Posts by Introspection

4

Fear and Ego (ET quotes)

by Introspection in

i'm enjoying the book the power of now by eckhart tolle, and i expect there will be a number of quotes that i find worth posting.

i will use this thread for any future posts from this author.. by the way, the author does point out that he uses the word ego in a specific way here, so no doubt it isn't exactly what psychologists would consider ego.... fear seems to have many causes.

fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on, but ultimately all fear is the egos fear of death, of annihilation.

Introspection

This one is for you StephenW, a lot like what Caroline Myss says but he talks about other stuff as you can see from the other quotes:

In a fully functional organism, an emotion has a very short life span. It is like a momentary ripple or wave on the surface of your Being. When you are not in your body, however, an emotion can survive inside you for days or weeks, or join with other emotions of a similiar frequency that have merged and become the pain-body, a parasite that can live inside you for years, feed on your energy, lead to physical illness, and make your life miserable.
So place your attention on feeling the emotion, and check whether your mind is holding on to a grievance pattern such as blame, self-pity, or resentment that is feeding the emotion. If that is the case, it means that you haven't forgiven. Nonforgiveness is often toward another person or yourself, but it may just as well be toward any situation or condition--past, present or future--that your mind refuses to accept. Yes, there can be nonforgiveness even with regard to the future. This is the mind's refusal to accept uncertainty, to accept that the future is ultimately beyond its control. Forgiveness is to relinquish your grievance and so to let go of grief. It happens naturally once you realize that your grievance serves no purpose except to strengthen a false sense of self. Forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life--to allow life to live through you. The alternatives are pain and suffering, a greatly restricted flow of life energy, and in many cases physical disease.
The moment you truly forgive, you have reclaimed your power from the mind. Nonforgiveness is the very nature of the mind, just as the mind-made false self, the ego, cannot survive without strife and conflict. The mind cannot forgive. Only you can. You become present, you enter your body, you feel the vibrant peace and stillness that emanate from Being. That is why Jesus said: "Before you enter the temple, forgive."

2

Models of self-disclosure (fixed)

by Introspection in

here's a little something i worked on while in my interpersonal psych class.. i guess it's fairly self explanatory, it's all about communication, what people know about you, what you know about yourself etc.

i thought the taiji diagram is a good way of illustrating the dynamic nature of the exchange tho.. incidentally, i remember a class mate blurting out johari's witnesses in class!

lol .

Introspection

Here's a little something I worked on while in my interpersonal psych class.. I guess it's fairly self explanatory, it's all about communication, what people know about you, what you know about yourself etc. I thought the taiji diagram is a good way of illustrating the dynamic nature of the exchange tho.. Incidentally, I remember a class mate blurting out Johari's Witnesses in class! lol

Alright, instead of posting the pics I'll just give a weblink:

. http://www.geocities.com/markec3019/index.html

4

Fear and Ego (ET quotes)

by Introspection in

i'm enjoying the book the power of now by eckhart tolle, and i expect there will be a number of quotes that i find worth posting.

i will use this thread for any future posts from this author.. by the way, the author does point out that he uses the word ego in a specific way here, so no doubt it isn't exactly what psychologists would consider ego.... fear seems to have many causes.

fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on, but ultimately all fear is the egos fear of death, of annihilation.

Introspection

Another quote from the same source, an esoteric interpretation of the parable about the bride and the bridegroom. It occurs to me that presence and the Now as he uses those words points to space-time...

Something could happen at any moment, and if you are not absolutely awake, absolutely still, you will miss it. This is the kind of waiting Jesus talks about. In that state, all your attention is in the Now. There is none left for daydreaming, thinking, remembering, anticipating. There is no tension in it, no fear, just alert presence. You are present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. In that state, the "you" that has a past and a future, the personality if you like, is hardly there anymore. And yet nothing of value is lost. You are still essentially yourself. In fact, you are more fully yourself than you ever were before, or rather it is only now that you are truly yourself.
"Be like a servant waiting for the return of the master," says Jesus. The servant does not know at what hour the master is going to come. So he stays awake, alert, poised, still, lest he miss the master's arrival. In another parable, Jesus speaks of the five careless (unconscious) women who do not have enough oil (consciousness) to keep their lamps burning (stay present) and so miss the bridegroom (the Now) and don't get to the wedding feast (enlightenment). These five stand in contrast to the five wise women who have enough oil (stay conscious).
Even the men who wrote the Gospels did not understand the meaning of these parables, so the first misinterpretations and distortions crept in as they were written down. With subsequent erroneous interpretations, the real meaning was completely lost. These are parables not about the end of the world but about the end of psychological time. They point to the transcendence of the egoic mind and the possibility of living in an entirely new state of consciousness.

5

Capsule of Evolution

by patio34 in

this section from 'the blind watchmaker' by richard dawkins has really answered questions for me:.

the language appears to be arbitrary n the same sense as a human language is arbitrary (there is nothing intrinsic in the sound of the word "house", for instance, which suggests to the listerner any attribute of a dwelling).

'given this, it is a fact of great significance that every living thing, no matter how diefferent from others in external appearance it may be, 'speaks' almost exactly the same language at the level of the genes.

Introspection

Well this is really off topic, but since we've brought up DNA.. This book notes an interesting mathematical correlation between the DNA and the I-Ching. Before you discount it out of hand as new age foo-foo, you should know that various other scientists have made the correlation before and some of it is published works.

. http://www.insight-books.com/new/1556430973.html

Living in the limelight..

by Introspection in

a few words from geddy lee of rush, link is below if anyone wants to see the whole thing... cast in this unlikely role,.

ill-equipped to act,.

with insufficient tact,.

Introspection

A few words from Geddy Lee of Rush, link is below if anyone wants to see the whole thing..

Cast in this unlikely role,
Ill-equipped to act,
With insufficient tact,
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact.

Living in the Limelight,
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem.
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation,
Get on with the fascination,
The real relation,
The underlying theme.

. http://www.cybrr.com/~nobodyshero/Chronicles/Limelight.html

5

P$ychobabble On

by Seven in

the following review of "crazy therapies" is a rather long but interesting read.

larc, thank you for your recommendation of the albert ellis book, "how to stubbornly refuse to make yourself miserable about anything, yes anything.

" i found this one extemely valuable.

Introspection

Larc, no doubt that is good advice, unfortunately I don't think most health care consumers, including those seeking mental health is so consciencious about that kind of research.

Just to clarify: Were you saying that generally anyone who has a PhD from an accredited school should be qualified, or that it still depends upon the specifics of the curriculum?

16

A few question that are leading to some confusion

by anidchick in

i am in the process of becoming a jehovah witnesses, but there were a few areas i was still unsure about and i was hopin i could get some answers:.

) what is the exact view of jesus?.

) how is the view of the whole trinity with god, holy ghost, son seen?.

Introspection

Dawn, I'd like to ask you one question: Why do you want to become a Jehovah's Witness? Or do you? When you say you are in the process of becoming one, do you mean you are studying and are considering it based on what their beliefs are?

18

Df'ing threat losing power?

by metatron in

jw
friends

recently,i noticed that some teenagers and "weak" publishers.

weren't actually shunning my step-daughter.

i warned her to meet.

Introspection

One thing that comes to mind for me is, aren't the baptismal numbers largely dependent on young ones? I mean really, how many people are actually going in from preaching, atleast from the USA? I guess it depends on the area but I remember that there were more young people getting baptized than bible studies.

Questioning..

by Introspection in

it seems to me there are two sides to questioning things, you may do so out of curiosity and wonder, which implies an acknowledgement of something unknown and a desire for understanding, or it may disturb you to question beliefs you have held, assumptions you have come to regard as certainties, which often seems to involve fear and denial.

i'd like to get a discussion going on this, perhaps there is more to it.

does it fit into any existing psychological theory?

Introspection

It seems to me there are two sides to questioning things, you may do so out of curiosity and wonder, which implies an acknowledgement of something unknown and a desire for understanding, or it may disturb you to question beliefs you have held, assumptions you have come to regard as certainties, which often seems to involve fear and denial. I'd like to get a discussion going on this, perhaps there is more to it. Does it fit into any existing psychological theory? C'mon people fire up those neural nets. :)

5

P$ychobabble On

by Seven in

the following review of "crazy therapies" is a rather long but interesting read.

larc, thank you for your recommendation of the albert ellis book, "how to stubbornly refuse to make yourself miserable about anything, yes anything.

" i found this one extemely valuable.

Introspection

It is long. Quite frankly, while I appreciate what they are trying to communicate, to me it is simply a reflection of symptom listing ad nauseum. So much emphasis on how things are screwed up, can you ever exhaustively list every possible detail of every therapy that is questionable? There must be a simpler way.

This is the issue I have with the mental health profession, namely the DSM-IV. Granted I haven't made a thorough study of the manual, but my impression (again, please correct me if I'm wrong, I really hope I am) is that it is little more than an extensive list. Before I'm accused of oversimplification, let me say that I do understand therapists and doctors need some way to communicate. However, it just frustrates me that so little has been done in the way of truly integrating the two fields, the so called "mind-body connection."

It seems to me this whole thing could have been summarized in one principle: the need for inquiry. We see that these therapies has all sorts of conditions and requirements, basically to accept some things "on faith." I want to start another thread on inquiry itself though so I will leave it for now, but suffice it to say that it is good to question everything. To someone who is not educated, or who just barely passed their critical thinking class and/or their statistics class, do they really even know what science IS? Strictly speaking, the word "proven" is conditional, it is qualified by the word scientific. I'm sorry, but in my mind there is no such thing as certainty, only statistical significance. (Stephen and others may be surprised at hearing this, but of course I am only referring to the intellect)

Is it necessary for the therapist to challenge one's religious beliefs and world view? I would think it depends. I have seen how therapy and "religious" practice can coexist with therapists from a local meditation center. It seems to me some people will connect meditation with religion, and because it is foreign to their own experience base and/or world view they will consider or atleast suspect it to be cultic, for example the JW idea that meditation (without qualifying what type, other than that which does not include contemplation upon WTS literature) opens you up to demonic possession. However, if you actually talk with these therapists/teachers whom I have worked with, I think you'll find that they encourage you to inquire and question, both what they have to say and what your own mind generates. I did a month long meditation retreat a while back, and on top of rather comfy accomodations and the lack of rigid structure I screwed around by cutting sitting periods and going hiking. Nevertheless, there is no question in my mind that this is the single most helpful thing I ever did for my mental health, and incidentally it's what prompted me to come to a forum like this and really disidentify with the WTS/JWs.

Short version: If you really want to make good choices in seeking mental health and just life in general, GO educate yourself and practice critical thinking skills with an "inquiring mind". Don't just take the word of any authors, (how will they know who's reputable? Is reputation enough, or does it guarantee quality?) question that too if you have the patience of sifting through their stuff.