oh, the tangled web I weave

[Gonzo]

Hi all. Something occurred to me the other night, thanks to an invigorating meditation at bedtime (Laura, I have to say, going to bed with you is a treat <wink/smile>). Instead of falling asleep, however, I was infused with a new, subtle energy.
I was tired, but could not sleep, so I went outside with my BlackBerry and read some posts and answered a few where I thought I could make a helpful contribution.

While writing a response I had an uncomfortable realization:

where, in my posts, is there evidence of me doing the Work on myself?

I seem to have used this board as a tool to learn, but not to change, at least not as intensely as I could be changing. It is more of a passive change that comes from seeing myself mirrored in others on the board.
But nowhere do I see evidence of me putting myself "out there", advancing personal issues I find challenging to receive feedback from my trusted network of friends. Am I using the forum to its maximum benefit for me or am I merely fooling myself into thinking I am working on myself when, in reality, I am actually avoiding the truly hard stuff?

I realized that my primary function on this forum has been a form of intellectual slight of hand, creating the illusion for myself that I am doing the work, when I am barely getting my feet wet.

It doesn't help that there's a lot of devaluing myself and placing other people's growth and development ahead of myself, but this is also clearly a form of avoidance behaviour.

This was a bit of a shock and I felt a little ashamed, as if I was a fraud, a fake, a phony.

I have not been dedicating myself to the complete EE program nor have I put sufficient energy into diet changes.

I live with chronic nerve pain of varying levels down my legs and sometimes arms, and near exhaustion from forcing myself to go to work almost every day at the office. Yet I have to work or I start to feel worthless and depression quickly kicks in. I am in a vicious cycle and the EE breathing program, detoxification and moving to the Ultra Simple Diet are a proven path to break the cycle.

So now, I have to meditate upon my resistance. Why have I not been dealing with my issues on the forum and why am I avoiding making the appropriate changes to my diet that I know will improve my situation. Addiction to suffering is certainly part of it.

And so, I apologize to the group for not placing enough energy on my own growth and development and for lying to both you and myself that I actually was.

My struggles are many and I will try to start bringing them up as I work on them.

With the deepest respect, admiration and love,

Gonzo

Edit: adjusted thread title

 

[StrangeCaptain]

Re: oh, the tandled web I weave

So now, I have to meditate upon my resistance.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Well... Not really thinking actually... I am not sure I can think yet as in use the intellectual center as it is meant to be used as opposed to the actions, decisions and "thoughts" which arise from my average day of having the various centers usurping each other's energies and purposes.

I have really been trying to develop this attention lately that Needleman talks about and which we are discussing on this forum (http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=17055.0), and which may be the very same faculty Gurdjieff was referring to when he talked about self-remembering. Needleman's book has really inspired me to try to stay in that shocking realisation of the disparity between potential and reality. So much of my dissociation seems to be a reaction to not wanting to experience self-remembering/self-attention. And as Needleman mentions, when this self-remembering happens, it is often usurped by the part of my personality that thinks it can institute "reforms."

Right now, I am just remembering myself as much as possible and not reacting to what I observe. I don't want to talk about it a lot because it is a personal experiment still in its early stages, and I don't feel it is useful to talk when there is nothing to say.

I bring all this up because in the last couple of days I have begun to notice different activities in my life and there effect on my faculty of attention. Some activites are entirely dissociative, and others seem to be almost the opposite of that. Some little tiny, long-neglected part of me deep within sort of resonates when I do these activities. But... These same activities are almost physically painful. I don't mean the activity itself. I mean that I feel deep emotional pain that is almost physical when I allow myself to do the activities that seem to encourage attention rather than sleep.

I realised that some of my dissociative tendencies arise from a simple desire to avoid that pain. But I notice also that there is a part of me that actively seeks out those dissociative activities. And had to ask myself... Why do I want to do things that keep me from remembering myself?

I am not sure it is important to answer that question. For me, it is more important to keep tending to this experiment. Anyway... This posts feels like a crazy rant, but that would be internal considering :P Thanks Gonzo for the post.

 

[shijing]

Hi Gonzo --

where, in my posts, is there evidence of me doing the Work on myself?

I seem to have used this board as a tool to learn, but not to change, at least not as intensely as I could be changing. It is more of a passive change that comes from seeing myself mirrored in others on the board.

I realized that my primary function on this forum has been a form of intellectual slight of hand, creating the illusion for myself that I am doing the work, when I am barely getting my feet wet.

That may be partly true -- I think, though, that it is how a lot of us start out here. There are both advantages and disadvantages to having an online "school," and one of the disadvantages is that there is no teacher to watch over us in real life, so we have to take the responsibility to do that ourselves. In my own case, I think that my progression was similar to what you are describing -- I started as a lurker, and when I joined up I tried to observe the moderators and other members that I respected to see how they handled things. I gained confidence over time when posting, but it was only later that I started to move my interaction from the forum into my day-to-day life and apply the same concepts there. It's an ongoing process, but I think the realization that you've had is a normal (and important) step along the way.

It doesn't help that there's a lot of devaluing myself and placing other people's growth and development ahead of myself, but this is also clearly a form of avoidance behaviour.

This was a bit of a shock and I felt a little ashamed, as if I was a fraud, a fake, a phony.

Well, the shock is a good thing, and now that you have recognized this for what it is -- which is half the battle -- you can start to work on it.

I have not been dedicating myself to the complete EE program nor have I put sufficient energy into diet changes.

...

So now, I have to meditate upon my resistance. Why have I not been dealing with my issues on the forum and why am I avoiding making the appropriate changes to my diet that I know will improve my situation. Addiction to suffering is certainly part of it.

And so, I apologize to the group for not placing enough energy on my own growth and development and for lying to both you and myself that I actually was.

I am guessing the best way to begin to change your situation is to stop thinking about it and just do it, if that makes sense, even if you have to go one step at a time (which is how I did the dietary changes). As you do this, or at least attempt to, pay attention to what is really going on inside and see if you can identify more clearly where that resistance is coming from. When you say that you are addicted to suffering, it suggests to me that perhaps you identify with the role of victim, so maybe that's one idea that you can explore as you meditate? If and when you come to some realizations about what is going on beneath the surface, then you can bring them back here and get some additional network input.

 

[Azur]

[...]

It doesn't help that there's a lot of devaluing myself and placing other people's growth and development ahead of myself, but this is also clearly a form of avoidance behaviour.

[...]

Gonzo

Gonzo,

I understand where you are coming from, it's one of those first realizations that seem a little more real than we are used to.

I do have a question about the bit quoted above, though.

What do you mean when you say "devaluing myself"? Could you expand on that part, a little more?

I'm trying not to fill in blanks with my imagination (or projection) where I can avoid it, and I don't quite know what you are saying there. (Those blanks might not actually be there, might be I just didn't understand something). I haven't read all of your posts, so maybe I'm missing some context?

 

[Gonzo]

Hi Azur,

When I said,

"It doesn't help that there's a lot of devaluing myself and placing other people's growth and development ahead of myself, but this is also clearly a form of avoidance behaviour."

I meant that I have issues of feeling unworthy, worthless, undeserving, and therefore tend to put other people's needs ahead of my own. I have had this program as long. As I can remember. As a child, I was more concerned about helping maintain my parents' mental and emotional health than my own.

This has been a particularly difficult program to break, especially after a 15-year marriage.

My current relationship has been a Godsend and I am only now starting to develop a sense of self worth, but it's baby steps.

Thanks,
Gonzo