Shampoo Series: The Difference Between “Noticing” and “Forcing” or “Making”

Kurt, a friend of mine who still has trouble with what I have been writing here for a few years, put his objection into a very succinct phrase the other day, one that allows me to address it more clearly here.

Kurt said that he thinks my understanding of the childhood incest that happened is “denial worked into a coping mechanism.”

I can see how someone might think that.

The difference is that “working denial into a coping mechanism” requires that I “force” or “make” something true for me.

That would be stressful.

What really happened is that I noticed what was true without my story.

That is peaceful and has held up without my putting any effort into it. It just is.

Love, Ann

Truth/Lie, Pain/Pleasure, Works/Fails

I read something in Steven’s blog (http://www.sashen.com/blog) where he said there was only one thing he was interested in. I wondered what that was, so I asked. He says he is interested in how systems work. I asked if that includes things like his body and he said that was one of his favorite systems to learn about. He’s taken up sprinting and has a couple of meets coming up. It seems like he’s trying to see what he can do with that body-system-thingy.

Hmm. “How systems work” didn’t sound like anything I was interested in, but I tend to be interested in things he writes and says, so what is the overlap?

I’m sure that “how systems work” includes how minds work. Just look at the reading list at http://www.quantumwealth.com/resources.

Of course, I was wondering because I’ve always said there was only one thing I was interested in. But it has changed. Well, what I’m interested in didn’t really change, but how I think about it has definitely changed.

I used to say that spirituality was the only thing that I was interested in.

Nowadays, I can’t find a “spirit” to have a “ual” much less an “ality!”

Now what? I still have this stuff I do and stuff I don’t do.    

In fact, you may recall that questioning that has led me to some very interesting insights.

For example: 

I’m a person who is spiritual. Is that true?

or anything beginning with:

I need . . .

or

I want . . .

Is that true?

Anyway, there are a couple of other people who seem to have, if not just one interest, at least one umbrella interest that covers what I know of what they do. 

I’ve found myself very interested in what they do, so maybe there is something similar there. I’m curious. Maybe the one thing I am interested in is learning, but there are a lot of things I could care less about learning – how to fix my car, for example. I’m happy to pay someone else to do that! So, learning doesn’t really cover what it is that interests me, but it is part of it.

If I’m reading them right, it seems to boil down to:

Katie – Truth/Lie, which she seems to equate with Pleasure/Pain.

What she actually says is “If it hurts, you’re lying.”

Steven – Works/Fails

This is my way of expressing what Steven said as a duality about he is only interested in ”how things work.”  Works/Fails is not what he said, but my interpretation of what he said. I think this may be important because saying you are interested in how things work could  be something that isn’t exactly a duality, but more beyond the idea of works/doesn’t work. 

(Bear with me, I write to think these things through.)

But, let’s start with Katie. She says that she is “someone who knows the difference between what hurts and what doesn’t.”  The Work of Byron Katie is based largely on finding out what is true and when we are lying to ourselves.

Question 1 is “Is that true?”

Question 2 is “Can you absolutely know that is true?”

Question 3 explores what happens when we believe the thought, “How do you react when you believe that thought?” Most of the time, it seems like the reactions are things I would describe as painful or undesirable.

Question 4 is “Who would you be without that thought? or that story?”  and most of the time, I find things like peace and other pleasurable feelings, experiences and situations.

Then we Turn It Around, another important thing about checking for truth:  check both sides, all sides, all possibilities. 99 times out of 10 (not a typo) I find that the Turn Arounds are at least as true as the original thought. Sometimes they are simply Someone Else’s Business, not something I can know.

Okay, that’s one person’s take on things. 

Steven’s interest in “how systems work,” sounds a bit more complex – a bit trickier.

The minute he said it, I could see how that fit. I love listening to him explain how things work once he has them figured out. On the other hand, sometimes I do tune out. I’m not interested in how everything works, just some things.

For the title of this blog, and for a little Re-Pairing the Universe (see Shampoo Methods on the right or Steven’s IAM Meditation on it) I rephrased what Steven said as works/fails. It’s often when something doesn’t seem to work, at least not the way I thought it would, that I start noticing it at all. We’re all that way. We can’t notice everything all the time, but when something isn’t working, we notice.

At the same time, as I think about it, it’s pretty clear that being interested in “how systems work” is quite different from just focusing on works/fails. That pairing is great for Re-Pairing, but the interest is beyond that. It’s quite subtle. And seems like it could be fairly potent – analogous to a quantum leap, even, which is to say that small difference can result in big differences. It’s one thing to be interested in a process and how it works, quite another to focus on whether it is “working” or “not.”

I wonder if the one thing I’m interested in is “how people work?”

No. That’s not it. I can see how a lot of people “work” and I can’t do anything much about how other people work.

Maybe it’s how I work? That’s pretty self-centered, but it’s honest. I can’t really know how anyone else works, exactly, except that we’re all pretty similar, as I discussed in a recent post.

I do tend to take whatever someone is saying and immediately check how that would be for me or how that would work for me, or I instantly think it wouldn’t be the same for me or wouldn’t work for me.

Hmm . . . people, communication, teaching, learning, words, all of these things interest me. I am certainly interested in truth. This morning while I was first thinking about this, before it became a blog, I was wondering if it’s truth I’m really interested in. I am very interested in truth. Genuine people, stories that give me an “aha,” things like that. It’s the ”aha’s” combined with people that is part of what led me to say I was only interested in spiritual things, and then, that really, everything is spiritual. But I’m not really interested in everything. What is it?  

I’m open for comments here. 

I’m still wondering what it is that interests me. I’m looking for a little clarity here.

Look Ma! I’m Writing Again!

Figures.

Just when you think you’re winding down (with anything, if you take a look,) something shifts and there we go up the curve again. That’s why that ring that is said to have been given to some long-ago king worked so well. You know, the one that said, “This, too, shall pass.”

I was emailing my friend, Sarah, which is how a lot of these blogs get started – as emails to friends, and I said that I found an email from her dated sometime in 2006 about some project she was working on that had to do with trauma and I couldn’t recall what she said she was doing.

She said she remembered talking with me about how incest is a “life preparation tool,” or something.

Well, no. It’s not exactly a “life preparation tool.”

I’d hardly suggest inciting incest to prepare anyone for life. A lot of people can only interpret what I say as meaning that the end (being fine and whole, with or without any incest incidents,  justifies the means (incest.)  That’s not what I say at all, but people don’t have a place to file what I did say.

I did say that from a place of wholeness, nothing bad ever happened and no one was ever harmed.

But with people barely wrapping their minds and hearts around forgiveness, they are not hearing the gratitude or the acceptance without making up other stories about it. I was once married for 7 years to a man who refused to even meet my father because he was so angry at the thought of incest.

It’s hard to even language where I am about it, because the culture doesn’t contain that perspective, though I’ve been attempting it regularly here for a few years now.

In fact it is hard to “release trauma,” because we think there is trauma there to be released! There isn’t. There is only our mistaken thinking.

My friend, Wayne, told me Sunday that he still thinks that I have “turned denial into a coping mechanism.” Well, sure, I can find places where I do that. Still, that isn’t what I said, either, nor what I have done.

Some day, maybe I can say what cannot be heard and be heard.

These sig quotes say it, too, in a broader way. Other people have tried to say this. There is clarity out there. It wouldn’t matter if I’m the only one. There is still truth to be had.

Love, Ann

“To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand.” 
 
                   A Course in Miracles
                   Text, Chapter 16, 1st sentence
                   Page 330
 
“You move totally away from reality when you believe there is a legitimate reason to suffer.”
 
                   Byron Katie
                   “Loving What Is” page 288

More on Internet Dating

Internet dating is such a hit-or-miss numbers game.

I’m kind of fond of some of the sites, like OK Cupid, because I like taking tests. (Don’t bother to look for me there. I use a pseudonym.)  I’ve met a couple of fne people on Plenty of Fish, too.

But they can be such time sinks! Especially, if I find someone that looks like a “maybe.”

It’s almost like gambling. I think I’ve said this before. I get just close enough, just often enough, to keep me looking at these a couple or three times a month for a couple of days at a time. Then that potential bubble is burst, and I go back to thinking that meeting in person is really the way to go.

Internet dating has everything backwards.

You find out a ton of things about the person, dependingon their profile, or nearly nothing, not even what they look like, depending on their photos and how recent they are. You have no idea whether you will be drawn to them in person or not. And I am so verbal that I can mistake really good email and phone compatibility for more potential that really exists.

It’s a bit annoying.

That’s okay. I imagine at some point I will meet and mate and take down my profiles from all of these silly things forever – unless I don’t. I do strongly prefer to be partnered, and at the same time I’d rather have no partner than one that isn’t working out.

One thought I have is that I should just create my *own* dating site and reap some rewards that way.

Love, Ann