Q: (L) What they're talking about is the habitual dissociation. Paying close and careful attention to what's outside, and responding to it, is what you've almost never used.
A: You live your life from inside a bubble.
This was important for me to hear as well. Parallel, it was very kind of you and everyone at the Chateau to open up this topic. It very much got me to thinking and I appreciate the opportunity for growth at this time. I remember how I used to dissociate as a child. Things got bad often so I would hide under the covers on my bed or in a closet and wrap a blanket around me. When I was under that blanket I would leave just enough room for a sliver of light and air to get in and I would be all curled up angry and upset. Reminds me of the allegory of Plato's cave or that painting with Mary Magdalene in a stone grotto naked and shivering but huddling in there in the dark afraid to come out.
Parallel, because you brought up this issue with dissociation I was thinking about that particular childhood habit and how I probably metaphorically carry that blanket around with me today. Of course as an adult one can't walk around with a blanket but I have wrapped myself up in my thoughts, dissociated from the world because of petty tyrants or my own interior demons and sat in my own bubble stewing, getting angry and not being up for the bigger challenges that the world presents.
As a child I was pretty good at most things from the get go. The problem was, as most of us here have had to face, I had no support system. I would start off quickly and then fade when it got tough and fall into dissociation and dissociation is phenomenally easy and the rewards are immediate. Something that I would initially take joy in would quickly become the tyrant I made it into because I had to overcome certain obstacles that were not just about what was naturally given or easy. Take school, I did well because I had a phenomenal memory. Problem was I was very stubborn about applying myself or applying the knowledge and thus progressing. That speaks to being or lack of and making myself vulnerable and maybe not knowing something and having to deal with feelings of insecurity like everyone else. To me, to that child, that insecurity or people staring at me was like death and it's probably part of the equation that I had neurosurgery when I was young and people were always poking, prodding and looking at me like some sort of an experiment. Of course it wasn't death and I made all that out to be much more than it was. But I didn't like people looking at me, I felt like Frankenstein's monster with a bit of a misshaped head that's certainly improved now as I've been told I'm devastatingly handsome
, while at the same time wanting to have friends and be a part of things. It was painful. I really did feel like a freak but now as I write this I find it kind of humorous and can laugh at myself for all the emotional build up I made myself suffer through. I was very good, and still am, at making mountains out of molehills.
Here's a bit of what has helped me with dissociation in terms of utilizing my surroundings or interests in a positive manner. I love to go to thrift stores and am convinced that DCM speaks very loudly to me there. Especially my favorite one in downtown Brooklyn. I feel safe and amongst my people there and I don't have to put on any airs but can relax and let my guard down and get into the swing of things. Because of being consistent about listening to POTS the higher emotional aspect of all that's happening around me opens up and I participate naturally, find my place easily, meet lots of new friends and acquaintances and I get to practice hospitality. Hospitality for me is very much liking making a family where you are at that moment, treasuring it and holding it close to your heart. I have my ladies there too and I have deep affection and respect for them. I call them "my ladies" but of course they are not. Some are like grand dames and carry the memory of the place and the neighborhood and others are natural comforting mothers and others are very business like. I cozy up to all of them and for a few moments I make a friend or get to be someone's son or learn about who's daughter is going off to college and how proud their mama is. It's very touching. After I scored a particularly sweet deal on an alto saxophone from the 1920's for twenty dollars one of the great ladies who is very elegant and refined and beautiful came over to me a few weeks later and wanted to know if I was practicing. I told her I learned my "C" scale and was reading music again. Again, I was touched and I felt like in heaven and for that moment I was her son and she was checking on me.
I know I'm playing various roles but this is a way I practice to not dissociate. I also know the young ladies who work the cash registers. I get to be a bit of a mentor to them or father type figure at times and they let me do that more and more. It's gracious on their part and they know it makes me feel valued and they in turn know I respect them and treat them like human beings and can see the beauty in each of them. I don't have children but the feeling it brings up is that I love them all and would want all of them to be my daughters.
I better recap as this is getting a bit lengthy. I've found that the essence of family can be created anywhere when I'm not dissociating and it may only last a few minutes or a few weeks and then everyone moves on but while it exists it's glorious. That POTs or the Prayer of the Soul works to open one up to higher emotions and apply those emotions in real life making true spontaneous emotions much more rewarding and nourishing than dissociation. I don't know exactly but probably this helps to expand the emotional aspect of one's vessel so that one can receive more in those areas. Great for music and the arts I would guess or even simply relating to other human beings in a more musical way. I also don't plan ahead or think I'm going to buy this or that but trust that DCM will speak to me and surprise me as it knows what I need at that moment like a telescope or a saxophone for some ridiculously cheap price. Rarely am I disappointed and DCM helped me to turn my natural refined taste :P into a short lived but somewhat profitable home goods business selling unique crystal pieces, brass objects and silver trays to yuppies in gentrified parts of Brooklyn. This is my green language or cabala or maybe something to do with Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields and it is heartwarming and tender and practical. I know the C's say learning is fun but in a thrift store being is fun too. And easy.
My best to you Parallel and thanks for instigating this line of emotion, being and reasoning in me. Take care friend.
I really hope so... ;)
