page.
Laziness would be "I don't intend to finish that last page the rest of this week because I can be easy on myself." That's an attitude about the future that's counterproductive.
So, once again. Once things are past, and you can't control them, accept mistakes and forgive yourself. Soften. For the future, do not be lazy - be proactive - be energetic - strive to get things done.
Another way to put this is: "Don't dwell on the past and on things you can't control. Think about what you can control and what you will do next."
What's the balance between not being to hard on yourself and allowing yourself to be lazy?That's a fantastic question, and I think the answer lies understanding the difference between your actions in the past vs. your actions in the future. Softening is good for the past. Energy (the opposite of laziness) is good for the future.
I accept that I did not achieve a goal and did not accomplish something I wanted to. That is ok, and I still love myself despite that. When something is in the past, there is no use punishing yourself for it. So accept it, soften, and embrace yourself for everything you did accomplish.
I do not accept that I will not achieve my goals in the future. I will not be lazy. That is, in fact, a poor way of saying it. It is better to say I will be proactive and energetic in achieving what I want.That is the future. Do not accept failure in the future, so feel free to press yourself as hard as you want for things you intend to accomplish and do in your life.
Laziness is a state of being that predicts the future. The fact that I didn't finish the last page of my thesis tonight wasn't laziness. It was fact. It's also fact that I did finish 3 pages before that last page.
Laziness would be "I don't intend to finish that last page the rest of this week because I can be easy on myself." That's an attitude about the future that's counterproductive.
So, once again. Once things are past, and you can't control them, accept mistakes and forgive yourself. Soften. For the future, do not be lazy - be proactive - be energetic - strive to get things done.
Another way to put this is: "Don't dwell on the past and on things you can't control. Think about what you can control and what you will do next."
80/20 Rule and Time Management
From Wikipedia:
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule,[1] the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
One of the things I'm trying to do right now is manage my time. I find myself deluged with all the obligations of the juice feast concurrent with maintaining two blogs all while trying to finish my degree. I realized this morning that all of these should fall under the 80/20 rule. I don't need any of these to be perfect. I only need them to be @ 80% proficiency. I have spent so much time on my thesis and my publications that at this point, getting 80% of what remains finished will be enough to push the thesis and the publications out the door. In my juice feast, I am trying to maximize everything I could possibly do to make the juice feast as optimal as possible while trying to cure my psoriasis. That's not necessary. The feast is so incredibly good for me and my body that doing 80% of what I could ideally achieve will be enough to send my psoriasis into remission (maybe not as quickly as 100%, but I can give up a couple weeks). This blog, understanding myself, and my emotional/spiritual evolution is critical to me. But the steps I've been taking and the writing I've been doing don't have to be perfect. They, too can be 80% effective.
I have concluded that spending 20% effort to achieve all three of these at 80% effectiveness will be optimal and will empower me to achieve these goals at this point in my life. I can roughly divide my available day into 20% chunks. In 24 hours, I reserve 8 hours for sleep, getting to sleep, and getting up. That leaves 16 hours. From the remaining 16 hours, I reserve 10% for upkeep and maintenance time. What does that mean? That is time lost from switching tasks, answering phones, checking calendars, etc. It happens constantly and has a low level deleterious effect on activity. This may be overcompensating a bit, but that works. Out of the remaining 14.4 hours, I reserve 2 hours for playtime - goofing off time. This leaves ~12.5 hours, or 5 chunks of 2.5 hours each. These are my productive hours during the day. 2 chunks will be devoted to my thesis and graduation. 2 chunks will be devoted to my health and well-being. 1 chunk will be devoted to this blog, self-empowerment, and cultivating relationships I need in my life.
Thesis and graduation is easy and straightforward - it will be time spent on research, communication, writing to advance towards my degree. This includes travel time on days I have to travel. I should devote a total of 35 hours a week towards this. Health and well-being is also straightforward. These are the life practices and juice feasting I need in order to heal my body and soul. This includes blogging time on Psoriasis Juice Feast, juicing itself, life practices, shopping, and research/reading. The final chunk includes this blog. It includes time spent on facebook cultivating relationships. It also includes time spent on self-empowerment and improvement. I want to make this blog more about self-empowerment. I will be posting about this shortly (when I have time alotted by this system), but I am finding that one of the things that is dawning upon me is how much control I have over the myriad facets of my life, and how I direct my attention and energy. This will be one of the topics I shall cover in this blog.
These are all ballpark and flexible times. But they are goals and guidelines for the week. Time, of course, must be averaged, so one day I may spend up to 10 hours on health, and only 3-4 hours for the next 3-4 days. These guidelines will also be flexible. These figures are simply drawn in pencil and if they don't fit my actual needs, I will adjust them.
The key insight with this post is that I don't need to perfect anything - I need to look at the big picture and understand what I'm doing with my life - and to spend my time accordingly.
Softening Goals
Understanding and love for myself requires patience in achievement of goals. Everything in life is cyclical, and achievement no less. Some days there will be too many things to do and even the smallest, easiest goal can go undone. This is no reason to be angry, mad, or reproachful of oneself. Accept what you have done and move on. Tomorrow is another day and you will achieve everything you want in time.
Creative Dynamo
Holy shit. I'm not quite sure what happened, but my mind has been a creative dynamo all morning. I have a million ideas jangling around inside my head atm. Here's a quick list of them, and then I'll start breaking things down in depth in later blog posts.
(1) 80/20 rule and time management: 1 part blog/self-empowerment, 2 parts thesis, 2 parts healing, after maintenance and upkeep. Long-term project time-management - chunking blocks of time.
(2) Blogging Self-Empowerment
(3) Self-help for the Scientist
(4) Spirituality for the Atheist
(5) Tell mom about NYE. Understanding acceptance, fear, doubt, and shame.
(6) Goal: Understanding the connection between self-help and spirituality
(7) Goal: Understanding the link between neuroscience and spirituality, neuroscience and self-help.
(8) Self-improvement: daily baby steps and changes.
(9) Psoriasis, Depression, and Shame.
(10) Goals: Societal changes: Self-empowerment needs to be taught in the educational system. Self-empowerment needs to be part of the welfare system.
(11) Psoriasis: Understanding the Feast as an evolving Hero's Journey with changing goals.
(12) Psoriasis Healing: the role of topicals, self-empowerment, and positive energy.
(13) Seduction: Understanding the seduction literature as self-empowerment.
(1) 80/20 rule and time management: 1 part blog/self-empowerment, 2 parts thesis, 2 parts healing, after maintenance and upkeep. Long-term project time-management - chunking blocks of time.
(2) Blogging Self-Empowerment
(3) Self-help for the Scientist
(4) Spirituality for the Atheist
(5) Tell mom about NYE. Understanding acceptance, fear, doubt, and shame.
(6) Goal: Understanding the connection between self-help and spirituality
(7) Goal: Understanding the link between neuroscience and spirituality, neuroscience and self-help.
(8) Self-improvement: daily baby steps and changes.
(9) Psoriasis, Depression, and Shame.
(10) Goals: Societal changes: Self-empowerment needs to be taught in the educational system. Self-empowerment needs to be part of the welfare system.
(11) Psoriasis: Understanding the Feast as an evolving Hero's Journey with changing goals.
(12) Psoriasis Healing: the role of topicals, self-empowerment, and positive energy.
(13) Seduction: Understanding the seduction literature as self-empowerment.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
How inrtpoamt is sleniplg?
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Yoga Musings: Drishti, Myopia, and Presbyopia
Drishti is where you direct your gaze during yoga poses. It's underemphasized in yoga teaching. There are some standard places where you can settle your eyes. In many forward facing poses, eg. Warrior I & II, you gaze out at the horizon. In other poses, you gaze out at your hand or fingers. Still others, you gaze, or at least try to gaze, at your own nose or you roll your eyes up and try to gaze at your third eye (spot between the brows).
Myopia, or earsightedness develops in children, teens, and sometimes adults. While growing up, I always thought my nearsightedness was genetic. It isn't. It's a direct result of muscular action. Most myopia is, actually. My advisor always likes to give the anecdote about the airforce here. When the airforce started recruiting pilots, they had to find extremely intelligent men with perfect eyesight. Well, most intelligent students go through our school system and end up with myopia. Why? Studying and reading books. The airforce ended up identifying students who were so smart that they never studies. These were its ideal recruits. The problem is, once they were recruited, they then had to study to become pilots. Yep. This involved a lot of reading. After pilot training all these genius students had lost their perfect vision. Finally, someone came up with a solution and gave all these pilots reading glasses.
When we read, our muscles contract around the eye to change our focal plane to the distance of the book. When this happens for long hours at a time, say reading, writing, or working on the computer, the eyeball slowly gets pulled out of shape. Our natural, resting focal plane slowly becomes closer. It was on the horizon. When we are +1.00 diopters myopic, it's at 1m, +2.00 diopters gives us 0.5m, +3.00 diopters gives us 0.25m, and so forth. Reading glasses readjust the focal plane so that our resting focal plane is @ 1m or 0.5m, allowing us to focus on something at that distance without having to use our muscles to adjust our focal plane. Thus, long hours spent don't involve long hours of muscles pulling on the eyeball, slowly bending the eyeball out of shape. Contemporary optometry, unfortunately, does the exact opposite. When a child becomes myopic, they can no longer focus well on the horizon, so we give them negative diopter lenses so that their focal plane moves back to the horizon. Then the child sits down and studies, and parents and teachers tell them to wear their glasses. Well, the glasses make them focus at the horizon, so their muscles have to pull again to make the focal distance closer. The child gets more near-sighted, the doctor then gives him or her stronger glasses, and the next time the child reads, the muscles have to pull again. The dance continues and we get people like myself with -8.50 diopters of myopia.
Why am I bringing all this up? I think daily yoga practice with a strong emphasis on drishti can halt or slow presbyopia and reverse near-sightedness. Halting myopia is easy. Hell, just giving a kid reading glasses will halt the development of myopia. Reversing it is another matter. There are a few infomercial kits who say they can reverse it. I purchased one once, it involved a lot of exercises requiring constant switching of close and far focal points. I believe the idea is that this develops the muscles in the eye which control focusing. They also had some practices like putting a warm towel on your eyes. I'm not sure what end that serves, but it perhaps relaxes muscles and possibly the eyeball, allowing the eyeball to revert to its original shape more easily.
An hour long yoga practice with strong emphasis on drishti would involve constant refocusing and movement of the eyes. This serves the same purpose and should exercise the muscles enough so that presbyopia does not set in. As for reversing myopia, the same principle that applied in making one myopic may apply. I'd have to look at some eyeball anatomy to be sure, but there may be a set of muscles antagonistic to the primary flexing muscles which cause myopia. These may enable one to stretch the eyeball in a manner as to reduce myopia. To engage these you would have a natural focal distance of say 1m or 5m, and then attempt to focus on the horizon. That is to say, if you used slightly less optimal contacts or glasses, you wouldn't see the horizon perfectly, and would have a natural focal distance closer than infinity. By attempting to focus on infinity, you would be reversing the action that caused myopia, and perhaps cause your vision to improve.
PS> One of the more annoying things during a yoga class is to have a teacher who doesn't speak loudly enough. A student is flowing through the poses, and the vocal prompt of the teacher invites the next movement. This allows one to focus on the now, the breath, the movement. When the instructions aren't heard clearly, the yoga student is for a moment, directionless, or even worse, misunderstands the next instruction, and realizes it after already entering the wrong pose. When directionless, you are distracted and preoccupied with trying to find out the next pose, or puzzling at what the instructor said. In this manner, at least, entering the wrong pose is slightly better. There is less distraction and querying, and the easy decision is to just immediately switch poses, albeit at a loss of time and tempo and therefore depth within the next pose.
So I've been doing yoga daily for over a week straight now.
Myopia, or earsightedness develops in children, teens, and sometimes adults. While growing up, I always thought my nearsightedness was genetic. It isn't. It's a direct result of muscular action. Most myopia is, actually. My advisor always likes to give the anecdote about the airforce here. When the airforce started recruiting pilots, they had to find extremely intelligent men with perfect eyesight. Well, most intelligent students go through our school system and end up with myopia. Why? Studying and reading books. The airforce ended up identifying students who were so smart that they never studies. These were its ideal recruits. The problem is, once they were recruited, they then had to study to become pilots. Yep. This involved a lot of reading. After pilot training all these genius students had lost their perfect vision. Finally, someone came up with a solution and gave all these pilots reading glasses.
When we read, our muscles contract around the eye to change our focal plane to the distance of the book. When this happens for long hours at a time, say reading, writing, or working on the computer, the eyeball slowly gets pulled out of shape. Our natural, resting focal plane slowly becomes closer. It was on the horizon. When we are +1.00 diopters myopic, it's at 1m, +2.00 diopters gives us 0.5m, +3.00 diopters gives us 0.25m, and so forth. Reading glasses readjust the focal plane so that our resting focal plane is @ 1m or 0.5m, allowing us to focus on something at that distance without having to use our muscles to adjust our focal plane. Thus, long hours spent don't involve long hours of muscles pulling on the eyeball, slowly bending the eyeball out of shape. Contemporary optometry, unfortunately, does the exact opposite. When a child becomes myopic, they can no longer focus well on the horizon, so we give them negative diopter lenses so that their focal plane moves back to the horizon. Then the child sits down and studies, and parents and teachers tell them to wear their glasses. Well, the glasses make them focus at the horizon, so their muscles have to pull again to make the focal distance closer. The child gets more near-sighted, the doctor then gives him or her stronger glasses, and the next time the child reads, the muscles have to pull again. The dance continues and we get people like myself with -8.50 diopters of myopia.
Why am I bringing all this up? I think daily yoga practice with a strong emphasis on drishti can halt or slow presbyopia and reverse near-sightedness. Halting myopia is easy. Hell, just giving a kid reading glasses will halt the development of myopia. Reversing it is another matter. There are a few infomercial kits who say they can reverse it. I purchased one once, it involved a lot of exercises requiring constant switching of close and far focal points. I believe the idea is that this develops the muscles in the eye which control focusing. They also had some practices like putting a warm towel on your eyes. I'm not sure what end that serves, but it perhaps relaxes muscles and possibly the eyeball, allowing the eyeball to revert to its original shape more easily.
An hour long yoga practice with strong emphasis on drishti would involve constant refocusing and movement of the eyes. This serves the same purpose and should exercise the muscles enough so that presbyopia does not set in. As for reversing myopia, the same principle that applied in making one myopic may apply. I'd have to look at some eyeball anatomy to be sure, but there may be a set of muscles antagonistic to the primary flexing muscles which cause myopia. These may enable one to stretch the eyeball in a manner as to reduce myopia. To engage these you would have a natural focal distance of say 1m or 5m, and then attempt to focus on the horizon. That is to say, if you used slightly less optimal contacts or glasses, you wouldn't see the horizon perfectly, and would have a natural focal distance closer than infinity. By attempting to focus on infinity, you would be reversing the action that caused myopia, and perhaps cause your vision to improve.
PS> One of the more annoying things during a yoga class is to have a teacher who doesn't speak loudly enough. A student is flowing through the poses, and the vocal prompt of the teacher invites the next movement. This allows one to focus on the now, the breath, the movement. When the instructions aren't heard clearly, the yoga student is for a moment, directionless, or even worse, misunderstands the next instruction, and realizes it after already entering the wrong pose. When directionless, you are distracted and preoccupied with trying to find out the next pose, or puzzling at what the instructor said. In this manner, at least, entering the wrong pose is slightly better. There is less distraction and querying, and the easy decision is to just immediately switch poses, albeit at a loss of time and tempo and therefore depth within the next pose.
So I've been doing yoga daily for over a week straight now.
Blog Competition, Bad Blogging
So I started my juice feast on saturday, and that's the reason my posting has slowed down to a crawl. I do have a lot I want to post, but transitioning onto the feast has taken a huge amount of my time.
I did want to relate something Renee said to me tonight. She said that I should make my blog something I do badly. As I've related in past posts, I have a perfectionist attitude, and it gets so bad that I'd rather sabotage something I'm doing than not do it well enough. So having something that I do badly is a good exercise for me, and I can practice not putting a lot of effort into something yet still getting it done.
I've decided this is something I'd like to try. I have so many posts I've wanted to talk about, but I never feel I have enough time to expound upon the topic in enough detail and thought. I can post ideas in draft form, and be okay with leaving them incomplete and imperfect. This decision, however, was a scary one. Scary and difficult. What do I fear? I fear producing less than stellar work - I fear what people will think, and how they will judge me.
I did want to relate something Renee said to me tonight. She said that I should make my blog something I do badly. As I've related in past posts, I have a perfectionist attitude, and it gets so bad that I'd rather sabotage something I'm doing than not do it well enough. So having something that I do badly is a good exercise for me, and I can practice not putting a lot of effort into something yet still getting it done.
I've decided this is something I'd like to try. I have so many posts I've wanted to talk about, but I never feel I have enough time to expound upon the topic in enough detail and thought. I can post ideas in draft form, and be okay with leaving them incomplete and imperfect. This decision, however, was a scary one. Scary and difficult. What do I fear? I fear producing less than stellar work - I fear what people will think, and how they will judge me.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
How I feel
When grapes turn to wine, they long for our ability to change.
When stars wheel around the North Pole, they are longing for our growing consciousness.
Wine got drunk with us, not the other way.
The body developed out of us, not we from it.
We are bees and our body is a honeycomb.
We made the body, cell by cell, we made it.
-Rumi
When stars wheel around the North Pole, they are longing for our growing consciousness.
Wine got drunk with us, not the other way.
The body developed out of us, not we from it.
We are bees and our body is a honeycomb.
We made the body, cell by cell, we made it.
-Rumi
Friday, January 8, 2010
Synchronicities
Do they really happen? I first learned about the concept from Masks of the Illuminati which implied a higher purpose to synchronous events. There are two concepts surrounding synchronicity.
Firstly, there is the simple definition that they are causally unrelated events that have meaning in common, and would unlikely to happen by mere chance.
Secondly, there is the spiritual inference that synchronicity implies some higher power at work, some grand plan or meaning.
I've started surrounding myself with love and nurturing friends, and out of the blue my cousin calls me. She is an adorable 19 year old that I've always gotten along with well. We talk, and it turns out she's at a very similar point in her life. She's wise beyond her years. I never would've had the wisdom to acknowledge what she knows is true about life. She's not yet happy, and is still struggling with finding herself, learning to love and respect herself. But to understand that this is the path she must travel and complete is an amazing insight for one so young. I envy her that. I only learned it much much later, myself. So we talked, and I love her, she's adorable.
Is that synchronicity? I was at the drugstore today, and the pharmacist who I've talked to in the past mentioned that 2009 ended really slowly, but 2010 became a big upstroke, and I mentioned how it was the same with me. Then she mentioned synchronicities, and of course, I had already started thinking of them since my cousin called. One website I read mentioned that when you let love and spirituality into your life, synchronicities happen and life becomes better. Here 2010 is, and it's coming true...
Or is it? The atheist's scientific response: The human mind is conditioned to seek out patterns - in essence it's a pattern recognition machine. With the millions of events that occur every day, and the billions that occur over the course of your life, many causally unrelated events will have similar meaning. Statistically, there is a high likelihood that any week out of the year will contain several coincidental causally unrelated, but meaning related events that occur. The brain is hard-wired to recognize this kind of pattern.
Yes, when we live with a more positive outlook, we are more attuned to positive, loving things. When this is part of our perception, we will tend to recognize events and patterns in alignment with that attitude. Would these events, patterns, opportunities have been there if we were depressed with a negative outlook? If causally unrelated to our actions, yes, they would have been. Would we have recognized them and seen the pattern? Most likely not. So it is our attunement to positive, loving events and the glowing attitude that suffuses us that allows our pattern recognition software to identify these patterns.
Some people report that synchronicities occur and then keep happening - assigning meaning and an "unseen hand," to the string of synchronicities. Two mechanisms are at work. Just like you get better at finding Waldo after flipping through 10 pages of Where's Waldo puzzles, your brain gets better at identifying synchronicities after several have occurred. So the probability that you will detect synchronicities increase the more synchronicities that you experience. Note that the probability that they occur does not increase, just the probability that you detect them. The second mechanism is one of population statistics. For every person that reports a string of five synchronicities, there may be 100 people who report only two synchronicities, 20 people who report only three, and 10 people who report only four synchronicities. That one person you know who has had a string of synchronicities is lucky. That one person has also only experienced two in a row before - maybe last month. Or only three in a row before - last year. It's just that we recognize the outlier that is five events in a row and want to assign special meaning to it.
Thus, however wonderful they are to experience and to live through, synchronicities are not magical or special - they are simply statistically expected. That is not to say that one shouldn't grab onto the experience of multiple synchronicities and love and enjoy the wonderment of them for all one's worth. You should always grab life and try and squeeze as much joy and elation out of it as possible.
Firstly, there is the simple definition that they are causally unrelated events that have meaning in common, and would unlikely to happen by mere chance.
Secondly, there is the spiritual inference that synchronicity implies some higher power at work, some grand plan or meaning.
I've started surrounding myself with love and nurturing friends, and out of the blue my cousin calls me. She is an adorable 19 year old that I've always gotten along with well. We talk, and it turns out she's at a very similar point in her life. She's wise beyond her years. I never would've had the wisdom to acknowledge what she knows is true about life. She's not yet happy, and is still struggling with finding herself, learning to love and respect herself. But to understand that this is the path she must travel and complete is an amazing insight for one so young. I envy her that. I only learned it much much later, myself. So we talked, and I love her, she's adorable.
Is that synchronicity? I was at the drugstore today, and the pharmacist who I've talked to in the past mentioned that 2009 ended really slowly, but 2010 became a big upstroke, and I mentioned how it was the same with me. Then she mentioned synchronicities, and of course, I had already started thinking of them since my cousin called. One website I read mentioned that when you let love and spirituality into your life, synchronicities happen and life becomes better. Here 2010 is, and it's coming true...
Or is it? The atheist's scientific response: The human mind is conditioned to seek out patterns - in essence it's a pattern recognition machine. With the millions of events that occur every day, and the billions that occur over the course of your life, many causally unrelated events will have similar meaning. Statistically, there is a high likelihood that any week out of the year will contain several coincidental causally unrelated, but meaning related events that occur. The brain is hard-wired to recognize this kind of pattern.
Yes, when we live with a more positive outlook, we are more attuned to positive, loving things. When this is part of our perception, we will tend to recognize events and patterns in alignment with that attitude. Would these events, patterns, opportunities have been there if we were depressed with a negative outlook? If causally unrelated to our actions, yes, they would have been. Would we have recognized them and seen the pattern? Most likely not. So it is our attunement to positive, loving events and the glowing attitude that suffuses us that allows our pattern recognition software to identify these patterns.
Some people report that synchronicities occur and then keep happening - assigning meaning and an "unseen hand," to the string of synchronicities. Two mechanisms are at work. Just like you get better at finding Waldo after flipping through 10 pages of Where's Waldo puzzles, your brain gets better at identifying synchronicities after several have occurred. So the probability that you will detect synchronicities increase the more synchronicities that you experience. Note that the probability that they occur does not increase, just the probability that you detect them. The second mechanism is one of population statistics. For every person that reports a string of five synchronicities, there may be 100 people who report only two synchronicities, 20 people who report only three, and 10 people who report only four synchronicities. That one person you know who has had a string of synchronicities is lucky. That one person has also only experienced two in a row before - maybe last month. Or only three in a row before - last year. It's just that we recognize the outlier that is five events in a row and want to assign special meaning to it.
Thus, however wonderful they are to experience and to live through, synchronicities are not magical or special - they are simply statistically expected. That is not to say that one shouldn't grab onto the experience of multiple synchronicities and love and enjoy the wonderment of them for all one's worth. You should always grab life and try and squeeze as much joy and elation out of it as possible.
Inspiration and Shame in Blogging
Inspiration is a big part of posting. This blog wasn't meant for a purpose - it was to enable me to help speak. I've decided to forget about some of the stale posts that have been sitting around for a week. If they never get finished, big deal. At the time I initially created them, I had the inspiration to transmute feelings into words, but once that inspiration fades, there is little impetus to continue a stale thought. Thus, the post hangs on in the background, a constant reminder of what I wanted to do but didn't do.
I wrote the above yesterday night, trying to understand why I had stopped blogging. Although there is truth in it, I realized tonight during yoga that the major reason why I had stopped blogging was the shame. Self-expectations with regards to how much and how often I would post... with respect to what I would accomplish, what wonders I would create... and then a failure to meet those expectations and the accompanying shame. That is the crippling reason why I stopped posting - why I started avoiding posting, even.
I release myself from any expectation on how often I will post, or on what quality or kind of posts I shall create. Rather, this is just a place for me to write my thoughts, share my soul, drip my blood.
Additionally, I may practice self-love in the form of appreciating, nay lauding my accomplishments, and accepting my limits. It's normal and natural and even expected to want to accomplish things and not reach them. Take joy in what you have done, and internalize that I am enough. I have enough... I have accomplished enough. I love.
Yoga, Movement, Emotion, and Healing
I almost cried in yoga today. Emotions overwhelmed me... I broke down in laughter... I felt tears well up, I submitted and let relief, joy, sadness, guilt wash over me, pound down upon me, and through me... using me up, and finally leech out of me.
Self-expectations are the bane of my existence. The first therapist I spent significant time with mentioned that I have this preoccupation of things I should be doing, that I thought of everything in terms of shoulds... I've been haunted by unmet expectations, unfulfilled potential, buried myself under a mountain of shame for all the things I have failed at, and I throw roadblock after roadblock in front of any progress I attempt in life, never measuring up - never reaching the should, never enough.
I released myself from these chains that bind on New Year's Eve... unbeknownst to me the chains crawled back in the guise of self-improvement, productivity, activity. They started settling into place a few days ago, and started leeching joy and self-acceptance from my life, replacing self-acceptance with self-criticism, self-flagellation, dissatisfaction, self-recrimination. Even the smallest whispers have tendrils that latch on and start to choke.
Inhale.... exhale... movement... rise... breathe... extend... *CRASH* the guilt and shame overwhelmed me ... crushed me ... I knew the old demon ... and the depths of my soul wanted me to echo his malicious lies. I thought about the failure of the past few days... and I collapsed ... in laughter. How far have I come that the past few days, where I have accomplished so much: driven 3 hours to keep 4 appointments, returned home late, connected with friends, woken up hours early to attend yoga, completed a 24 hour clear liquid fast, undergone a major medical procedure, nurtured a myriad of social connections, all the while keeping a reasonably healthy diet the rest of the time, I would consider a failure. The demon indeed is an ancient, destructive wyrmling that resides in the depths of my unconsciousness, but it was learned in my youth. Yes, it was learned. It speaks not truth, but a biased web of half-truths tinted by the ashen colors of shame. Recognize this, understand it, and know that it will cease to have power. I thought of that golden child, a pure, unbesmirched, force of energy within me... a self untainted, but full of potential, and worthy of love, respect, and honor. Embrace that child for that is who I am.
Self-expectations are the bane of my existence. The first therapist I spent significant time with mentioned that I have this preoccupation of things I should be doing, that I thought of everything in terms of shoulds... I've been haunted by unmet expectations, unfulfilled potential, buried myself under a mountain of shame for all the things I have failed at, and I throw roadblock after roadblock in front of any progress I attempt in life, never measuring up - never reaching the should, never enough.
I released myself from these chains that bind on New Year's Eve... unbeknownst to me the chains crawled back in the guise of self-improvement, productivity, activity. They started settling into place a few days ago, and started leeching joy and self-acceptance from my life, replacing self-acceptance with self-criticism, self-flagellation, dissatisfaction, self-recrimination. Even the smallest whispers have tendrils that latch on and start to choke.
Inhale.... exhale... movement... rise... breathe... extend... *CRASH* the guilt and shame overwhelmed me ... crushed me ... I knew the old demon ... and the depths of my soul wanted me to echo his malicious lies. I thought about the failure of the past few days... and I collapsed ... in laughter. How far have I come that the past few days, where I have accomplished so much: driven 3 hours to keep 4 appointments, returned home late, connected with friends, woken up hours early to attend yoga, completed a 24 hour clear liquid fast, undergone a major medical procedure, nurtured a myriad of social connections, all the while keeping a reasonably healthy diet the rest of the time, I would consider a failure. The demon indeed is an ancient, destructive wyrmling that resides in the depths of my unconsciousness, but it was learned in my youth. Yes, it was learned. It speaks not truth, but a biased web of half-truths tinted by the ashen colors of shame. Recognize this, understand it, and know that it will cease to have power. I thought of that golden child, a pure, unbesmirched, force of energy within me... a self untainted, but full of potential, and worthy of love, respect, and honor. Embrace that child for that is who I am.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Blogging, Honesty, and Anonymity
I learned on Sunday the 3rd that at least one person I know is reading this blog. He loved it. But I think that knowledge made me start to self-censor. Why? I am still not comfortable with all my thoughts. The mind and the soul are deep and not all thoughts are beautiful. I fear that some may be ugly when the light of inspection is brought upon them. But who does not have demons in their hearts? It is with acceptance... of myself that I struggle. I told my best friend that blogging for me was like writing in a journal. Except when one writes in a journal they know that no one else will read it without their permission. I fear I have no control.
I know of at least two people in my life who can read this blog. The person mentioned above, and I know that he is a wonderful, non-judgmental, loving human who wouldn't think any less of me, regardless. The second person, well, let's just say that if there are ugly things in my heart, she's already seen them. However, there are countless people who may have accessed my blog at one time or another from my facebook page. Although a little scary, it's something I'm willing to live with. I did de-link my blog from my facebook, and one day I may be comfortable enough to re-link it, but for now any direct access is gone.
This blog is meant to be a place for me to speak, to be able to formulate thoughts, ideas, feelings into words. This includes the ability to purge and bare my soul about feelings I have for people in my life that are important to me. I don't have to include real names, but the slate must be available for me to write about these.
This is one of the reasons for the censoring. I needed to talk out some feelings from a crisis last night, and I didn't want to post here for fear that the person I'm posting about might read it. I guess for now, I will hide under the shroud of anonymity if it allows me to speak freely. Perhaps when I am used to speaking my mind with frankness, honesty, and openness then I will lift the shroud.
I know of at least two people in my life who can read this blog. The person mentioned above, and I know that he is a wonderful, non-judgmental, loving human who wouldn't think any less of me, regardless. The second person, well, let's just say that if there are ugly things in my heart, she's already seen them. However, there are countless people who may have accessed my blog at one time or another from my facebook page. Although a little scary, it's something I'm willing to live with. I did de-link my blog from my facebook, and one day I may be comfortable enough to re-link it, but for now any direct access is gone.
This blog is meant to be a place for me to speak, to be able to formulate thoughts, ideas, feelings into words. This includes the ability to purge and bare my soul about feelings I have for people in my life that are important to me. I don't have to include real names, but the slate must be available for me to write about these.
This is one of the reasons for the censoring. I needed to talk out some feelings from a crisis last night, and I didn't want to post here for fear that the person I'm posting about might read it. I guess for now, I will hide under the shroud of anonymity if it allows me to speak freely. Perhaps when I am used to speaking my mind with frankness, honesty, and openness then I will lift the shroud.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Spirituality, Business Acumen, and Propagation
It occurs to me that the spiritual people I know who lead very happy fulfilling lives are in the minority. They make these changes and love life so much that they want to go out and help other people make similar changes in their lives. But the community remains small. Shouldn't something so wondrous and beautiful spread like wildfire throughout the population until people everywhere are beatified by it?
Why are the idols we worship businessmen and politicians - the ones who have business acumen and succeed at garnering money or power. This is because money and power are two of the main accepted measuring sticks of success. But happiness is also an accepted measuring stick of success. There's a disconnect here, and the source of the disconnect is power.
What is power? In essence it is the ability to influence: to influence people, and thereby events and outcomes. Money and power are closely intertwined, and very rarely do you have one without the other. Money however is merely a king whereas power is the emperor.
Happiness however has naught to do with money or power. It provides neither the ability to influence people directly nor the ability to buy that influence. Thus, in the PR war of "what is success" and what defines "successful," happiness, although given lip-service, is never trumped by money or power.
There's another element at play here, and it's an even more insidious one. Many of the people who acquire money or power do so at the expense of happiness. Some are simply naive workaholics who have learned to overachieve in order to cover up intrinsic shame and unhappiness: many of Bradshaw's type A overachievers fit this profile. They are trying for happiness via success at acquiring money or power, but don't realize that the happiness needs to start much closer to home and in much more humble beginnings. However many are people who consciously gave up happiness for money or power. This happens either through a conscious life decision to pursue money or power at the expense of pursuiting a more humble happier life, or through the use of deception, lies, and trickery. It is this last group that actually has an agenda at suffocating happiness in others.
Why this dissertation? All of the above is fairly common knowledge or at least feels like common sense. Because it seems to me there must be a way to better propagate spirituality and the happiness that's associated with it. Business acumen and spirituality don't have to be at odds. I have this notion that power and the acquisition of power plays a little fast and loose with morals and that in so doing, it loses a lot of the strength of spirituality. When I refer to business acumen, I refer to the instinct of truly successful businessmen who understand how to acquire power. But again, although it feels like they are at odds, I don't think they have to be. I think there must be a way to use business acumen to propagate spirituality in a good way.
It scares me that the more I think about this the more I think about the conservative Christian movement. That is not the model I'm looking for.
Why are the idols we worship businessmen and politicians - the ones who have business acumen and succeed at garnering money or power. This is because money and power are two of the main accepted measuring sticks of success. But happiness is also an accepted measuring stick of success. There's a disconnect here, and the source of the disconnect is power.
What is power? In essence it is the ability to influence: to influence people, and thereby events and outcomes. Money and power are closely intertwined, and very rarely do you have one without the other. Money however is merely a king whereas power is the emperor.
Happiness however has naught to do with money or power. It provides neither the ability to influence people directly nor the ability to buy that influence. Thus, in the PR war of "what is success" and what defines "successful," happiness, although given lip-service, is never trumped by money or power.
There's another element at play here, and it's an even more insidious one. Many of the people who acquire money or power do so at the expense of happiness. Some are simply naive workaholics who have learned to overachieve in order to cover up intrinsic shame and unhappiness: many of Bradshaw's type A overachievers fit this profile. They are trying for happiness via success at acquiring money or power, but don't realize that the happiness needs to start much closer to home and in much more humble beginnings. However many are people who consciously gave up happiness for money or power. This happens either through a conscious life decision to pursue money or power at the expense of pursuiting a more humble happier life, or through the use of deception, lies, and trickery. It is this last group that actually has an agenda at suffocating happiness in others.
Why this dissertation? All of the above is fairly common knowledge or at least feels like common sense. Because it seems to me there must be a way to better propagate spirituality and the happiness that's associated with it. Business acumen and spirituality don't have to be at odds. I have this notion that power and the acquisition of power plays a little fast and loose with morals and that in so doing, it loses a lot of the strength of spirituality. When I refer to business acumen, I refer to the instinct of truly successful businessmen who understand how to acquire power. But again, although it feels like they are at odds, I don't think they have to be. I think there must be a way to use business acumen to propagate spirituality in a good way.
It scares me that the more I think about this the more I think about the conservative Christian movement. That is not the model I'm looking for.
Talking is Harder than it Looks
So wow, after a flood of posts during days 0-3 days, and then a flood of ideas for posts during days 2-4, I completely skipped a day on the 4th, and haven't posted all day yet on the 5th. Two things worth mentioning.
Firstly, I have a bevy of drafts of posts in the works. However, time passes while they wait for me to get back to them. I don't know whether they will mature with wine as I add to them again and again until they're ready to post, or they will grow sour and become unpalatable from disuse and incomplete thoughts. If more of them come out the former, then this method of posting works. If most of them turn into the latter, I'll have to revise this strategy of creating incomplete posts and going back to them again and again for something more immediate.
Secondly, I think I started letting thoughts linger in idea-space again, too long, rather than get them down on paper. It's the reason I started this in the first place, and I find it is quite easy to lose the momentum of actually verbalizing the thoughts, letting them stay nebulous and unformed.
Firstly, I have a bevy of drafts of posts in the works. However, time passes while they wait for me to get back to them. I don't know whether they will mature with wine as I add to them again and again until they're ready to post, or they will grow sour and become unpalatable from disuse and incomplete thoughts. If more of them come out the former, then this method of posting works. If most of them turn into the latter, I'll have to revise this strategy of creating incomplete posts and going back to them again and again for something more immediate.
Secondly, I think I started letting thoughts linger in idea-space again, too long, rather than get them down on paper. It's the reason I started this in the first place, and I find it is quite easy to lose the momentum of actually verbalizing the thoughts, letting them stay nebulous and unformed.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Introspection
I was thinking yesterday about how blogging is changing my life. It seems to be providing me a clarity and structure to my thoughts. I think one of the things that is happening is that the process of blogging is providing me the opportunity to analyze and decipher my own thoughts and moods. For me, blogging is a form of introspection. Whereby my blogging attempts to capture moods and thoughts and spill them onto paper in a coherent structure, the process of blogging illuminates the inner workings of the cognitive process - how thoughts evolve into feelings and feelings into moods, and how moods influence thoughts. The basic tenets of Cognitive Therapy come to mind: There is a feedback loop from thoughts to moods to behavior and back again. Blogging is allowing me to break the feedback loop via observation. The mere act of observing and monitoring the feedback loop means I can stop it at any time.
This hearkens back to the early days of psychology via introspection. Turn of the century psychology was plagued with introspection, with such psychological luminaries as William James and Wilhelm Wundt engaging in it. I always thought of turn-of-the-century introspection as a psychologist or subject sitting there and thinking things out. That's not exactly what's going on in my blogging, though. The difference lies in the fact that my blogging as introspection occurs over a more prolonged period of time, and the thoughts are crystallized and refined via the process of communication. Pure thought in and of itself leaves things too nebulous and indistinct. I suppose the sitting there as introspection would eventually have to be communicated via diary or essay or writing, but that's as a lump sum. One of the things I'm doing while blogging is thinking things out part and parcel and communicating it all.
This hearkens back to the early days of psychology via introspection. Turn of the century psychology was plagued with introspection, with such psychological luminaries as William James and Wilhelm Wundt engaging in it. I always thought of turn-of-the-century introspection as a psychologist or subject sitting there and thinking things out. That's not exactly what's going on in my blogging, though. The difference lies in the fact that my blogging as introspection occurs over a more prolonged period of time, and the thoughts are crystallized and refined via the process of communication. Pure thought in and of itself leaves things too nebulous and indistinct. I suppose the sitting there as introspection would eventually have to be communicated via diary or essay or writing, but that's as a lump sum. One of the things I'm doing while blogging is thinking things out part and parcel and communicating it all.
Dictionary and Thesaurus rant
I forgot the word "sycophant." I tried to use the word "flatter" to get there. No dice. www.m-w.com, www.dictionary.com, neither worked. I even googled best online dictionary, and got nothing. I looked up American Heritage dictionary, one of my old paper standbys, but they don't seem to have an online version. Finally, the word came to me. But seriously, the two meanings are not that far apart. Is it too much to ask for a competent online dictionary/thesaurus?
Oops, I just checked thesaurus for "flatterer." M-w.com fails. Dictionary.com gave it. Perhaps it's my own impaired usage of the tools at hand. But honestly, I haven't been impressed by either of the set of definitions I gain from the two above sites. The thesauruses have been much less useful, but at least there the problem may lie with my own usage of the resources.
Oops, I just checked thesaurus for "flatterer." M-w.com fails. Dictionary.com gave it. Perhaps it's my own impaired usage of the tools at hand. But honestly, I haven't been impressed by either of the set of definitions I gain from the two above sites. The thesauruses have been much less useful, but at least there the problem may lie with my own usage of the resources.
Quick notes
Ok. This whole thing is getting a bit ridiculous. I have posts in the work about Introspection, Focus and Distraction, and Music. OK. not even posts. Subject headings that were supposed to encapsulate whole ideas/concepts that I would put into words when I have time. I just added two topics today: Cognitive Science and the Numinous, and Atheism as a parasite. Both were spurred by conversations I had this morning in the farmer's market. I'm worried that the former three topics will have gotten lost and/or watered down by the time I get to them. Perhaps I need to rethink this one word topic methodology of deciding post content.
On top of that, I have yoga later, and must get work done on my thesis. Too much to do and so little time. le sigh.
UPDATED: Alright, I went ahead and added blurbs for all 5 of the topics above. I noticed that the two new topics have significantly more flesh to them than the older topics. I'll change my posting methodology to more than single subject topics - I'll have to force myself to write a short paragraph or outline of the post contents so that I can trigger my memory later when I have time to flesh out the post. I'm going to be entering a time management crunch soon, I can tell. Too much to do and not enough time. This will be the first time for me this time around the wheel, as my recent past has been plagued/blessed with too much free time due to not taking on projects and responsibilities. Time to refocus meta thoughts on time management as well, perhaps.
On top of that, I have yoga later, and must get work done on my thesis. Too much to do and so little time. le sigh.
UPDATED: Alright, I went ahead and added blurbs for all 5 of the topics above. I noticed that the two new topics have significantly more flesh to them than the older topics. I'll change my posting methodology to more than single subject topics - I'll have to force myself to write a short paragraph or outline of the post contents so that I can trigger my memory later when I have time to flesh out the post. I'm going to be entering a time management crunch soon, I can tell. Too much to do and not enough time. This will be the first time for me this time around the wheel, as my recent past has been plagued/blessed with too much free time due to not taking on projects and responsibilities. Time to refocus meta thoughts on time management as well, perhaps.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Solitude
My family left this morning, leaving me alone for the first time in weeks. A gamut of emotions washed over me: relief, freedom, anxiety, loneliness. People are very much social animals, and the social interaction we partake in feeds a part of our emotional selves. One of the goals I've set for myself is to learn to be completely comfortable in solitude. What do I mean by solitude? A combination of the following: the state of living alone, self-sufficient without others, the state of self-reassurance wherein one doesn't need outside sources of approval or attention, the state of spending hours or even days without outside interaction.
Why do I desire solitude one might ask? Well, it isn't that life isn't more meaningful, colorful, and energetic with other people. I don't desire solitude, itself. I desire the ability to live comfortably in solitude, to be able to enjoy it. There's a significant difference there. The latter is a skill learned and acquired, useful and existentially meaningful. The former is a state of living. It occurs to me that in order to acquire the ability to live in solitude, I must actually live in solitude for awhile. So the former is a prerequisite for the latter to develop, but is no longer necessary once the latter is acquired.
Life is a journey, and one of the paths I took in my journey was the constant advice and companionship of others, in its various guises such as roomates, social groups, romantic interests, marriage, internet societies, and of course friends. I never lived alone until after my divorce, after which I experienced a deep depression. The last thing you could've said is that I was happy, content, or comfortable. Hell, you couldn't even say I was functional for many of those months. So I have never achieved the ability to live comfortably in solitude. I have certainly been comfortable in solitude for hours at a time, but days? I doubt it. And oftimes, I am unable to be comfortable for minutes at a time.
The ability to live in solitude may be tied to the concept of mindfulness. It is not necessary to tie the two together, for I am certain many men and women throughout history have lived in solitude without living mindfully. However, one of the things I notice is a craving for attention and social interaction. It can be like a drug, a primal need. It is part of the feeling that drives the endless miasma of internet games and M M O playing. Alone, there is a sense of incompleteness, a feeling of inadequacy, and of course, of loneliness. Online, there are activities to stay busy. Fleeting people to talk with, and perhaps more permanent connections from people with whom I can share activities. So what does this have to do with mindfulness? The moments while disconnected provide the answer. From the website linked above: "To be mindful means to dwell deeply in the present moment, ...." Mindfulness would dispel the need and the cravings during those moments. The ability to be mindful obviates the need to constantly seek and find social interaction.
Solitude is also intrinsically linked with the ability to love and respect oneself. Elizaveta wrote about this:
Self-respect and self-love segues into the act of doing things for oneself. Why am I writing this blog? Yes, because Rudolfo told me I need to speak, but his suggestion was only the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. The real reason is that it is part of the journey I've chosen for myself, a portion of the path I must travel in personal self-development. The blog helps me focus (link to be added later - I have a post in the works about focus and distraction) the countless thoughts flitting about within my head. The blog gives me an outlet for pent up thoughts and ideas. The blog gives me a daily goal - to post at least once per day, and thereby a pittance of structure. The blog allows me to learn solitude. How does it do this last item one might ask? The purpose of this is for myself, not for others. The method is to write for oneself, and learn to not care whether others read or comment or like or dislike or approve or disapprove of the contents that I create.
In a way, I suppose it is a diary of sorts. And if others do end up reading and appreciating my thoughts, then fine. And yes, as of right now, I do care. I mentioned it on my twitter status that I started blogging again, which I thought at the time also updated to facebook, but it didn't. In a twist of fate, no one pays attention to my twitter since I just started it, and since it didn't propagate to facebook, no one there knew. I decided to delink this blog from my facebook just now. A way of learning to not care, of teaching myself solitude and that it is ok for me to create things just for myself and my own satisfaction.
Why do I desire solitude one might ask? Well, it isn't that life isn't more meaningful, colorful, and energetic with other people. I don't desire solitude, itself. I desire the ability to live comfortably in solitude, to be able to enjoy it. There's a significant difference there. The latter is a skill learned and acquired, useful and existentially meaningful. The former is a state of living. It occurs to me that in order to acquire the ability to live in solitude, I must actually live in solitude for awhile. So the former is a prerequisite for the latter to develop, but is no longer necessary once the latter is acquired.
Life is a journey, and one of the paths I took in my journey was the constant advice and companionship of others, in its various guises such as roomates, social groups, romantic interests, marriage, internet societies, and of course friends. I never lived alone until after my divorce, after which I experienced a deep depression. The last thing you could've said is that I was happy, content, or comfortable. Hell, you couldn't even say I was functional for many of those months. So I have never achieved the ability to live comfortably in solitude. I have certainly been comfortable in solitude for hours at a time, but days? I doubt it. And oftimes, I am unable to be comfortable for minutes at a time.
The ability to live in solitude may be tied to the concept of mindfulness. It is not necessary to tie the two together, for I am certain many men and women throughout history have lived in solitude without living mindfully. However, one of the things I notice is a craving for attention and social interaction. It can be like a drug, a primal need. It is part of the feeling that drives the endless miasma of internet games and M M O playing. Alone, there is a sense of incompleteness, a feeling of inadequacy, and of course, of loneliness. Online, there are activities to stay busy. Fleeting people to talk with, and perhaps more permanent connections from people with whom I can share activities. So what does this have to do with mindfulness? The moments while disconnected provide the answer. From the website linked above: "To be mindful means to dwell deeply in the present moment, ...." Mindfulness would dispel the need and the cravings during those moments. The ability to be mindful obviates the need to constantly seek and find social interaction.
Solitude is also intrinsically linked with the ability to love and respect oneself. Elizaveta wrote about this:
It is in sharing that my music develops that special dimension. It is also in sharing that life acquires it, as well. But it is tricky - it's a fine balance - because before one is able to fully share, there has to be a degree of wholeness first. I learned it the hard way. I know it's Psych 101, but it is true that if you do not appreciate or respect yourself - I won't even say 'love' - you are mostly unable to do so towards other people in a pure way . Mind you, this sounds simplistic. If you dislike yourself, this doesn't mean you are unable to fall in love or such. It just means that there can be a lot more room for enmeshment.. or desire to please.. or living vicariously..Without that love and respect for oneself, social interactions become codependent, become addiction, become an escape. An escape from what? ... from onself, of course. To live comfortably in solitude requires respect for oneself. Without it, there is no comfort in the solitude.
Self-respect and self-love segues into the act of doing things for oneself. Why am I writing this blog? Yes, because Rudolfo told me I need to speak, but his suggestion was only the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. The real reason is that it is part of the journey I've chosen for myself, a portion of the path I must travel in personal self-development. The blog helps me focus (link to be added later - I have a post in the works about focus and distraction) the countless thoughts flitting about within my head. The blog gives me an outlet for pent up thoughts and ideas. The blog gives me a daily goal - to post at least once per day, and thereby a pittance of structure. The blog allows me to learn solitude. How does it do this last item one might ask? The purpose of this is for myself, not for others. The method is to write for oneself, and learn to not care whether others read or comment or like or dislike or approve or disapprove of the contents that I create.
In a way, I suppose it is a diary of sorts. And if others do end up reading and appreciating my thoughts, then fine. And yes, as of right now, I do care. I mentioned it on my twitter status that I started blogging again, which I thought at the time also updated to facebook, but it didn't. In a twist of fate, no one pays attention to my twitter since I just started it, and since it didn't propagate to facebook, no one there knew. I decided to delink this blog from my facebook just now. A way of learning to not care, of teaching myself solitude and that it is ok for me to create things just for myself and my own satisfaction.
Learning to Speak
Jesus fucking christ. This learning to speak thing is hard. I have a myriad of thoughts that flutter through my consciousness during the day, most of which I could write a treatise upon. And then I finally get in front of the computer, and they all flee like the gutless cowards that they are. I'll have to work to develop a system that allows me to better captures these thoughts and allows me to expound upon them.
I passed Bradshaw's book, Healing the Shame that Binds You to my mom. I'll order another one along with Hamilton's latest trash fic faerie novel. It's a very difficult book to get through, but I hope that she'll give it a shot. When I get my new copy in, I'll pick it up again and when I see pertinent passages, I'll send them to her. We talked about a mish-mash of stuff, but I hope I imparted some wisdom to her. Bradshaw's theory of toxic shame applies overwhelmingly to Asian culture. One could almost say it's characteristic of Chinese culture, at the very least (I'm not as familiar with the other cultures). When something like that mainstreams, is it no longer a psychological problem? It definitely becomes normal, by definition, and thus it's no longer abnormal. However, if a psychological trait is normal in a culture, that does not mean it isn't an unhealthy trait. Hell, obesity is normal in the US, and it's most definitely unhealthy. So it becomes a national problem, or a continental one, even. But it's something that one can only fix individually, or is it? It must be true that nations go through mass psychological shifts. Take Germany and their post WWII guilt complex, for example. Anyways, fixing the problems of a nation of a billion people is just a tad outside the scope of my control.
Hell, even fixing myself is barely within my scope of control. However, things are going well, and I here's to hoping they continue.
Oh yah, had 2 glasses of Glenkinchie tonight. I miss Scotch. It had a deep smoky nutty flavor that was like velvet on the tongue. Too bad I'll be going alcohol free for the upcoming juice feast.
I passed Bradshaw's book, Healing the Shame that Binds You to my mom. I'll order another one along with Hamilton's latest trash fic faerie novel. It's a very difficult book to get through, but I hope that she'll give it a shot. When I get my new copy in, I'll pick it up again and when I see pertinent passages, I'll send them to her. We talked about a mish-mash of stuff, but I hope I imparted some wisdom to her. Bradshaw's theory of toxic shame applies overwhelmingly to Asian culture. One could almost say it's characteristic of Chinese culture, at the very least (I'm not as familiar with the other cultures). When something like that mainstreams, is it no longer a psychological problem? It definitely becomes normal, by definition, and thus it's no longer abnormal. However, if a psychological trait is normal in a culture, that does not mean it isn't an unhealthy trait. Hell, obesity is normal in the US, and it's most definitely unhealthy. So it becomes a national problem, or a continental one, even. But it's something that one can only fix individually, or is it? It must be true that nations go through mass psychological shifts. Take Germany and their post WWII guilt complex, for example. Anyways, fixing the problems of a nation of a billion people is just a tad outside the scope of my control.
Hell, even fixing myself is barely within my scope of control. However, things are going well, and I here's to hoping they continue.
Oh yah, had 2 glasses of Glenkinchie tonight. I miss Scotch. It had a deep smoky nutty flavor that was like velvet on the tongue. Too bad I'll be going alcohol free for the upcoming juice feast.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Nivrasplace
So I decided to speak, as outlined below. I initially decided to start a new blog nivrasplace.blogspot.com. It was supposed to be Nivra's Place crossed with Nivra space. A cool graphic with a limited apostrophe, and a displaced "l" could accompany it. I decided to move it all here. Why? I guess I identified this blog with a more public well-known version of me, traceable back to my real identity. It may be, it may not be. I'm not sure. What I am sure about is that it doesn't matter. Truth, honesty, transparency. Acceptance. The release of shame. I accept myself, my thoughts, personal and private as they are and will not hide them any longer. That is what this represents.
It's a difficult decision, let me tell you. The instinctual self-preservation of privacy and secrecy wars with me. There is fear. But I have found that the ability to recognize that fear and move past it frees me. My ipod has an inscription from someone I love, "Hence courage comes first." Courage is the ability to recognize fear and do things anyways. Courage is the ability to follow through even though that fear continues to flutter and beat at you. It's not just a first step. I once cliff-jumped ~20 ft or so. That was a first step. I sat there, fear eating at me, and made the decision, and without thinking any more, stepped off and it was done. Courage in life takes so much more. The fear continues as you're engaging, as you are acting, and only dissipates once the act is 100% complete and the results have happened.
It's a difficult decision, let me tell you. The instinctual self-preservation of privacy and secrecy wars with me. There is fear. But I have found that the ability to recognize that fear and move past it frees me. My ipod has an inscription from someone I love, "Hence courage comes first." Courage is the ability to recognize fear and do things anyways. Courage is the ability to follow through even though that fear continues to flutter and beat at you. It's not just a first step. I once cliff-jumped ~20 ft or so. That was a first step. I sat there, fear eating at me, and made the decision, and without thinking any more, stepped off and it was done. Courage in life takes so much more. The fear continues as you're engaging, as you are acting, and only dissipates once the act is 100% complete and the results have happened.
Golden Child and the luminous light at the core
I met a shaman, Lynne, at the New Year's bash. She did some core healing on me. We talked about my depression, and my inability to come to a complete commitment on things I decide. When I talked with my therapist Renee about this, I realized that the reason I was able to change my diet to deal with my psoriasis and stick to it was complete commitment. The reason I was able to take control of a guild, and lead it to success was complete commitment. And the reason I can't make those changes in other aspects of my life is a lack of complete commtiment. It's not just commitment. It's a a commitment to myself - a wanting to with the whole of my being, not a part of my being.
Let me elaborate. In the Guru Papers, Joel Kramer and Diane Alstad have a treatise on addiction. It talks about how addiction is not losing control, but an attempt to gain control. How there are two selfs, a bad self and a good self (they don't mean to imply judgement by those terms). But the problem with addicts is that the bad self and good self are always at war. The bad self is trying to rebel against edicts set forth by the good self. AA deals with this by giving the good self all the power and denying the bad self. Joel & Diane assert that this leaves the fragmentation of the self intact, and isn't a good solution. The other school of addiction - treatment of it as a disease doesn't deal with this either. What needs to be done is to re-merge the selves. To realize that this dichotomy isn't a healthy state of being, and that the self needs to be whole. How? It's unclear. But that rings true with the commitment idea. The two commitments I have been able to carry out without the internal struggle of keeping to it or deserting it are ones I made to my whole. Ones which neither the good self nor the bad self care about, and so won't fight over. It's a decision for my whole self. That's the key to forward movement, decisive action.
Now... back to Lynne. We talked about how the judgement that comes from the good self and my feelings of "not enough" and "fear of failure" are all learned... They are all mental processes that are ingrained and learned to become automatic and habitual. But they are not intrinsic. They are not a reflection of my true self. Acceptance. Accept these behaviors for what they are, and by seeing them, accepting them, then moving on, they lose their power. It is much a similar mental process to mindfulness meditation. When you notice you have a thought, you label it, and move on. There is no judgement. Just an identification and an acceptance. It will be difficult to apply this. A lifetime of judgement and the habit of judging myself, my actions, my thoughts, feelings, activity, productivity, self-worth, me needs to be shed like a snake sheds an old skin. It will not go easily.
Understanding this and letting go are two different things. She helped me understand and tried to help me let go, but I could feel the weight in my heart still. The anxiety, the clutching tension of self-unhappiness that would not release. She then had me picture a doorway, beyond a golden light - the light of the unlimited potential - the light of the core of the self - the core of myself. Step into it, let it envelop me. The tension softened, but still clutched. She had me visualize the doorway again, and then a boy at the center. A small boy there. At this point, my imagination goes... bathed at the center of golden light, what is this boy? Why none other than the little kid from Golden Child, a buddha to be... Well, she asks, tell her about this boy. He is fun. He is happy. Both things I don't have enough of in my life. At my core, I am not yet happy. And without that happiness, I really don't have fun. I don't LET myself ever have fun - to truly relax and enjoy life. But that little buddha... he's a different story. He's happy, content, fun. And that's me - what's at the center of me. The self-loathing, the self-hate, the inadequacy, the feeling of "not good enough", the failure - that is all just learned thoughts - just habits I picked up. The judging, the shame... that is learned. And it can all be unlearned.
Power. Potential. Acceptance. Happiness. I am. I am more.
Let me elaborate. In the Guru Papers, Joel Kramer and Diane Alstad have a treatise on addiction. It talks about how addiction is not losing control, but an attempt to gain control. How there are two selfs, a bad self and a good self (they don't mean to imply judgement by those terms). But the problem with addicts is that the bad self and good self are always at war. The bad self is trying to rebel against edicts set forth by the good self. AA deals with this by giving the good self all the power and denying the bad self. Joel & Diane assert that this leaves the fragmentation of the self intact, and isn't a good solution. The other school of addiction - treatment of it as a disease doesn't deal with this either. What needs to be done is to re-merge the selves. To realize that this dichotomy isn't a healthy state of being, and that the self needs to be whole. How? It's unclear. But that rings true with the commitment idea. The two commitments I have been able to carry out without the internal struggle of keeping to it or deserting it are ones I made to my whole. Ones which neither the good self nor the bad self care about, and so won't fight over. It's a decision for my whole self. That's the key to forward movement, decisive action.
Now... back to Lynne. We talked about how the judgement that comes from the good self and my feelings of "not enough" and "fear of failure" are all learned... They are all mental processes that are ingrained and learned to become automatic and habitual. But they are not intrinsic. They are not a reflection of my true self. Acceptance. Accept these behaviors for what they are, and by seeing them, accepting them, then moving on, they lose their power. It is much a similar mental process to mindfulness meditation. When you notice you have a thought, you label it, and move on. There is no judgement. Just an identification and an acceptance. It will be difficult to apply this. A lifetime of judgement and the habit of judging myself, my actions, my thoughts, feelings, activity, productivity, self-worth, me needs to be shed like a snake sheds an old skin. It will not go easily.
Understanding this and letting go are two different things. She helped me understand and tried to help me let go, but I could feel the weight in my heart still. The anxiety, the clutching tension of self-unhappiness that would not release. She then had me picture a doorway, beyond a golden light - the light of the unlimited potential - the light of the core of the self - the core of myself. Step into it, let it envelop me. The tension softened, but still clutched. She had me visualize the doorway again, and then a boy at the center. A small boy there. At this point, my imagination goes... bathed at the center of golden light, what is this boy? Why none other than the little kid from Golden Child, a buddha to be... Well, she asks, tell her about this boy. He is fun. He is happy. Both things I don't have enough of in my life. At my core, I am not yet happy. And without that happiness, I really don't have fun. I don't LET myself ever have fun - to truly relax and enjoy life. But that little buddha... he's a different story. He's happy, content, fun. And that's me - what's at the center of me. The self-loathing, the self-hate, the inadequacy, the feeling of "not good enough", the failure - that is all just learned thoughts - just habits I picked up. The judging, the shame... that is learned. And it can all be unlearned.
Power. Potential. Acceptance. Happiness. I am. I am more.
Alternative New Year's Party
Jason and Pia invited me to a New Year's bash. No alcohol, alas. Halfway through, around the time the Native Americans were dancing I really started to wish I could have some. Hare Krishna's started chanting, and kirtan ensued. Dancing thereafter, and a drum circle. The need for alcohol subsided as endorphins filled the gap.
Heard Gabriel Cousens and Pato Banton in a video conference call. Audio incoming from Skype was unclear, but I got some of it. There was a discussion of 2012 Mayan calendars... and err, yah. Global warming is true. The world is doomed for disaster unless change happens. Whether any of that has anything to do with esoteric predictions about the Mayan calendar - I think not. This may come across a bit harsh, but the whole 2012, 2036, and 2048(?) comes across to me like so much meaningless spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Then there's the whole 5 revelations + Urantia angle, and the spiritual mumbo-jumbo just piles on neck-deep. I mean aliens, really?
On the other hand, I did have fun tonight. Spirituality is an interesting endeavor, and a worthwhile pursuit. It feeds the soul and the mind. Whether it comes from outside or inside becomes immaterial. I think that what is important is the transformation of the individual that results from spirituality. A release of certain neurotransmitters, an activation of specific regions of the brain that play a different role than what we utilize in normal, everyday life. This is spirituality. And that region of the brain then proceeds to interact with and change the rest of the brain, which is why spirituality seeps into every aspect of your life.
Rudolfo did some work on me. "Holding space," he called it. He supported parts of my body at times, making me feel more supported, then he fluttered his hand over my heart center, and somewhere along my spine, as well. Then I lay there, and after I got up, he talked to me. He said I had many voices in my head, and I need to speak. I need to share what I think. Thus, the impetus for my blog. So call this an experiment. I will begin to speak. I will share my thoughts, my ideas, my feelings, my formulations, my idiocy, my genius, my cognition with the world.
Heard Gabriel Cousens and Pato Banton in a video conference call. Audio incoming from Skype was unclear, but I got some of it. There was a discussion of 2012 Mayan calendars... and err, yah. Global warming is true. The world is doomed for disaster unless change happens. Whether any of that has anything to do with esoteric predictions about the Mayan calendar - I think not. This may come across a bit harsh, but the whole 2012, 2036, and 2048(?) comes across to me like so much meaningless spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Then there's the whole 5 revelations + Urantia angle, and the spiritual mumbo-jumbo just piles on neck-deep. I mean aliens, really?
On the other hand, I did have fun tonight. Spirituality is an interesting endeavor, and a worthwhile pursuit. It feeds the soul and the mind. Whether it comes from outside or inside becomes immaterial. I think that what is important is the transformation of the individual that results from spirituality. A release of certain neurotransmitters, an activation of specific regions of the brain that play a different role than what we utilize in normal, everyday life. This is spirituality. And that region of the brain then proceeds to interact with and change the rest of the brain, which is why spirituality seeps into every aspect of your life.
Rudolfo did some work on me. "Holding space," he called it. He supported parts of my body at times, making me feel more supported, then he fluttered his hand over my heart center, and somewhere along my spine, as well. Then I lay there, and after I got up, he talked to me. He said I had many voices in my head, and I need to speak. I need to share what I think. Thus, the impetus for my blog. So call this an experiment. I will begin to speak. I will share my thoughts, my ideas, my feelings, my formulations, my idiocy, my genius, my cognition with the world.
Starting Anew
For various reasons, I discontinued this blog. I entered a rather dark period of my life from which I am now emerging. Like a butterfly enclosed in a chrysalis, I re-emerge transformed, beautiful, and full of new potential. But the goo and gunk from the encapsulation still sticks to the wings and must be shed. This is a journey of emergence and a shedding of the gunk. Eventually, I will fly.
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