Help with great tensions and anxiety

[raushan]

Okay Sorry. Maybe I misunderstood.

[mobius]

DT, It could also be a pinched nerve or something like that. Are you getting enough sleep? If I'm getting enough sleep, then my levels of anxiety tend to be considerably less.

I probably said this before on this forum. I cannot re-iterate this point enough. It's literally the difference between me feeling like I want to kill myself to feeling great and like I can take on the world; being tired versus well rested. And everyone is like this (granted maybe not to this degree). People are more stressed out in recent years than ever, according to science and also incidentally science is saying people are sleeping less than ever before...

[Matthew]

People are more stressed out in recent years than ever, according to science and also incidentally science is saying people are sleeping less than ever before...

This is true. There are major fault lines developing in developed democracies, a tendency towards populism and autocrats, wealth inequality not seen in a hundred y years, and the constant existential threat of climate change, which is not being addressed with the seriousness needed. All these things are linked, they are all symptoms of a sick society, a society founded on lies, manipulation, and division.

As mediators we can help ourselves and others by remaining grounded, being mindful, taking care of the basics such as hydration, healthy food, exercise, and sleep. This puts us in the best situation to face a society in increasing difficulty, yet remain calm headed, and inspire others to do likewise.

Much change is coming, and it won't be easy, yet as practitioners we can be aware and we can be a positive influence on the people around us, to help ensure these changes are navigated as best we can.

[Alex]

That random stuff on TV etc makes me cry I've long seen as a sign that there are deeper wounds I can't yet access, for whatever reason.

I can relate to that. I've been feeling deeper layers of sadness coming up for months now. One nightmare taught me that I need to allow for a rawness in these emotions instead of the more polished or rationalized approach that I've learned. Sometimes I have a sense of these feelings, they pop up easily e.g. in 'random' TV stuff, sometimes they're less accessible. In a psilocybine session late last year my intention was to contact these older parts of myself, but even then I saw only glimpses and the main lessons I took from that session is that compassion for these parts is crucial (you need resources first before you can process), and that living and relating in these older layers is important (it takes time, there's no bypass). Only recently did I clearly see the struggles, the numbing/distracting myself when these feelings come up or judging myself for being sad ("pathetic, loser") or for not healing more efficiently or something. Work/freedom in progress...
As I write this I feel for these older parts in ourselves, and as Dhamma said, I wish all of us deep healing and freedom.

[dharma bum]

Don't you folks think that psychoanalysis and Buddhism are opposite systems and work against each other?

In Buddhist philosophy, we let go of analysis.

[Dhamma]

Don't you folks think that psychoanalysis and Buddhism are opposite systems and work against each other?

In Buddhist philosophy, we let go of analysis.

Interesting you say that. In Qigong practice, they always say "to let go of the story."

[Mert]

During the past 2 years I have walked up against unresolved childhood trauma that has really come out in a very dysfunctional and destructive relationship I was having. I'm what they call a 'love addict' among other things, the root of which being abandonment anxiety stemming from childhood abandonment trauma.

I recommend Your Erroneous Zones by Dr. Wayne Dyer. It's completely on point with this situation.

Maybe you can try the attribute meditation. As you sit, you just think the attribute of 'Self-Sufficient/Independent/Wealth'. Do not think that polishedbrass has the attribute, just focus on the attribute with no subjective perspective. And choose to not think and accept psychological dependency.

My ignorant self, I think with your practice you're focusing on the idea that you need love, preconceived non-existent wants and needs. Maybe you've let others in the past and now yourself gaslight your own that you're abandoned, have issues and don't have what it means to be fulfilled and happy. You're choosing to deny the reality that you are enough, and attracted someone who thinks that way into your life. I like to think that the fact of she's out of your life is a blessing and opportunity to grow by pondering on it. Rejecting reality is madness.


With lots of love.

[dharma bum]

My ignorant self, I think with your practice you're focusing on the idea that you need love, preconceived non-existent wants and needs. Maybe you've let others in the past and now yourself gaslight your own that you're abandoned, have issues and don't have what it means to be fulfilled and happy. You're choosing to deny the reality that you are enough, and attracted someone who thinks that way into your life. I like to think that the fact of she's out of your life is a blessing and opportunity to grow by pondering on it.

From the Buddhist perspective, these are just thoughts. You can analyze a problem like some old childhood trauma and and think about it, but in my experience, another thought cannot fix the problems caused by previous thoughts. In my experience, there are no resolutions in life. Resolution is just a word. What does it mean? I think trying to uncover hidden traumas and trying to resolve them is like running round and round in circles.

This is my perspective as someone who looks at life through the influence of Buddhist ideas. I'm certainly not all-knowing. I've never been through therapy, so my ideas of therapy could also be wrong.

[Dhamma]

My ignorant self, I think with your practice you're focusing on the idea that you need love, preconceived non-existent wants and needs. Maybe you've let others in the past and now yourself gaslight your own that you're abandoned, have issues and don't have what it means to be fulfilled and happy. You're choosing to deny the reality that you are enough, and attracted someone who thinks that way into your life. I like to think that the fact of she's out of your life is a blessing and opportunity to grow by pondering on it.

From the Buddhist perspective, these are just thoughts. You can analyze a problem like some old childhood trauma and and think about it, but in my experience, another thought cannot fix the problems caused by previous thoughts. In my experience, there are no resolutions in life. Resolution is just a word. What does it mean? I think trying to uncover hidden traumas and trying to resolve them is like running round and round in circles.

This is my perspective as someone who looks at life through the influence of Buddhist ideas. I'm certainly not all-knowing. I've never been through therapy, so my ideas of therapy could also be wrong.

Again, friend, what you are saying is what is commonly taught in Qigong.

[Dharmic Tui]

That's good that you do, and perhaps you can gain more insight into the underlying stuff, and more healing, if you can allow yourself to truly feel the grief and break down. That random stuff on TV etc makes me cry I've long seen as a sign that there are deeper wounds I can't yet access, for whatever reason.

I feel like I can see it arise and pass away, it's almost like it's a muscular reaction associated with thought, but once engaged, very difficult to subside.

The world seems fairly ambigious at times. I try to give everything benefit of the doubt, but there is also a level of gut instinct that is mostly valid. Most of it is pointing towards a lack of interest in most of the human world around me, but here I am anyway.

Thanks Matthew have a good weekend

[Mert]

My ignorant self, I think with your practice you're focusing on the idea that you need love, preconceived non-existent wants and needs. Maybe you've let others in the past and now yourself gaslight your own that you're abandoned, have issues and don't have what it means to be fulfilled and happy. You're choosing to deny the reality that you are enough, and attracted someone who thinks that way into your life. I like to think that the fact of she's out of your life is a blessing and opportunity to grow by pondering on it.

From the Buddhist perspective, these are just thoughts. You can analyze a problem like some old childhood trauma and and think about it, but in my experience, another thought cannot fix the problems caused by previous thoughts. In my experience, there are no resolutions in life. Resolution is just a word. What does it mean? I think trying to uncover hidden traumas and trying to resolve them is like running round and round in circles.

This is my perspective as someone who looks at life through the influence of Buddhist ideas. I'm certainly not all-knowing. I've never been through therapy, so my ideas of therapy could also be wrong.

It's not a thought that was recommended which you didn't quote. It's the same kind of meditation as Metta meditation. What's called Metta is in the 117 focuses of the same meditation style(as far as I know Metta jumps between couple of these), and most practices use these to unlearn certain habits and form new ones for different situations. People hit plateaus in their practices, that's the time when this kind of practice is used to not run round and round in circles.

Traumas and the identity of a person are not thoughts nor ideas. An apple is not the apple tree, but it can become one. These are strongly rooted in your subconscious and are not active most of the time. Something needs to trigger and light them up. Thoughts' bias come from these pre-learned and pre-formed structures in your brain like weighted vertexes. As you don't trigger them, they fade away and you're like a newborn. Even the situational need of letting go does trigger and make them more permanent.

Buddhist practice focuses on letting go of EVERYTHING, so that nothing can trigger these things. Daoism is somewhat similar. Me and some other people are not that loyal to Buddhist practices and didn't let go of casual life like monks do and can't benefit what they say just the same way they do. If anyone could, Buddha would not abandon things.

If the purpose of Buddhism is the identity of Buddhism itself, I would be holding on to something and it's ironic to think that way. The skepticism is not about Buddhism it's about our own ego. Buddhism nor any practice doesn't exist in reality. "Saints has no religion." is what a saint said. After Buddha, in this era how much the milk got spoiled after the cow became distant to this world is pretty problematic and not accurate from what I concluded after reading Suttas. Becoming Arahant you become Independent of anything and people focus and become defined by this adjective at some point to achieve it.

Which reminds me of the book of Torah, I want to quote the "God" says it's name is "I am that, I am." Everyone at some point need to go beyond letting go of what arises, and realize and purge what never passed away by becoming themselves.

What do you think about this? I really benefited and learning a lot from our forum, thanks to Matthew, with lots of love.

Addition: Another thing to note is for most of the practices to effectively work, you need to be young. Your brain structure needs to be elastic to let things really go. To benefit the Buddhist and other practices you need to start when you're young. Even 20 years old is late, for someone over 20 years old, it's hard and if you can't compromise too much about what defines you, it's might be waste of time and not logical just thinking couple of hours sitting will get us far. Quoting a Zen master, Suzuki Shunryu, it's not desired for someone to start practice late, some masters wish some students started earlier.

[dharma bum]

Again, friend, what you are saying is what is commonly taught in Qigong.

Dhamma, thanks for the information about Qigong. i am not much familiar with it.

Mert, I am not saying psychoanalysis is right or wrong, or Buddhism is right or wrong. I'm just saying that analysis and Buddhist practise are opposite in nature. A bit of analysis is natural when you do meditation, but usually you get tired of it because you conclude that you're just going round and round in circles and let go. Perhaps some people benefit from talking about their experiences. I don't know. I will accept that I know very little. If it helps somebody, who am I to say it doesn't count.

[dharma bum]

Addition: Another thing to note is for most of the practices to effectively work, you need to be young. Your brain structure needs to be elastic to let things really go. To benefit the Buddhist and other practices you need to start when you're young. Even 20 years old is late, for someone over 20 years old, it's hard and if you can't compromise too much about what defines you, it's might be waste of time and not logical just thinking couple of hours sitting will get us far.

We're not going anywhere, near or far. I started quite late as a matter of fact, but if I spend two hours meditating and say 1% of the time I feel free, then I have been free for 1.2 minutes in a day, which is worth spending 2 hours of my time.

[Dharmic Tui]

There is a common understanding that a brain doesn't develop fully until it's 25. That said, it's also coming to light that mental plasticity is possible throughout life. Although obviously memory retention and processing speed will deteriorate as we age.

I think if it was being hammered into you from an early age, you would run risk of being indoctrinated rather than gaining meaningful insight.

[Mert]

Actually, we are saying the same thing dharma bum. I'm not defending that we should psychoanalysis, I'm saying that sometimes we just know what's happening, what's between us and feeling free becoming a barricade. We all have the motivation to become free. Meditating by sitting is a tool to gain insight to how to feel free most of the the time. We should not just deal with active thoughts, but also subconscious patterns that's not active in that duration. If we are not improving the duration, hitting a plateau or sometimes letting the control slip away, we might be letting wrongs things to go instead of dealing little by little. IMHO.

[Dharmic Tui]

This is true. There are major fault lines developing in developed democracies, a tendency towards populism and autocrats, wealth inequality not seen in a hundred y years, and the constant existential threat of climate change, which is not being addressed with the seriousness needed. All these things are linked, they are all symptoms of a sick society, a society founded on lies, manipulation, and division.

While I try not to drown in everything that's going on, today a 5th child in our community took their own life this year. These are all late teens. Mostly female. This in a supposed safe country with material abundance. My own kids were at school with all these kids at some point. And behind this tragedy no doubt many other kids having a hard time in life.

Some people would say things are always as they were, and we're just more adept at identifying and diagnosing issues, but it is really hard shaking the notion that the chosen path has completely idolised the material at the sake of our interpersonal bonds and shared experience.

I don't know how you address all that without having people live in tribe sized clusters.

[Matthew]

I'm sorry to read your words DT.

The hurt in your post is discernible. What a tragic situation. I hope you are able to maintain your balance, and be a strength for your kids despite this. It would be easy to drown in such circumstances .. your practice and experience may be both a strength and make you very aware of the suffering here .. that's a hard truth about this path. We see, we feel.

Breathe .. breathe ... breathe ...

There is an undeniable problem, and it does seem to affect younger/teenage females in particular. It seems a global symptom of the confusions and contradictions in our world, and that group seem to take the worst of the collective hurt.

Email me if you would find it helpful to chat .. we could Skype or WhatsApp. Sometimes it does help to offload 🙏❤️

[raushan]

While I try not to drown in everything that's going on, today a 5th child in our community took their own life this year. These are all late teens. Mostly female. This in a supposed safe country with material abundance. My own kids were at school with all these kids at some point. And behind this tragedy no doubt many other kids having a hard time in life.

Sorry to hear it. But the truth is,
Mind leave no ones, the developed countries people have other kind of diseases. They are inventing suffering for themselves. They are confused about their Gender now. That's all Maya's game.

Some people would say things are always as they were, and we're just more adept at identifying and diagnosing issues, but it is really hard shaking the notion that the chosen path has completely idolised the material at the sake of our interpersonal bonds and shared experience.

I don't know how you address all that without having people live in tribe sized clusters.

All these new age problems spin out of the society. It's not about prioritizing one thing over another. Most people just have to stop watching news and almost cut off from the new social trends to remain sane. Society invent problems that doesn't exist and then try to fix that imaginary problems.

[Dharmic Tui]

While I try not to drown in everything that's going on, today a 5th child in our community took their own life this year. These are all late teens. Mostly female. This in a supposed safe country with material abundance. My own kids were at school with all these kids at some point. And behind this tragedy no doubt many other kids having a hard time in life.

Sorry to hear it. But the truth is,
Mind leave no ones, the developed countries people have other kind of diseases. They are inventing suffering for themselves. They are confused about their Gender now. That's all Maya's game.

Some people would say things are always as they were, and we're just more adept at identifying and diagnosing issues, but it is really hard shaking the notion that the chosen path has completely idolised the material at the sake of our interpersonal bonds and shared experience.

I don't know how you address all that without having people live in tribe sized clusters.

All these new age problems spin out of the society. It's not about prioritizing one thing over another. Most people just have to stop watching news and almost cut off from the new social trends to remain sane. Society invent problems that doesn't exist and then try to fix that imaginary problems.

Hi Raushan,

It can be dangerous to get lost in the culture wars. While everyone has their own beliefs there, I think that there's a spectrum of sexuality that occurs naturally - specifically why so many religions try to make things more black and white. So in principal it'd be nicer to allow people whatever relationship or identity they choose, instead of demonising them for it.

That said, there does indeed to be a victim mentality that has permeated almost every level of modern Anglo-Saxon society.

Sadly in most of these cases the issue wasnt the hot button topics like social media, gender pronouns, fear of climate change, etc. In almost every case there were absent parents, or some level of parental dysfunction. I guess in short, these people weren't shown enough love. Or were extremely lonely. Maybe both.

[raushan]

Hi Raushan,

It can be dangerous to get lost in the culture wars. While everyone has their own beliefs there, I think that there's a spectrum of sexuality that occurs naturally - specifically why so many religions try to make things more black and white. So in principal it'd be nicer to allow people whatever relationship or identity they choose, instead of demonising them for it.

Hi DT,

I really don't know much about it so I won't comment it on much. What you are telling might be true. But it is also the case that these things are getting so much attention as it shouldn't have. While this is my opinion so it may be wrong.

That said, there does indeed to be a victim mentality that has permeated almost every level of modern Anglo-Saxon society.

Yes I agree with that.

Sadly in most of these cases the issue wasnt the hot button topics like social media, gender pronouns, fear of climate change, etc. In almost every case there were absent parents, or some level of parental dysfunction. I guess in short, these people weren't shown enough love. Or were extremely lonely. Maybe both.

Yes I think these are really the cases which damages the teens and kids heavily.