Buffers, Programs and "the Predator's Mind"

[Pierre]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Massage and bodywork has helped me tremendously in accessing my "inner wounded child" in my life. It had such an impact that I became a bodyworker myself and I'm witnessing emotional releases with some the people I work on at times.
Recently I finished a 10-series of Rolfing for the second time in 5 years.

It's interesting you mention that because I've started bodywork a few months ago and foot reflexology and rolfing less than a month ago. I really think it helped bringing out emotions.

During a session, about three weeks ago, the massagist started focusing on a knot in my back, at the same time she told me to breath "in" this spot and to let it go out, suddenly I was a child, I was in pain and looking up at my parents for help. When I looked up and saw their faces they had no eyes, only hollow black holes.

Simultaneously a whole emotional process was taking place and I was living the fact that their love, their care, their nurturing (giving you a look, attention) had never been here because they simply were not able to (having no eyes).

Then the massagist went to another knot in the back a bit higher than the previous one, I breathed in and this overwhelming question came: "why?" along with those feelings of unfairness, despair, being unjustified, abandoned.

Finally the massagist moved to a third knot in the back, even higher, that's when the tears started to flow, there were grievance tears, grieving the love of my parents that had never been here. But after this phase the feeling changed and I started to get filled with this strong warm feeling of having always been loved, infinitely and unconditionally loved.

This part is difficult to describe intellectually and the only solution I found to convey it is this poem that I wrote right after the massage session.

 

[Jacques]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Massage and bodywork has helped me tremendously in accessing my "inner wounded child" in my life. It had such an impact that I became a bodyworker myself and I'm witnessing emotional releases with some the people I work on at times.
Recently I finished a 10-series of Rolfing for the second time in 5 years.

It's interesting you mention that because I've started bodywork a few months ago and foot reflexology and rolfing less than a month ago. I really think it helped bringing out emotions.

During a session, about three weeks ago, the massagist started focusing on a knot in my back, at the same time she told me to breath "in" this spot and to let it go out, suddenly I was a child, I was in pain and looking up at my parents for help. When I looked up and saw their faces they had no eyes, only hollow black holes.

Simultaneously a whole emotional process was taking place and I was living the fact that their love, their care, their nurturing (giving you a look, attention) had never been here because they simply were not able to (having no eyes).

Then the massagist went to another knot in the back a bit higher than the previous one, I breathed in and this overwhelming question came: "why?" along with those feelings of unfairness, despair, being unjustified, abandoned.

Finally the massagist moved to a third knot in the back, even higher, that's when the tears started to flow, there were grievance tears, grieving the love of my parents that had never been here. But after this phase the feeling changed and I started to get filled with this strong warm feeling of having always been loved, infinitely and unconditionally loved.

This part is difficult to describe intellectually and the only solution I found to convey it is this poem that I wrote right after the massage session.

Hi Belibaste,

Just want to tell you that I understand what you are saying since my massagist seems to work like yours. I never know what she is going to find each time i see her but what a relief as well physically as emotionally after each massage.

 

[Tigersoap]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Thank you Belibaste for sharing your experience !

 

[Joe]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

So, I am likely confused here, but my understanding was that as negative emotions come up from new circumstances in life, one should observe these at the moment, keep them below the neck, but find a way to use this energy in a creative way rather than an entropic way. But is this the same way one should handle suppressed or blocked emotions from past trauma or wounding too?

FWIW, my understanding at this time is that when you can get in touch with suppressed or blocked emotions from past trauma, then you should express them. What I'm getting and I stand to be corrected on this, is that years of suppressed, repressed and blocked emotions from trauma have to be released in order to heal those old traumas and the Work will be disrupted without that healing....that perhaps the old unhealed stuff will prevent one from being able to be truly objective?

I think that is it in a nutshell Jones.

 

[Smallwood]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Interesting thread Belibaste, I've been trying to observe my almost non-existent emotional activity these last few days.

I'm just repressing so much :( The last time I felt anything was before last christmas. I hope there is a way out of this because life doesn't feel like anything to me anymore and I want it to.

But I agree with the notion that first probably come the emotions of sadness and then joy reappears.

 

[Buddy]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

So, I am likely confused here, but my understanding was that as negative emotions come up from new circumstances in life, one should observe these at the moment, keep them below the neck, but find a way to use this energy in a creative way rather than an entropic way. But is this the same way one should handle suppressed or blocked emotions from past trauma or wounding too?

FWIW, my understanding at this time is that when you can get in touch with suppressed or blocked emotions from past trauma, then you should express them. What I'm getting and I stand to be corrected on this, is that years of suppressed, repressed and blocked emotions from trauma have to be released in order to heal those old traumas and the Work will be disrupted without that healing....that perhaps the old unhealed stuff will prevent one from being able to be truly objective?

I think that is it in a nutshell Jones.

I appreciate ya'll discussing that. I also had that question about the distinction between emotional trauma and what is considered the normal, negative emotions of daily life.

 

[Ollie]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Hi Bud

I appreciate ya'll discussing that. I also had that question about the distinction between emotional trauma and what is considered the normal, negative emotions of daily life.

From my perspective they are both the same: trauma and normal negative events (often emotions attached to buffers, limiting decisions, etc) of the day, both have attached to them emotions (negative) that need to be released, and you can do so by learning the positive learnings for having the negative emotions in the first place. What is different is the intensity of the emotion associated with the event, either trauma or everday.

...
From my training in Time Line Therapy, the one thing that was emphasied was the need to get to the root cause of the problem, the first event, that caused the emotion to arise, and to learn the postive lesson for doing what ever you did with the resources currently available to you, and thus get rid, or release of the negative emotion, (and to add in additional resources on clearing to fill the gap), otherwise each succeeding significant emotional event just adds to the emotional content of the original event. This is in essence what Jones is saying in his post.

For example, 'road rage' is rarely the emotion connected with the most recent event it is the whole chain of 'rage' emotions stretching back to the original event that is released all in one massive go.
...

 

[Buddy]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Hi Bud

I appreciate ya'll discussing that. I also had that question about the distinction between emotional trauma and what is considered the normal, negative emotions of daily life.

From my perspective they are both the same: trauma and normal negative events (often emotions attached to buffers, limiting decisions, etc) of the day, both have attached to them emotions (negative) that need to be released, and you can do so by learning the positive learnings for having the negative emotions in the first place. What is different is the intensity of the emotion associated with the event, either trauma or everday.

Thanks Trevrizent. My current practice for "normal negative events (often emotions attached to buffers, limiting decisions, etc) of the day" is to hold them below the neck, acknowledging and feeling the sensations and using my attention to lightly 'touch' the experience (alternating with my other observations) in order to get the cognitive factors involved - to get the feel, flavor, sound, taste or visual of the thoughts that are there and which explain the reason "for having the negative emotions in the first place, like you said".

By contrast, anytime during the day, the POTS or whatever, if what I'm feeling is too intense and seems like it might be the processing of emotional trauma and I can't hold onto it, I physically express it in as positive a manner as I can whether through 'talking it out', physical work activity, crying, writing or hitting a pillow or something.

That is what I do at present. Is there an opportunity for improvement here?

 

[Ollie]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Hi Bud, just wanted to add this quote, re trauma emotions, and the problem of getting access to them:

A growing body of research indicates that in these ways the brain lays down traumatic memories differently from the way it records regular memories. Regular memories are formed through adequate hippocampus and cortical input, are integrated as comprehensive wholes, and through language. In contrast, traumatic memories include chaotic fragments that are sealed off from modulation by subsequent experiences. Such memory sequences are wordless, placeless, and eternal, and long after the original trauma has receded into the past, the brain’s record of it may consist only of isolated and thoroughly anonymous bits of emotion, image, and sensation that ring through the individual like a broken alarm

Your practice with emotions seems OK to me.

 

[Joe]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Hi Bud

I appreciate ya'll discussing that. I also had that question about the distinction between emotional trauma and what is considered the normal, negative emotions of daily life.

From my perspective they are both the same: trauma and normal negative events (often emotions attached to buffers, limiting decisions, etc) of the day, both have attached to them emotions (negative) that need to be released, and you can do so by learning the positive learnings for having the negative emotions in the first place. What is different is the intensity of the emotion associated with the event, either trauma or everday.

There's a quote from the transcripts where the Cs say: "if you choose you can have only positive emotions". The discussion was centered around implants, but is interesting in terms of another benefit from handling our emotions and thinking:

November 26 1994

A: 4th density STSers feed off negative energy.
Q: (J) So, give them nothing. (T) But what I am thinking about is the energy... I have a natural... They are feeding off negative energy. They put something in me, some technological thing, because they come into 3rd density to mess with us...
A: Yes.
Q: (T) ...that will amplify this for them. Make it even stronger.
A: Analogy follows: How effective is a light socket without a plug in it?
Q: (T) Well, how effective is a light socket without a socket in it... I'm trying to learn here so you guys give me some latitude.
A: What?
Q: (T) If you take a light socket and pull the socket... pull the plug on the light socket you no longer have light. (L) Well, the Lizzies are the light bulb and you are the power source so you just pull out their plug. (J) Unplug yourself. (T) Am I the socket?
A: How effective is a motor that is never turned on?
Q: (J) Do not be their source. If they feed off negative energy, starve them.
A: Implants are ineffective if not used.
Q: (J) The power source has to be on for the implant to work for them to get the juice and the power is negative thoughts and emotions. (T) But I am still a 3rd density being. I have all the emotions of a 3rd density being, the whole gamut, and that is part of what makes me a 3rd density being. Therefore I can't turn one emotion off without upsetting the balance of the other emotions, emotions are almost an analogy to the light and the dark.
A: No.
Q: (T) I have positive emotions and I have negative emotions; they both make up who I am.
A: If you choose, you may have only positive emotions.
Q: (T) Now, if I have only positive emotions, which is a nice thing to have and I'd like to have that, what does that do to the sensor equipment of the Lizzies?
A: Cancels them.
Q: (T) So they are tuned to negative frequencies?
A: Yes.
Q: (T) Having positive feelings cuts off the implants. If I cut off the sensors by having positive feelings, what will the Lizards do?
A: Go elsewhere.
Q: (L) Am I correct in my thought that when you first start turning this off that they may increase their efforts for a period and then finally they realize that you are really in charge here and then they go away?
A: Exactly.
Q: (L) So, when you first get a clue and you start getting a grip on your emotions and dealing with everything that happens to you with acceptance and knowledge that all is a manifestation of your own creation and for your ultimate good, for a period of time they may try ten times harder to get you back as a food source, but then once they realize they can't, then they do finally let loose?
A: You and F*** are experiencing this right now.
Q: (L) This is true. (F) We have both been under massive attack. Just doing this work has been a struggle to keep at it with everything coming from every direction. (L) The hardest has been to stay in a
frame of mind to do it.

 

[Buddy]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Q: (L) Am I correct in my thought that when you first start turning this off that they may increase their efforts for a period and then finally they realize that you are really in charge here and then they go away?
A: Exactly.
Q: (L) So, when you first get a clue and you start getting a grip on your emotions and dealing with everything that happens to you with acceptance and knowledge that all is a manifestation of your own creation and for your ultimate good, for a period of time they may try ten times harder to get you back as a food source, but then once they realize they can't, then they do finally let loose?
A: You and F*** are experiencing this right now.

Sounds something like how Don Juan described the way the discipline of the warrior finally causes the flier to leave, because one has become "distasteful" and one's awareness can finally grow beyond the toes, correct?


Thanks to everyone who has a role in this thread. I'm feeling emotionally lighter somehow right now. :)

 

[RyanX]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

So, I am likely confused here, but my understanding was that as negative emotions come up from new circumstances in life, one should observe these at the moment, keep them below the neck, but find a way to use this energy in a creative way rather than an entropic way. But is this the same way one should handle suppressed or blocked emotions from past trauma or wounding too?

FWIW, my understanding at this time is that when you can get in touch with suppressed or blocked emotions from past trauma, then you should express them. What I'm getting and I stand to be corrected on this, is that years of suppressed, repressed and blocked emotions from trauma have to be released in order to heal those old traumas and the Work will be disrupted without that healing....that perhaps the old unhealed stuff will prevent one from being able to be truly objective?

I think that is it in a nutshell Jones.

Thank you for the clarification Jones and Perceval.

That confirms what I suspected. So, it seems that before we can correctly use the energy of our emotional center as Gurdjieff describes it, past trauma and junk need to be cleared out and this means using our emotional center - actually feeling again. I believe this is where I am at right now.

I think it may be true that as the process of clearing out the junk in our emotional center progresses, the emotional center starts working right, albeit slowly and inconsistently. I've noticed this at times I have this wonderful clarity to SEE that I don't think I've experienced or maybe only experienced really early in my childhood. Other times, I feel like I'm back in the swamp and things get really bad, worse than I've ever felt. It's like the emotional highs and lows have increased in height and depth - a real increase in sensitivity. But despite this roller coaster, I feel like I am making progress. Bad habits are starting to show themselves to me stronger than they ever have before and I feel like I'm getting the message, "hey, change this, or you'll suffer the consequences!" I feel the weight of every decision and action I take and how that affects myself and others. It is a strange, somewhat disorienting feeling, but I think I might be getting somewhere.

 

[Alada]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

[quote author=Perceval]
It's like having a bunch of symbols in your belly that represent the various different feelings you experienced as a child, usually as a result of trauma, and for one reason or another, you learned that they were bad and should be hidden away. So there they sit. Every now and then, someone says or does something, or something happens that creates in you a distinct echo of that original trauma-based emotion, and it lights up like a bulb and starts hopping up and down inside you.
[/quote]

"A bunch of symbols in your belly", that's a useful way to put it as a reminder of what we're looking for underneath everything in the moment. What I notice in my own attempts to re-connect properly with an sleeping emotional centre, is that most often what I thought were emotions were really just words. Whole bunches of words, thoughts, justifications, spun out by emotional thinking - which isn't emotion at all. But you get so used to it that it easily mistaken for the real thing. All the thoughts you described are taken as being emotions, but its all in the head, never in the heart or the belly.

Belibaste's suggestions as way to get to the root of real emotion are helpful, and yes, they can be 'simple emotions of a child' but so hard to find! If you catch an emotional moment, sit and ask yourself "what is it?", it can seem as if there's a gulf there between yourself and the reply - if it comes. "What is it? What's the matter? What do you feel right now?" ...and there is inner silence. A long wait, thinking the situation over again, then maybe "I feel hurt" a simple thing, simple description, not to imply anything derogatory through the word 'simple', this is all it needs be. Can we expect more from a long forgotten barely functioning emotional centre? But you see how this 'simple' thing can be usurped by the head and turned into something way more complex and baroque.

For me it highlights the need to work on the dialogue, and the need for forbearance.

[quote author=Perceval]

Second, every time these old feelings "light up" in response to a perceived similar dynamic as the original, we blame someone else for (deliberately, or so we believe) "making us feel that way". Imagine we had an old war wound that was painful to touch but not visible. We meet someone and they accidentally touch the wound with knowing anything about it. Then imagine that we get really angry, shout at the person or just walk off in a huff and continue to hold a grudge against them for ages and convince ourselves that they really did that on purpose.

In short, we blame other people for something that has nothing to do with them and everything to do with us.
[/quote]

Blaming others for touching on our "old war wounds" is an excellent analogy. Thanks Perceval.

 

[Bernhard]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Massage and bodywork has helped me tremendously in accessing my "inner wounded child" in my life. It had such an impact that I became a bodyworker myself and I'm witnessing emotional releases with some the people I work on at times.
Recently I finished a 10-series of Rolfing for the second time in 5 years.

It's interesting you mention that because I've started bodywork a few months ago and foot reflexology and rolfing less than a month ago. I really think it helped bringing out emotions.

During a session, about three weeks ago, the massagist started focusing on a knot in my back, at the same time she told me to breath "in" this spot and to let it go out, suddenly I was a child, I was in pain and looking up at my parents for help. When I looked up and saw their faces they had no eyes, only hollow black holes.

Simultaneously a whole emotional process was taking place and I was living the fact that their love, their care, their nurturing (giving you a look, attention) had never been here because they simply were not able to (having no eyes).

Then the massagist went to another knot in the back a bit higher than the previous one, I breathed in and this overwhelming question came: "why?" along with those feelings of unfairness, despair, being unjustified, abandoned.

Finally the massagist moved to a third knot in the back, even higher, that's when the tears started to flow, there were grievance tears, grieving the love of my parents that had never been here. But after this phase the feeling changed and I started to get filled with this strong warm feeling of having always been loved, infinitely and unconditionally loved.

This part is difficult to describe intellectually and the only solution I found to convey it is this poem that I wrote right after the massage session.

Yes, breathing consciously into the tensions and knots helps to release them and experience the stored/underlying emotion. I can relate to what you described very much, both receiving and giving. Today I worked on client and as I was getting deeper into her upper back (where most people hold their tension/stress), focusing on some knots, I told her to direct her breath into it. She did and exhaled with a sound (a sigh) as I felt the knot dissolve under my fingers. Interestingly she said that she felt it in her vocal cords when I was working on that part of her back. Seems like she needed to express whatever came up through a sound.

Conscious breathing is very important when receiving bodywork. I need to keep reminding people I work on about that. Working with one's breath is key when releasing tension and eventually emotions at a massage. Some people hold their breath when the massage gets a bit deeper,, making the pain actually worse. Part of the process is to learn how to receive a massage. It's not just about lying there passively.

Well, "pain" is very subjective when it comes to massage anyway. I remember when going through the Rolfing sessions, I changed my relation to "pain". It was more of a sensation to work with and its uncomfort-level would change in relation to my breath and depth of inhale/exhale. The rolfer I worked with encouraged me to make sounds when exhaling, which helped a lot. That's when all kinds of emotions came up, from anger, sadness to melancholy, which eventually turned into postive ones. The second I experiences the negative (suppressed) emotion it already transformed into a positive one, similar to what you described.

On a side note. It's really great to have the EE breathwork program as I can recommend it to my clients. It's very beneficial to bodywork as it teaches people how to breathe properly.

 

[Ollie]

Re: Emotions and self-observation

Recently, I decided to discover them, face them, acknowledge them, live them. For that I used two methods. First, if I had an interaction with someone that generated negative emotions I tried to share what I was feeling (despite the overwhelming fear due to the unconscious reenactment of the child/narcissic parent interaction, so here you need really understanding people). Second when I was alone and perceived this slight malaise, I would ask myself, "what do you feel?" I would try to find the emotions, connect to it, and express it.
When I first tried to connect to these emotions, which were a totally new thing, a totally new world, it would manifest just as "something slightly off", "a subtle change", "a vague uneasiness" , then the predator mind would start saying "there's nothing", it's not important", "here is the logical explanation"... So in the beginning it was really difficult to know when a negative emotion was there.

I feel as if I’ve been doing this for the past twelve years, with a lack of discernable progress, apart from anger which I can perceive, the rest of the negative emotions are so subtle that it difficult to notice (and that is in the absence of the predator’s mind talking!).

Once I knew these emotions, I could start really avoiding to be slave of them. It's like this game where you're listening to a song, when hearing the first notes you've to guess what song it is and the music stop. But at least in my case I had first to know intellectually and emotionally the whole song to be able to really tame it and not deny it.

In addition to Belibaste’s excellent suggestion, Mouravieff offers one (intellectual) approach to start to awaken the emotional centre,

… for lack of anything else better he will be forced to work empirically.
However, we can give him a valuable hint: human nature has an aptitude for being trained, and this can be profitably used to awaken the torpid emotional centre. With subtle and highly refined reasoning, the man 3 must in every circumstance imagine the reaction of the man 2 who is obedient to the will of his emotional centre. And he must by conscious effort react in the same way when not driven by emotion. It is a game. … But if he takes the game seriously and makes it a permanent methodical exercise for all occasions, he will succeed in liberating his emotional centre from its state of torpor.