Getting In Touch
[I've been enjoying a great conversation with Dave on his Journal, and learning a lot by trying to teach. By teaching I learn myself.]
Going back to my last entry and the "Everything can't be that important" comment, I'm beginning to get in touch with my feelings by allowing them to "be", and to feel them. What is behind the comment is the feeling of GUILT, or SHAME, that is a potential threat to my emotions. A threat to responsibility. A feeling that things must be "right" or "correct", in order to feel worthy, or good about myself. It's also the childlike feeling based on a belief that "I don't know enough" so "I must try to learn everything" in order to feel safe. Even as I write this there are other feelings clamoring to get out!
The point of my conversations with Dave is that "thinking" is a personality defense used to avoid potentially painful emotions that the True Self feels it cannot survive feeling. The lesson behing the idea is that if I am thinking I am NOT feeling. If I am planning, as a way to avoid a possible future embarassment, then it's a good sign I am thinking about feeling instead of just feeling. You'll have to excuse me right now; I'm having difficulty writing this out, so bare with me. Maybe I'll just copy what I said there here.
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Here's what I have recently learned, that I like, and may help you now (and I'll try to keep it short): The deal is that the voice you hear is probably your False Self (actually the Superego, often confused with the ego. It's the one that's always 'proper' and correct). It's purpose is to protect the True Self, the tenderest, most sensitive, part of yourself; maybe your true feelings even. Your True self is your infant, and anytime there is any emotional threat, the False Self, the pretend one that puts up your image to the threatening environment, rushes in to rescue the poor itty-bitty sad and scared Little Baby True Self to keep it from feeling so bad that it thinks or feels it will die from feeling the slightest negativity or painful feelings. It won't die, but the False Self has convinced it it will, so that the False Self can take over, pushing your real feelings out of harm's way. The problem is: your True Self knows the feelings of the False Self are not REAL. Only the True Self feels REAL feelings! The True Self then feels guilty for fleeing, like a baby, and is scared to assert itself, for lack of practice. Okay so far? So there's more (Really, Mr. Wordy?! YES!) Donald Winnicott, a famous ENGLISH Child Psychatrist and Pediatrician (died;1971) flatly states that "Intellectualism" is a False Self defense used to protect and disable feelings. So that the individual will "think" constantly, in order to avoid "feeling". So when YOU (like ME) are hearing all this thinking and analyzing, you can be sure your False Self Supreme Protector is scaring the shit out of you so it can take over so that you don't do anything to learn how to overcome your extreme sensitivity to painful feelings! It's where our perfectionsitic and catastrophic feelings come from. Any mistake is a catastrophy! So pretends the false self. The truth is, we can learn to adjust our sensitivity meter for emotional pain waaaaay further down, and we can become better at learning to survive the annihilation threat of painful feelings to our True Self. It will survive all painful emotions if we teach it that it can. In order to do that, we must allow ourselves to feel whatever horrible imaginary emotional pains the False Self can project out of its False Imagination and pretend prophetic abilities of danger and destruction. Before I got on line this morning, I had an epiphany of sorts that I need to test: the REAL co- DEPENDENCY is with my False Self as my protector. Without it, I will have to face the world of painful feelings on my true Self's own. (SCARY! And just in time for Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve, or Dia de los Muertos: "Day of the Dead"). Eh?! None-the-less, testing just how false the threats are for failing, feeling the pain of embarrassment for doing wrong, etc. is the way to go. To develop the ability to explore just how lying the False Self is may be the key. So! When you hear that "Voice of Threatening Action & Catastrophe", don't take its outcome prognostications so seriously. It believes that safety is in NOT doing, while "doing" is the way to learn how to be safe "doing" by learning which mistakes are real and important, and which ones are imagined and unimportant. Change your energy source to your True Self; it IS who you really ARE; and it will not fail you. It only knows the truth. the False Self lies...a LOT! The one that really fears destruction is the False Self Supreme Protector. It is NOT who you are. If you believe in it, you feel false; ashamed. If you do what it says, it keeps you from being who you truely are: perfect!
********************* I do feel you've hit on it though. If you're thinking and fearing about the future...STOP! You're just screwing with yourself!!! Getting yourself all afraid; like a child. I'm beginning to think that when I'm feeling childish that's a sure sign I'm acting afraid (of something?) because I'm afraid of the future. Which means my True Self is trying to escape to avoid some sort of imaginary pain: acting like an responsible adult by being REAL!!! Yikes!!! I'm with you; all that mind-reading preparation is just b-s. Childish! Just say whatever you feel like saying and respond in the moment. Sounds like a good plan to me. At least better than what is going on now. Congratulations! Now practice it until it works in overcoming painful pre-feelings. I'll do the same.
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Reading your comment I guess that being confident, or adult, is feeling I can emotionally survive my "mistakes". I'm feeling that guilt and shame are childish emotions as a result of making a mistake. This Inner Child work (for me, I'm not going to assume that is what you're working on. LOL) is exactly that, feeling like a child with childish feelings; the reaction to "not knowing something"; how to act, what to say appropriately, what to do, all adventures into thinking and remembering, instead of "being", and being in the present moment. By staying in our body, the True Self can learn to survive its emotions without the dire consequences the False Self defenses creates out of its imagination. At this time, it feels better to be aware of how far into the future my mind is going. If it's beyond what needs to be done in the present moment then it's probably anxiety-producing as a reaction to instincts, instead of responding naturally. To me the instincts are the clue. Children's minds use instincts to react, adult minds apply learned and effective responses. Fear, of a present physical danger is appropriate; fear, of an emotional and imaginary danger is a unresolved childish habit. I'm still going back to the notion that to recover from my mind's "drift" into the false Self's Protection it helps to be aware of when I'm "thinking" about how I'm "going to-" FEEL. Thinking about feeling is an oxymoron. A sure sign I have escaped reality and am avoiding a future imagined painful feeling and am allowing the False Self the power to take over my true feelings. If I'm thinking I am not feeling; and I need to feel in order to learn to be me. That, and any STRONG REACTIONS are a sign of potential dangerous emotions to flee being my true self. Projecting feelings into the future are what I'm watching for today. Not to stop them, but to duscover what feelings need help to be resolved.
******************
So it turns out I am good at explaining it, but not so good yet at feeling my feelings. The thinking all the time blocks me from feeling my true feelings, in the moment, in the present, and honoring THOSE feelings instead of "thinking about" or "remembering" the correct feelings. The "correct" feelings are not my true feelings. It splits myself into two people; the False Self and the True Self; and the "correct" feelings are the ones I'm "supposed to" be feeling instead of accepting what I am truly feeling. As I said before, my true feelings tell me who I really am; without them I do not know, and I project a false image (personality) of myself as a protection for my "denied self".
Anyway, it is a good exercise to know this stuff, but the real purpose is to use it to stop feeling false all the time.
Going back to my last entry and the "Everything can't be that important" comment, I'm beginning to get in touch with my feelings by allowing them to "be", and to feel them. What is behind the comment is the feeling of GUILT, or SHAME, that is a potential threat to my emotions. A threat to responsibility. A feeling that things must be "right" or "correct", in order to feel worthy, or good about myself. It's also the childlike feeling based on a belief that "I don't know enough" so "I must try to learn everything" in order to feel safe. Even as I write this there are other feelings clamoring to get out!
The point of my conversations with Dave is that "thinking" is a personality defense used to avoid potentially painful emotions that the True Self feels it cannot survive feeling. The lesson behing the idea is that if I am thinking I am NOT feeling. If I am planning, as a way to avoid a possible future embarassment, then it's a good sign I am thinking about feeling instead of just feeling. You'll have to excuse me right now; I'm having difficulty writing this out, so bare with me. Maybe I'll just copy what I said there here.
********************************
Here's what I have recently learned, that I like, and may help you now (and I'll try to keep it short): The deal is that the voice you hear is probably your False Self (actually the Superego, often confused with the ego. It's the one that's always 'proper' and correct). It's purpose is to protect the True Self, the tenderest, most sensitive, part of yourself; maybe your true feelings even. Your True self is your infant, and anytime there is any emotional threat, the False Self, the pretend one that puts up your image to the threatening environment, rushes in to rescue the poor itty-bitty sad and scared Little Baby True Self to keep it from feeling so bad that it thinks or feels it will die from feeling the slightest negativity or painful feelings. It won't die, but the False Self has convinced it it will, so that the False Self can take over, pushing your real feelings out of harm's way. The problem is: your True Self knows the feelings of the False Self are not REAL. Only the True Self feels REAL feelings! The True Self then feels guilty for fleeing, like a baby, and is scared to assert itself, for lack of practice. Okay so far? So there's more (Really, Mr. Wordy?! YES!) Donald Winnicott, a famous ENGLISH Child Psychatrist and Pediatrician (died;1971) flatly states that "Intellectualism" is a False Self defense used to protect and disable feelings. So that the individual will "think" constantly, in order to avoid "feeling". So when YOU (like ME) are hearing all this thinking and analyzing, you can be sure your False Self Supreme Protector is scaring the shit out of you so it can take over so that you don't do anything to learn how to overcome your extreme sensitivity to painful feelings! It's where our perfectionsitic and catastrophic feelings come from. Any mistake is a catastrophy! So pretends the false self. The truth is, we can learn to adjust our sensitivity meter for emotional pain waaaaay further down, and we can become better at learning to survive the annihilation threat of painful feelings to our True Self. It will survive all painful emotions if we teach it that it can. In order to do that, we must allow ourselves to feel whatever horrible imaginary emotional pains the False Self can project out of its False Imagination and pretend prophetic abilities of danger and destruction. Before I got on line this morning, I had an epiphany of sorts that I need to test: the REAL co- DEPENDENCY is with my False Self as my protector. Without it, I will have to face the world of painful feelings on my true Self's own. (SCARY! And just in time for Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve, or Dia de los Muertos: "Day of the Dead"). Eh?! None-the-less, testing just how false the threats are for failing, feeling the pain of embarrassment for doing wrong, etc. is the way to go. To develop the ability to explore just how lying the False Self is may be the key. So! When you hear that "Voice of Threatening Action & Catastrophe", don't take its outcome prognostications so seriously. It believes that safety is in NOT doing, while "doing" is the way to learn how to be safe "doing" by learning which mistakes are real and important, and which ones are imagined and unimportant. Change your energy source to your True Self; it IS who you really ARE; and it will not fail you. It only knows the truth. the False Self lies...a LOT! The one that really fears destruction is the False Self Supreme Protector. It is NOT who you are. If you believe in it, you feel false; ashamed. If you do what it says, it keeps you from being who you truely are: perfect!
********************* I do feel you've hit on it though. If you're thinking and fearing about the future...STOP! You're just screwing with yourself!!! Getting yourself all afraid; like a child. I'm beginning to think that when I'm feeling childish that's a sure sign I'm acting afraid (of something?) because I'm afraid of the future. Which means my True Self is trying to escape to avoid some sort of imaginary pain: acting like an responsible adult by being REAL!!! Yikes!!! I'm with you; all that mind-reading preparation is just b-s. Childish! Just say whatever you feel like saying and respond in the moment. Sounds like a good plan to me. At least better than what is going on now. Congratulations! Now practice it until it works in overcoming painful pre-feelings. I'll do the same.
**************************************
Reading your comment I guess that being confident, or adult, is feeling I can emotionally survive my "mistakes". I'm feeling that guilt and shame are childish emotions as a result of making a mistake. This Inner Child work (for me, I'm not going to assume that is what you're working on. LOL) is exactly that, feeling like a child with childish feelings; the reaction to "not knowing something"; how to act, what to say appropriately, what to do, all adventures into thinking and remembering, instead of "being", and being in the present moment. By staying in our body, the True Self can learn to survive its emotions without the dire consequences the False Self defenses creates out of its imagination. At this time, it feels better to be aware of how far into the future my mind is going. If it's beyond what needs to be done in the present moment then it's probably anxiety-producing as a reaction to instincts, instead of responding naturally. To me the instincts are the clue. Children's minds use instincts to react, adult minds apply learned and effective responses. Fear, of a present physical danger is appropriate; fear, of an emotional and imaginary danger is a unresolved childish habit. I'm still going back to the notion that to recover from my mind's "drift" into the false Self's Protection it helps to be aware of when I'm "thinking" about how I'm "going to-" FEEL. Thinking about feeling is an oxymoron. A sure sign I have escaped reality and am avoiding a future imagined painful feeling and am allowing the False Self the power to take over my true feelings. If I'm thinking I am not feeling; and I need to feel in order to learn to be me. That, and any STRONG REACTIONS are a sign of potential dangerous emotions to flee being my true self. Projecting feelings into the future are what I'm watching for today. Not to stop them, but to duscover what feelings need help to be resolved.
******************
So it turns out I am good at explaining it, but not so good yet at feeling my feelings. The thinking all the time blocks me from feeling my true feelings, in the moment, in the present, and honoring THOSE feelings instead of "thinking about" or "remembering" the correct feelings. The "correct" feelings are not my true feelings. It splits myself into two people; the False Self and the True Self; and the "correct" feelings are the ones I'm "supposed to" be feeling instead of accepting what I am truly feeling. As I said before, my true feelings tell me who I really am; without them I do not know, and I project a false image (personality) of myself as a protection for my "denied self".
Anyway, it is a good exercise to know this stuff, but the real purpose is to use it to stop feeling false all the time.
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