High Strangeness of Nov 09

[Kila]

I too have had headaches all month. These headaches have been muscle related headaches involving levator scapula and traps but also spreading down into my rhomboids and deltoids and even my pectoral muscle on that side was extremely sore. I was having what felt like nerve entrapment as well. Also what seemed to be vagus nerve involvement, headaches, nausea. The weird part about this is it did not appear to be related to physical strain at all. I have been under a lot of stress lately and dealing with a lot of grief as well.

Yesterday was my birthday, not so great a day all in all and I drank a bottle of wine, I very rarely drink alcohol and though I was eating and drinking this over many hours, it did have the desired effect which was to shut down thinking for a while. Anyway, I woke up this morning pain in my neck gone, and in a very different emotional space.

Not sure what that means but there it is.

 

[truth seeker]

I'm sorry to hear that you were in pain Kila, but glad you're feeling better. Happy birthday by the way!

Edit: addition

No problem Bluelamp!

 

[Buddy]

Yesterday was my birthday, not so great a day all in all and I drank a bottle of wine, I very rarely drink alcohol and though I was eating and drinking this over many hours, it did have the desired effect which was to shut down thinking for a while. Anyway, I woke up this morning pain in my neck gone, and in a very different emotional space.

Not sure what that means but there it is.

Not sure of the cause of your physical ailments Kila, but it does sound like a bunch of tension related to stress. Sometimes during stress, I can notice places on my body where there is much tightness that I never even noticed until I started looking for it. Like my body is 'holding on tightly' or 'bracing for impact.' In the past, when I drank, I made sure I got good and drunk because I believed it allowed me to somehow disconnect from whatever it was that was affecting me.

If you've been spending an extraordinary amount of time at the computer and are not used to it, that could be an aggravating factor.

Have you started the EE breathing program yet? At least the pipe-breath for stress-reduction? If not, you will be amazed to find how calming it can be.

 

[Kila]

Thank you all for all of your kind regards.

The pain is back today. Not as intense though. Yes.. the breathing... Also it seems like recently smoking aggravates this and I'm not sure smoking is helping right now. In that, I've noticed that it also tends to blunt emotions, and maybe that isn't very useful for me right now. So maybe I should quit for a while. I feel like there is some really nasty something(emotion, memory etc) living there that I need to release but I don't have access to. I suspect it is unexpressed grief. I had a neck injury as a child( I was two) where I nearly broke my neck. As I recall this memory I can clearly remember lying on the floor next to the bed(even the color of the bedspread and carpet) the story is that I fell off the bed. Interestingly, I don't remember the fall, just the lying there afterward. I am beginning to suspect that I didn't fall at all.

I also have a lot of anger, but that usually causes me liver pain and that shin pan pain in the solar plexus that Stout talks about. That was really interesting because I have been chasing that pain around for years with all kinds of tests and of course nothing is ever really wrong with me. Until I found this one practioner(chiro and TCM) who asked me "kila what is it that you just can't stomach". Well, that was useful, I finally started to look at it like that, and I haven't had as much trouble with it since. Now when I get that pain I immediately ask myself that question. Having read Dr. Pert's books was also useful in giving me different ways of looking at these things. I also sometimes have low back pain which I know relates to feelings of responsibility and abandonment. It comes and goes.
But this grief thing.. I dunno.. it's really hard.

I'm having a hard time standing next to it and maintaining any kind of objective safe place for analysis. Some...no most...of these emotions I hold very carefully away from me and have been observing them a long time. But if I get too close it's like standing on the edge of an abyss.
I have a few times sort of walked to the edge but I will say that if I let myself get too close the intensity is really scary, not even so scary for me but for anyone standing too close to me.

I don't know how to say this exactly without it sounding like I'm just so special, but here goes...
There is an intensity of emotion...available... to me that I have found is ...too much ...for most people to be around. Some of the emotion is ...negative... but there is also, it seems to me, the potential for positive emotions to be that strong or intense. But if I find myself standing in that most people I have known sort of look at me like I'm ...well...scaring them. So, I'm trying to figure out how to release..or perhaps in some cases use that emotional tenor in positive ways, but I do frequently feel like I have my mute button firmly pressed.
I used to practice Kempo and that was useful, when I couldn't hold the mute button down any longer I could always go and break some boards Running was also useful, I sort of think it was the breathing now, it was my meditation.

It also seems like when I allow the quality of that intensity to penetrate...hmmm... I'm not sure how to say this but the intensity can be useful to propel me in many ways. I am able to access certain insights and I can hold more things in my mind together and see connections. It just seems to me very difficult to be authentic when it seems that whatever authenticity I can muster is so alien to most people I know and have relationships with.
I do notice that repression leads to certain physical ailments as well as depression. And I have to say, weak human that I am, that I wish I could be in that space with someone else as a support. In that regard I am grateful to everyone here on this forum.

I'm sure all of that is just full of programs running. But I can say honestly I am trying to figure it all out. Perhaps I should move this to the rant board?

 

[StandingOnTheEdge]

Hi Kila,
I tend to be very cautious with impressions and making suggestions to people, but I feel compelled to respond to your last post. I hope you take my words as impressions and responses as opposed to "..if I were you...." I feel compelled to respond, because I am impressed by your intelligence, your intuition, and your ability to observe your pain and the boundaries you have set around the possible negative emotions that cause the pain.

It seems that all through the intense experiences of EE breathing, that the elders here who offer their wisdom, keep suggesting to be gentle with yourself. If it hurts, back off. The image you offered was going to the edge, and every time you look, it's too scary.

Because it is an image, and because you want to have a gentler approach, would you consider changing the image? When I read your post and thought of that precipice, I got an image of a Gordian knot. The knot that needs to be untied and not cut or frazzled. The problem becomes a puzzle instead of a threat. It will take patience and perhaps a longer time to solve, but as the C's say, "learning is fun".

I send my best energies for your whole healing.

 

[shijing]

Hi Kila --

First, happy belated birthday -- it doesn't sound like it was happy for you exactly, but at least you gave yourself a reprieve and I think that was worth something.

In reading your post, I am struck by your emotional depth -- it seems like you have the capacity to carry a lot emotionally, and right now that is a difficult thing for you since much of what you are carrying is negative. I was wondering if there is anything you do to release that emotion (forgive me if you mentioned it on another thread and I missed it)? Aside from anything that might eventually happen when you really get in the groove of E-E, do you ever just allow yourself to cry, or find a place away from the kids and just hit pillows (or something similar)? I get the feeling that you are holding a tremendous amount of stuff in, and if it is never released and always allowed to accumulate, then its eventually going to feel gigantic, as in your description of the abyss. If that's the case, then I think the best strategy might be to figure out how to release it in doses -- one session of crying probably won't make it all better, but it will let one chunk of the pain out, which can then be repeated, and slowly but surely bring the all the negativity that makes up the abyss down to a more manageable size.

Also, I am sorry to hear about your neck injury when you were two. If your suspicions are correct that it wasn't an accident, then that would be enough to fill anyone with a lot of anger (to put it mildly), even if they only remembered the real story subconsciously. I wish you well in getting that resolved.

 

[Buddy]

Until I found this one practioner(chiro and TCM) who asked me "kila what is it that you just can't stomach". Well, that was useful, I finally started to look at it like that, and I haven't had as much trouble with it since.

Perhaps you could ask this practicioner to explain what he/she knows about that questioning technique? It seems to have benefitted you.

I'm having a hard time standing next to it and maintaining any kind of objective safe place for analysis. Some...no most...of these emotions I hold very carefully away from me and have been observing them a long time. But if I get too close it's like standing on the edge of an abyss.
I have a few times sort of walked to the edge but I will say that if I let myself get too close the intensity is really scary, not even so scary for me but for anyone standing too close to me.

Kila, you seem to have a good ability to use metaphorical language to describe the undescribable. I agree with shijing that you seem to be able to carry a lot of emotion across from what I call 'the deep.'

If you have not been introduced to the idea of 'journalling', I would highly recommend it. Basically, it's just keeping a running documentary of your thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc., that you experience on an ongoing basis, in the natural way that you normally describe them, so that you can use the information to help understand yourself better.

I'm no therapist, nor am I in any way qualified to offer any type of health-related or other advice, but you might be able to develop more clues with a little understanding of Mind, Metaphor and Health:

The Mind, Metaphor and Health
by Penny Tompkins and James Lawley

This article explains why metaphor is a natural way to describe illness and health, the importance of recognising patients'/clients' metaphors, and how working within these metaphors can activate an individual's personal healing process.

Source: _http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/23/1/The-Mind-Metaphor-and-Health/Page1.html

The reason I suggest this is because I think metaphors act as containers that help to carry emotion across the realm boundaries between the unconscious and the conscious, and once across, recognized, acknowledged and released, we benefit from the cleansing. Same benefit you can get from the EE program I believe.

 

[Kila]

Have you started the EE breathing program yet? At least the pipe-breath for stress-reduction? If not, you will be amazed to find how calming it can be.

I have started the pipe breathing. It made me laugh at first because it is like how I breathe during labor. I do find it helpful and it does help me relax the musculature in my neck and shoulder.

Standing on the Edge said:

Because it is an image, and because you want to have a gentler approach, would you consider changing the image? When I read your post and thought of that precipice, I got an image of a Gordian knot. The knot that needs to be untied and not cut or frazzled. The problem becomes a puzzle instead of a threat. It will take patience and perhaps a longer time to solve, but as the C's say, "learning is fun".

yes.. I can see what you mean. I also like the image of a Gordian knot. However, for me, metaphorically speaking, this particular place in my psyche feels like it holds a certain depth and breadth. I don't necessarily feel this 'abyss' as threatening..for me. I'm having a hard time explaining this very well. It is just...big. In a certain sense I feel like I could dive in and ..swim. Specifically, the scaryness is not so much my own terror, it's that other people around me .... find it too ...big..too intense.. to be around me ..while I'm, shall we say, swimming. All of the emotion is very big. The reality of it is too intense. For me even the anger is useful, it feels strong but not uncontrolled. Does that make any sense at all? The positive emotions, and I really even hesitate to use the words positive or negative because I'm not sure I really experience it that way. The love I feel is also.. sort of fierce. I have found in the few relationships I have had that approach intimacy is that beyond a certain place ...it's just too much. I have often thought I must just be wired differently than most.
And so to maintain relationships I have over the years learned to mute the intensity a bit, to be 'just enough', but not 'too much'.
But at this point I think I'm just gonna have to take a swim. I have to find my way back... so maybe I'm swimming the Gordian knot ;)

Shijing said:

Aside from anything that might eventually happen when you really get in the groove of E-E, do you ever just allow yourself to cry, or find a place away from the kids and just hit pillows (or something similar)? I get the feeling that you are holding a tremendous amount of stuff in, and if it is never released and always allowed to accumulate, then its eventually going to feel gigantic, as in your description of the abyss. If that's the case, then I think the best strategy might be to figure out how to release it in doses -- one session of crying probably won't make it all better, but it will let one chunk of the pain out, which can then be repeated, and slowly but surely bring the all the negativity that makes up the abyss down to a more manageable size.

Yes.. I'm pretty tightly wound ;) As far as really releasing it's really a logistics problem. I live in 600 sq ft with four other people. I allow myself about 15 minutes twice a day of solitude, a morning and evening cigarette. The solitude thing is really hard to come by. I may have to figure out how to do with less sleep. But thank you for asking that question because I do need to figure it out. As you know, I have three kids two are homeschooled and I work at night from about 4:30 until about 11 pm. The problem is even with my best intentions to get up early or stay up I am always just soo tired. So I probably need to focus on certain issues physically to increase my stamina and reduce my need for sleep. Then I could get up before them or maybe in the middle of the night and do the breathing and meditate. It would also be great if I could start running again. I just don't have any idea of where to fit that in right now. For me I really need solitude to do this and that is at such a premium right now. Just this post has taken me almost an hour to write because I am interrupted about once very 3 1/2 minutes. :P

Buddy wrote:

Kila, you seem to have a good ability to use metaphorical language to describe the undescribable. I agree with shijing that you seem to be able to carry a lot of emotion across from what I call 'the deep.'

If you have not been introduced to the idea of 'journalling', I would highly recommend it. Basically, it's just keeping a running documentary of your thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc., that you experience on an ongoing basis, in the natural way that you normally describe them, so that you can use the information to help understand yourself better.

I'm no therapist, nor am I in any way qualified to offer any type of health-related or other advice, but you might be able to develop more clues with a little understanding of Mind, Metaphor and Health:

Quote
The Mind, Metaphor and Health
by Penny Tompkins and James Lawley

This article explains why metaphor is a natural way to describe illness and health, the importance of recognising patients'/clients' metaphors, and how working within these metaphors can activate an individual's personal healing process.

Source: _http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/23/1/The-Mind-Metaphor-and-Health/Page1.html

The reason I suggest this is because I think metaphors act as containers that help to carry emotion across the realm boundaries between the unconscious and the conscious, and once across, recognized, acknowledged and released, we benefit from the cleansing. Same benefit you can get from the EE program I believe.

Thank you for saying that... I've never had anyone describe this quality to me in positive terms. That is hugely comforting.
I used to keep a journal, in fact I kept a running journal from the time I was six years old until I was 15 when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Then those two years I didn't write a journal. I just didn't want to record anymore but I did write poetry, which was pretty dark. Recently I threw all those notebooks away. I wasn't sure I wanted anyone else coming across them. I had also sort of decided to just put all that away, I guess, and just be 'normal'.
Now maybe I see that it is important for me to do that, in some shape or form. I will definitely read that article. Thank you.
I will also say it is ...incredible to me...to even be sharing all this with anyone. And so I thank you all for your consideration. It helps me I think just the writing and the questions you pose help to to self analyze.

 

[Kila]

Just one more quick thing before dinner...

I was thinking about all of this today.. and you too Bluelamp and all the grief going on in your family and it reminded me of a something written by Rainer Maria Rilke who is one of my favorite poets, and his birthday was yesterday..so synchronicity... here is the poem


Overflowing heavens of lavished stars
glory above your grief. Not into your pillow:
weep upward. Here, close to your weeping face,
close to your face that is ending,
begins the expansive, ravishing, trans
figuring world-space. Who would interrupt,
once you appear there,
that current? No one. Only yourself,
if you suddenly struggled out of the powerful impulse
of those stars streaming toward you. Breathe.
Breathe- in the darkness of earth and again
look up! Again. Airy and faceless,
from above, the depths bend toward you. The face that is
dissolved
and contained in the night will give more space to your own.


my warmest thoughts go out to you and your family. I know what you must be going through. Just remember that it takes a long time to actually feel anything after something like that happens and even longer to figure it all out. So ...patience... I'm sending smoke to you tonight....
It was always comforting to me to just fall into the sky sort of ...like it was big enough to hold everything in me.. so I always really felt that poem by Rilke I hope it helps you feel a little better too and to remember to breathe...

with much compassion

kila

 

[ElizabethDempsey]

Hi Kila

Belated happy birthday to you and Rilke. I can understand why Rilke is special to you. His vastness and intensity of awareness is large enough to accomodate us, -yes, and elevate us. When we cry, by all means, let us "cry upward."

 

[shijing]

Yes.. I'm pretty tightly wound ;) As far as really releasing it's really a logistics problem. I live in 600 sq ft with four other people. I allow myself about 15 minutes twice a day of solitude, a morning and evening cigarette. The solitude thing is really hard to come by. I may have to figure out how to do with less sleep. But thank you for asking that question because I do need to figure it out. As you know, I have three kids two are homeschooled and I work at night from about 4:30 until about 11 pm. The problem is even with my best intentions to get up early or stay up I am always just soo tired. So I probably need to focus on certain issues physically to increase my stamina and reduce my need for sleep. Then I could get up before them or maybe in the middle of the night and do the breathing and meditate. It would also be great if I could start running again. I just don't have any idea of where to fit that in right now. For me I really need solitude to do this and that is at such a premium right now. Just this post has taken me almost an hour to write because I am interrupted about once very 3 1/2 minutes. :P

I really sympathize with you, because with only two fifteen-minute periods alone a day, I think that anyone would be tightly wound (to put it mildly!). I think your plan to rearrange your sleep pattern might be worth a shot. The reason why is because I think you have a lot of stressors and various things draining your energy, and you are always going to feel tired under those conditions. If you can work out a way to give yourself between 30 and 60 minutes of complete you-time, even if you have to sacrifice sleep temporarily, by doing the E-E program and meditating, you might be able to start lifting some of that stress off of your shoulders; and if that happens, you will have more energy and be able to pay back your sleep debt. If it doesn't work out that way, you shouldn't continue depriving yourself of sleep and you might need to look for a plan B. Just my two cents.

Also, I've never heard of Maria Rilke before now, but I really liked that poem :)

 

[Leo40]

Rainer Maria Rilke

Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.
Oh, to whom can we turn for help?
Not angels, not humans;
and even the knowing animals are aware that we feel
little secure and at home in our interpreted world.
There remains perhaps some tree on a hillside
daily for us to see; yesterday's street remains for us
stayed, moved in with us and showed no signs of leaving.
Oh, and the night, the night, when the wind
full of cosmic space invades our frightened faces.
Whom would it not remain for -that longed-after,
gently disenchanting night, painfully there for the
solitary heart to achieve? Is it easier for lovers?
Don't you know yet ? Fling out of your arms the
emptiness into the spaces we breath -perhaps the birds
will feel the expanded air in their more ferven flight.

 

[Kila]

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.

One of my favorite lines...such truth.

and shijing wrote:

I really sympathize with you, because with only two fifteen-minute periods alone a day, I think that anyone would be tightly wound (to put it mildly!). I think your plan to rearrange your sleep pattern might be worth a shot. The reason why is because I think you have a lot of stressors and various things draining your energy, and you are always going to feel tired under those conditions. If you can work out a way to give yourself between 30 and 60 minutes of complete you-time, even if you have to sacrifice sleep temporarily, by doing the E-E program and meditating, you might be able to start lifting some of that stress off of your shoulders; and if that happens, you will have more energy and be able to pay back your sleep debt. If it doesn't work out that way, you shouldn't continue depriving yourself of sleep and you might need to look for a plan B. Just my two cents.

Well, I've been reading the Narcissistic family a few chapters at a time at B&N while my kids play with the trains, the library doesn't have it and it's $42 . anyway I'm about halfway through and I can see quite a bit that I need to really look at. Certainly, the sense of entitlement was simply nonexistent, the entire family revolved around my mother and her illnesses 'you are here to be of service to me', so I've got a bit of Cinderella syndrome going on for sure. It's hard for me to really 'demand' time for myself. Not that there is much available even if I demanded it right now, but still, I'm struggling with this. I did get up early today about 5:30 am and I'm not too tired. So I think that can work.. It's just kind of loud you know..the breathing... and every one else is sleeping ...almost in the same room with me.
I wonder if I could do the breathing while walking? Do you think? And then just come back and sit for the meditation?

Also, how does one really get a handle on service to others, while still retaining some self? Without losing oneself to the others, and if there is reciprocity, my understanding is our intent in service should not be the reciprocity itself. Yet it's hard to balance these things.
I had this conversation the other night with my husband. Unselfish devotion only works when it is reciprocal. That's sort of my understanding so far of STO. So I suppose there has to be some kind of expectation right? But if there is expectation and if that expectation is not met....then there is disappointment...
Just trying to wrap my head around this...How does one manage? So if I'm always looking out for those others in my circle, I can do that and not look out for myself, if someone else in my circle is looking out for me.. but what if no one is looking out for me. Then what happens is I meet everyone else's needs and end up with 15 minutes twice a day.

sigh..

Not sure how to unravel this particular knot

I am at the library right now with my kids and my internet is down at home... so I do appreciate everyone's responses but I may not be able to see them right away.

Thanks to all..

 

[Buddy]

Also, how does one really get a handle on service to others, while still retaining some self? Without losing oneself to the others, and if there is reciprocity, my understanding is our intent in service should not be the reciprocity itself. Yet it's hard to balance these things.
I had this conversation the other night with my husband. Unselfish devotion only works when it is reciprocal. That's sort of my understanding so far of STO. So I suppose there has to be some kind of expectation right? But if there is expectation and if that expectation is not met....then there is disappointment...
Just trying to wrap my head around this...How does one manage? So if I'm always looking out for those others in my circle, I can do that and not look out for myself, if someone else in my circle is looking out for me.. but what if no one is looking out for me.

This has been a difficult subject for me too. Basically, when we are all in 4th Density as STO beings, truly selfless service will work, because there WILL be reciprocality, otherwise, the 'others' wouldn't have made it there with you. (Assuming we're talking STO).

Until then, the best we can do in 3D is to work to become STO 'candidates' by raising our FRV vibration in learning our lessons, relieving ourselves of our Karmic burdens and practicing giving all to those that ask without determining their needs, and without giving in to narcissistic demands.

I'm sure that you are no stranger to doing something because it's the right thing to do and not necessarily because there's a 'reward' for being good, or whatever. That's part of the equation.

Concerning expectations, I believe they can be divided into narcissistic expectations and those expectations we have due to people exercising 'responsibility' in carrying out their agreements. You have a right to expect certain basics of treatment, support (emotionally and in other ways, etc), but no right (??) to expect that someone will give them automatically if it requires any effort on their part.

About the breathing exercises, if you can take off walking, can't you find a place to sit or recline while doing the breathing exercises? I personally wouldn't recommend anything other than deep belly breathing during exercise, as the breath needs to be coordinated with the body's demand for oxygen and the pacing of its coordinated systems, OSIT.

Someone, somewhere said: One of the greatest things a person can do to help others is to work on themselves. Sort of like saying when your environment is cleaned up, the environment of others is improved as well. Everyone benefits. That's how I don't lose myself. At least for now.

Those are just a few of my thoughts. I'm sure someone will help me out where I'm off on something.

 

[truth seeker]

I think Buddy gives good advice. I think the place to start is with becoming aware and noticing our own motivations and programs. We're then able to see where we are being internally considerate and are able to start putting external consideration into practice which then leads to our actions becoming more STO inclined. At least this is my current understanding. If I'm off someone will hopefully correct me.