Cutting Through Neurotic Self Reflection

[TranquilTurmoil]

Hey y’all. I’m gonna keep searching the mountains of tdb for you hermits reluctant to share your pearls of wisdom and compassion through persistence and perseverance. I have a practice question I will present now.

 

I like finding a balance between conscious analytical contemplation and stilling the mind by means of “emptying it”. I don’t at this moment have the determination or clarity to strive towards the no-thought no-mind mentality, and as far as I can tell, this suits my nature just fine for the time being. With that said, I still have the desire for validation and recognition that leads to subtle contrivance in my thoughts and actions, and a unwholesome pattern of thought loops of reflecting on what I said and whether or not it impressed people, how well it was received… which can lead to deep seated insecurities that I probably ought to get to the bottom of in therapy. I’m not in therapy right now though, so I invite you all to be my make-shift therapists and spiritual guides (who’s advice I will often respect but take with a grain of salt). I’m curious if any of you have tips on cutting thru egoic ideation other than to do my best on my own.

 

PS A few months ago I beckoned a Theravada elder monk with a similar request… to hear me out and be a therapeutic ally…. He told me to get therapy. That was not the therapeutic experience I had hoped for. But like Chogyam Trungpa expounded in “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism”, sometimes the path intentionally lets us down again and again until we truly surrender and potentially lose hope… and in that moment Tilopa slaps us with a sandal or something. I’ll happily turn the other cheek if someone has a sandal to slap me with and if I haven’t lost you by now…. Hopefully you take up my offer to be my friend and fill the void left by years of striving towards emptiness and openness in the midst of longing and loneliness.

*ends rant

🙏🏼🤗

[Creation]

The movement toward spiritual illumination and the movement toward emotional and psychological health are not the same movement and yet they intertwine.  Some combinations of ways of approaching the spiritual and ways of approaching the psychological support each other, others clash with each other, others simply coexist. 

 

I'm not at all surprised a Theravada monk told you to get psychotherapy - Theravada really isn't designed to heal psychological issues, no matter what the modern mindfulness crowd says.  There are paths, teachers, and groups that are more congruent with what you seem to be looking for.

[silent thunder]

*sits down next to Tranquil Turmoil and lights his pipe, taking a long drag.

 

Hey Mate.  Welcome to the Bums. 

 

I'm not much for answers these last few trips around the sun, so all I can offer is my presence and attention and the pipe of potential friendship (and the attention bit is conditional at best it seems, even when I'm on my own... it's a fickle but welcome beasty.

 

Mind seems often to me, like a hummingbird and mist, alternately.  Flitting with intense focus from thing to thing... or diffuse and softly obscuring, but comfortable. 

 

In rarer conditional moments, there arises a clarity that rings like a silent bell, or roars like, well, silent thunder.  Sometimes calming, and some, so intense as to be a menace to my small candle like awareness.

 

I've come to be accepting of all the shifting, in much the way I accept the ocean when I sit near to her... whether calm or seething... she is always innately tzujan... and in this I find I can revel in releasing into what is, as it is.

 

To be aware and allow space for what I am to be as I am, in my simple, raw presence is about all I can muster.

 

Quiet and expansive, piercing and tenacious, loving and nurturing... it all arises and diffuses in turns.

Somehow throughout it, this notion of I and Thou flows on with a remarkable consistency I have come to trust innately as 'what is'... and this is enough, at least for now.

 

*offers the pipe of friendship.

 

It's a lovely morning at the ocean.

 

 

[TranquilTurmoil]

My zen center seems to fill the theraputic, healing modality I was looking for to an extent… but they only meet once a week. I’m hoping a few good bums can be a good support either regularly or on and off to help me shed my trauma informed armor I wear. I’d  say we are off to a good start on that front… and I can tell there is little separation between The Tao and the bums as I can’t distinguish which one is more elusive!

 

if the time comes again for either intense or applied effort in methods either esoteric or deceptively simple I ll be happy to be encouraged and led in such a direction.

 

But I think I need to be able to cry more easily before I can proceed to attain the rainbow body or what have you. And it was a huge disappointment after pursuing the local Theravada monastery for months during COVID to get a 20 minute meeting where I was told to seek elsewhere , we have boundaries. But such is the plight of us straw dogs 🐶!

 

thanks creation and St. Silent Thunder!  Hope to be in touch 🙏🏼

[manitou]

There's one thing that helps me with this, the neurotic self reflection and how others are viewing me.  The Nazarene said it.  Judge not, lest you be judged (or maybe it was 'ye')  What this says to me, and what I've learned from experiencing it, is that if I feel judged, it means that I am judging others.  This really works for me.  When I start feeling self conscious about anything, I know it's because I'm making unwanted judgments of my own.  Even the smallest ones can turn into a large ball of twine.

 

So, I say, start with self.  Realize the Is-ness of everything - and remember that the pupils of the eyes you are looking into, you are looking into 'god's' eyes.  No judgments of anyone.  They are all god.  I guarantee this will help, TT.

 

It's a lovely morning in the desert.

 

 

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by manitou

[TranquilTurmoil]

For me I think it stems from childhood/teenage/20s wounds and traumas rather than judging myself or others or both. I fear abandonment because I have been abandoned or have had to abandon everything and everyone I ever loved at different junctures of my life. I also have dealt with deep sense of shame due to being bullied, having ocd, and a toxic relationship a decade ago (which was my life’s only serious romantic relationship so far) that revolved around being severely humiliated over sexual performance issues. That doesn’t even get me started on the utter humiliation of my 3 years in a psych ward.

 

Now I’m in a much better place and the clouds have parted and the sun is rising. I got my college best friend back in the past year among other gigantic resolutions of conflict that have been 8 years in the making. But I have to still unpack all of this skillfully. I hope there aren’t too many strict Theravedin monks patrolling the forum ! Jk 💙

 

I guess unraveling defense mechanisms and old karma takes acceptance, time, and perseverance. If the I Ching has taught me anything (which it has taught me quite a bit) it’s to cherish those qualities even if I have to be browbeaten and shocked into persisting in them 🙏🏼

Edited July 3, 2021 by TranquilTurmoil

[escott]

I also suffered from mental traumas similar, but not the same as, what you described. About 4 years ago I was at a real low, even though from the outside everything would have appeared great. I have a good family and what many would consider a good career. I felt like I was forcing myself to get up every morning and fake happiness to get through the day. I knew I couldn't go the rest of my life like this. I had other episodes and health issues in the past that I had managed to research, get help, and mostly pull myself out of it. So, I set about it to solve this problem, too. I won't detail the entire journey, but ultimately I found TDB and learned about Zhan Zhuang. I bought Lam Kam Chuen's book, The Way of Energy. It changed my life. My mind was (and to certain extent still is) too restless to do seated meditation. But, ZZ seems to work from the outside in. My theory is that it works like a trauma releasing exercise. This combined with Ba Duan Jin (also described in the book) is the core of my practice. I've tried other things and always return to this. You'll find a lot of other testimony here at TDB to back this up. Mentally, while I'm standing in ZZ I actually visualize myself like a tree with roots deep in the ground drawing up energy from the Earth, the Sun over my head giving me life giving energy, and I also draw in and bathe in the universal eternal energy that is the source of existence itself. I am a genuinely happy person now. I hope this helps. Good luck.

[Bhathen]

Came across this poem:

[manitou]

22 hours ago, TranquilTurmoil said:

For me I think it stems from childhood/teenage/20s wounds and traumas rather than judging myself or others or both. I fear abandonment because I have been abandoned or have had to abandon everything and everyone I ever loved at different junctures of my life. I also have dealt with deep sense of shame due to being bullied, having ocd, and a toxic relationship a decade ago (which was my life’s only serious romantic relationship so far) that revolved around being severely humiliated over sexual performance issues. That doesn’t even get me started on the utter humiliation of my 3 years in a psych ward.

 

Now I’m in a much better place and the clouds have parted and the sun is rising. I got my college best friend back in the past year among other gigantic resolutions of conflict that have been 8 years in the making. But I have to still unpack all of this skillfully. I hope there aren’t too many strict Theravedin monks patrolling the forum ! Jk 💙

 

I guess unraveling defense mechanisms and old karma takes acceptance, time, and perseverance. If the I Ching has taught me anything (which it has taught me quite a bit) it’s to cherish those qualities even if I have to be browbeaten and shocked into persisting in them 🙏🏼

 

 

It might be helpful to start with the entire concept of victimization.  Refuse to wear it.  Realize that everyone was just doing the very best they could at the time.  Which may not have been too good at all.  We're all victims of victims, we're all brought up the way our parents were brought up (or sometimes, exactly opposite).  My dad was a jerk, his dad was a jerk, and so was his.  Ad infinitum.

 

Unpacking it shouldn't be difficult.  All of this has brought you to exactly where you are, to a pretty darned good place.  If you've found your way here, you're an unusual person - one who pays attention to their own behavior, one who cultivates self.  From here on in, just enjoy the ride.  You're right where you're supposed to be.  With the rest of us that went through horrible traumas and extricated ourselves.

 

I, for one, am really glad you found the Bums. 😊

 

 

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by manitou

[liminal_luke]

I have no answers but will share a tip: avoid second-order suffering.  What I call second-order suffering is suffering about suffering.  Say, for instance, that you feel anxious.  Let yourself feel anxious but don´t feel anxious about feeling anxious.  If you can´t help it and do feel anxious about feeling anxious, then at least don´t feel anxious about feeling anxious about feeling anxious.  Just stop.  Let the feelings be.  It´s fine to be anxious or fearful or angry or sad or insecure...whatever it is, we´ve all been there.  Hell, I´m there now.  If you start thinking any of these emotional states are a problem, well then you have a bigger problem.  Better not to try so hard.  You´ll get farther faster being gentle with yourself.  Nothing is as serious as it seems.

Edited July 4, 2021 by liminal_luke

[thelerner]

What do I got??  umm Music therapy, listen to this twice. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_P0xltLyCY

Sting, Fortress Around Your Heart.

 

We build fortresses, moats, labyrinths and we get lost inside them.  We know they're bad, but we keep jumping in.  The darkest deepest ones being our past.  One thought and we're lost in a string of dark imaginings.  Worse the thoughts are confused with 'Me'.

 

Solution.. not easy, but it helps to know that the above is a key to it.  I've been listening to an app Wide Awake, it's got daily meditations, heavily Dzoghen oriented, striving to create more space and awareness in the mind and thoughts, so you don't have to fall into them.  Giving a better chance of seeing a thought coming and letting it go by instead of being trapped in it.  

 

FWIW the app is free, for a month.  Generally there is no saviour or white knight to save us, no magical super practice.  I think we have to save ourselves.  Do the daily work, simple and boring that puts us on a path that goes around our mind's minefields.  

 

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by thelerner

[TranquilTurmoil]

3 hours ago, escott said:

I also suffered from mental traumas similar, but not the same as, what you described. About 4 years ago I was at a real low, even though from the outside everything would have appeared great. I have a good family and what many would consider a good career. I felt like I was forcing myself to get up every morning and fake happiness to get through the day. I knew I couldn't go the rest of my life like this. I had other episodes and health issues in the past that I had managed to research, get help, and mostly pull myself out of it. So, I set about it to solve this problem, too. I won't detail the entire journey, but ultimately I found TDB and learned about Zhan Zhuang. I bought Lam Kam Chuen's book, The Way of Energy. It changed my life. My mind was (and to certain extent still is) too restless to do seated meditation. But, ZZ seems to work from the outside in. My theory is that it works like a trauma releasing exercise. This combined with Ba Duan Jin (also described in the book) is the core of my practice. I've tried other things and always return to this. You'll find a lot of other testimony here at TDB to back this up. Mentally, while I'm standing in ZZ I actually visualize myself like a tree with roots deep in the ground drawing up energy from the Earth, the Sun over my head giving me life giving energy, and I also draw in and bathe in the universal eternal energy that is the source of existence itself. I am a genuinely happy person now. I hope this helps. Good luck.

I definitely appreciate the feedback! I would need to heal and strengthen my physical body before I could take up any form of standing meditation just so you know. I used to do hatha yoga when I was in good physical shape but then it aggravated my neck. However I can do seared meditation in a chair still and visualization can be very helpful.
i am curious though if tai chi or qigong would be a good foundation for me to add. FYI my bones severely deteriorated over the last 7 years and I am recovering my health now in ways that have been both rapid and gradual. Thanks for sharing friend.

Edited July 4, 2021 by TranquilTurmoil
More info for clarity

[TranquilTurmoil]

2 hours ago, Bhathen said:

Came across this poem:

It’s taken me 8 years to surrender to my past and while I still carry baggage with me I’m trying to allow and encourage myself to let go. I have high self esteem for better or worse but am finally realizing the futility and deluded nature of regrets. This helps me remind myself I’m intrinsically worthy as we all are and ought not seek validation. Of course this a process 

[TranquilTurmoil]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

I have no answers but will share a tip: avoid second-order suffering.  What I call second-order suffering is suffering about suffering.  Say, for instance, that you feel anxious.  Let yourself feel anxious but don´t feel anxious about feeling anxious.  If you can´t help it and do feel anxious about feeling anxious, then at least don´t feel anxious about feeling anxious about feeling anxious.  Just stop.  Let the feelings be.  It´s fine to be anxious or fearful or angry or sad or insecure...whatever it is, we´ve all been there.  Hell, I´m there now.  If you start thinking any of these emotional states are a problem, well then you have a bigger problem.  Better not to try so hard.  You´ll get farther faster being gentle with yourself.  Nothing is as serious as it seems.

It’s not so much that I suffer from resisting my pain/suffering, and more that I spent so long suffering in silence. Now I finally have some freedom to seek outlets to unload so to speak. I actually make light of my traumas to the point where I’m super jaded in many ways. I recognize the wisdom of what you are suggesting me towards but sometimes I find people need to be validated in a spirit of “I ve been there too.” Rather than counseled into diminishing their resistance. At least that’s what I think I’m seeking. Hopefully that will help my resistance fall away naturally 🙏🏼

[TranquilTurmoil]

11 minutes ago, thelerner said:

What do I got??  umm Music therapy, listen to this twice. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_P0xltLyCY

Sting, Fortress Around Your Heart.

 

We build fortresses, moats, labyrinths and we get lost inside them.  We know they're bad, but we keep jumping in.  The darkest deepest ones being our past.  One thought and we're lost in a string of dark imaginings.  Worse the thoughts are confused with 'Me'.

 

Solution.. not easy, but it helps to know that the above is a key to it.  I've been listening to an app Wide Awake, it's got daily meditations, heavily Dzoghen oriented, striving to create more space and awareness in the mind and thoughts, so you don't have to fall into them.  Giving a better chance of seeing a thought coming and letting it go by instead of being trapped in it.  

 

FWIW the app is free, for a month.  Generally there is no saviour or white knight to save us, no magical super practice.  I think we have to save ourselves.  Do the daily work, simple and boring that puts us on a path that goes around our mind's minefields.  

 

 

Music has been my true refuge over the past year, supplemented by reconnecting with my best friend. I think your last paragraph is the powerful profound solution for me… the one that is the hardest to accept, understand, and have faith in. I loathe gradual progress and the inaction and Nonaction that is required to truly cultivate and grow. I wish I could will my way to healing… especially since I ve felt intensely powerless for so long. But after walking through the indiscernible dharma mist we find ourselves bathed in it eventually. 
A different Theravada monk from the same monastery told me this in response to me venting about all the austerities i/the Yi Jing put me through over the years : Patience is the highest austerity. 
 

After becoming intimately familiar with patience and forbearance over the years I recognizing how it is simultaneously indispensable and unappealing 

[TranquilTurmoil]

2 hours ago, manitou said:

You're right where you're supposed to be.  With the rest of us that went through horrible traumas and extricated ourselves.

 

I, for one, am really glad you found the Bums. 😊

 

 

 

Thanks friend 🤗

[TranquilTurmoil]

On 7/3/2021 at 7:58 AM, TranquilTurmoil said:

Hey y’all. I’m gonna keep searching the mountains of tdb for you hermits reluctant to share your pearls of wisdom and compassion through persistence and perseverance. I have a practice question I will present now.

 

I like finding a balance between conscious analytical contemplation and stilling the mind by means of “emptying it”. I don’t at this moment have the determination or clarity to strive towards the no-thought no-mind mentality, and as far as I can tell, this suits my nature just fine for the time being. With that said, I still have the desire for validation and recognition that leads to subtle contrivance in my thoughts and actions, and a unwholesome pattern of thought loops of reflecting on what I said and whether or not it impressed people, how well it was received… which can lead to deep seated insecurities that I probably ought to get to the bottom of in therapy. I’m not in therapy right now though, so I invite you all to be my make-shift therapists and spiritual guides (who’s advice I will often respect but take with a grain of salt). I’m curious if any of you have tips on cutting thru egoic ideation other than to do my best on my own.

 

PS A few months ago I beckoned a Theravada elder monk with a similar request… to hear me out and be a therapeutic ally…. He told me to get therapy. That was not the therapeutic experience I had hoped for. But like Chogyam Trungpa expounded in “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism”, sometimes the path intentionally lets us down again and again until we truly surrender and potentially lose hope… and in that moment Tilopa slaps us with a sandal or something. I’ll happily turn the other cheek if someone has a sandal to slap me with and if I haven’t lost you by now…. Hopefully you take up my offer to be my friend and fill the void left by years of striving towards emptiness and openness in the midst of longing and loneliness.

*ends rant

🙏🏼🤗

After some introspection, I think this thread while fulfilling and healing had a bit of self deception to it. I sought in it what I was asking to rid myself of.... And maybe I'm doing it again with this and most of my posts. I'm not sure if there's anything to be done other than striving towards honesty, humility, and the sincerity that leads to genuine discernment. I guess that why I'm seeking friendship and mutual listening and sharing this time around rather than advice (for the most part). Its tricky to find the right balance btwn creative expression and not acting out or pursuing impulses that are tainted by ego. If I/we could do that I guess we'd already be immortals and buddhas

[TranquilTurmoil]

5 hours ago, Bhathen said:

Came across this poem:

Back to this. The problem with this philosophy for me is that my genuine path of lonely cultivation has often been mundane and lacking joy. Maybe if I truly strive to embody the poem that lack will be less. But its hard to embrace restlessness, dissatisfaction, boredom. That's my negative Nancy analysis.

 

The flip side of this is I am here now! And as Liu YiMing says hopefully "After bitterness, Sweetness." And I can be grateful to my Higher Power for that.

 

PS if anyone can clarify what my higher power is or can lead me how to figure it out for myself it would cure my curiosity. But I assume that's a topic for another time!

[Bindi]

 ‘Mind emptying’ as an initial method sells ourselves short IMO, if there is psychological damage then there needs to be psychological healing before anything ‘spiritual’ can occur. Emotional health should be part of the spiritual journey, any method that ignores psychological health should only be for already perfect people. 
 

I chose to work with my dreams as my method for returning to psychological health, and I can highly recommend this approach, emotional reintegration is one of the main purposes of dreams, but I have found over time that the emotional health I have gained from dreamwork underpins the continuing development of a healthy subtle energy body. 

[TranquilTurmoil]

15 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 ‘Mind emptying’ as an initial method sells ourselves short IMO, if there is psychological damage then there needs to be psychological healing before anything ‘spiritual’ can occur. Emotional health should be part of the spiritual journey, any method that ignores psychological health should only be for already perfect people. 
 

I chose to work with my dreams as my method for returning to psychological health, and I can highly recommend this approach, emotional reintegration is one of the main purposes of dreams, but I have found over time that the emotional health I have gained from dreamwork underpins the continuing development of a healthy subtle energy body. 

Interesting! While I think your first paragraph is mostly on the money it could be partially and subtly countered, but I am more interested in what you say about dreams, dream work and my relation to it. For the past 3.5 years I have practiced unintentional lucid dreaming just about every night I can remember. The plus side to this is I can cultivate the heroic qualities of the bodhisattva path in my dreams. The flip side is that I was celibate for my 1st 6 years of the path and for the last two I have been practicing abstinence in my waking life (whilst falling for every female friend i regained at one point or another who showed me affection.) TMI but this leads me to often madly pursue base desires in my dreams. I also have dreams that are very mystical in nature whether it’s invisible but energetically tangible malicious entities trying to enter my subtle body to harm me or dreams with vivid and bizarre symbolism. I guess my point is I don’t know how to do dream work with this as I haven’t had “ teaching” dreams since the 1st year of my path for the most part and I have little know how to figure out what to make of or do with my wild and wacky dream landscape. All I know how to do is be a share bear, expose my shadow, shine the light of loving acceptance and forgiveness on it when I’m mindful and brave enough to do so and pray like hell to a theism I have never clarified when dark forces assault me.

 

Other than that my dream themes use to be people attacking me (sometimes mobs of them), me losing my voice when I try to explain myself, and a hodge podge mosh mash of High School, College, and hospital years and so on and so forth

Edited July 4, 2021 by TranquilTurmoil

[Bindi]

7 minutes ago, TranquilTurmoil said:

Interesting! While I think your first paragraph is mostly on the money it could be partially and subtly countered,

 

Please do  

 

7 minutes ago, TranquilTurmoil said:

 

but I am more interested in what you say about dreams, dream work and my relation to it. For the past 3.5 years I have practiced unintentional lucid dreaming just about every night I can remember. The plus side to this is I can cultivate the heroic qualities of the bodhisattva path in my dreams. The flip side is that I was celibate for my 1st 6 years of the path and for the last two I have been practicing abstinence in my waking life (whilst falling for every female friend i regained at one point or another who showed me affection.) TMI but this leads me to often madly pursue base desires in my dreams. I also have dreams that are very mystical in nature whether it’s invisible but energetically tangible malicious entities trying to enter my subtle body to harm me or dreams with vivid and bizarre symbolism. I guess my point is I don’t know how to do dream work with this as I haven’t had “ teaching” dreams since the 1st year of my path for the most part and I have little know how to figure out what to make of or do with my wild and wacky dream landscape. All I know how to do is be a share bear, expose my shadow, shine the light of loving acceptance and forgiveness on it when I’m mindful and brave enough to do so and pray like hell to a theism I have never clarified when dark forces assault me.

 

Lucid dreaming really works against the concept of subconscious messages being brought in through dreams which can then be unpacked. If the conscious mind is present during a dream, then all the conscious mind’s foibles will also be present, as you seem to have experienced with pursuing base desires. 
 

I guess I’d ask was there any reason lucid dreaming might have started, and try to reverse it. 

 

7 minutes ago, TranquilTurmoil said:

 

Other than that my dream themes use to be people attacking me (sometimes mobs of them), me losing my voice when I try to explain myself, and a hodge podge mosh mash of High School, College, and hospital years and so on and so forth

This is the more useful stuff, feeling attacked is a legitimate psychological issue that can be worked with in dreamwork. Losing your voice sounds like a lack of agency derived from a lack of mental clarity. 

[TranquilTurmoil]

6 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

Please do  

 

 

Lucid dreaming really works against the concept of subconscious messages being brought in through dreams which can then be unpacked. If the conscious mind is present during a dream, then all the conscious mind’s foibles will also be present, as you seem to have experienced with pursuing base desires. 
 

I guess I’d ask was there any reason lucid dreaming might have started, and try to reverse it. 

 

This is the more useful stuff, feeling attacked is a legitimate psychological issue that can be worked with in dreamwork. Losing your voice sounds like a lack of agency derived from a lack of mental clarity. 

As for the counter argument… I have to draw solely on personal experience:

After I haphazardly and whole-heartedly hopped on my I Ching path, I very quickly and recklessly started taking self imposed devotional vows to accelerate my progress. I was already in a state of jadedness and semi-emotional shutdown from alienation and psychological traumas and existential crises in college. Now I had a minor healing honeymoon phase my first 2 months with the I Ching, but after that fate threw me into the fire and I had to fend for myself (if this requires further elaboration I ll get to it in an additional post). This consisted of vivid demonic nightmares after a panic attack that coincided with a crisis of faith, involuntary sacrifice of free will, solitary hermitude, you name it. “Shit hit the fan” to be blunt. This led to intensive applied effort for months to a little over a year that led to at times self righteous pride, incredible emotional anguish, and fortunately radical progress on the path of cultivation. All I did during this time was practice non-doing/just sitting, bear with verbal assaults from my family, deprive myself of sleep out of fear and misunderstanding and inner conflict and practice yielding and contemplation. I did my best to maintain inner clarity and apply the teachings and principles to every situation that I drunkenly or deludedly stumbled into. This led to little emotional growth and weak sense of well being for a long time but it was a profound opportunity to purge and transmute afflictions. Eventually that led to my heart opening so different paths to get to similar places I guess. Although it has not been a path of great happiness for me for the most part  I do take refuge in cultivating a grateful spirit.

 

So my real nitpicky answer is that if you have a master-disciple relationship with a trustworthy Oracle or Guru, it can be either optimal or beneficial to forego emotional health for spiritual growth… as long as you can regain sight of the importance of both eventually.

 

A major caveat: while I was unhappy and suffering I still had the awareness to practice self-love and I tried to be my best and seemingly often only friend as I went through trials and tribulations I couldn’t have fathomed I would go through when I naively and courageously took on my path. That was important and counter balanced the lack of emotional/psychological healing I unintentionally spurned

 

[TranquilTurmoil]

28 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

Please do  

 

 

Lucid dreaming really works against the concept of subconscious messages being brought in through dreams which can then be unpacked. If the conscious mind is present during a dream, then all the conscious mind’s foibles will also be present, as you seem to have experienced with pursuing base desires. 
 

I guess I’d ask was there any reason lucid dreaming might have started, and try to reverse it. 

 

This is the more useful stuff, feeling attacked is a legitimate psychological issue that can be worked with in dreamwork. Losing your voice sounds like a lack of agency derived from a lack of mental clarity. 

As for lucid dreaming: I was always fascinated by dreams and started keeping a dream journal in college and tried to will my way to lucid dreaming bc I wanted to escape the mundanity of the worldly world. I longed for anything transcendental. Once the nightmares started I lost my interest in dream analysis for a long time. After being coerced to take psychiatric medication + lack of sunlight+ exercise for years, combined with having a scientifically abnormal REM sleep pattern, I started dreaming A LOT.

 

When I was discharged from the hospital after 34 long months and I started sleeping in a new environment (and started walking hours a day in my house) I just spontaneously started lucid dreaming every night. If I could undo the lucid dreaming part I would definitely consider it but to do so at this point seems like I would have to take a lot of unnatural and guided steps I don’t know how to take. 
 

So I’m planning on just taking the good with the bad as far as dreams are concerned for the time being.

*Puts on Chuang Tzu colored glasses 🕶

[Bindi]

37 minutes ago, TranquilTurmoil said:

As for the counter argument… I have to draw solely on personal experience:

After I haphazardly and whole-heartedly hopped on my I Ching path, I very quickly and recklessly started taking self imposed devotional vows to accelerate my progress. I was already in a state of jadedness and semi-emotional shutdown from alienation and psychological traumas and existential crises in college. Now I had a minor healing honeymoon phase my first 2 months with the I Ching, but after that fate threw me into the fire and I had to fend for myself (if this requires further elaboration I ll get to it in an additional post). This consisted of vivid demonic nightmares after a panic attack that coincided with a crisis of faith, involuntary sacrifice of free will, solitary hermitude, you name it. “Shit hit the fan” to be blunt. This led to intensive applied effort for months to a little over a year that led to at times self righteous pride, incredible emotional anguish, and fortunately radical progress on the path of cultivation. All I did during this time was practice non-doing/just sitting, bear with verbal assaults from my family, deprive myself of sleep out of fear and misunderstanding and inner conflict and practice yielding and contemplation. I did my best to maintain inner clarity and apply the teachings and principles to every situation that I drunkenly or deludedly stumbled into. This led to little emotional growth and weak sense of well being for a long time but it was a profound opportunity to purge and transmute afflictions. Eventually that led to my heart opening so different paths to get to similar places I guess. Although it has not been a path of great happiness for me for the most part  I do take refuge in cultivating a grateful spirit.

 

So my real nitpicky answer is that if you have a master-disciple relationship with a trustworthy Oracle or Guru, it can be either optimal or beneficial to forego emotional health for spiritual growth… as long as you can regain sight of the importance of both eventually.

How are you defining spiritual growth? 

 

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A major caveat: while I was unhappy and suffering I still had the awareness to practice self-love and I tried to be my best and seemingly often only friend as I went through trials and tribulations I couldn’t have fathomed I would go through when I naively and courageously took on my path. That was important and counter balanced the lack of emotional/psychological healing I unintentionally spurned

 

 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Bindi

[TranquilTurmoil]

Gaining insight, cultivating inner strength and gentleness, becoming altruistic, letting go of personal desires and demands (whether willingly or unwillingly) and cultivating and applying patience and forbearance. While I went through my years of adversity I endured more out of fear and hope than virtue... But in retrospect I feel like it was intensive paramita practice. For that I am grateful. And I don't mean to present myself as some sort of transformed saint... But I like to express myself sincerely after years of reticence and yearning.