Lovely. Thank you for introducing me to your, now our good friend, Nikola. :-)
I listen to the podcasts of yogic-Buddhist scholar and teacher, Michael Stone. Often he comments that our greatest desire, the human desire, is true connection with another. And that that true connection is also our greatest fear.
Thank you Guy for commenting. I am glad he is now a friend of yours too! That is a very interesting comment which gives me a new clue that I will be pondering. I watch my ego rise and fall away and respond etc with interest to the connections and chats I have with people on Substack and I recognise my need for someone to understand me. As I get closer to the 'target' of my anxieties, the more flak there is. I don't know what that true connect is perhaps? Maybe that is why I take comfort in Nikola's energy waves description.
In another talk Michael points out that 'splitting' is a way we humans have of surviving something that is perceived as traumatic. And that that trauma will remain until the digestion of it happens. Words are incapable of dealing with it because the traumatic event, even if initiated with words, is not experienced cognitively. It is a somatic experience, which we then may spend years ignoring or using talk therapy to fix.
This was one of the great 'discoveries' for me of yoga: the issues are in the tissues, to quote the wonderful yogi and addiction therapist, Nikki Meyers.
Often the fear of connection is really a fear of being re-traumatised. And so, in a word-centric society, we hampster-wheel ourselves to death looking for the right words to fix ourselves and/or our relationships. Oops. We have ignored the language of the body.
I'm so glad I was able to give you a clue to sniff around and dig into.
Wow this makes so much sense to me right now. My mother disappearing at 5 years old was that experience for me. No explanation, no comfort, no grief allowed, only told to smile, my smile not big enough, told to smile bigger. A step mother put in place and told - this is your 'real' mother now, a woman of duplicitous ignorance, one thing with my father there and another person when he wasn't. Extreme gaslighting that I could not understand. All these words to explain it do not explain it. It has been like an old bicycle leaning against my body for 50 years and growing with me. I have tried to talk, to smile bigger, smile better, ignore it or operate to remove it. But because I smile and smile no one ever sees the bicycle and no one ever understands my words about the bicycle. Your quote "I'm drowning here and you're describing the water" comes back to my mind.
Yes, this crazy crazy traumatising that gaslighting and fake smiles create. It is a plague that is truly one of the cornerstones of creating an obedient society.
Yes, I think that much of the the traumatising practices were initially done a long time ago, millenia, because the 'the' knew how to create obedience.
I read a hint of that in the ~180AD book The Golden Ass of Apuleius. Great read. And the great Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz's analysis of that book is equally as great. And yet she missed or failed to comment on its reference as 'normal' the severe brutality the Greeks likely had towards their children.
We are living in a society of brutal bullying Stockholm syndrome! And so 'we' have adopted bullying, either in your face, like the cabal's, or subtly, with passive aggressive gaslighting by family or news, etc; and other 'tells' of language or blindness to the obvious untruths presented to us as truth, ie believing the gaslighting and being willing to kill the other with that belief.
The time of convidia has been a huge opportunity for us to see it all as a fantasy role playing game. I think that you becoming a D&D dugneon master is absolutely the Universe, or whatever 'it' is, providing you with a Zen-like practice of being present in the now that sees the fantasy. Wonderful.
When I feel pain I have started to feel so thankful for it. I feel that it is my true self, my instinct that has led me to see through this gaslighting and bullying. It has allowed me to be disobedient and then honest with myself and then find the next piece of the puzzle, compassion and then the next piece..... onwards I go. To be able to connect through your wonderful comments just amazes me.
Great to read that you are feeling and aware of that connection. That is the true yoga meaning, intimacy, ie connection.
And I recently read a great meme: one of the most important characteristics that seeing eye dogs are taught is 'intelligent disobedience'. The joke was 'When can we teach humans this?' And of course, the opposite has been taught. I wrote a series on 'obedience' that you may find interesting.
Obedience to Authority: A Rumination, Part I: Exploration On Obedience to Authority, Mass Formation, Woke and Corporatist News: Saviour from What?
It is great to be sharing this journey into the disentangled self that is discovery our intimacy, ie Buddhist emptiness / interdependence arising. Blessing and blessed.
Lovely. Thank you for introducing me to your, now our good friend, Nikola. :-)
I listen to the podcasts of yogic-Buddhist scholar and teacher, Michael Stone. Often he comments that our greatest desire, the human desire, is true connection with another. And that that true connection is also our greatest fear.
Thank you Guy for commenting. I am glad he is now a friend of yours too! That is a very interesting comment which gives me a new clue that I will be pondering. I watch my ego rise and fall away and respond etc with interest to the connections and chats I have with people on Substack and I recognise my need for someone to understand me. As I get closer to the 'target' of my anxieties, the more flak there is. I don't know what that true connect is perhaps? Maybe that is why I take comfort in Nikola's energy waves description.
Hola, April.
In another talk Michael points out that 'splitting' is a way we humans have of surviving something that is perceived as traumatic. And that that trauma will remain until the digestion of it happens. Words are incapable of dealing with it because the traumatic event, even if initiated with words, is not experienced cognitively. It is a somatic experience, which we then may spend years ignoring or using talk therapy to fix.
This was one of the great 'discoveries' for me of yoga: the issues are in the tissues, to quote the wonderful yogi and addiction therapist, Nikki Meyers.
Often the fear of connection is really a fear of being re-traumatised. And so, in a word-centric society, we hampster-wheel ourselves to death looking for the right words to fix ourselves and/or our relationships. Oops. We have ignored the language of the body.
I'm so glad I was able to give you a clue to sniff around and dig into.
🙏❤️🧘🏿♀️☯️🙌☯️🧘🏿♀️❤️🙏
Wow this makes so much sense to me right now. My mother disappearing at 5 years old was that experience for me. No explanation, no comfort, no grief allowed, only told to smile, my smile not big enough, told to smile bigger. A step mother put in place and told - this is your 'real' mother now, a woman of duplicitous ignorance, one thing with my father there and another person when he wasn't. Extreme gaslighting that I could not understand. All these words to explain it do not explain it. It has been like an old bicycle leaning against my body for 50 years and growing with me. I have tried to talk, to smile bigger, smile better, ignore it or operate to remove it. But because I smile and smile no one ever sees the bicycle and no one ever understands my words about the bicycle. Your quote "I'm drowning here and you're describing the water" comes back to my mind.
Thank you for this great share.
Yes, this crazy crazy traumatising that gaslighting and fake smiles create. It is a plague that is truly one of the cornerstones of creating an obedient society.
Yes, I think that much of the the traumatising practices were initially done a long time ago, millenia, because the 'the' knew how to create obedience.
I read a hint of that in the ~180AD book The Golden Ass of Apuleius. Great read. And the great Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz's analysis of that book is equally as great. And yet she missed or failed to comment on its reference as 'normal' the severe brutality the Greeks likely had towards their children.
We are living in a society of brutal bullying Stockholm syndrome! And so 'we' have adopted bullying, either in your face, like the cabal's, or subtly, with passive aggressive gaslighting by family or news, etc; and other 'tells' of language or blindness to the obvious untruths presented to us as truth, ie believing the gaslighting and being willing to kill the other with that belief.
The time of convidia has been a huge opportunity for us to see it all as a fantasy role playing game. I think that you becoming a D&D dugneon master is absolutely the Universe, or whatever 'it' is, providing you with a Zen-like practice of being present in the now that sees the fantasy. Wonderful.
When I feel pain I have started to feel so thankful for it. I feel that it is my true self, my instinct that has led me to see through this gaslighting and bullying. It has allowed me to be disobedient and then honest with myself and then find the next piece of the puzzle, compassion and then the next piece..... onwards I go. To be able to connect through your wonderful comments just amazes me.
Great to read that you are feeling and aware of that connection. That is the true yoga meaning, intimacy, ie connection.
And I recently read a great meme: one of the most important characteristics that seeing eye dogs are taught is 'intelligent disobedience'. The joke was 'When can we teach humans this?' And of course, the opposite has been taught. I wrote a series on 'obedience' that you may find interesting.
Obedience to Authority: A Rumination, Part I: Exploration On Obedience to Authority, Mass Formation, Woke and Corporatist News: Saviour from What?
https://gduperreault.substack.com/p/obedience-to-authority-a-rumination
It is great to be sharing this journey into the disentangled self that is discovery our intimacy, ie Buddhist emptiness / interdependence arising. Blessing and blessed.