The Luge Track on the LP of the Mind
Sep. 22nd, 2020 04:28 pmWith the help of ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sdi , who left a comment on my "woe is me, I'm in a rut" post the other day, I had an interesting realization that was further aided by some synchronicitous reading. Before I get to the realization, though, I've got a scenario that can be used to illustrate it.
I have a family member who has some issues. He speaks frequently of certain events that took place in his past and that caused him distress. The distress is relived (or re-animated) simply by his remembrance of those previous occurrences and through his association of those events with his current state of being that he perceives as extremely difficult, hampered, unfair. He feels stuck, considers himself to have been a victim of other people's actions, sees that these actions are "of a type" and that get played out by others as he goes through life. In some ways he is correct: other people's actions have affected him, but in some ways he has fallen into a rut. His perspective does not change.
Like him (like most of us, I assume), I have my own ruts, so I'm not saying he's an anomaly or flawed in any way for having adopted this patterned way of conceiving of events and their repercussions. It just happened, though, that my rut the other day, combined with the reply in that thread, combined with seeing this relative's pattern replayed finally cracked a little light in on the opaque spaces of the human mindscape for me.
Since I'm on the listening end of the narrative that's related to this family member's experiences - and that with some frequency - and since, somehow, my lack of ability to assuage his distress also factors into the narrative, I frequently find myself thinking about the tangle of it all and how the misery doesn't ever seem to ebb.
What sdi did for me was reframe my narrative.
What is challenging about my relative's case is that he is (currently) resistant to reframing and takes any such attempt as gaslighting or as denial of his experience (obviously, I need to rethink my strategy but until today, I'd not seen our interactions, nor his attachment to his narrative, quite so clearly. I have not denied his experience, but I have suggested he "not constantly revisit the memories" or "try to not let past experience hold him back" - not totally helpful).
The brain is good at loops. Loops become ruts and ruts (as we know from The Cosmic Doctrine), pull other "atoms" into their sway and those atoms accentuate the tracks. Loops become feedback loops. Reframing, then, is a re-routing, of neural pathways and habits of thought. It takes the "atom" and sets it elsewhere, but first it says, "hey there's that rut, maybe the next time you fall into it, you think of it as a playground slide, or a luge track, let it give you an exhilarating ride. Or let it be a vinyl album groove and let it frame things with some interesting tunes." And then the atom goes and does something different for a moment, then something triggers it and it falls into its rut - but this time, there's a new story about it. The new story helps the atom associate different feelings and different thought processes and ideas with the rut and eventually it can find a way out from the groove on its own because it's made a new track in space built out of and up from the old one.
I'm reminded here of attention interpretation therapy (about which I know just a little, but enough to summarize) that helps people learn to figure out what they pay attention to (internally, a kind of conscious awareness of mind chatter) and then works on the narrative around the thoughts that cause suffering through retraining judgmental processes and by applying positive meanings to "convince" the mind that there's something beneficial (or at least not completely horrible) about the experience that prompted the suffering.
This refinement or reinterpretation of events and the stories we tell ourselves about them is something that depth psychology (from the Jungian tradition) works with. Again, my generalist's superficial knowledge suggests that active imagination is used in this way in a psychotherapy setting. Deena Metzger, in her Writing for Your Life, recounts a story of a woman with whom she worked who had suffered greatly as a child and who had a tremendous sense of lacking that she couldn't repair. Metzger suggested she "rewrite" her early-life story to include a helpful aunt who'd existed in real life but who hadn't been overtly present. The writer wrote her new story and remade her history in a way that allowed for her suffering but also included someone who had cared and helped in many ways. She imagined scenes, in great detail, where the aunt had been present, and adopted them as her story - not in a deluded sense, but in a sort of "double-vision" way that allowed for the imaginal realm to grant a healing possibility that hadn't existed in the "real" realm.
As for the synchronicities that tied this all together for me, they look like this: I find writing to be a useful way to focus my somewhat scattered and impressionistic mind, so I recently started prayer-by-writing, addressing my prayers to my guardian angel/spirit. I have no real prayer experience, so I've taken it on faith that it "works" - that there's someone on the other end of the line, so to speak. The other day, mid-rut, I prayed about it. Then later there was sdi's reframing comment that very clearly referred to "guardian angels/spirits/whatevers" - and I was so ... eased... by what was said. I can only assume that it was a prayer answered. Then, I thought to look in the book that had given me the idea of "prayer-by-writing," called Writing Down Your Soul, by Janet Connor, though I'd not really so much as glanced at it for over a year. This morning, still thinking of the answered prayer and the reframed rut, I turned to this section that then quotes Candace Pert's Molecules of Emotion:
At that point, kind of wowed, I did my morning divination and got the symbol that can be summarized as "the state of being blinded by clinging too strongly to specifics and that is thus incapable of seeing other possibilities for transformation due to clutching at and attachment to details that cause tension and anxiety. Look to spirit's "underpinnings" and presence for perspective."
Well, that took "wow" to a whole new level!
I don't really have a niftily tied-up conclusion. Suffice it to say, this week has provided me with ample instruction, meditation fodder, and a fueled devotion to devotion and divination. Until I can come up with a healthier strategy, I won't be suggesting anything to that family member at this time, but I have hope that at some point I'll be able to offer something constructive.
***
Edited to add: I kind of left part of the story hanging. Metzger goes on to write about the woman who "created" her history: "I don't think L. M. ever forgot that she had created this aunt, but she did allow herself to ignore this fact. Her aunt thrived in her imagination and supported her life. Over a period of time, L. M.'s life changed. She dared to do things that she couldn't have dared before. She became energetic, motivated. She saw herself as capable. The last time we met, she showed me a portfolio she was taking to the movie studios...'I never could have done this without my aunt," she said with a wink.'"
sdi , who left a comment on my "woe is me, I'm in a rut" post the other day, I had an interesting realization that was further aided by some synchronicitous reading. Before I get to the realization, though, I've got a scenario that can be used to illustrate it.I have a family member who has some issues. He speaks frequently of certain events that took place in his past and that caused him distress. The distress is relived (or re-animated) simply by his remembrance of those previous occurrences and through his association of those events with his current state of being that he perceives as extremely difficult, hampered, unfair. He feels stuck, considers himself to have been a victim of other people's actions, sees that these actions are "of a type" and that get played out by others as he goes through life. In some ways he is correct: other people's actions have affected him, but in some ways he has fallen into a rut. His perspective does not change.
Like him (like most of us, I assume), I have my own ruts, so I'm not saying he's an anomaly or flawed in any way for having adopted this patterned way of conceiving of events and their repercussions. It just happened, though, that my rut the other day, combined with the reply in that thread, combined with seeing this relative's pattern replayed finally cracked a little light in on the opaque spaces of the human mindscape for me.
Since I'm on the listening end of the narrative that's related to this family member's experiences - and that with some frequency - and since, somehow, my lack of ability to assuage his distress also factors into the narrative, I frequently find myself thinking about the tangle of it all and how the misery doesn't ever seem to ebb.
What sdi did for me was reframe my narrative.
What is challenging about my relative's case is that he is (currently) resistant to reframing and takes any such attempt as gaslighting or as denial of his experience (obviously, I need to rethink my strategy but until today, I'd not seen our interactions, nor his attachment to his narrative, quite so clearly. I have not denied his experience, but I have suggested he "not constantly revisit the memories" or "try to not let past experience hold him back" - not totally helpful).
The brain is good at loops. Loops become ruts and ruts (as we know from The Cosmic Doctrine), pull other "atoms" into their sway and those atoms accentuate the tracks. Loops become feedback loops. Reframing, then, is a re-routing, of neural pathways and habits of thought. It takes the "atom" and sets it elsewhere, but first it says, "hey there's that rut, maybe the next time you fall into it, you think of it as a playground slide, or a luge track, let it give you an exhilarating ride. Or let it be a vinyl album groove and let it frame things with some interesting tunes." And then the atom goes and does something different for a moment, then something triggers it and it falls into its rut - but this time, there's a new story about it. The new story helps the atom associate different feelings and different thought processes and ideas with the rut and eventually it can find a way out from the groove on its own because it's made a new track in space built out of and up from the old one.
I'm reminded here of attention interpretation therapy (about which I know just a little, but enough to summarize) that helps people learn to figure out what they pay attention to (internally, a kind of conscious awareness of mind chatter) and then works on the narrative around the thoughts that cause suffering through retraining judgmental processes and by applying positive meanings to "convince" the mind that there's something beneficial (or at least not completely horrible) about the experience that prompted the suffering.
This refinement or reinterpretation of events and the stories we tell ourselves about them is something that depth psychology (from the Jungian tradition) works with. Again, my generalist's superficial knowledge suggests that active imagination is used in this way in a psychotherapy setting. Deena Metzger, in her Writing for Your Life, recounts a story of a woman with whom she worked who had suffered greatly as a child and who had a tremendous sense of lacking that she couldn't repair. Metzger suggested she "rewrite" her early-life story to include a helpful aunt who'd existed in real life but who hadn't been overtly present. The writer wrote her new story and remade her history in a way that allowed for her suffering but also included someone who had cared and helped in many ways. She imagined scenes, in great detail, where the aunt had been present, and adopted them as her story - not in a deluded sense, but in a sort of "double-vision" way that allowed for the imaginal realm to grant a healing possibility that hadn't existed in the "real" realm.
As for the synchronicities that tied this all together for me, they look like this: I find writing to be a useful way to focus my somewhat scattered and impressionistic mind, so I recently started prayer-by-writing, addressing my prayers to my guardian angel/spirit. I have no real prayer experience, so I've taken it on faith that it "works" - that there's someone on the other end of the line, so to speak. The other day, mid-rut, I prayed about it. Then later there was sdi's reframing comment that very clearly referred to "guardian angels/spirits/whatevers" - and I was so ... eased... by what was said. I can only assume that it was a prayer answered. Then, I thought to look in the book that had given me the idea of "prayer-by-writing," called Writing Down Your Soul, by Janet Connor, though I'd not really so much as glanced at it for over a year. This morning, still thinking of the answered prayer and the reframed rut, I turned to this section that then quotes Candace Pert's Molecules of Emotion:
If your angel handed you a recording of yourself complaining about the problems in your life, would you hear yourself repating, "I'm stuck"? "Stuckness" seems to be a universal condition and one we all want to change. Pert has good news about how to change it:
[R]eceptors are not stagnant, and can change in both sensitivity and in the arrangement they have with other proteins in the cell membrane. This means that even when we are "stuck" emotionally, fixated on a version of reality that does not serve us well, there is always a biochemical potential for change and growth.
At that point, kind of wowed, I did my morning divination and got the symbol that can be summarized as "the state of being blinded by clinging too strongly to specifics and that is thus incapable of seeing other possibilities for transformation due to clutching at and attachment to details that cause tension and anxiety. Look to spirit's "underpinnings" and presence for perspective."
Well, that took "wow" to a whole new level!
I don't really have a niftily tied-up conclusion. Suffice it to say, this week has provided me with ample instruction, meditation fodder, and a fueled devotion to devotion and divination. Until I can come up with a healthier strategy, I won't be suggesting anything to that family member at this time, but I have hope that at some point I'll be able to offer something constructive.
***
Edited to add: I kind of left part of the story hanging. Metzger goes on to write about the woman who "created" her history: "I don't think L. M. ever forgot that she had created this aunt, but she did allow herself to ignore this fact. Her aunt thrived in her imagination and supported her life. Over a period of time, L. M.'s life changed. She dared to do things that she couldn't have dared before. She became energetic, motivated. She saw herself as capable. The last time we met, she showed me a portfolio she was taking to the movie studios...'I never could have done this without my aunt," she said with a wink.'"
