Mmmm, yeah, the old “head deny the feelings” game. I tried that one a long while.
For me I’ve come to understand that the feelings are all real, and I’m not interested in denying them. I turned to EFT Tapping not to deny my feelings or suppress them or distract from them… rather to give myself the skill to take that energy and transform it – or at least bring myself into the present moment.
So I can still get this overwhelming feeling that “I have no friends!” I can tune into the whole timeline of different points in my life where that feeling of isolation was a profound Asking for more depth. I wish I had another approach other than trying to argue “but you do have friends” and be able to:
Address with inner tapping the younger me that lived devoid of anyone who “met me” in depth of emotion and intimacy until I was long an adult…
Could help myself come present with both the reality (I do have friends now) and the longing (most are not even in driving distance).
My triggered feelings are real. Even as I’ve tapped on those old experiences, the trauma-multiplier-amplifier is lessened, but until I get clear on what need/yearning of mine is just NOT being met right now… my head shortcuts to “I have no friends” and then tries to argue me out of it.
Does that make sense?
When I read what you’re writing, you want someone who really meshes with your interests at the level of devotion, too, right? And who sees you and loves who you are as your explore and grow?
I mean, I know a bunch of us here do that… or aspects of it… all the while the profound yearning for close kin is still activated.
It’s like these are two different systems of ‘knowing’ that have their distinct domains in which they are designed to operate. The ‘head’ is for ‘reality’ that is external/physical ('Yes, I can objectively provide evidence that I, in fact, have friends’)…‘feelings’ are for what’s felt as internal reality (‘I (feel as if) have no friends’). And then ‘they’ argue about which is the ‘real reality’. It’s an impossible situation because the premise is false…the premise being that ‘they’ are having a conversation/argument about the same thing…and they are not. We think they are but it’s an illusion. One is describing things and events…the other is describing feelings about things and events. Feelings are not things…nor are things feelings. To confuse or conflate the two is a logical level mistake that will only end in unhappiness. We’ve been seduced into participating in an impossible conversational loop that really has no exit under those conditions. The only exit from the crazy making loop is to not participate…to not get seduced into the loop, it seems to me. And I think some aspects of EFT (and NLP as well) handle that very smartly…like welcoming and thanking and acknowledging and loving what both the ‘head’ and the ‘heart’ (and gut and groin) report to us…and not entering into an internal battle about which one is the correct version. They each provide useful and necessary information about the whole ‘thing’…information gathered from separate but intertwined realms.
I find the same kind of dynamic with spiritual realms as well. I can feel and hear and even “see” the devotional support of my spirit circle. A part of me can not experience that as a a truth – often because the hurde to believing is so high.
“Oh, if you love and support me THAT much, then I should… (or you should)…”
Whether it is about love or money or joy, I have so much experience with a gap between the spiritual reality and the gap with how I expect that to manifest in my life! Yet, if I can hold “both/and” then it feels far more possible to be in a thriving relationship with those different realms (and the concepts/perspectives that vary between them).
How applicable that feels right now with the “I have no friends” mantra/loop…
For example, if there is this sacred truth that I have friends, but there is a part of me that expects (and tries to insist!) that if that is true then ____ should also be true – like I should have someone to walk with any time I want, or talk with, or get a hug from…
The essential comfort can be tuning to one of the realms and feeling the congruence as long as I am perceiving from the framework that works for me within that realm. My spiritual framework does not require manifestation in order for something to be true. When I am attuned to that framework, I do get to see my earth life differently… and in a way that is more comforting and less stressful.
It helps me calm the part of me that expects. It helps me confidence the part of me that craves “proof.”
Yes!..so much wisdom in what you’ve written. Thank you. And for me it’s become such an important and fundamental observation to be aware of how ‘expectation’ runs like a babbling brook through EVERYTHING…(stop the incessant babbling please!!)
But of course, it also seems to me, ‘expectation’ is a fundamental survival mechanism. It’s not wrong to have the experience of ‘expectation’…I figure it’s part of our primitive OS software…but context is critical as to what to expect I suppose. When we are experiencing through the spiritual realm and having physical realm expectations, well that may not be appropriate or fulfilling.
I sure appreciate being able to navigate some of these ideas and observations with you Rick…I find it very juicy! I’ve noticed that I have often had the expectation that I should be able to have these sorts of discussions with most anybody…other friends of mine for example. Guess where that expectation leads to…lol. It has been said that ‘disappointment takes adequate planning’…and of course ‘planning’ is synonymous with ‘expectation’.
Yeah. Since all we humans have primitive brains and several different OS’s running apps, you’d like we could all get excited about this stuff! Uhh, no. Some people have their minds full of the dirty laundry or pastel magic. Who knows. I’ve noticed for example that some of my shows that I was really looking forward to seeing the next season are… unwatched. Instead, I am learning about Fiat and Layed Money and stuff like that!
Weird, aren’t I…
One of the futurists I tune to is BalajiS and he speaks of communities of interest, something I’ve obviously been focused on since I was 15. I’m grateful that here in this space we can asynchronously “speak” about what matters to us, with thoughtfulness and irreverence and… humanness.
If I was limited by neighbors, I’d feel rather “unexpressed.” Or even if our engagements could only happen in person after long travel.
It is an essential comfort for me to know you and others in our community will engage with this or not – freedom! – when an if they are drawn. Across time and space. Ahhh
Of course you are…otherwise I’d have little interest in engaging with you. I relish ‘weirdness’ in most of it’s forms…weird is where the tasty bits live I think.
I had a thought recently born out of the strange times we live in currently. By no means am I a historian but I’d wager that if we looked back through history at all the various city-states, civilizations and empires that have crumbled the blame would lay mainly with those aligned with the ‘status quo’ and not the outliers, the people who question…not the shit disturbers or the weird ones but those who benefit most from keeping things running just as they are…maintaining ‘the system’ rather than adapting to change and various forces (both internal and external to ‘the system’). Of course that’s not the story they would tell…not then and certainly not now. So, I celebrate and embrace ‘weird’ because that’s the way forward…that’s the way of ‘Adaptation’, resourcefulness and new concepts I think. Rock on Weird Rick!!
It is comforting to me to be reminded of weirdness as the leading edge of evolution… Been considering that a lot recently, how weird it is to be so devoted to things like freedom and body autonomy and consent at times when the status quo has so much coercive structures.
That said, no lions playing at the Roman Coliseum this weekend. Just “ruins” that can be visited but not really experienced as they were – thank goodness.
The multi-faceted structures of ‘consensus through coercion’…being a ‘rebel’ within those structures means standing up for basic human rights and human dignity and freedom…real freedom. Maybe that’s what a ‘rebel’ has always meant through our tumultuous human history.
Oh wow, thanks for the clarity! Not gonna lie I was triggered by this sentence because of all the suppression that which I had to go through whenever I voiced my opinions. It feels as though I’m not allowed to say that “nobody cares” or that “everyone is like that”. There’s still just so much anger within me that I’ve still yet to clear… that which screams out the hatred people have labeled upon me… (that I shouldn’t think so negatively or I shouldn’t be so egotistical…) Toxic positively and my mum’s toughen-it-out mentality has shaped me to hold all of this hatred…!
But anyways, thanks for the clarity! It’s a lot clearer when you explained it further in depth and that does clear the assumptions that my head tends to spiral down to!
Yes! The yearning and longing for close kin just feels like it’s not fulfilled, (though I’m definitely immensely grateful for this community that allows so much emotional and spiritual connection)! And yes… so agreeable on the latter points about expectations. So I suppose this is my spiritual expectation, that is hard to be matched with the manifestations of it in the physical reality (Ie.g. to have someone that understands, respects and loves me all the time)
Thank you all for discussing this topic so openly and fully those years ago…. Finding it helpful for myself today as I navigate all of these feelings and concepts around comfort and triggers and automatic negative beliefs about self and others and the world and finding my way through them to what might matter to me instead and how I might want to live my life from my own choice
Winter rains and family stresses often have me returning to the Old Favorite of ice cream. It… works.
The New Possibility that I’ve worked on for years is that I don’t need to eat the whole pint even though I have it.
When I savor more… when I really let it Full-Fill me, even the old favorite has a different tone and texture and kind of nourishment. My body right now cannot be in a calorie deficit. But that is different from being stuffed like I might need to “run away” with a stash of calories inside.
Old Favorites can, indeed, be recast often to be something different.
My walks/hikes used to be only where the energy was AMAZING. Pinnacle hikes. Waterfalls. And if they were not available in the time I had (or energy) they didn’t happen.
The New Possibility of savoring changes in simple paths made it possible for me to be nourished in more “bite sized” ways. For 1070 days of Morning Miles now.
I believe even in the coping strategies we resorted to (and sometimes still do) there are hints at fresh possibilities. If we look. If we adapt with curiosity best we can tap into.
Thanks for the kind words and for continuing, as we are, in ways that get us more out of primal and into thriving.
