"I am so lonely.”
I have suffered from a loneliness that I have always felt to be for another, but that, in recent years, at least occasionally in moments of great clarity, I have come to see as a pathological loneliness of and for the self. I have always felt this tremendous longing to unite with a woman; but my every attempt to do so has proven ultimately to be a failure. Yet I have never stopped believing in the possibility of this perfect match, this exquisite mating soul-to-soul. In this current moment of clarity, I understand that it is impossible for me to find another with whom to have this relationship because it is my own self I seek. It is the missing aspects or parts of myself with which I long to belong; with which I crave with my heart of hearts to be as one.
There is no one, no woman, who will ever fill the torn and damaged part of me; will never fill my heart with joy and satisfaction; will never light me up with inspiration and effulgence. Never. None. It is so disheartening, after all these years of seeking, to suddenly realize that there is no one, and never will be anyone; that I have spent my life in delusion, wanting to have restored some aspect of myself that has never existed at all perhaps, that was stolen from me before I even had a chance to develop a more complete wholeness and autonomy. Perhaps the “missing piece,” the source of my loneliness is for the deepest and most fragile part of me. Perhaps it is true that I have never really known my true self, and have, therefore, always longed for that. Perhaps, as the Buddhists say, I have always been seeking after illusion – and only now in utter disillusionment does my journey really begin.
Perhaps that which I seek has always been within myself, immediately in my grasp – and yet I believed that it was someone or something outside of myself that I was seeking and for which I had to become worthy. I have always envisioned a time when she would come; when I had paid enough dues to be worthy of her goddess-like presence in my life. Now it seems that it has all been an illusion. Now it seems that perhaps there never has been anyone after whom I have sought; perhaps it has always been some aspect of myself that I have sought – and all of the burdens and sorrows I have carried and suffered have simply been a cleansing for my heart and soul.
Perhaps it is true what Gautama Buddha said, that all desire brings pain; and that the only way to stop the pain is to relinquish the desire. Perhaps the entire journey of this lifetime has been arranged on some cosmic level for me to reach this very point of clarity and disillusionment, this apotheosis of awareness in which I am, perhaps for the very first time, cognizant of my utter emptiness and dependence on the Universe; that I might become more willing and available to be a cosmic instrument and serve the Greater Whole; that I might finally surrender the forlorn burden of separateness and the delusion of greatness suppressed and denied.
I feel strangely lighter in that this has been lifted from me in this moment. At least right now, I no longer feel burdened or oppressed by the aching hunger in my gut and heart. I no longer feel that I am waiting for someone to arrive in my life to fill me up and magically transform my life circumstances. If there is a muse (and I am sure there is), she is neither here to save me nor will she come because I am needy and emotionally penurious. She will come when I am in the full bloom of my selfness and the fullness of the art that is I. Anything short of total spiritual recognition of the self and full responsibility and effort toward its completion is a spiritual crime, and cannot, will not, be tolerated or nurtured.
If I am come into the fullness of my selfness and spirituality, then she must meet me there. Neither of us may be any longer allowed anything less that total self-expression. Though I am tempted to say that I have some glimmer, or have seen a vision of what that might be, I cannot. Though I may be filled with desires and the wantingness of things to be fulfilled – dreams and hurts and hungers carried through countless millennia – I really have no idea what the Creator has in mind for me. I feel very empty yet very full. I have absolutely no idea what dreams may come. Conversely, I have this sense that whatever comes for me will be wonderful, joyous, and grand. WOW!
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Body Weight is a Political Issue
We in the contemporary world have become inured of fast-paced, highly advertised products touted by celebrities who are highly remunerated for their efforts to promote shoddy merchandise, or nutritionally empty, calorie-rich foods – or worse, arguing the relative values of one brand of alcohol over another.
According to “corporate law” (which term is actually oxymoronic), the only responsibility – the single standard to which a corporation need be held – is that it makes money for its shareholders (Korten, 2007, p. 8). We act as if the false standard (perhaps even delusion) of the contemporary universe that holds that we are all separate individuals floating around in the meaningless void were an indisputable fact. There is no other moral or ethical standard that ever need be applied in terms of damage to others or the environment. The occasional court case that surfaces wherein corporations are to be held accountable for sleazy practices or immoral behaviors is usually settled out of court. No one holds corporations responsible for polluting rivers or clear-cutting miles of virgin forest. Of course not. “It’s their job,” we exclaim, as if employment and wage earning were a sacred task; that working at a job and paying taxes were holy work; and that production and consumption were the ultimate goal of evolution.
By this line of logic, there is absolutely no consideration given to the spiritual or moral realm. None. The entire focus objectifies the process as if it were somehow devoid of life. But then, this is in keeping with the worldview that has been practiced and promulgated for approximately the last 12,000 years – since the advent of cultivated agriculture. We might now call it the Cartesian-Newtonian-Darwinian worldview (the clockwork or machine universe) because of the workings of scientific reductionism that have taken a Higher Power of any sort out of the equation; and left us with what Wilber (1995) called “flatland thinking,” in which our worldview has no contours or curves because it has been bulldozed flat for easier consumption.
What a terrible price we have paid for our ease and convenience! What a horrendous burden we have placed on the living waters and cornucopic wonders of our abundant, giving Mother Planet! So many people give lip service to environmental crisis, or any of the other fill-in-the-blank crises that we as a totality of humanity are facing these days; but how little it seems most people are willing to do about it. How many millions of tons of garbage are thoughtlessly deposited in the oceans of the world daily? How much toxic effluent from countless factories is poured into the rivers and streams, the very veins and arteries of our living planet?
And to what end? To make more money! And why? Because each of us from birth has been conditioned (under the guise of “education” and “socialization”) to believe that we must assume our place in the already extant society; and we must do so in ways that we are “taught” (often with violence or other forms of coercion) by those into whose care we are entrusted from birth onward. It is some part of the nature of this conditioning that one rarely retains a working memory of what has transpired during this earliest period of development. It is also about this age when the average person begins to identify with and use the pronoun “I,” indicating a nascent understanding of his or her relative separateness from the world.
This sense of separateness (cupidity, isolation) is a “necessary” condition for the world to operate the way it has in development of technology and what we view as the “modern world,” with its tools and toys, with its many, many forms of entertainment and medication for every manner of taste and need. It seems generally taken for granted that the order and manner of the (especially) Western technologically-oriented worldview is somehow “correct” because Western civilization has controlled the world for the past few centuries, even millennia. It does not matter. I will not quibble about a few thousand years when the planet has been here for approximately 4 ½ billion years (Dalrymple, 1991). It is really only in the last 500 years that humankind has risen (though I use the word advisedly) to its current heights (ditto) vis a vis technology. Eisenstien (2007) has noted the deep and intimate ties between technology and force – and how using the former almost always implies or actualized the latter.
Because I have been haunted for the bulk of my life by a perceived sense of powerlessness and futility, I have examined this question deeply and obsessively for many years. Thus my search has been one of examining the roots of power, its development, and manifestations. My journey has taken me far and wide into the world of the mind and heart – through religion and spirituality; through sociology and psychology; through medicine and alternative healing methods; through practices both legal and illegal; through almost every form of psychotherapy, including forays into deadly, brain-damaging “psychiatric medications.” I have concluded that there seems to be a format or template on which or through which children are reared, especially in Western civilization. Miller (1985) called this the “poisonous pedagogy,” and addressed it as the toxifying agentic process underlying the development of violence and psychopathology in adults, originating in childhood.
I agree with her perspective, and further believe that it is the shame-based rules and guidelines by which children are reared that lead directly to addictions and almost all forms of what is called “mental illness”. Furthermore, it is the toxic sequelae of these childrearing methods that induce unmet emotional and spiritual needs in generation after generation of children that result in multigenerational addictions and diseases. To some extent, this might even be viewed as the meta-intention of those who own and control the infrastructure of society (the “cultural elites”) – to generate a seemingly endless wave of addictive people to produce and consume thoughtlessly – with no concern of desire beyond the satisfaction of their own immediate needs.
We are taught to attempt to satisfy that hunger with money and food and unrestrained sex; with fast cars, liposuction, drugs and alcohol – anything other than to feel and deal with the shame and pain underlying it. My premise is quite simple. Being reared with shame leaves a residue in one’s life – toxic memories and a devastating hunger for fulfillment that Yarrow (1961) called “affect hunger”. If one is able to integrate the tremendous energy that it takes to maintain a self-destructive addiction, then one has the possibility of transforming one’s life; and devoting to healthy self-love and self-care all of the previously misaligned power and energy.
To do so requires a great deal of work on oneself. It also requires compassion, honesty, love, joy, and the ability to look at one’s faults and foibles unflinchingly – and then proceed to change oneself in accord with the mandates of the resulting vision in order to finally attain all of the aspects of self that addictions only promised. But the greatest of these is forgiveness. It is absolutely imperative that one comes to forgive oneself all of one’s faults and foibles, all of one’s perceived transgressions against oneself and others. It is the greatest virtue and the highest healing.
In doing this, one must often go against the ways of the world. I now see all addictions as being self-destructive, induced as they are to keep one from being self-aware of one’s faults and deficiencies as well as skills and powers – both the Shadow and the Gold. Because addiction is so efficient, one must abandon it utterly and take up a new way in order to redeem (L., redemere: to repurchase) oneself. It is only in owning oneself, all of the traits and quirks and foibles; and doing so with love and joy and compassion that willingly acknowledges one’s faults and one’s greatness – that one becomes capable of being a true and genuine human being.
One is hindered in this great and tremendous quest by contemporary society’s insane focus on money and acquisitions – and its obviation of spiritual awareness and the larger relationships required to support living gently on this planet that supports us all. Societal and political systems that do not nurture a sense of wholeness block spiritual awareness and development. In this sense then, body weight is a political issue because the gross distortions that compulsive overeaters develop are a result of attempting to suppress or manage tremendous toxic shame stored as memories of abuse and neglect. These are aided and abetted by an addictiogenic society focused on efficiency and order and the making of money.
Thus, in some ways, the ability to eliminate weight and maintain it, are directly related to one’s belief systems and one’s perceived relationship with one’s family, one’s peers, and ultimately, the planet as a whole. One’s belief systems create one’s reality. If one acts on a false belief, one will create a distorted reality (i.e., a fat body). I believe excess body weight is actually a metaphor for the amount of toxic emotional material one carries and has not yet released.
This really relates to the idea of creating a kind of scar tissue around early wounds such that one does not have to be confronted by them on a daily basis. I am, of course, referring to emotionally traumatic, shame-based wounds and memories. Much of what is considered to be adult behavior is really nothing more than various defense mechanisms erected to deflect attention from one’s innate woundedness – addictions, aggressive behaviors, anger, condescension, assumed superiority, even sexism, racism, classism, and ageism. All of these very effectively keep attention away from one’s woundedness.
They are also very costly in terms of one’s own energies. They require a lot of attention, maintenance, and upkeep. Being angry all the time, for example, requires that one have a constant supply of material about which to be angry, or more correctly, about which one feels justifies feeling angry. Then one can keep one’s offended attitude in the forefront to contend with others – and not admit the possibility that one feels frightened, ashamed, and insecure. The same might be said of most of the façades that people construct, that become known as personality styles. Most are the result of early wounds that are being cared for and cultivated because they resulted from interactions with one’s earliest caregivers – who were, at the time, absolutely necessary for one’s survival, and hence unable to be adjudged as having done anything wrong. One therefore turned very early against oneself in blame and shame to defend whatever atrocious actions were taken against one – defended them and adjudicated them as correct and proper; and judged oneself therefore to have been wrong and at blame! Having done this repeatedly, one easily arrives at a position of feeling guilty, at least, for assigning any blame or responsibility to one’s caregivers.
At the same time, it is quite difficult to pursue the tasks of one’s adult life with the enormous burden of the residua of the original acts in one’s daily awareness and consciousness. Thus, one might early adopt eating too much food (a favorite of mine) in order to cloud or obfuscate one’s own consciousness; in order to be less aware of the caustic experiences – in other words, to dissociate from one’s own self in some manner. Like any repetitive action, one can easily become inured of it – and use it even in situation when it is not necessary or appropriate. One might adopt such a behavioral pattern as one’s normative choice.
Healing, therefore, becomes a matter of integrating the dissociated material; and subsequently adopting new behavioral patterns based on the healed awareness (i.e., eating less because one no longer has aberrant cravings for more than one actually needs; not using stimulant drugs because one no longer feels severely depressed and energetically sluggish without them). These new behavioral patterns are relatively easy when one no longer feels the need to shelter or defend the damaging actions, and the sequelae, of one’s earliest caregivers. Then all of the anger and rage that one may have been directing toward oneself will be appropriately assigned to the proper party, and released. The emotion must be released first. At some point thereafter, forgiveness will come of its own accord, as will appropriate eating habits and body weight adjustment. But the healing and the release are primary and, as such, cannot be forced.
The entire process may become much easier, if one no longer has to use food to suppress innate desires and needs. One need not struggle, blaming “demons” or cursing one’s craving for sweets and carbohydrates; or denigrate oneself, wishing one were “normal.” One can simply be whom one is, and must perforce make one’s own way in the world. One’s path is neither easier nor harder than anyone else’s. But it will be one’s own, won utterly and with a lovingkindness one was never shown as a child. One has to “grow myself up” as it were, by being one’s own best analog inner parent, treating oneself in the best possible ways one can – as a loving, protective adult fiercely guarding one’s inner child. One must emotionally become an adult, and not blame one’s parents (or others) for one’s pains and difficulties. One must be responsible for fostering joy and embracing the power that resides within oneself – and for manifesting the world in the image one embraces.
We in the contemporary world have become inured of fast-paced, highly advertised products touted by celebrities who are highly remunerated for their efforts to promote shoddy merchandise, or nutritionally empty, calorie-rich foods – or worse, arguing the relative values of one brand of alcohol over another.
According to “corporate law” (which term is actually oxymoronic), the only responsibility – the single standard to which a corporation need be held – is that it makes money for its shareholders (Korten, 2007, p. 8). We act as if the false standard (perhaps even delusion) of the contemporary universe that holds that we are all separate individuals floating around in the meaningless void were an indisputable fact. There is no other moral or ethical standard that ever need be applied in terms of damage to others or the environment. The occasional court case that surfaces wherein corporations are to be held accountable for sleazy practices or immoral behaviors is usually settled out of court. No one holds corporations responsible for polluting rivers or clear-cutting miles of virgin forest. Of course not. “It’s their job,” we exclaim, as if employment and wage earning were a sacred task; that working at a job and paying taxes were holy work; and that production and consumption were the ultimate goal of evolution.
By this line of logic, there is absolutely no consideration given to the spiritual or moral realm. None. The entire focus objectifies the process as if it were somehow devoid of life. But then, this is in keeping with the worldview that has been practiced and promulgated for approximately the last 12,000 years – since the advent of cultivated agriculture. We might now call it the Cartesian-Newtonian-Darwinian worldview (the clockwork or machine universe) because of the workings of scientific reductionism that have taken a Higher Power of any sort out of the equation; and left us with what Wilber (1995) called “flatland thinking,” in which our worldview has no contours or curves because it has been bulldozed flat for easier consumption.
What a terrible price we have paid for our ease and convenience! What a horrendous burden we have placed on the living waters and cornucopic wonders of our abundant, giving Mother Planet! So many people give lip service to environmental crisis, or any of the other fill-in-the-blank crises that we as a totality of humanity are facing these days; but how little it seems most people are willing to do about it. How many millions of tons of garbage are thoughtlessly deposited in the oceans of the world daily? How much toxic effluent from countless factories is poured into the rivers and streams, the very veins and arteries of our living planet?
And to what end? To make more money! And why? Because each of us from birth has been conditioned (under the guise of “education” and “socialization”) to believe that we must assume our place in the already extant society; and we must do so in ways that we are “taught” (often with violence or other forms of coercion) by those into whose care we are entrusted from birth onward. It is some part of the nature of this conditioning that one rarely retains a working memory of what has transpired during this earliest period of development. It is also about this age when the average person begins to identify with and use the pronoun “I,” indicating a nascent understanding of his or her relative separateness from the world.
This sense of separateness (cupidity, isolation) is a “necessary” condition for the world to operate the way it has in development of technology and what we view as the “modern world,” with its tools and toys, with its many, many forms of entertainment and medication for every manner of taste and need. It seems generally taken for granted that the order and manner of the (especially) Western technologically-oriented worldview is somehow “correct” because Western civilization has controlled the world for the past few centuries, even millennia. It does not matter. I will not quibble about a few thousand years when the planet has been here for approximately 4 ½ billion years (Dalrymple, 1991). It is really only in the last 500 years that humankind has risen (though I use the word advisedly) to its current heights (ditto) vis a vis technology. Eisenstien (2007) has noted the deep and intimate ties between technology and force – and how using the former almost always implies or actualized the latter.
Because I have been haunted for the bulk of my life by a perceived sense of powerlessness and futility, I have examined this question deeply and obsessively for many years. Thus my search has been one of examining the roots of power, its development, and manifestations. My journey has taken me far and wide into the world of the mind and heart – through religion and spirituality; through sociology and psychology; through medicine and alternative healing methods; through practices both legal and illegal; through almost every form of psychotherapy, including forays into deadly, brain-damaging “psychiatric medications.” I have concluded that there seems to be a format or template on which or through which children are reared, especially in Western civilization. Miller (1985) called this the “poisonous pedagogy,” and addressed it as the toxifying agentic process underlying the development of violence and psychopathology in adults, originating in childhood.
I agree with her perspective, and further believe that it is the shame-based rules and guidelines by which children are reared that lead directly to addictions and almost all forms of what is called “mental illness”. Furthermore, it is the toxic sequelae of these childrearing methods that induce unmet emotional and spiritual needs in generation after generation of children that result in multigenerational addictions and diseases. To some extent, this might even be viewed as the meta-intention of those who own and control the infrastructure of society (the “cultural elites”) – to generate a seemingly endless wave of addictive people to produce and consume thoughtlessly – with no concern of desire beyond the satisfaction of their own immediate needs.
We are taught to attempt to satisfy that hunger with money and food and unrestrained sex; with fast cars, liposuction, drugs and alcohol – anything other than to feel and deal with the shame and pain underlying it. My premise is quite simple. Being reared with shame leaves a residue in one’s life – toxic memories and a devastating hunger for fulfillment that Yarrow (1961) called “affect hunger”. If one is able to integrate the tremendous energy that it takes to maintain a self-destructive addiction, then one has the possibility of transforming one’s life; and devoting to healthy self-love and self-care all of the previously misaligned power and energy.
To do so requires a great deal of work on oneself. It also requires compassion, honesty, love, joy, and the ability to look at one’s faults and foibles unflinchingly – and then proceed to change oneself in accord with the mandates of the resulting vision in order to finally attain all of the aspects of self that addictions only promised. But the greatest of these is forgiveness. It is absolutely imperative that one comes to forgive oneself all of one’s faults and foibles, all of one’s perceived transgressions against oneself and others. It is the greatest virtue and the highest healing.
In doing this, one must often go against the ways of the world. I now see all addictions as being self-destructive, induced as they are to keep one from being self-aware of one’s faults and deficiencies as well as skills and powers – both the Shadow and the Gold. Because addiction is so efficient, one must abandon it utterly and take up a new way in order to redeem (L., redemere: to repurchase) oneself. It is only in owning oneself, all of the traits and quirks and foibles; and doing so with love and joy and compassion that willingly acknowledges one’s faults and one’s greatness – that one becomes capable of being a true and genuine human being.
One is hindered in this great and tremendous quest by contemporary society’s insane focus on money and acquisitions – and its obviation of spiritual awareness and the larger relationships required to support living gently on this planet that supports us all. Societal and political systems that do not nurture a sense of wholeness block spiritual awareness and development. In this sense then, body weight is a political issue because the gross distortions that compulsive overeaters develop are a result of attempting to suppress or manage tremendous toxic shame stored as memories of abuse and neglect. These are aided and abetted by an addictiogenic society focused on efficiency and order and the making of money.
Thus, in some ways, the ability to eliminate weight and maintain it, are directly related to one’s belief systems and one’s perceived relationship with one’s family, one’s peers, and ultimately, the planet as a whole. One’s belief systems create one’s reality. If one acts on a false belief, one will create a distorted reality (i.e., a fat body). I believe excess body weight is actually a metaphor for the amount of toxic emotional material one carries and has not yet released.
This really relates to the idea of creating a kind of scar tissue around early wounds such that one does not have to be confronted by them on a daily basis. I am, of course, referring to emotionally traumatic, shame-based wounds and memories. Much of what is considered to be adult behavior is really nothing more than various defense mechanisms erected to deflect attention from one’s innate woundedness – addictions, aggressive behaviors, anger, condescension, assumed superiority, even sexism, racism, classism, and ageism. All of these very effectively keep attention away from one’s woundedness.
They are also very costly in terms of one’s own energies. They require a lot of attention, maintenance, and upkeep. Being angry all the time, for example, requires that one have a constant supply of material about which to be angry, or more correctly, about which one feels justifies feeling angry. Then one can keep one’s offended attitude in the forefront to contend with others – and not admit the possibility that one feels frightened, ashamed, and insecure. The same might be said of most of the façades that people construct, that become known as personality styles. Most are the result of early wounds that are being cared for and cultivated because they resulted from interactions with one’s earliest caregivers – who were, at the time, absolutely necessary for one’s survival, and hence unable to be adjudged as having done anything wrong. One therefore turned very early against oneself in blame and shame to defend whatever atrocious actions were taken against one – defended them and adjudicated them as correct and proper; and judged oneself therefore to have been wrong and at blame! Having done this repeatedly, one easily arrives at a position of feeling guilty, at least, for assigning any blame or responsibility to one’s caregivers.
At the same time, it is quite difficult to pursue the tasks of one’s adult life with the enormous burden of the residua of the original acts in one’s daily awareness and consciousness. Thus, one might early adopt eating too much food (a favorite of mine) in order to cloud or obfuscate one’s own consciousness; in order to be less aware of the caustic experiences – in other words, to dissociate from one’s own self in some manner. Like any repetitive action, one can easily become inured of it – and use it even in situation when it is not necessary or appropriate. One might adopt such a behavioral pattern as one’s normative choice.
Healing, therefore, becomes a matter of integrating the dissociated material; and subsequently adopting new behavioral patterns based on the healed awareness (i.e., eating less because one no longer has aberrant cravings for more than one actually needs; not using stimulant drugs because one no longer feels severely depressed and energetically sluggish without them). These new behavioral patterns are relatively easy when one no longer feels the need to shelter or defend the damaging actions, and the sequelae, of one’s earliest caregivers. Then all of the anger and rage that one may have been directing toward oneself will be appropriately assigned to the proper party, and released. The emotion must be released first. At some point thereafter, forgiveness will come of its own accord, as will appropriate eating habits and body weight adjustment. But the healing and the release are primary and, as such, cannot be forced.
The entire process may become much easier, if one no longer has to use food to suppress innate desires and needs. One need not struggle, blaming “demons” or cursing one’s craving for sweets and carbohydrates; or denigrate oneself, wishing one were “normal.” One can simply be whom one is, and must perforce make one’s own way in the world. One’s path is neither easier nor harder than anyone else’s. But it will be one’s own, won utterly and with a lovingkindness one was never shown as a child. One has to “grow myself up” as it were, by being one’s own best analog inner parent, treating oneself in the best possible ways one can – as a loving, protective adult fiercely guarding one’s inner child. One must emotionally become an adult, and not blame one’s parents (or others) for one’s pains and difficulties. One must be responsible for fostering joy and embracing the power that resides within oneself – and for manifesting the world in the image one embraces.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Recapitulation – Part II
The net result, then, is that we as adults create a society that reflects our collective childhood experience, though that society is extant before we are born. We have no real choice about the world into which we are born. The newborn must immediately begin to adapt – and one can do so easily because one’s nervous system is still relatively unformed, incredibly ready to absorb life-giving information. It is indeed feedback that nurtures the nascent nervous system.
No one creates the world into which he or she is born. Each of us comes as a result of the successful joining and germination of a sperm cell and an egg. Each of these contains 23 chromosomes, half the blueprint for a new body to house life.
I believe that these sex cells contain much, much more. They contain the essence of the two humans who are joining – their hopes and dreams, their fears and shame, their desires and aspirations, not only of and for themselves, but for the child they are creating (even if by default, as in the case of one or both of the two parties not being aware of wanting to conceive). These desires and tendencies are shaped by the life experiences of the makers of the new body. I believe that they are projected onto and into this newly created form, are carried, waiting, as it were, for the form to form.
Society exists before any individual does. There is always a pre-existing structure into which any individual is born, one with its own diverse cultures, dreams and visions, rules and regulations. Everyone in that extant society is invested in the operative paradigm, or blueprint, of that society – even those who are most opposed or resistant to its basic tenets and work against the stated or implied aims. The society contains the collective essence of all of its individual components and shapes these individuals just as the individuals, to some greater or lesser extent, shape society for survival and the furtherance of their goals.
One is actually being socially conditioned from the moment of one’s first breath. Kotulak (1996/1997) pointed to a great variety of learning that is documented from the moment a newborn begins to organize his or her brain through feedback from sensory stimuli in the environment. The mother’s hormones are the primary influence upon the developing fetus, but she is continually interacting with the world at large; and the complex set of others with whom she daily interacts, not the least of whom might be the child’s biological father – and his complex set of needs, wants, desires, hopes, visions. One’s birth mother has a tremendous influence on one in so many subtle and complex ways, including her choice of foods and use of medicines and other drugs, including alcohol. All drugs, are mood-altering, and mutagenic, hence the mother-to-be’s choices in this arena are extremely significant.
Thus the whole of society acts upon one from the moment of first breath through one’s birth parents and circumstances – especially as they carry their own complex set of experiences, pains, joys, and traumas. No one is perfect, and no one has perfect parents. Even the desire to give the newborn child “the very best” is colored by the life experiences and choices of the parents, who will discriminate and be prejudiced toward or against those choices they themselves have made – and will therefore choose for their child. Thus from that very first primal moment, each of us is being influenced by the entire of extant society acting through our birth parents to absorb and imprint lessons, behavioral patterns, and what will ultimately become the foundation for choices formed in those earliest moments of one’s separate existence in the highly chaotic and disorganized period of earliest gestation. Notwithstanding, Bohm (1990), expressed an idea to which I will return later, that there is an:
Implicate Order [that] exists as an ultimate physical substrate that underlies our present perception of reality. Although the parts appear to be distinct from the whole, in fact, because they “enfold” or include the whole, they are identical with the whole. If we could invoke the precedent of quantum mechanical indefinability, we could leap to the idea of a united entity encompassing all space and time in which each part contains the whole and is identical to it. (p. 34)
Schmidt (1995) defines self as a “process of becoming which requires otherness to come to itself. In going out of itself, it finds what is other to it. In being found, it finds itself, thereby gaining its constituent nature” (p.192). Malon, Paulus, and Hurley (1994) noted that “a self evolves in social interaction, and each person, through the ability to symbolize experience, carries internal representations of their real social world” (p. 52). Miller (1990) states “Self feeling is simply the certainty that the feelings and wishes one experiences are a part of one’s self...This natural contact with one’s own emotions and wishes is what gives one a sense of strength and esteem” (p. 33).
The development of the self is an interactive process (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1991). The developing individual’s sense of well-being and identity as exquisitely related to the shaping and growth of his still-plastic neural system. One absorbs the modeled lessons of one’s care figures without discrimination because of the unique plasticized brain learning of infancy and early childhood called neoteny (Hebb, 1949; Rosenzweig & Bennett 1996) that allows for the incredible neural development that, at times in the new brain, synapses form “at the incredible rate of three billion a second…[such that] at eight months, a baby’s brain has about 1000 trillion connections” (Kotulak, 1996/1997, p. xiv). Because, at that point, one has yet nothing to alter one’s utter vulnerability, one may be imprinted with the essential emotional tone of these lessons like black ink on the white paper of one’s consciousness. One has, without any conscious thought or volition, been introduced to expectations – certain ways of thinking, acting, being, as preferences. There may be an actual physical substrate to this. Springer (1994) speaks of this as the “well-marked neural pathways (built up myelin sheaths) of the brain” (p. 14).
Between 18-36 months, one begins to differentiate between self and other; begins to first recognize that all is not the self; that there is a world, totally unknown, beyond the reach of one’s senses. The caregivers’ responses to the nascent effort of the developing individual are extremely critical to the development of a firm and solid self-image in the child (Laing, 1969), programmed to some great extent by the responses of the caregiver to the infant.
A key quality of this feedback is the recognition of the infant’s needs, the soothing of and attendance to those needs by the appropriate adults. This is absorbed as non-verbal neural data that may very likely become the model of self-care that the individual adopts later in his or her life. I believe that damage inflicted on the developing individual will result in the later development of disorganization of the personality in a variety of ways, addictions as a pseudo-bonding attempt and aberrant self-soothing measure, and quite possibly severe mental illnesses of every sort. The manner and quality practiced upon one will be absorbed without discrimination, again since the brain of the developing child is extremely plastic and impressionable (Hebb, 1949; Rosensweig & Bennett, 1996). As a result, one is early tuned to a process of response and feedback, a cybernetic feedback loop (Maltz, 1970) with what becomes called other.
The further process of socialization then begins to include some level of focus on the external as a source of fulfillment of/for one’s needs. From the age of approximately 36 months, one increasingly gives importance and focus to the external because one is taught and expected to obey authorities of all stripe; to manipulate, appease or cajole those external to the self for one’s own appeasement and satisfaction. One is, in effect, conditioned by the whole history of one’s caregivers and their acquired life experience, habits, faults, etc.
The net result, then, is that we as adults create a society that reflects our collective childhood experience, though that society is extant before we are born. We have no real choice about the world into which we are born. The newborn must immediately begin to adapt – and one can do so easily because one’s nervous system is still relatively unformed, incredibly ready to absorb life-giving information. It is indeed feedback that nurtures the nascent nervous system.
No one creates the world into which he or she is born. Each of us comes as a result of the successful joining and germination of a sperm cell and an egg. Each of these contains 23 chromosomes, half the blueprint for a new body to house life.
I believe that these sex cells contain much, much more. They contain the essence of the two humans who are joining – their hopes and dreams, their fears and shame, their desires and aspirations, not only of and for themselves, but for the child they are creating (even if by default, as in the case of one or both of the two parties not being aware of wanting to conceive). These desires and tendencies are shaped by the life experiences of the makers of the new body. I believe that they are projected onto and into this newly created form, are carried, waiting, as it were, for the form to form.
Society exists before any individual does. There is always a pre-existing structure into which any individual is born, one with its own diverse cultures, dreams and visions, rules and regulations. Everyone in that extant society is invested in the operative paradigm, or blueprint, of that society – even those who are most opposed or resistant to its basic tenets and work against the stated or implied aims. The society contains the collective essence of all of its individual components and shapes these individuals just as the individuals, to some greater or lesser extent, shape society for survival and the furtherance of their goals.
One is actually being socially conditioned from the moment of one’s first breath. Kotulak (1996/1997) pointed to a great variety of learning that is documented from the moment a newborn begins to organize his or her brain through feedback from sensory stimuli in the environment. The mother’s hormones are the primary influence upon the developing fetus, but she is continually interacting with the world at large; and the complex set of others with whom she daily interacts, not the least of whom might be the child’s biological father – and his complex set of needs, wants, desires, hopes, visions. One’s birth mother has a tremendous influence on one in so many subtle and complex ways, including her choice of foods and use of medicines and other drugs, including alcohol. All drugs, are mood-altering, and mutagenic, hence the mother-to-be’s choices in this arena are extremely significant.
Thus the whole of society acts upon one from the moment of first breath through one’s birth parents and circumstances – especially as they carry their own complex set of experiences, pains, joys, and traumas. No one is perfect, and no one has perfect parents. Even the desire to give the newborn child “the very best” is colored by the life experiences and choices of the parents, who will discriminate and be prejudiced toward or against those choices they themselves have made – and will therefore choose for their child. Thus from that very first primal moment, each of us is being influenced by the entire of extant society acting through our birth parents to absorb and imprint lessons, behavioral patterns, and what will ultimately become the foundation for choices formed in those earliest moments of one’s separate existence in the highly chaotic and disorganized period of earliest gestation. Notwithstanding, Bohm (1990), expressed an idea to which I will return later, that there is an:
Implicate Order [that] exists as an ultimate physical substrate that underlies our present perception of reality. Although the parts appear to be distinct from the whole, in fact, because they “enfold” or include the whole, they are identical with the whole. If we could invoke the precedent of quantum mechanical indefinability, we could leap to the idea of a united entity encompassing all space and time in which each part contains the whole and is identical to it. (p. 34)
Schmidt (1995) defines self as a “process of becoming which requires otherness to come to itself. In going out of itself, it finds what is other to it. In being found, it finds itself, thereby gaining its constituent nature” (p.192). Malon, Paulus, and Hurley (1994) noted that “a self evolves in social interaction, and each person, through the ability to symbolize experience, carries internal representations of their real social world” (p. 52). Miller (1990) states “Self feeling is simply the certainty that the feelings and wishes one experiences are a part of one’s self...This natural contact with one’s own emotions and wishes is what gives one a sense of strength and esteem” (p. 33).
The development of the self is an interactive process (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1991). The developing individual’s sense of well-being and identity as exquisitely related to the shaping and growth of his still-plastic neural system. One absorbs the modeled lessons of one’s care figures without discrimination because of the unique plasticized brain learning of infancy and early childhood called neoteny (Hebb, 1949; Rosenzweig & Bennett 1996) that allows for the incredible neural development that, at times in the new brain, synapses form “at the incredible rate of three billion a second…[such that] at eight months, a baby’s brain has about 1000 trillion connections” (Kotulak, 1996/1997, p. xiv). Because, at that point, one has yet nothing to alter one’s utter vulnerability, one may be imprinted with the essential emotional tone of these lessons like black ink on the white paper of one’s consciousness. One has, without any conscious thought or volition, been introduced to expectations – certain ways of thinking, acting, being, as preferences. There may be an actual physical substrate to this. Springer (1994) speaks of this as the “well-marked neural pathways (built up myelin sheaths) of the brain” (p. 14).
Between 18-36 months, one begins to differentiate between self and other; begins to first recognize that all is not the self; that there is a world, totally unknown, beyond the reach of one’s senses. The caregivers’ responses to the nascent effort of the developing individual are extremely critical to the development of a firm and solid self-image in the child (Laing, 1969), programmed to some great extent by the responses of the caregiver to the infant.
A key quality of this feedback is the recognition of the infant’s needs, the soothing of and attendance to those needs by the appropriate adults. This is absorbed as non-verbal neural data that may very likely become the model of self-care that the individual adopts later in his or her life. I believe that damage inflicted on the developing individual will result in the later development of disorganization of the personality in a variety of ways, addictions as a pseudo-bonding attempt and aberrant self-soothing measure, and quite possibly severe mental illnesses of every sort. The manner and quality practiced upon one will be absorbed without discrimination, again since the brain of the developing child is extremely plastic and impressionable (Hebb, 1949; Rosensweig & Bennett, 1996). As a result, one is early tuned to a process of response and feedback, a cybernetic feedback loop (Maltz, 1970) with what becomes called other.
The further process of socialization then begins to include some level of focus on the external as a source of fulfillment of/for one’s needs. From the age of approximately 36 months, one increasingly gives importance and focus to the external because one is taught and expected to obey authorities of all stripe; to manipulate, appease or cajole those external to the self for one’s own appeasement and satisfaction. One is, in effect, conditioned by the whole history of one’s caregivers and their acquired life experience, habits, faults, etc.
Friday, May 14, 2010
ARAS (Age Regressed Altered States)
One may be triggered into acting or reacting to current upsets or traumas in a manner that may seem at odds with one’s chronological age. If one has unintegrated traumatic materials or memories from an earlier period of one’s life, one may flash back to an earlier time in one’s existence emotionally. One’s suppressed and internalized rage, for example, may surface in a situation that might, to the contemporary eye, seem inappropriate – though triggers in the present may re-awaken old traumas that have been unexpressed or unexplored. If one has been unable to express the fear, shame, or sense of helplessness at the time these errant emotions were originally felt, they may resurface, having been triggered by current events. An age regressed altered state (ARAS) occurs when emotions carrying the weight of an earlier age are triggered into awareness in the present, with attendant behavioral anomalies. (See also Tart, 1988).
All individuals are at least occasionally drawn back into these states, sometimes more forcefully than others, depending on the depth and breadth of previously unintegrated materials held by the individual, in storage. These traumatic memories carry a powerful psychic charge, and one’s body may be awaiting an opportunity to express and release them. These are state-dependent memories and are stored with linkages to the original traumatic circumstances and triggers. The homeostatic process (Cannon, 1932) is at work, seeking to balance any untoward experience, and make more relatively free the workings of the individual’s energies, previously bound. If one has suppressed some aspect of one’s emotional processing because of the presence of a fearful or shame-inducing object (e.g., an angry father by whom one is fearful of being beaten who smells of tobacco smoke and alcohol), then it is possible that any future encounter that stimulates fear may be triggered by any of the elements that made up the original encounter – tobacco smoke, the smell of alcohol, an angry man, one’s sense of needing to submit to an angry man, etc.). In that experience, it is actually an emotionally charged analog child state that manifests in that moment, directly related to the age-regressed child analog that originally experienced the trauma.
Case Example
Bill is a seemingly average forty-year old businessman who is invited to a cocktail party with his peers at his boss’s house. He is anxious to make a good impression, and has perhaps spent some time rehearsing his social graces, tuning up his conversation for the evening (the latest statistics to impress his superiors, sports’ scores perhaps). But because he is anxious, he has one too many cocktails, exceeding what he really knows is his limit. A co-worker makes what Bill would normally have considered an innocuous remark; but on this occasion, fueled by too much alcohol, Bill suddenly decides that the comment was aimed at him. He is particularly reminded of his older brother who had always verbally demeaned him in a similar manner; and backed it up with threats and occasional demonstrations of physical violence. Bill was always humiliated and generally took the beatings without fighting back because he was too afraid of his brother.
Bill might ordinarily have ignored the remark, at least to maintain his façade, but tonight he reacts in a way that is totally at odds with his usual persona. The alcohol has triggered a long-suppressed sense of emotional deficiency in him. Suddenly he feels immensely ashamed, as if her were 5 years old again – and reacts as if he were. Though his colleagues judge him to be acting “inappropriately,” even in a manner not befitting his position – one that a psychologically astute witness might call regressed. With his brain disinhibited by alcohol, he is vulnerable to the otherwise inaccessible contents of his long-suppressed memories and emotions. He raises his voice in a harsh and challenging fashion, and challenges his co-worker to a fistfight. He is filled with images of his repeated humiliations and has decided that he will no longer put up with his brother’s intrusions; that he is old enough and big enough to finally take care of the situation. The initial images that filled his mind may have long passed by now, leaving only the bitter residue of their memory. They may have been gone even before he can take back his shamed and angry words; perhaps even before he is forcibly removed from the room in full view of his boss’s disapproving glare.
Reflection
A disinterested observer might have commented that Bill was “acting like he was 5 years old.” In some sense this was partly true. The ARAS triggered in him gave rise to memories that were previously frozen in time (age 5) and freshly awakened in the present moment. Bill did not act upon the rage he froze and stored, as he was legitimately fearful for his life at that time. Now all of the stored energy has been awakened and mobilized. The original emotions, plus those that are associated with other similar incidents throughout the course of his life that have been unexpressed, all rush to the forefront of his disinhibited consciousness. (The feeling of possession that many addicts, and victims of violence express, may be related to such a process being acted out by the perpetrator.) This may be related to Seligman’s (1975) notion of “learned helplessness,” if it has been repeated frequently enough.
It is the freeing of these orphaned states, with their intense affective charge, that may ultimately need to be revealed to the self in order to free oneself of the webs of shame and entanglement that are so often wrapped in parental (and by extension, societal) mandates and proscriptions. Establishing an “aware ego” (Stone & Stone, 1989) is related to what I am calling an Inner Adult (IA) – a stable, radiant inner center of consciousness wherein the errant energies may be retrieved, grieved, and integrated into the larger personality of the individual. I will discuss this in further depth in the section on healing.
Within the context of the encounter, one may actually feel some sense of temporal dislocation, as if one were both the age-regressed child and the contemporary adult. One may have the opportunity to heal an old, unintegrated rift if one is able to own the dissociated materials as one’s own. Conversely, it is possible that one may be re-traumatized by the experience; may feel re-ashamed by the needs and feelings that surface; may re-suppress the materials rather than working through, or processing, them. In this latter case, the energy and materials are very likely to be re-interred only to resurface at a future time, as the correspondence between the energy and the materials remains unresolved.
This may be the basis of compulsive activities, performed as a kind of magic warding to keep away unwanted or fearful materials from a more conscious awareness (Levenkron, 1991). This also holds the original dysregulated affect in stasis, awaiting integration. In this view, one might see an addictive process as a series of repetitive compulsive behaviors whose purpose is self-soothing (albeit in an aberrant manner) that simultaneously obviates the individual’s personal power which is held encapsulated or encysted in time awaiting healing and integration. It is the analog child that has been triggered in the ARAS, and seeks the healing and soothing that child wanted and needed at the time of the original trauma.
One may be triggered into acting or reacting to current upsets or traumas in a manner that may seem at odds with one’s chronological age. If one has unintegrated traumatic materials or memories from an earlier period of one’s life, one may flash back to an earlier time in one’s existence emotionally. One’s suppressed and internalized rage, for example, may surface in a situation that might, to the contemporary eye, seem inappropriate – though triggers in the present may re-awaken old traumas that have been unexpressed or unexplored. If one has been unable to express the fear, shame, or sense of helplessness at the time these errant emotions were originally felt, they may resurface, having been triggered by current events. An age regressed altered state (ARAS) occurs when emotions carrying the weight of an earlier age are triggered into awareness in the present, with attendant behavioral anomalies. (See also Tart, 1988).
All individuals are at least occasionally drawn back into these states, sometimes more forcefully than others, depending on the depth and breadth of previously unintegrated materials held by the individual, in storage. These traumatic memories carry a powerful psychic charge, and one’s body may be awaiting an opportunity to express and release them. These are state-dependent memories and are stored with linkages to the original traumatic circumstances and triggers. The homeostatic process (Cannon, 1932) is at work, seeking to balance any untoward experience, and make more relatively free the workings of the individual’s energies, previously bound. If one has suppressed some aspect of one’s emotional processing because of the presence of a fearful or shame-inducing object (e.g., an angry father by whom one is fearful of being beaten who smells of tobacco smoke and alcohol), then it is possible that any future encounter that stimulates fear may be triggered by any of the elements that made up the original encounter – tobacco smoke, the smell of alcohol, an angry man, one’s sense of needing to submit to an angry man, etc.). In that experience, it is actually an emotionally charged analog child state that manifests in that moment, directly related to the age-regressed child analog that originally experienced the trauma.
Case Example
Bill is a seemingly average forty-year old businessman who is invited to a cocktail party with his peers at his boss’s house. He is anxious to make a good impression, and has perhaps spent some time rehearsing his social graces, tuning up his conversation for the evening (the latest statistics to impress his superiors, sports’ scores perhaps). But because he is anxious, he has one too many cocktails, exceeding what he really knows is his limit. A co-worker makes what Bill would normally have considered an innocuous remark; but on this occasion, fueled by too much alcohol, Bill suddenly decides that the comment was aimed at him. He is particularly reminded of his older brother who had always verbally demeaned him in a similar manner; and backed it up with threats and occasional demonstrations of physical violence. Bill was always humiliated and generally took the beatings without fighting back because he was too afraid of his brother.
Bill might ordinarily have ignored the remark, at least to maintain his façade, but tonight he reacts in a way that is totally at odds with his usual persona. The alcohol has triggered a long-suppressed sense of emotional deficiency in him. Suddenly he feels immensely ashamed, as if her were 5 years old again – and reacts as if he were. Though his colleagues judge him to be acting “inappropriately,” even in a manner not befitting his position – one that a psychologically astute witness might call regressed. With his brain disinhibited by alcohol, he is vulnerable to the otherwise inaccessible contents of his long-suppressed memories and emotions. He raises his voice in a harsh and challenging fashion, and challenges his co-worker to a fistfight. He is filled with images of his repeated humiliations and has decided that he will no longer put up with his brother’s intrusions; that he is old enough and big enough to finally take care of the situation. The initial images that filled his mind may have long passed by now, leaving only the bitter residue of their memory. They may have been gone even before he can take back his shamed and angry words; perhaps even before he is forcibly removed from the room in full view of his boss’s disapproving glare.
Reflection
A disinterested observer might have commented that Bill was “acting like he was 5 years old.” In some sense this was partly true. The ARAS triggered in him gave rise to memories that were previously frozen in time (age 5) and freshly awakened in the present moment. Bill did not act upon the rage he froze and stored, as he was legitimately fearful for his life at that time. Now all of the stored energy has been awakened and mobilized. The original emotions, plus those that are associated with other similar incidents throughout the course of his life that have been unexpressed, all rush to the forefront of his disinhibited consciousness. (The feeling of possession that many addicts, and victims of violence express, may be related to such a process being acted out by the perpetrator.) This may be related to Seligman’s (1975) notion of “learned helplessness,” if it has been repeated frequently enough.
It is the freeing of these orphaned states, with their intense affective charge, that may ultimately need to be revealed to the self in order to free oneself of the webs of shame and entanglement that are so often wrapped in parental (and by extension, societal) mandates and proscriptions. Establishing an “aware ego” (Stone & Stone, 1989) is related to what I am calling an Inner Adult (IA) – a stable, radiant inner center of consciousness wherein the errant energies may be retrieved, grieved, and integrated into the larger personality of the individual. I will discuss this in further depth in the section on healing.
Within the context of the encounter, one may actually feel some sense of temporal dislocation, as if one were both the age-regressed child and the contemporary adult. One may have the opportunity to heal an old, unintegrated rift if one is able to own the dissociated materials as one’s own. Conversely, it is possible that one may be re-traumatized by the experience; may feel re-ashamed by the needs and feelings that surface; may re-suppress the materials rather than working through, or processing, them. In this latter case, the energy and materials are very likely to be re-interred only to resurface at a future time, as the correspondence between the energy and the materials remains unresolved.
This may be the basis of compulsive activities, performed as a kind of magic warding to keep away unwanted or fearful materials from a more conscious awareness (Levenkron, 1991). This also holds the original dysregulated affect in stasis, awaiting integration. In this view, one might see an addictive process as a series of repetitive compulsive behaviors whose purpose is self-soothing (albeit in an aberrant manner) that simultaneously obviates the individual’s personal power which is held encapsulated or encysted in time awaiting healing and integration. It is the analog child that has been triggered in the ARAS, and seeks the healing and soothing that child wanted and needed at the time of the original trauma.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Further Thought on the Permanent War Economy
The US has been in 74 wars in Third World Countries since World War II (Grossman, 2001, p. 1).
Dekker (1991) described a “permanent war economy,” one that feeds on aggressive intrusion into other people’s lives and countries – and the greed addiction that underlies a nation’s being continuously at war as a means of bolstering its financial well being. (These violations are analogous to the boundary violations of children routinely practiced under the aegis of socialization.)
Shainberg (1987) commented on the human propensity for war:
Look at the vortex of the nuclear arms race as a vortex arising out of the greed of human beings who are isolated in their separate selves and do not feel the connection to other human beings. They are feeling a peculiar emptiness and become greedy for everything they can get to fill themselves. Hence nuclear industries proliferate because they provide large amounts of money and the greed is so extensive that such people do not care what might happen from their actions. (p. 402)
These routine, seemingly unnoticed, boundary violations of government have become incorporated into our foreign policy. This policy has been transposed and amplified from European colonial policy (e.g., massive genocide of, and virulent lies [“treaties”] to, Native American populations since 1492). Based on the arrogance of the ruling class – and the concomitant manipulation of the populace, hidden under various disguises such as national security concerns – the notion that the US has a divine right to forcibly influence other nations to our way of thinking has become normalized to a great extent and goes almost unquestioned. (Though I am certain that there are many businesses that follow ethical standards and attempt to provide quality goods and services, I believe that many businesses are directly concerned with competition and exploitation. Metaphors of killing or defeating the competition are common.)
Argüelles (1975) asserted that while our first and only duty is the “development and refinement of consciousness” (p. 279), living the sacred in one’s daily life in technological civilization “is viewed as a crime and a direct threat to the very existence of society” (p. 277). This is, of course, made much more difficult for all of us when the structure of culture, the container, as it were, is itself corrupt and slanted in favor of the dominant paradigm of production and consumption that benefits only the ultra-rich, not spiritual values that incorporate the totality of humanity. This secularization of daily life is reflected in the frantic pace that many of us live, being constantly pressured and/or overwhelmed by the exigencies of a daily life.
Schmookler (1988) noted: “Civilization inevitably arose in a fragmented state, and under such circumstances, inevitably it was power and not collective human choice that ruled our common destiny. With no escape from the struggle for power, the world was rendered unsafe for most humane and gentle values” (p. 23). The constant fear of war is “anesthetized by economic well being” and we become accustomed to living in the stress of impending war – promoted by the cultural elites as necessary. “If the economy were threatened by war, we would be the most peaceful people on earth” (Henry, 1965, p. 263).
The US has been in 74 wars in Third World Countries since World War II (Grossman, 2001, p. 1).
Dekker (1991) described a “permanent war economy,” one that feeds on aggressive intrusion into other people’s lives and countries – and the greed addiction that underlies a nation’s being continuously at war as a means of bolstering its financial well being. (These violations are analogous to the boundary violations of children routinely practiced under the aegis of socialization.)
Shainberg (1987) commented on the human propensity for war:
Look at the vortex of the nuclear arms race as a vortex arising out of the greed of human beings who are isolated in their separate selves and do not feel the connection to other human beings. They are feeling a peculiar emptiness and become greedy for everything they can get to fill themselves. Hence nuclear industries proliferate because they provide large amounts of money and the greed is so extensive that such people do not care what might happen from their actions. (p. 402)
These routine, seemingly unnoticed, boundary violations of government have become incorporated into our foreign policy. This policy has been transposed and amplified from European colonial policy (e.g., massive genocide of, and virulent lies [“treaties”] to, Native American populations since 1492). Based on the arrogance of the ruling class – and the concomitant manipulation of the populace, hidden under various disguises such as national security concerns – the notion that the US has a divine right to forcibly influence other nations to our way of thinking has become normalized to a great extent and goes almost unquestioned. (Though I am certain that there are many businesses that follow ethical standards and attempt to provide quality goods and services, I believe that many businesses are directly concerned with competition and exploitation. Metaphors of killing or defeating the competition are common.)
Argüelles (1975) asserted that while our first and only duty is the “development and refinement of consciousness” (p. 279), living the sacred in one’s daily life in technological civilization “is viewed as a crime and a direct threat to the very existence of society” (p. 277). This is, of course, made much more difficult for all of us when the structure of culture, the container, as it were, is itself corrupt and slanted in favor of the dominant paradigm of production and consumption that benefits only the ultra-rich, not spiritual values that incorporate the totality of humanity. This secularization of daily life is reflected in the frantic pace that many of us live, being constantly pressured and/or overwhelmed by the exigencies of a daily life.
Schmookler (1988) noted: “Civilization inevitably arose in a fragmented state, and under such circumstances, inevitably it was power and not collective human choice that ruled our common destiny. With no escape from the struggle for power, the world was rendered unsafe for most humane and gentle values” (p. 23). The constant fear of war is “anesthetized by economic well being” and we become accustomed to living in the stress of impending war – promoted by the cultural elites as necessary. “If the economy were threatened by war, we would be the most peaceful people on earth” (Henry, 1965, p. 263).
Translated to the world stage, this amounts to a seemingly endless replay of the same patterns over and over. One is contaminated as a child, one internalizes the contamination and accepts it as “the way it is,” and repeats the contagion throughout one’s life without questioning it (substituting instead a recipe for greed and accumulation) – and one wonders why one’s life is not better; has not turned out to be the bright promise one originally felt way back when?
Governments and religions take full advantage of this regressive stunting. Both treat individuals as if they were still essentially children – in loco parentis. As if, having achieved adult stature, one has not yet attained adult mental status. And usually because one has not, in fact, done so. Crippled by the internalized learning patterns of one’s first 3 years, and acting as if those earliest mandates were still true and operative, one re-creates the world demanded by the intrusive manipulations and coercions insinuated into the very cells of one’s brain by one’s earliest (ostensible) caregivers.
It is for this very reason that we live in a society that promotes the permanent war economy: “a semi-command economy, run mostly by corporate executives, geared to military production” (Wilson, 1944, cited in Chomsky, 2004). Through fear, citizens are asked to turn to our so-called leaders for protection, much as a child turns to his or her parents for protection. The major difference here is that it is the government itself that is creating the circumstances that encourage war as an economic pursuit. Much the same can be said for religions as mechanisms of social control, with their hell and damnation rhetoric.
If one is treated as a fearful child, it is only because one is, in fact, fearful; and may have seriously unresolved issues dating back to one’s childhood; issues created by being reared in a fearful manner, often replete with violence, abuse, and neglect – the memories of such treatment that resonate deep in the hollows of one’s brain, seething with rage, fear, and hurt; hungering for protection, expiation, and ultimately fulfillment of one’s vast potential beyond the fear and angst-driven conventions with which one was reared and had instilled. Repetition of any sort has the effect of embedding whatever material is presented. How much more so when the material is presented by one’s authority figures upon whom one is utterly dependent for subsistence? The context in which material is presented, especially repetitively, is extremely important as well. When one is coerced into abandoning one’s own felt-sense of self in order to honor the demands and mandates of one’s caregiver, there must be a certain sense of loss.
It is this lost sense that one carries throughout one’s life, until and unless it is redeemed (L., “to buy back”) by the only agent who can, may, and should do so – oneself. One must ultimately become the agent of one’s own successful rehabilitation, as it were – rehabilitation from wretched bad habits such as inappropriate dependence on the words and actions of others. Unless one can redeem the lost child within oneself, one may never function as a true adult. One will otherwise function only a caricature, a facsimile, the shadow of a truly definitive adult – because one re-enacts the situations of one’s childhood in analog fashion, as if one were still that lost and lonely child needing guidance and direction from an adult; as if one were still at the behest of one’s “superiors” in intelligence and learning, as government and religious figures attempt to appear – and fail miserably when one looks closely at their personal lives.
Governments and religions take full advantage of this regressive stunting. Both treat individuals as if they were still essentially children – in loco parentis. As if, having achieved adult stature, one has not yet attained adult mental status. And usually because one has not, in fact, done so. Crippled by the internalized learning patterns of one’s first 3 years, and acting as if those earliest mandates were still true and operative, one re-creates the world demanded by the intrusive manipulations and coercions insinuated into the very cells of one’s brain by one’s earliest (ostensible) caregivers.
It is for this very reason that we live in a society that promotes the permanent war economy: “a semi-command economy, run mostly by corporate executives, geared to military production” (Wilson, 1944, cited in Chomsky, 2004). Through fear, citizens are asked to turn to our so-called leaders for protection, much as a child turns to his or her parents for protection. The major difference here is that it is the government itself that is creating the circumstances that encourage war as an economic pursuit. Much the same can be said for religions as mechanisms of social control, with their hell and damnation rhetoric.
If one is treated as a fearful child, it is only because one is, in fact, fearful; and may have seriously unresolved issues dating back to one’s childhood; issues created by being reared in a fearful manner, often replete with violence, abuse, and neglect – the memories of such treatment that resonate deep in the hollows of one’s brain, seething with rage, fear, and hurt; hungering for protection, expiation, and ultimately fulfillment of one’s vast potential beyond the fear and angst-driven conventions with which one was reared and had instilled. Repetition of any sort has the effect of embedding whatever material is presented. How much more so when the material is presented by one’s authority figures upon whom one is utterly dependent for subsistence? The context in which material is presented, especially repetitively, is extremely important as well. When one is coerced into abandoning one’s own felt-sense of self in order to honor the demands and mandates of one’s caregiver, there must be a certain sense of loss.
It is this lost sense that one carries throughout one’s life, until and unless it is redeemed (L., “to buy back”) by the only agent who can, may, and should do so – oneself. One must ultimately become the agent of one’s own successful rehabilitation, as it were – rehabilitation from wretched bad habits such as inappropriate dependence on the words and actions of others. Unless one can redeem the lost child within oneself, one may never function as a true adult. One will otherwise function only a caricature, a facsimile, the shadow of a truly definitive adult – because one re-enacts the situations of one’s childhood in analog fashion, as if one were still that lost and lonely child needing guidance and direction from an adult; as if one were still at the behest of one’s “superiors” in intelligence and learning, as government and religious figures attempt to appear – and fail miserably when one looks closely at their personal lives.
We as humans are constantly exploited, and allow ourselves to be by an extant system that is bent on exploiting us. There is a deeper purpose to all of this, of course. I really believe that all of that which one finds to be deficient may ultimately drive one to become a better person through driving one to seek the inner life instead of the outer one. In this, one may find the love and value one seeks. In this, one may finally stop blaming the external (created by the internal anyway), and find a way of healing oneself – not by excusing or ignoring the external, but by more deeply loving and embracing that internal which is well and truly oneself. As one does so, the external will change in a more or less permanent way in accord with one’s innerness. (Some of the richest people I have ever known have been among the unhappiest and most addicted. They have never had a sense of peace of mind).
The drive to acquire and own is reinforced by the hunger and anxiety of feeling oneself to be separate and alone in the Universe (i.e., a discrete individual). It is this sense of separation that lends itself to the hunger for other (all of the external) in order to seemingly fill up the internal emptiness. Yet it never really works. No amount of food, money, cocaine can ever compensate for or soothe the dysregulated affect that drives the obsessions of addiction and acquisition. As long as one feels and believes oneself to be an eternally separate being, cut off from the benevolence and comfort of the Universal whole, so long will the desperate and wild desires of longing torment one. One is, in effect, always craving wholeness and a sense of connection. The temporary effects of fulfillment available through saturation of the senses only lasts a certain period of tome. The awakened realization of true connection and wholeness, even if only realized in moments of satori, are inspiring and fulfilling far beyond the momentary satiation of euphoric intoxication of any sort.
The question still remains: Why would one continue to practice a behavior that one finds to either be self-harmful in and of itself, or damaging in its effects (i.e., compulsive overeating). I am addressing this from the viewpoint of overeating as that particular addiction has been the bane of my life since I was 4 years old; and it is the only one remaining after all the years I spent addicted to various substances and processes. Therefore I consider it to be the keystone addiction for myself. (It may be related to the dream I had, one that I am now beginning to consider was actually a memory.)
My mother was squatting down behind me, right knee forward, with her right hand on the small of my back. She had a pair of khaki colored slacks in a very 1940’s style and a white or off-white colored blouse. Her hair was shoulder length and untied. She is smiling. We were outside in the sunshine, late spring in St. Louis. My father was dressed in dark-colored clothing, maybe even a suit (no tie). I raise my arms in the air, smile, and cry out: “Look at me, Daddy! I’m a big boy!” My father looks at me, and scowls.
One possible answer to my question might be that one continues self-harming or self-defeating behaviors because one feel that one deserves to be punished, or does not deserve to be treated well. One possibility might be what Bradshaw (1988a) called "Turning against the Self":
An ego defense whereby a person deflects hostile aggression from another person and directs it onto self. This defense is extremely common with people who have been abandoned through severe abuse. Because a child so desperately needs his parents for survival, he will turn his aggressive rage about his abuse into abuse of himself. The extreme form of this is suicidality. In such cases (the French call it self-murder), the person so identifies with the offender that he is killing the offender by killing himself.
Common, but less intense examples include nail-biting, head-banging, accident proneness and self-mutilation. In later life, people may injure themselves socially or financially. In all cases, the rage at the offender is so fearful and shameful it is turned against self (p. 81).
I believe that this definition strikes very close to the heart of the truth of the matter. If one feels inclined to do damage to one’s self, it must be related to one or more internalized judgments one has made against oneself. Self-injury does not appear out of nowhere. It very likely is a toxic sequel to poor or disorganized attachment, in which one’s reflections on or to self are distorted by ostensible caregivers in such a way that one feels the necessity to punish or otherwise impugn oneself. One then receives feedback based on the energy or imaging one transmits. If one feels depressed or downtrodden or oppressed, one will naturally get feedback in accord with this transmission. If one does not genuinely feel that one deserves to be treated with love and respect, one will not be.
If one undertakes a program of improvement with the goal being something external (e.g., looking thinner) rather than something internal (e.g., feeling better), it is very likely, almost certain, that it will fail. On the other hand, if one works on oneself assiduously, and finds a place to stand wherein one genuinely and truly cares for oneself (dare I say love?), then net result of a program of improvement will more likely succeed. If one is operating from a stance of genuine self-care, then one will automatically do things that are healthy and helpful to and for the self – and it will be easy and natural. (This is the reason most diets fail: the person has not done the inner work to provide a foundation for “goodness,” therefore all efforts at improvement are doomed to failure because there is no fundament upon which they might rest and find root).
Dieting is yet another example of externalizing: focusing on the outer, and utilizing it as a source for both blame and praise; ultimately making the external responsible for the internal. In this example, one blames one’s body for one’s pain, fears, shame, and depression (“If only I were thin…”). The same might be said of a client who told me, with full emphasis and belief, that she only needed “more money to cure her depression.” The belief in the external is incredibly strong, and has been reinforced in our society that externalizes costs routinely to inflate profit by “passing along costs to the consumer”. This kind of thinking is based on the same principle that there is an out there, an external to one’s personal internal. This kind of thinking promotes dualistic thinking and action; supports the idea that one can do to a seeming other without harm coming to oneself; in essence makes one blameless if one can “get away with it,” whatever the action or crime might be.
All of the environmental damage, and all with which I find the greatest fault in this neo-Darwinian world we have created (Civilization and its Discontents revisited) stem from the Cartesian principle that relegated thinking, cognition, and separateness (the head) above that of feeling, compassion, and connectedness of the heart. In one simple phrase: cogito ergo sum, Descartes crystallized what has become the path of technological humanity for the past centuries, though as Eisenstein (2007) has so succinctly noted, we have been on this path for at least 10,000 years – since moving from hunter-gatherer tribal groups to agrarian societies. But I digress.
I am sticking with my dual examples of compulsive overeating and money as addictions for the simple reason that I am well acquainted with them. I have been a food addict all of my life; and I have assiduously pushed away money and opportunities for “success” because I have both felt unworthy of them, and because I knew that they were inimical to spiritual progress. My eating and body image issues have, on the other hand, driven me to such depths of despair and contemplation of suicide, that I have been forced to confront myself and that which underlay my repugnance for my body (especially my size). As in the dream/memory noted above, I believe that my compulsive eating has been fed, if you will, by two parallel track of thinking that have led to the behaviors: I wanted to be “big” (seen, heard, validated); and I wanted to be comforted and satisfied (filled and content). Both of these idea tracks are metaphorical, of course, but both have “real world” consequences.
In attempting to be validated in the face of what I clearly remember as an unrelenting and caustic barrage of recrimination, insults, reprobation, and sarcasm from my father from the time I was born, I chose, as a child, to become “big” literally in a vain attempt to be “seen” emotionally, psychologically, and ultimately ontologically. I was experiencing what Laing (1959) described as “primary ontological insecurity” (p. 39), a condition in which I did not feel that I had any right to live. It is easy to see how this is related to deep shaming; and how I might have arrived at the conclusion that I did not deserve to have anything good happen to/for me; and further how I might have decided to keep money and resources away (and later women too, further deepening my sense of separation, isolation, and cupidity) from myself in an effort to make spiritual progress as an antidote to my psychologically-induced ennui. (In this sense, I consider my desire to have been a form of denial and perhaps even delusion).
In suppressing the dark, shadow material generated by trauma, one must also suppress the bright gold. They seem to be paired such that healing the shadow allows one access to the previously hidden gold. This is, again, in keeping with one aspect of my original thesis that what at first might appear to be one’s greatest enemy (or worst character trait), may, with healing, turn out to be one’s best ally. This entails the willingness and ability to stand in the pain and endure it with an eye to healing, somehow holding the vision of wholeness while still enduring the pain of separateness.
An example of this might be holding on to one’s vision of better self-love, self-care and weight reduction – and not continuing to despise one’s body – while going through the process of dropping the weight and attaining a more pleasing form. I am addressing this from the external point of view (“more pleasing form”) though it actually requires a commitment to the internal work (“better self-love”). It seems to me, at this point in my process, that the desire to attain a more pleasing form is actually stronger than the desire to love myself more. Since I feel that I have been judged (and continue to be, both by others and myself) on the form and shape of my body, developing a pleasing exterior is important. I want women to find me pleasing and sexy. I want them to want to touch me.
Yet I know that somewhere behind the façade of otherness lays self. There is, there must be, some level on which my own (even if introjected) sense of self is keeping me apart from women and their charms – even if only in the belief that women do not want me because I am fat. (I admit I am not attracted to fat women. Perhaps this is only a projection too – not liking them because I do not like me). I know that I have internalized a great deal of oppression, especially from my father’s persecution of me when I was young, and continuing throughout my life as well. In that sense, I am my own perpetrator. This is the point at which the agony of the individual hooks one into the larger context of ideological hegemony with the oppression and manipulation of the masses through misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. It is precisely when one learns to perpetrate oneself that the larger cultural and societal mechanisms kick in. The oppression becomes more diffuse yet more intense simultaneously.
The drive to acquire and own is reinforced by the hunger and anxiety of feeling oneself to be separate and alone in the Universe (i.e., a discrete individual). It is this sense of separation that lends itself to the hunger for other (all of the external) in order to seemingly fill up the internal emptiness. Yet it never really works. No amount of food, money, cocaine can ever compensate for or soothe the dysregulated affect that drives the obsessions of addiction and acquisition. As long as one feels and believes oneself to be an eternally separate being, cut off from the benevolence and comfort of the Universal whole, so long will the desperate and wild desires of longing torment one. One is, in effect, always craving wholeness and a sense of connection. The temporary effects of fulfillment available through saturation of the senses only lasts a certain period of tome. The awakened realization of true connection and wholeness, even if only realized in moments of satori, are inspiring and fulfilling far beyond the momentary satiation of euphoric intoxication of any sort.
The question still remains: Why would one continue to practice a behavior that one finds to either be self-harmful in and of itself, or damaging in its effects (i.e., compulsive overeating). I am addressing this from the viewpoint of overeating as that particular addiction has been the bane of my life since I was 4 years old; and it is the only one remaining after all the years I spent addicted to various substances and processes. Therefore I consider it to be the keystone addiction for myself. (It may be related to the dream I had, one that I am now beginning to consider was actually a memory.)
My mother was squatting down behind me, right knee forward, with her right hand on the small of my back. She had a pair of khaki colored slacks in a very 1940’s style and a white or off-white colored blouse. Her hair was shoulder length and untied. She is smiling. We were outside in the sunshine, late spring in St. Louis. My father was dressed in dark-colored clothing, maybe even a suit (no tie). I raise my arms in the air, smile, and cry out: “Look at me, Daddy! I’m a big boy!” My father looks at me, and scowls.
One possible answer to my question might be that one continues self-harming or self-defeating behaviors because one feel that one deserves to be punished, or does not deserve to be treated well. One possibility might be what Bradshaw (1988a) called "Turning against the Self":
An ego defense whereby a person deflects hostile aggression from another person and directs it onto self. This defense is extremely common with people who have been abandoned through severe abuse. Because a child so desperately needs his parents for survival, he will turn his aggressive rage about his abuse into abuse of himself. The extreme form of this is suicidality. In such cases (the French call it self-murder), the person so identifies with the offender that he is killing the offender by killing himself.
Common, but less intense examples include nail-biting, head-banging, accident proneness and self-mutilation. In later life, people may injure themselves socially or financially. In all cases, the rage at the offender is so fearful and shameful it is turned against self (p. 81).
I believe that this definition strikes very close to the heart of the truth of the matter. If one feels inclined to do damage to one’s self, it must be related to one or more internalized judgments one has made against oneself. Self-injury does not appear out of nowhere. It very likely is a toxic sequel to poor or disorganized attachment, in which one’s reflections on or to self are distorted by ostensible caregivers in such a way that one feels the necessity to punish or otherwise impugn oneself. One then receives feedback based on the energy or imaging one transmits. If one feels depressed or downtrodden or oppressed, one will naturally get feedback in accord with this transmission. If one does not genuinely feel that one deserves to be treated with love and respect, one will not be.
If one undertakes a program of improvement with the goal being something external (e.g., looking thinner) rather than something internal (e.g., feeling better), it is very likely, almost certain, that it will fail. On the other hand, if one works on oneself assiduously, and finds a place to stand wherein one genuinely and truly cares for oneself (dare I say love?), then net result of a program of improvement will more likely succeed. If one is operating from a stance of genuine self-care, then one will automatically do things that are healthy and helpful to and for the self – and it will be easy and natural. (This is the reason most diets fail: the person has not done the inner work to provide a foundation for “goodness,” therefore all efforts at improvement are doomed to failure because there is no fundament upon which they might rest and find root).
Dieting is yet another example of externalizing: focusing on the outer, and utilizing it as a source for both blame and praise; ultimately making the external responsible for the internal. In this example, one blames one’s body for one’s pain, fears, shame, and depression (“If only I were thin…”). The same might be said of a client who told me, with full emphasis and belief, that she only needed “more money to cure her depression.” The belief in the external is incredibly strong, and has been reinforced in our society that externalizes costs routinely to inflate profit by “passing along costs to the consumer”. This kind of thinking is based on the same principle that there is an out there, an external to one’s personal internal. This kind of thinking promotes dualistic thinking and action; supports the idea that one can do to a seeming other without harm coming to oneself; in essence makes one blameless if one can “get away with it,” whatever the action or crime might be.
All of the environmental damage, and all with which I find the greatest fault in this neo-Darwinian world we have created (Civilization and its Discontents revisited) stem from the Cartesian principle that relegated thinking, cognition, and separateness (the head) above that of feeling, compassion, and connectedness of the heart. In one simple phrase: cogito ergo sum, Descartes crystallized what has become the path of technological humanity for the past centuries, though as Eisenstein (2007) has so succinctly noted, we have been on this path for at least 10,000 years – since moving from hunter-gatherer tribal groups to agrarian societies. But I digress.
I am sticking with my dual examples of compulsive overeating and money as addictions for the simple reason that I am well acquainted with them. I have been a food addict all of my life; and I have assiduously pushed away money and opportunities for “success” because I have both felt unworthy of them, and because I knew that they were inimical to spiritual progress. My eating and body image issues have, on the other hand, driven me to such depths of despair and contemplation of suicide, that I have been forced to confront myself and that which underlay my repugnance for my body (especially my size). As in the dream/memory noted above, I believe that my compulsive eating has been fed, if you will, by two parallel track of thinking that have led to the behaviors: I wanted to be “big” (seen, heard, validated); and I wanted to be comforted and satisfied (filled and content). Both of these idea tracks are metaphorical, of course, but both have “real world” consequences.
In attempting to be validated in the face of what I clearly remember as an unrelenting and caustic barrage of recrimination, insults, reprobation, and sarcasm from my father from the time I was born, I chose, as a child, to become “big” literally in a vain attempt to be “seen” emotionally, psychologically, and ultimately ontologically. I was experiencing what Laing (1959) described as “primary ontological insecurity” (p. 39), a condition in which I did not feel that I had any right to live. It is easy to see how this is related to deep shaming; and how I might have arrived at the conclusion that I did not deserve to have anything good happen to/for me; and further how I might have decided to keep money and resources away (and later women too, further deepening my sense of separation, isolation, and cupidity) from myself in an effort to make spiritual progress as an antidote to my psychologically-induced ennui. (In this sense, I consider my desire to have been a form of denial and perhaps even delusion).
In suppressing the dark, shadow material generated by trauma, one must also suppress the bright gold. They seem to be paired such that healing the shadow allows one access to the previously hidden gold. This is, again, in keeping with one aspect of my original thesis that what at first might appear to be one’s greatest enemy (or worst character trait), may, with healing, turn out to be one’s best ally. This entails the willingness and ability to stand in the pain and endure it with an eye to healing, somehow holding the vision of wholeness while still enduring the pain of separateness.
An example of this might be holding on to one’s vision of better self-love, self-care and weight reduction – and not continuing to despise one’s body – while going through the process of dropping the weight and attaining a more pleasing form. I am addressing this from the external point of view (“more pleasing form”) though it actually requires a commitment to the internal work (“better self-love”). It seems to me, at this point in my process, that the desire to attain a more pleasing form is actually stronger than the desire to love myself more. Since I feel that I have been judged (and continue to be, both by others and myself) on the form and shape of my body, developing a pleasing exterior is important. I want women to find me pleasing and sexy. I want them to want to touch me.
Yet I know that somewhere behind the façade of otherness lays self. There is, there must be, some level on which my own (even if introjected) sense of self is keeping me apart from women and their charms – even if only in the belief that women do not want me because I am fat. (I admit I am not attracted to fat women. Perhaps this is only a projection too – not liking them because I do not like me). I know that I have internalized a great deal of oppression, especially from my father’s persecution of me when I was young, and continuing throughout my life as well. In that sense, I am my own perpetrator. This is the point at which the agony of the individual hooks one into the larger context of ideological hegemony with the oppression and manipulation of the masses through misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. It is precisely when one learns to perpetrate oneself that the larger cultural and societal mechanisms kick in. The oppression becomes more diffuse yet more intense simultaneously.
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