Confronting repressed emotions

[sagebrush]

I have not seen my spirit animal-that I am aware of-

 

have you seen my spirit animal?

 

not necessary

 

I suppose

 

do you want to tell me what that is about?

 

I am pretty clear I am moody based on habitual mental patterns and not very good to drink so much caffeine and sit to read.

 

I do not know if I want a spirit animal

 

I think in spirit if I am out and about like hiking it will present itself-

tonight three deer cross in front of my car.

 

I don't think I have a said culture, too btw.

 

all creatures have merit

 

dolphin whale swan rabbit mink possum

[Gerard]

Recently I started confronting emotions that I've repressed over the years.

 

 

This isn't very Dao related

Hi friend,

 

2. This first as it needs a shorter answer:

 

EVERYTHING is Tao. Please don't get caught up by concepts and principles.

 

1. Cleaning the 'pipes' is something we have/had to do in some stage along the continuum.

 

I liked to associate the human, ghost and hell planes as the ones requiring the heaviest amount of spiritual cleansing. Obviously the last two involve very, very bad karma especially the last astral plane.

 

The length of time is related to the amount of negative karmic energy being involved but the good news is that there is an end to it. The heaviest amount of work involves the Heart. Expect several years/decades (if not lifetimes) to completely open it and letting go of EVERYTHING. This final step involves complete liberation from Samsara.

 

All the very best of luck in your practice.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Gerard

[imtyerd]

I didn't realise that for a long time that my thoughts and actions haven't really been mine.

 

What I mean by that is, the career I've pursued, the relationships I've been in, the friends I've made were from a place of inauthenticity. I've been acting all this time.

 

It's overwhelming right now. 

[dwai]

I didn't realise that for a long time that my thoughts and actions haven't really been mine.

 

What I mean by that is, the career I've pursued, the relationships I've been in, the friends I've made were from a place of inauthenticity. I've been acting all this time.

 

It's overwhelming right now. 

 

It's okay. Most people live their lives out and not realize this. You are doing better than 99.99% of humanity, imho

 

The next part is to realize that there's nothing to be done in that regard if you don't have another alternative. Just continue with what you are doing, but don't be "invested" in it beyond the action needed to sustain yourself/life, etc. 

 

Best of luck.

[Spotless]

That you are becoming aware of and are willing to face your emotional demons is a sign of maturity in practice, imho.

Sometime during my tai chi practice - perhaps 6-7 years into the practice, I started becoming acutely aware of the contents of my mind -- emotional and mental stuff that repeatedly appeared and disappeared. 

 

I think most of us create an idealized image of who we are "supposed to be" -- a perfect being, with no flaws, no weaknesses, all based on romanticized ideals supported by our society (and its literature, concepts of good and bad, right and wrong, etc).

 

Some cultures consider sex to be "sin", have over-idealized notions of the self-sacrificing saintly person, the absolutely devoted child, parent, sibling, friend etc. You know the rules by now, I'm sure...and so we prop up this self-image.

 

Once we start to become aware of the contents of our mind -- stuff that pulls us, pushes us, drives us, makes us cautious (not necessarily bad stuff per se), the first reaction is to be shocked at how different it is from the idealized self-image we built and tried to prop up.

 

At least in my case it was. I tortured myself for years, with guilt, self-loathing, depression and became a social recluse of sorts, with my wife, my teacher, my tai chi friends and my family as my primary source of human contact and interaction (and the Daobums too, in a more indirect manner).

 

Work was too, but there is hardly any higher emotional contact in that respect...work has, in my experience been a source of more artifice being piled upon our hapless selves.

 

Until one day, I realized that when I was observing the contents of my mind, I never checked to ask, who is it that is observing this? If "I" am observing these thoughts, these repressed emotions, etc, then while these thoughts might belong to me, they were not "Me" (not sure if that makes sense).

 

When a degree of detachment was established in this, it became a clinical process of observing the mind content. At first I tried to "exorcise" these demons. But the more I tried to "deal" with them, the more they seem to grow in strength. Then my teachers and some wise folks (some of the wise bums on this forum too), told me to consider letting the mind-stuff just rise and fall. The more I detached and just observed the mind-stuff, the less power it seemed to have over "me". 

 

Soon, I learnt that the mind-stuff is a result of our environment (and depends on what we consume with our mind and senses). Just like eating junk food is going to mess up your digestion, consuming "junk stuff" is going to mess up your mind. Your mind does not define you or control you, any more than your diet defines or controls you. Though, addiction to certain types of mind-food can be as dramatic and damaging as addiction to certain types of junk foods can be. 

 

The detachment between you the observer and your mind/body is a key to dealing with these demons, in my experience. And it is a constant process of refinement, till we reach a point when there is not much mind-stuff rising (and when it does, it dissipates fast). We go from a cloudy and stormy sky (noisy mind) to a mainly clear sky with the rare fluffs of cloud and occasional thunderstorms (still mind) ...

So many good points here it bore repeating.

 

Karma is the mind loops and positions we are "in" - glued to. It is the emotions and emotional traumas we have created and are creating. We are victim to nothing - every plane we may find ourselves in has nothing to do with "past karma" per se - it is the frequency "we are in".

 

In the greater idea / ideals of release from samsara - we are glued to our frequencies - we feed them with the junk food of those frequencies - when we become sick of our story, our facade - no matter how crude or noble - this is when we release. This "junk food" does not look like junk food when you are "in it" - it looks like support or enemy. It plays to the positions we hold within the frequencies we hold - that which is called "our karma".

 

We do not go to hell realms as punishment - if we go to them it is because we are them - and without physical body they simply become our frequency without the impression of time and so appear constant.

 

In our frequencies (karma) we attract forces which dwell within those frequencies. If we set out to heal ourselves - that is an abyss:

There is nothing wrong with us - that which is us is untouched and spotless. We cannot fix the us that does not exist - we can move from frequency to frequency for a million years and we will never dial in on the perfect station - just station after station that works for awhile until it doesn't.

 

Great victims are no different than great statesman, poets and peanut farmers or artists - those in Samsara find a lack of satisfaction and occupy themselves endlessly in pursuit of other. The frequencies within which we live comprise the matrix of what we call our karma and the matrix is in the present - the inertia of the "held" frequencies (our positions).

 

Once you begin to see the constancy of the repetition in your life you can begin not to participate in feeding the frequencies of indulgence - this will appear as another abyss but it is not - the disruption in the trance of Karmic frequency is a key movement in the emergence of Self - Divine Essence.

 

Samsara is being in karma - trance frequencies supporting false self. The frequencies are not the problem - however coarse or refined - it is position in them. " Position " meaning identification IN them.

[silent thunder]

I didn't realise that for a long time that my thoughts and actions haven't really been mine.

 

What I mean by that is, the career I've pursued, the relationships I've been in, the friends I've made were from a place of inauthenticity. I've been acting all this time.

 

It's overwhelming right now. 

 

 

It's okay. Most people live their lives out and not realize this. You are doing better than 99.99% of humanity, imho

 

The next part is to realize that there's nothing to be done in that regard if you don't have another alternative. Just continue with what you are doing, but don't be "invested" in it beyond the action needed to sustain yourself/life, etc. 

 

Best of luck.

Powerful stuff... thanks guys!

This really resonates with me and is a great nudging reminder just at this moment. 

 

It relates for me, to one of the most potent pieces of advice I have ever received... "stop taking the universe personally".  that one phrase has brought so much release for me it's incredible.

 

For me, this is at the heart of the old saying "The Sage is in the world, but not of it."  Which eluded me for some time in my younger days.  But now, I fully live it to great benefit... at least some of the time. 

 

Even while fully engaging in the processes of the world the Sage holds no position, takes nothing personally and is thus untaintable and unshakable.

 

When I began to embody this teaching and when this realization of authenticity began to crystallize in my life, I really began to be able to live the notion of 'not taking the universe personally'. 

 

 

The world is not happening to me... it's more like a mutual unfolding...

 

It also released me from a sense that I had to hide, dampen, or filter my authentic self in any way for other's comfort, or approval.

 

Incredibly liberating.  the universe does not take sides.

[dwai]

Powerful stuff... thanks guys!

This really resonates with me and is a great nudging reminder just at this moment. 

 

It relates for me, to one of the most potent pieces of advice I have ever received... "stop taking the universe personally".  that one phrase has brought so much release for me it's incredible.

 

For me, this is at the heart of the old saying "The Sage is in the world, but not of it."  Which eluded me for some time in my younger days.  But now, I fully live it to great benefit... at least some of the time. 

 

Even while fully engaging in the processes of the world the Sage holds no position, takes nothing personally and is thus untaintable and unshakable.

 

When I began to embody this teaching and when this realization of authenticity began to crystallize in my life, I really began to be able to live the notion of 'not taking the universe personally'. 

 

 

The world is not happening to me... it's more like a mutual unfolding...

 

It also released me from a sense that I had to hide, dampen, or filter my authentic self in any way for other's comfort, or approval.

 

Incredibly liberating.  the universe does not take sides.

 

Love it! Thanks for sharing...

 

Beautifully articulated...

 

"Stop taking the universe personally!"

"The universe does not take sides."

[cold]

Hard lessons there!

Written another way:

Stop taking anything personally! (Except your self of course).

[dwai]

Hard lessons there!

Written another way:

Stop taking anything personally! (Except your self of course).

 

Even your self, you can't take it personally. It simply is ;P

[cold]

Well I do enjoy taking myself out to dinner from time to time.

[silent thunder]

i love to take all of my me's camping...

[imtyerd]

Thanks for the responses guys.

 

The feelings are still very raw and I feel a little bit silly for overreacting a touch, but your words were helpful nonetheless.

Edited May 5, 2017 by imtyerd

[Maddie]

On 4/25/2017 at 12:13 AM, imtyerd said:

Hi

 

Recently I started confronting emotions that I've repressed over the years. I started to do this because I felt like I wasn't being authentic and had built a front or personality to protect myself. I was kind of the happy go lucky, class clown kind of guy and pretty much never let people see me down.

 

Anyway I'm curious to know if others have dealt with emotional baggage head on and what your experiences were like the more you confronted your repressed memories and emotions.

 

Did anyone else realise they had put on a front for a long time just to get by?

 

This isn't very Dao related but at the same time I feel like it is one of the core reasons why many people come here to begin with.

 

I never realized how much repressed emotions I had in my life until I started doing Taoist practices like the inner smile and healing sounds. 

[Giles]

Spoiler

 

On 25/04/2017 at 12:19 PM, Brian said:

We each create a public persona behind which we subconsciously attempt to hide those aspects of ourselves we think are inappropriate. We are generally blind to the presence of these shadow selves but others aren't. The more we invest in the facade, the more sharply defined our shadows become. Recognizing the existence of "the rest of us" is a significant step towards becoming whole.

 

This might be of interest: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0553201085/ref=mp_s_a_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1493113257&sr=1-17π=CB192198896_AA75_QL70&keywords=Sheldon+Kopp

 

That's a surprisingly accurate generalisation Brian.

I remember reading Kopp's classic "If you meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him: The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients" when I was serving my apprenticeship about 30 years ago because one of my colleagues recommended it to me. However, I've completely forgotten what I made of it. In any case, even if I could remember, it would not be the same as if I was reading it today, so you've inspired me to revisit it and while doing that I came across this description, 

 

Quote

Therapists do not and cannot give answers. Explore the true nature of the therapeutic relationship, and realize that the guru is no Buddha. He is just another human struggling. Understanding the shape of your own personal ills will lead you on your journey to recovery. Sheldon Kopp has a realistic approach to altering one's destiny and accepting the responsibility that grows with freedom.

 

I might read it again, as it seems quite interesting.

Given your accurate summary and your recommendation, I'll might also see if I can find a copy of "Mirror, Mask and Shadow".

Another of Kopp's books, "Even a Stone Can Be a Teacher: Learning and Growing from the Experiences of Everyday Life" might also shed some needed light.