Learning
Interesting; I'm just learning to teach myself that each thought or feeling does not need to be analyzed! Every "Why am I thinking this way or feeling this way in this MOMENT" does not to be disected as a threat. I'm learning they are just passing thoughts, with no actual basis. I'm becoming conscious of the fact that they may just be the random firings of neurons testing their circuitry; habits (or addiction) of learned living in a heightened emotional/sensitivity state. I especially do not need to ACT on any one thought. Sometimes it confuses me as intuition; I depend a lot on intuition, and I am learning, by new self observation, which one is which, and which one is coming from my brain 'doing it's thing' randomly searching memory with "Pop-ups", and which one is actual 'thinking'. I'm learning to allow myself to let each thought, and it's attendant feeling, "pop-in" to consciousness, and only then decide if it deserves attention (instead of reacting or repressing it), and if it does need attention, what attention does it require: is it actually a threat, physically (let's say) or is it just a feeling about an imagined threat?
I am learning that "What's WRONG with me?", is not as relevant a question as "IS there something wrong with me?"; the implications are clearly different in intent and method of analysis for purpose. The answer to the secong is often: "No, not really" or "Depends...compared to whom, or what standard?" It's about questioning the phobic thoughts and feelings before they automatically create an adrenaline 'surge', with it's cortisol dumping rise in "anxiety-stimulating/fight or flight" endocrine system alertness and sensitivity. I'm slowly learning to short-circuit that automatic response in self-regulation management.
So...what's new with you?
I am learning that "What's WRONG with me?", is not as relevant a question as "IS there something wrong with me?"; the implications are clearly different in intent and method of analysis for purpose. The answer to the secong is often: "No, not really" or "Depends...compared to whom, or what standard?" It's about questioning the phobic thoughts and feelings before they automatically create an adrenaline 'surge', with it's cortisol dumping rise in "anxiety-stimulating/fight or flight" endocrine system alertness and sensitivity. I'm slowly learning to short-circuit that automatic response in self-regulation management.
So...what's new with you?
Replies
Gwen, if you read this, did you read my answer to your question two entries ago under \"Thanks\"?
Yes. The word \"conflicted\" comes to mind. I see you as conflicted with being what you want to be, but not able to enjoy it - because YOU think is is not what society of \"they\" think you should be. Conflicted because you say you want isolation and privacy, but you really crave belonging and feeling a part of. In truth, I think that is what School is giving you - the opportnity to be \"part of.\" But I also see a bit of rebellion in terms of \"I\'ll show the establishment I am smarter than they are.\"
I likely am not putting this in a context which may be clear to you... but Conflicted is clearly what I see.
Good entry.
You\'re doing fine, Gwen. I get it in my way. Of course I\'m conflicted, that\'s why I\'m a member of DS. If I understand your insight, it\'s my developing a new identity that I\'m struggling with; the getting away from the conforming co-dependent behavior to one of individualism.
I can\'t enjoy it yet, as you suggest, because of the conforming behavior, it\'s been unconscious for decades. The conflict may be between being a \"part of\" but believing I must change who I am in order to be \"a part of\", instead of feeling I can be myself (whoever that is). I\'m still struggling with the question of who I am, and have a right to be, and accepting that (my rightful true self) as \'Good Enough\'. The conflict seems to center around the belief about being good enough; when, where, and for whom?
The truth is that it takes time to change a thought habit, it takes practice, mistakes, failures to apply the lesson perfectly and always, and then practice some more; until the triggers for past thinking, all the triggers, can be recognized and dealt with in the new way. So I can respond rather than react; and the new improved response becomes a new habit.
I don\'t know if I\'m willing to claim I\'m smarter yet, it may seem that way since you observed it; it\'s that I believe I have more insights than some others. I\'m getting \'smarter\' at listening to my own self\'s opinions rather than immediately adopting someone else\'s opinion as an absolute FACT. I do not believe that the establishment has all the answers, I do not believe in blind conformity. Having studied science all these years makes me aware of the difference between theorems, theories, and opinions.
The point is to resolve the conflict to my own satisfaction; to find my own happiness instead of believing someone else has the \'correct\' formula for MY happiness.
You\'re right. I\'m looking for a place where I can belong and be myself at the same time. I may still not have found it, but at least I have not given up looking. The truth is: I\'m not happy with myself, my life, and where I am in it. I\'m just unhappy enough to cause me to continue to look inside and ask myself what I really want, instead of having what everyone else wants. The conflict is in not knowing what I feel; that there is some pattern to feelings. That I reject my own feelings and deny them, or don\'t know what they are. I\'ve been asking the wrong questions all these years; it\'s not how \"should\" I feel, it\'s how DO I feel? I am heavily right-brained at my age, subjective, feeling. It\'s my chief perceptive function for living life. Intuition. I\'ve not been able to discriminate my feelings; to both feel them and at the same time observe them. They\'re very powerful. Perhaps I rely on them too much. Maybe that\'s where the reaction comes from instead of response.
Thanks for dragging these thoughts out of me today. I\'ll try to spend the rest of the day being instead of questioning.
I\'m interested that your a scientist Rich! Does this get in the way of your spirituality in any way? I think nowadays you can be from both schools of thought but just wondered what you think?
I sooooooo GET YOU on the whole \'what do I feel?\' business and having had no internal boundaries i\'ve accepted others feelings as my own, unbelievable really but true and i have to move past this to start feeling what mine are. Its a challenge i\'m taking head on just like you. Excellent work! :)