"Healing Developmental Trauma" by L. Heller and A. LaPierre

I have 2 questions :

1° Which distinction do you make between being in touch with our Core Needs and Internal Considering ?

2° Could we be saying that NeurOptimal is acting bottom-up - by acting directly on the neuroplasticity of the brain (physical) to reframe the pathways (psychological) ?
 
I have 2 questions :

1° Which distinction do you make between being in touch with our Core Needs and Internal Considering ?

2° Could we be saying that NeurOptimal is acting bottom-up - by acting directly on the neuroplasticity of the brain (physical) to reframe the pathways (psychological) ?
Got my 2° answer :
Ever heard of neurofeedback, non-linear dynamics or a “bottom-up” approach towards better health?
Still wondering about the 1°, feel free to share your insights
 
1° Which distinction do you make between being in touch with our Core Needs and Internal Considering ?
I would say that being in touch with our core needs is about having internal awareness of our emotions. Internal considering is primarily about thinking and feeling that occurs as a result of a lack of internal awareness of what really drives our thoughts and feelings. In other words, being aware of our core needs can help prevent us from internal considering.
 
Got my 2° answer :

Still wondering about the 1°, feel free to share your insights

IMO:
They're different concepts and not really related in that way.

Being in touch with your core needs is simply part of knowing yourself.

Internal considering is being identified with what you want or need etc., and neglecting to consider others.

A lot of the times those needs are unexamined or denied, and therefore they're running the show, so lack of knowledge of self can actually increase internal considering.
 
Thanks to both of you, I see clearer now the possibility of being in touch with them to be balanced, allowing to open externally, and still, then, being able to dis-identify with them. I am not my needs, nor my emotions, nor my thoughts, but the observer who recognise them.

I've also read the part about Internal Considering in the Casswiki, this is the border between External and Internal that can be thin indeed.
 
I would say that being in touch with our core needs is about having internal awareness of our emotions.

Being in touch with your core needs is simply part of knowing yourself.
I make, then, the connection between what you say and Carlos Castaneda's self reflection, as the ability to observe without identifying.
The only ability left to us originating from our 'Real I' [Gurdjieff], full awareness, subconscious.
Is it ?

From the Casswiki, in the predator's mind section :
Castaneda further explains that infants are born with a glowing coat of awareness and that this is what the predator eats, to the point where only a narrow fringe is left. This narrow fringe is sufficient to keep man alive.
This narrow fringe is man’s self-reflection, where man is irremediably caught.

’Planetary influences arrange for wars
and catastrophies simply to obtain required vibrations’ [Gurdjieff] Man may also play his role consciously,
at least in theory, and thus be free from these arbitrary influences and serve the universe in another manner, suggests Gurdjieff.
My question then comes to another topic but as everything is linked :

So, in my theoric understanding so far, it is the Work, having the potential to unlock dormant DNA, which allows us to reconnect with all abilities of our whole Awareness, Real I. (In hypothetical order, the Work's stages :
-> Enlightenment (the C's have said that it equals to simply being smart, I can't find the transcript back for it, feel free to share it please)
-> Death of the ego -> Second birth/Real I)

And this is supposed to happen, in part, by cleansing all the rubbish that have been stored in our unconscious mind, to make the conduit (this latter) clean for a proper connection to full awareness, i.e the subconscious/higher self, and all its other related abilities.

Is that right ?

(Here is my puzzling of conscious/unconscious/subconscious)

*This post might be a lot condensed, I search to connect the many dots I have as clearly as I can to move on*
 
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Just getting back to this good forum and resource after continuing to work through early trauma issues. I'm curious if others here have come across the Jovian/Ra-Human Development work and used it in conjunction with Gurdjeiff and other methods like EE Breathing?
@MarcusAurelius,

If I found the same "Jovis/Ra-Human Development" ( I don't know how it may relate to Gurdjieff or EE) it does seem expensive.

View attachment 41332

I may not have found the organization you mention.

Did you try this out @MarcusAurelius ?

There is a free chart on the site and I'm not sure how useful that could be. Somebody else asked me about this Jovian Development stuff, and wondering about it. I have my doubts about these systems although they can be helpful to get insights. We do know there are actions that can be taken without paid systems.
 
I thought I'd start a thread on this book, as recommended by Laura here.




Looks to be a very interesting read, and while I was looking to order it on the net, I came across an article excerpted from the book, which I will post here (link to the article is below):

[quote author= Heller & LaPierre]

The spontaneous movement in all of us is toward connection, health, and aliveness. No matter how withdrawn and isolated we have become, or how serious the trauma we have experienced, on the deepest level, just as a plant spontaneously moves toward sunlight, there is in each of us an impulse moving toward connection and healing.

It is the experience of being in connection that fulfills the longing we have to feel fully alive. An impaired capacity for connection to self and others and the ensuing diminished aliveness are the hidden dimensions that underlie most psychological and many physiological problems. Unfortunately, we are often unaware of the internal roadblocks that keep us from the experience of the connection and aliveness we yearn for. When individuals have had to cope with early threat and the resulting high arousal of unresolved anger and incompleted fight-flight responses, adaptive survival mechanisms develop that reflect the dysregulation of the nervous system and of all the systems of the body. These adaptive survival mechanisms disrupt the capacity for connection and social engagement and are the threads that link the many physical, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive symptoms that are the markers of developmental posttraumatic stress.


A Brief Historical Context

A cornerstone of somatic psychotherapy has been that our aliveness, vitality, and authenticity are accessed through connection to the body. As we know, Western somatic psychotherapy began with Wilhelm Reich who was the first to understand that our biologically based emotions are inextricably linked to our psychological processes. Reich, whose roots were in psychoanalysis, is best known for his insights on what he called character structures, which he believed were kept in place by defensive armoring. For Reich, the term armoring refers to the muscular rigidity that is the protective response to living in environments that are emotionally repressive and hostile to aliveness. Building on Reich’s understanding of the functional unity of body and mind, Alexander Lowen developed Bioenergetics, a somatic approach that identified five basic developmental character structures: schizoid, oral, psychopathic, masochistic, and rigid. Lowen’s five character structures clearly tapped into a fundamental understanding of human nature and have influenced many subsequent body-based psychotherapies. Reich and Lowen’s character structures were based on the medical model of disease and therefore focused on the pathology of each developmental stage. Consistent with the thinking of their time, they emphasized the importance of working with defenses, repression, and resistance and encouraged regression, abreaction, and catharsis. Reich and Lowen both believed that the therapist’s job was to break through a patient’s character armor—their psychological and somatic defenses—in order to release the painful emotions stored or locked in the body.

As new information has emerged on how the brain and nervous system function, the need to update the focus on pathology in both psychodynamic and somatic approaches is becoming increasingly clear. Looking through the lens of what we currently know about trauma and its impact on the nervous system, cathartic interventions can have the unintended effect of causing increased fragmentation and retraumatization. For example, we now know that when we focus on dysfunction, we risk reinforcing that dysfunction: if we focus on deficiency and pain, we are likely to get better at feeling deficiency and pain. Similarly, when we concentrate primarily on an individual’s past, we build skills at reflecting on the past, sometimes making personal history seem more important than present experience.

Five Biologically Based Core Needs and Associated Capacities

Reconceptualizing the character structure model to take current knowledge into account, the NeuroAffective Relational Model™(NARM) recognizes five biologically based core needs that are essential to our physical and emotional well-being: the need for connection, attunement, trust, autonomy, and love-sexuality (Table 2). When our biologically based core needs are met early in life, we develop core capacities that allow us to recognize and meet these core needs as adults. Being attuned to these five basic needs and capacities means that we are connected to our deepest resources and vitality.

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{I could not paste the Table from the article, this is one from the internet}
Five Adaptive Survival Styles

Although it may seem that humans suffer from an endless number of emotional problems and challenges, most of these can be traced to early developmental traumas that compromise the development of one or more of the five core capacities. Using the first two core needs as examples, when children do not get the connection they need, they grow up both seeking and fearing connection. When children do not get the necessary early attunement to their needs, they do not learn to recognize what they need, are unable to express their needs, and often feel undeserving of having their needs met. When a biologically based core need is not met, predictable psychological and physiological symptoms result: self-regulation, identity, and self-esteem become compromised. To the degree that the five biologically based core needs are not met in early life, five corresponding adaptive survival styles are set in motion. These survival styles are the adaptive strategies children develop to cope with the disconnection, dysregulation, disorganization, and isolation they experience when core needs are not met. Each adaptive survival styles is named for its core need and missing or compromised core capacity: the Connection Survival Style, the Attunement Survival Style, the Trust Survival Style, the Autonomy Survival Style, and the LoveSexuality Survival Style

As adults, the more the five adaptive survival styles dominate our lives, the more disconnected we are from our bodies, the more distorted our sense of identity becomes, and the less we are able to regulate ourselves. When, because of developmental trauma, we are identified with a survival style, we stay within the confines of learned and subsequently self-imposed limitations, foreclosing our capacity for connection and aliveness. To illustrate how in NARM we support the development of missing core capacities and help clients disidentify from the resulting adaptive survival styles, we will now focus on the treatment of adults who struggle with the Connection Survival Style. The theme of broken connection runs through all five survival styles, but it is particularly central to the Connection Survival Style.

CONNECTION
Our First Core Need

In NARM, Connection is the name given to the first stage of human development and the first core need or organizing life principle. When our capacity for connection is in place, we experience a right to be that
becomes the foundation upon which our healthy self and our vital relationship to life is built. The degree to which we feel received, loved, and welcomed into the world makes up the cornerstone of our identity. The Connection Survival Style, what Lowen called the schizoid, develops as a way of coping with the systemic high-arousal states that result from the ongoing attachment distress of feeling unloved, unprotected, unsupported, and even hated.

The Interplay Between Shock and Developmental Trauma

Shock trauma—the impact of an acute, devastating incident that leaves an individual frozen in fear and frozen in time—is clinically recognized and treated under the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD). In single-event shock trauma, the completion of the fight–flight response is not possible. When working with individuals who have experienced shock trauma, the goal of therapy is to help them complete the fight–flight response. In cases of developmental trauma—which includes profound caregiver misattunement as well as ongoing abuse and neglect of varying degrees—there is no single traumatizing event. Although the physiological response may be similar to that of shock trauma, there are ongoing distressing relational dynamics to take into consideration. Throughout the stages of a child’s development, there is an interplay between shock and developmental trauma. In early development, shock traumas—for example early surgery, an infant’s or mother’s illness, death in the family, or global events such as being born into wartime—have a disruptive effect on the attachment process. In these situations, infants are affected not only by the shock itself, but also by how the shock negatively impacts the attachment process. An example of the interplay between shock and developmental trauma can be seen in infants who have experienced prenatal trauma. At birth, the already traumatized infant is in a disorganized and dysregulated state. Studies show that it is more difficult for a mother to bond with a distressed baby. Traumatized infants present their mothers with significant regulation and attachment challenges that do not exist in non-traumatized newborns.

The Impact of Trauma on Early Development

During the first stage of life, the fetus and the infant are in every way dependent on their caregivers and on their environment. As a result of this complete vulnerability, an infant’s reaction to early developmental or shock trauma is one of overwhelmingly high arousal and terror. The vulnerable infant, who can neither fight nor flee, cannot discharge the high arousal caused by the uncontrollable threat and responds with physiological constriction, contraction, core withdrawal, and immobility/freeze. One of the strategies used by animals in response to threat is to run for safety. Animals run to their burrows, flee to their caves or to any other safe place. When infants or small children experience early shock or attachment trauma, the threat is inescapable. They cannot run and they cannot fight. Whether the threat is intrauterine or takes place at birth or later in life, there is no possible safety other than that provided by the caregivers. When their caregivers, for whatever reason, are unable to provide safety or are themselves a source of threat, infants experience the only home they have as unsafe; this sets up a pattern for a lifelong sense that the world is unsafe. The earlier the trauma, the more global its impact on the physiology and psychology, on the sense of identity and world view.

Current studies in developmental traumatology show that the cumulative effects of chronic early neglect and abuse adversely influence brain development and negatively impact the nervous system, endocrine system, and memory. The pain of early trauma is overwhelming and disorganizing; it creates high levels of systemic arousal and stress which, when ongoing and undischarged, are managed in the body through visceral dysregulation, muscular contraction, and the dissociative processes of numbing, splitting, and fragmentation. Anyone who has pricked an amoeba and seen it contract and close in on itself has witnessed this process of contraction and withdrawal. This combination of high arousal, contraction, and withdrawal/freeze creates systemic dysregulation that affects all of the body’s biological systems leaving the child and later the adult with a narrowed range of resiliency and an increased vulnerability to later traumas. The underlying biological dysregulation of early trauma is the shaky foundation upon which the psychological self is built.

When infants experience their environment as threatening and dangerous, their reaction is either to cling to others or to withdraw into themselves.
As with all living organisms, constriction, contraction, withdrawal, and freeze are the primitive defenses infants utilize to manage the high arousal of terrifying early trauma. When threat is chronic, when danger never goes away and there is no possible resolution as is the case in abusive families, the entire organism remains in ongoing anxious and defensive responses and the nervous system becomes locked in a state of high sympathetic arousal and hypervigilance. In cases of early or severe trauma, when infants cannot run from threat or fight back, arousal levels can be so dangerously high that they threaten to overload the nervous system, and often do so. Locked in perpetual, painful high arousal, the only alternative, the fallback position, is to go into a freeze state which infants and small children accomplish by numbing themselves. Until the trauma response is completed and the high levels of arousal are discharged from the nervous system, the environment continues to feel unsafe even when the actual threat is gone. Being locked in unresolved trauma responses can become a lifelong state, as we see in individuals with the Connection Survival Style.

Early Trauma Is Held in Implicit Memory

Since the hippocampus is responsible for discrete memory, when trauma occurs early in the development of the neocortex and before the hippocampus comes online, many individuals show symptoms of
developmental posttraumatic stress yet have no conscious memories of traumatic events. Early trauma is held implicitly in the body and brain resulting in a systemic dysregulation that is confusing for individuals who often exhibit symptoms of traumas they cannot remember. This is also confusing for the clinicians who want to help them. Neuroscience confirms that early trauma is particularly damaging. Not only does it impact the body, nervous system, and developing psyche, but its effects are cumulative; trauma experienced in an early phase of development makes a child more vulnerable to trauma in later phases of development. For example, prenatal trauma can make birth more difficult, and a traumatic birth can affect the subsequent process of attachment. The tragedy of early trauma is that when babies resort to freeze and dissociation before the brain and nervous system have fully developed, their range of resiliency drastically narrows. In addition to the normal challenges of childhood, meeting later developmental tasks becomes that much more difficult. Being stuck in freeze-dissociation, these individuals have less access to healthy aggression, including the fight–flight response, and their capacity for social engagement is strongly impaired, leaving them much more vulnerable and less able to cope with later trauma and the challenges of life.

The Adult Experience

Adults who have experienced early trauma are engaged in a lifelong struggle to manage their high levels of arousal. They struggle with dissociative responses that disconnect them from their body, with the
vulnerability of ruptured boundaries, and with the dysregulation that accompanies such struggles. Individuals with less obvious symptoms may not consciously realize that they experience a diminished
capacity for joy, expansion, and intimate relationship;
if they are aware of their difficulties, they usually do not understand their source. Individuals with the Connection Survival Style are often relieved to learn that their difficult symptoms have a common thread, what we call an organizing principle. Their struggle with high levels of anxiety, psychological and physiological problems, chronic low self-esteem, shame, and dissociation all constellate around the organizing principle of connection—both the desire for connection and the fear of connection.

When there is early trauma, varying degrees of predictable symptoms are commonly present. It is important to keep in mind that these symptoms usually occur simultaneously, loop back on each other, and continuously reinforce one another.

Self-Image and Self-Esteem. Individuals traumatized in the Connection stage experience themselves as outsiders, disconnected from themselves and other human beings. Not able to see that the traumatic experiences that shaped their identity are due to environmental failures that were beyond their control, individuals with the Connection Survival style view themselves as the source of the pain they feel.
The Need to Isolate. Because of the breach in their energetic boundaries, individuals with the Connection Survival Style use interpersonal distance to feel safe. They develop life strategies to minimize contact with other human beings.
Nameless Dread. The internal experience of adults traumatized in the Connection stage is one of constant underlying dread and terror characterized in NARM as nameless dread. Their nervous system has remained in a continual sympathetically dominant global high arousal and it is this arousal that drives and reinforces their profound and persistent feeling of threat.
A Designated Issue. A named and identified threat is better than nameless dread. Not realizing that the danger that they once experienced in their environment is now being carried forward as high arousal in their nervous system, the tendency is to project onto the current environment what has become an ongoing internal state. Once the dread has been named, it becomes what we call the designated issue. The designated issue can be fear of death, a phobia, real or perceived physical deficiencies such as overweight or other perceived “defects”, as well as real or perceived psychological or cognitive deficiencies such as dyslexia or not feeling smart enough. Designated issues, whether or not they have a basis in physical reality, come to dominate a person’s life, covering the deeper distress and masking the underlying core disconnection.
Shame and Self-Hatred. Infants who experience early trauma of any kind experience the early environmental failure as if there were something wrong with them. Later cognitions such as “There is something basically wrong with me” or “I am bad” are built upon the early somatic sensation: “I feel bad.”
Overwhelm. People with significantly compromised energetic boundaries describe themselves as feeling raw, sometimes without a skin. Compromised energetic boundaries lead to the feeling of
being flooded by environmental stimuli and particularly by human contact.
Environmental Sensitivities. Intact energetic boundaries function to filter environmental stimuli. Inadequate or compromised boundaries, on the other hand, allow for an extreme sensitivity to external stimuli: human contact, sounds, light, touch, toxins, allergens, smells, and even electromagnetic activity.
A Sense of Meaninglessness. A common refrain from individuals with the Connection Survival Style is “Life has no meaning” or “What’s the point?” Searching for meaning, for the why of existence, is one of the primary coping mechanisms used for managing their sense of disconnection and despair.

Dissociation: Bearing the Unbearable

When trauma is early or severe, some individuals completely disconnect by numbing all sensation and emotion. Disconnection from the bodily self, emotions, and other people is traditionally called dissociation. By dissociating, that is, by keeping threat from overwhelming consciousness, a traumatized individual can continue to function. When individuals are dissociated, they have little or no awareness that they are dissociated: they only become aware of their dissociation as they come out of it. Compassionate understanding for the pain and fear that drives the dissociative process is critical to healing the Connection dynamic. Just as a coyote with its leg caught in a trap chews it off in order to escape, in attempting to manage early trauma, the organism fragments, sacrificing unity in order to save itself. Disconnection sets up a pernicious cycle: To manage early trauma, children disconnect from their bodies, emotions, and aggression, foreclosing their vitality and aliveness. In addition, they also disconnect from other people. This disconnection, though life saving, produces more distress because they feel exiled from self and others. Seeing other people live in what one client called “the circle of love” and the distress of feeling “on the outside looking in” heighten both shame and alienation.

The rest of the article can be read here _http://cellularbalance.com/Articles/Working_with_Developmental_Trauma.pdf
I can relate to much of what is written above- when I was reading it I felt like a light bulb just went on. Can't wait to read the book in full.
[/QUOTE]

IMO "The Work" helps heal the centers where the trauma impacts the human organism.

The phycological/emotional trauma impacts the centers by creating loops or feedback loops that until worked on to be cleared continue to run automatically.

One identifies with the lower center thoughts and emotions. The emotions make the human organism say words and act in certain ways that are all A influenced based.

Personality disorders (10 in the DSM) along with insecurities are developed by the human organism early on and that organism identifies that THEY are THEIR programs and insecurities and negative thoughts and emotions. Moreover, if one has an intimation that there is another way for their being to operate they have to want to improve and NOT "Buffer" what they see. Also as we know psychopaths and sociopaths are different than organisms with insecurities and personality disorders so what I am saying here does not apply to them...

Until there is a moment where one realizes their is another way and then "The Work" can start.

Once "The Work" starts there is a tipping point where enough progress is made in a certain direction that the energy and momentum continues in said direction and there is no going back.

At this point protection is important for maintenance and future growth and being able to live out ones fate in a low stress longevity environment. Also to reduce engagement with others with their traumas and disorders to avoid engaging in new Karmic debts that bring one back to where they came from.

This is what I see from my perspective as a way throug "The Work" to overcome the trauma. Obviously nothing is easy and it wont be done in 48hrs and take a lifetime or multiple.

Alternativly, one can hire a professional and be guided through change with someone who benefits from slowly improving their "client" or ones can network and research in esoterica and other groups where the aim is alike.

As they say all roads lead to Rome while I think that is true some of the times there is not one way to heal trauma I am just commenting from my experince. Furthermore, the souled individual has to be in their cycle where they have the ability to engage in "The Work" to recognize the importance and have the ability to do it. If it is not part of their pre life planning or they do not speed up their timeline here on earth they will engage in what they planned to engage in and until the next time maybe they will work to improve and undo...
 
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I make, then, the connection between what you say and Carlos Castaneda's self reflection, as the ability to observe without identifying.
The only ability left to us originating from our 'Real I' [Gurdjieff], full awareness, subconscious.
Is it ?

From the Casswiki, in the predator's mind section :



My question then comes to another topic but as everything is linked :

So, in my theoric understanding so far, it is the Work, having the potential to unlock dormant DNA, which allows us to reconnect with all abilities of our whole Awareness, Real I. (In hypothetical order, the Work's stages :
-> Enlightenment (the C's have said that it equals to simply being smart, I can't find the transcript back for it, feel free to share it please)
-> Death of the ego -> Second birth/Real I)

And this is supposed to happen, in part, by cleansing all the rubbish that have been stored in our unconscious mind, to make the conduit (this latter) clean for a proper connection to full awareness, i.e the subconscious/higher self, and all its other related abilities.

Is that right ?

(Here is my puzzling of conscious/unconscious/subconscious)

*This post might be a lot condensed, I search to connect the many dots I have as clearly as I can to move on*

'Death of the ego' wouldn't be my choice of term to describe self-development. It's a pretty ambiguous phrase, and can mean different things to different people. I wonder what you mean by it?
 
'Death of the ego' wouldn't be my choice of term to describe self-development. It's a pretty ambiguous phrase, and can mean different things to different people. I wonder what you mean by it?
What I mean by it is the death of self-importance and of all what I thought to be for what actually is, once having awakened to reality. The death of personality for individuality.
 
What I mean by it is the death of self-importance and of all what I thought to be for what actually is, once having awakened to reality. The death of personality for individuality.

Yeah, the ol' self-importance is definitely a major energy drain on ourselves and on others. It's good to keep that in check as a top priority.

That said, Don Juan also said that our self-importance isn't just an enemy - it's also crucial to our health and well-being. I take that to mean that its very important to be able to develop a love for ourselves and maintain a healthy sense of self-worth. Otherwise we can fall into the other extreme, which is a sense of worthlessness and seeing life asa meaninglessness. In the parlance of the HDT book, this is the dynamic of pride and shame. Even a certain kind of shame can be healthy - Gurdjieff talks about 'organic shame', which is another way of talking about conscience, or the pain we feel when we've done wrong and hurt others.

I don't know if 'seeking death' is the right approach when I think about either of these aspects of my own personality. It sounds pretty nihilist, like seeking to sweep away all of this complexity or side-step our very important simple karmic lessons in 3D. In the past, I was busy killing my culturally conditioned ego with all of its faults and flaws. In part my intentions were good, but in part I was doing so because I hated myself and was fleeing from the world, running from pain, etc. I think this urge in me was another program being run by the Predator Mind. In other words, it's often the spiritual ego that wants to kill the culturally conditioned ego. It's a similar thing inside, but has traded its sweat pants and beer for flowing robes and spring water. To use the terms of HDT, I've seen that I had Connection trauma issues, and spiritualizing is one significant coping mechanism for this.

In certain Eastern mystic traditions like Taoism or Advaita Vedanta, killing the ego or finding God or attaining enlightenment are all seen as a very clever game, or even a trap. This is because these are understood to be born from a desire, and that desire comes with strong attachment to a certain result or outcome, based on a certain image in our mind of what 'enlightenment' would look like for us. This would be a left-brain operation - seeing ourselves only as a problem that needs to be solved, making a linear plan, and following through. Making aims and intentional suffering is an important part of the work, but the real transformation begins when we also simultaneously allow the intuition of our expansive right brain to guide us. The C's have said many times to let things flow naturally.

Anyways, it's strange to say, but it might be the only true spiritual desire is non-desire. That includes giving up the desire for enlightenment. This letting go of spiritual goals is kinda like a prerequisite to achieving inner peace. In other words, this means finding a state of grace and acceptance of who we are, with all our faults - but also seeking to improve. It means finding a way to be at home in this crazy world even as we detach from it. Then one can make the choice to become a good obyvatel in daily life, and focus on being of service to others. That's one thing that's I didn't see in your schema - a focus on service. In my experience there hasn't really been a death or a killing, in the sense of some sort of final ego disappearance - although the pain at times sure felt that way! It's been more of a constant process of balancing, or a blending of right and left, worldliness and holiness.

It's hard to write about this topic. I hope that made sense. There's more discussion on this in this thread:

 
This is because these are understood to be born from a desire, and that desire comes with strong attachment to a certain result or outcome, based on a certain image in our mind of what 'enlightenment' would look like for us.
The C's have said many times to let things flow naturally.
You made the point, we come back to this desire question again.
I see many things in what Paul, Gurdjieff, Mouravieff, Castañeda conveyed, as directly applicable in our lives, and many others as describing processes whose stages might or might not all happen for everyone in one life. And which can also manifest in different ways for each person, still following grand lines though.
It's a natural process in which what has to happen will.
In the process of 'death for rebirth' for intance, I wouldn't strive for the death of anything per se, which will construct the flow as you stated, but would rather keep doing my present Work in the best possible way, to let happen adequately what ever will.
The best position to adopt still being the 'observer' discovering in live how the show will manifest.
 
Then one can make the choice to become a good obyvatel in daily life, and focus on being of service to others. That's one thing that's I didn't see in your schema - a focus on service.
This whole journey is, for me, directed towards helping myself and others to help themselves. One is all and all is one.
How can I help others getting out of the quicksand without helping myself first ?
 
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