- technics1210 wrote:
- Ok, so at the time this happened where you visualising seeing yourself?
It's hard to place it in NLP terms, at least for me as my understanding of NLP is very superficial at this point. What I can do on the other hand is to jot down the recipie, so to speak, in terms of what I did to get my result. I was just reading the book and doing the exercises, but I think that book is hard to come by. So it's on with the goofy hippie hat then...
(let's qualify it by one of Murphy's laws: "if it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid.")
Firstly I read and I suppose, internalized a certain way of looking at the world from the book. A sort of new agey spin on basic zen stuff I suspect. Most importantly is to simply refrain from making value judgements on things. It's not good, not bad, it's just
there, it just
is and that's it. Things only become good or bad because we decide to make those judgements in our minds. It usually is such a strong habit that it happens completely unconsciously and most people don't even know they do it, but it is a thing we do and can stop doing. It reminds me of something I read in a Bruce Lee book, he asked "can you look at a conflict without taking a side?" Just observing dispassionately basically. That, and having a worldview that everything just is what it is, and is therefore perfect. (BTW the best fix for RBSD worrying I ever found was simply accepting the fact that whatever's gonna happen is going to happen and at that point you'll just do what you'll do. Basically just letting go of it mentally because you know you'll just be doing the same thing anyway when or if it actually happens. Gain control by letting go of control...)
Secondly there was a lot of meditation-like breating exercises. Just allowing yourself to breathe freely but without that pause between inhale and exhale. If not inhaling too hard or exhaling too hard there shouldn't be any hyperventilation-like effects, just do what feels right. Might work best to
let it happen rather than
doing it, if you see the semantic difference. This is probably important because we tend to stop our breath and sort of tense up when bothered, which seems to trigger bad feelings, and gets you into that cycle of fuelling your negative state.
Now mentally while doing that breating what you do basically amounts to stopping that internal dialogue by just listening and observing your own thoughts and feelings. A metaphor they used was that the thoughts were like a Lion walking over a field, and it was better to just let is pass rather than grabbing it by the tail. And usually we do tend to grab hold of and embellish upon whatever thoughts enter our minds, so it seems about right. Anyway I did this observation thing
a lot, especially when I found myself in bad states so it may have become automatized as a form of mental defense, because I found myself doing this automatically in a lot of uncomfortable situations.
As for mental experience in case something useful can be extracted from it. In the situation with that co worker above for instance, I'd be sitting there in my chair while he was walking back and forth on the floor ranting and raving. Simply observing, not judging it, and especially observing my mind, and it seemed like I (or the conscious little camera in my mind that I experience everything in the world through) was floating above a sort of churning black lake which was the contents of my mind (I suppose it was dark in there because there are no lamps inside my head). Thoughts, emotions and etc. Watching feelings of anger and indignation float by far below. Then some thoughts about dragging the guy outside and beating him to a pulp with a bat, again far down below. Choosing to just watch those thougths without associating into the experience. Without grabbing the lion by the tail to use that metaphor. Just allowing things to be whichever way they are. While only observing and breating easily and steadily.
The most startling thing was how relaxed I was, it was all distant. Not truly dissociated as the thoughts and feelings were very present, but just being watched and not participated in. A form of benevolent form of dissociation I suppose. I didn't get any experience with combining it with talking back (didn't feel any need to) or anything related to combative state stuff (except maybe the post I made in
This thread ), but I should get my lazy ass into doing that stuff again and see what can be achieved.
So there... I'd be surprised if it made any sense but that's basically it. It's really a simple, easy thing to do with no particular complexity so don't let my rambling writing style confuse you.
Just breathe
Refrain from judging it as good or bad.
Just let it be what it is and observe it, and observe your thoughts and feelings, letting them be as they are too.
And repeat after me "you can't own property, maaaaaaan."
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