Self-Knowledge not sufficient?

[LovePrevails]

Sometimes when I'm on the downwave I'm sitting back and thinking

 

Was this really helpful or did I just think it was?

 

I know where my negative thought patterns come from in my childhood and have for yearsI did a lot of work, more than pretty much anyone I knowAnd when they're re-asserting I'm thinking

Knowing where this comes from does not actually make it go away.

It's the method, the technique, for changing the habit pattern of the mind, for repairing the damage that really counts.

Then I wonder if knowing where all this crap comes from is even neessary.If we could just take a sample of the what the mind says for a week (/a month/ a year) in insolation, and analyse the patterns would that not be enough to diagnose it?To prescribe a treatment?Without tracing root causes?

 

 

I don't know, other time I see the way my own self-knowledge helps me diagnose/analyse/prescribe for othersthey seem to be genuinely impressed and think it's helpful

Sometimes I just don't know if knowing causes is curative,

I guess one thing it does do is help stop you exposing yourself to more causes or inflicting causes on others,But I think a fixed psyche does that automatically

 

 

Please discuss

[MrCapitalism]

Was this really helpful or did I just think it was?

I experienced this thread as watching a part of you attempting to have a one-sided internal dialouge.

One side appears to be opening a channel of communication by asking such a question, has the other side been given a chance to answer it?

 

[LovePrevails]

 

Was this really helpful or did I just think it was?

I experienced this thread as watching a part of you attempting to have a one-sided internal dialouge.

One side appears to be opening a channel of communication by asking such a question, has the other side been given a chance to answer it?

 

 

Hey, great perspective!

 

I guess this is a thought I return to time and time again, wondering- so it's not a new dialogue

but perhaps I haven't let each side have it's proper say, or make it's case

on some level I must feel it has been helpful as knowledge i always better than ignorance

on other levels I wonder if it hinders in some way because you can come to interact wiht all these "qualified" judgments of dificult people and their patterns
which may then get in the way of communicating

 

I am very interested in hearing other peope perspectives on the content of the original post before saying more

 

[Mike Larson]

I think that one of the most important reasons for understanding our own histories is that it enables us to give ourselves the empathy that is required for real healing to take place. But as to whether or not the same sort of healing can come through some other means... I'm not sure. I think it is a really good question.

[MysterionMuffles]

You're right, knowing where all this comes from isn't enough. You have to feel and re-experience these things even if only in the realm of your mind, because thinking hard enough can make your body feel the sensations of what you've experienced in the past. If it's anything traumatic and you know how horrible it felt, that growing empathy lets you know how to better conduct your life. You start to realize that whatever happened to you should never happen to others, so maybe that's another reason why some of us fall under the trap of trying to manage other people's emotions. It's a trap sometimes if these people aren't willing to gain the level of self knowledge you've attained, but on the contrary, your successful healing of others can in turn heal you. I dunno, does that even make sense?

[LovePrevails]

I self-attack very badly still. The longer I've been away from my family (particuarly my mum) the less bad it gets
In a month I will be able to see them a lot less and may move city.
I've been waiting a long time for that move, but since I last got in a serious spat with my mother and was seriously on the point of disowning her, her behaviour has been a lot better towards me somehow, she still stays within the limits of what is possible to her though which does not extend to being able to hold her temper even over little things like salt and pepper left out. I know she has no control over this because she even does it in front of guests, it's not like she can "put away her temper for show". But that doesn't justify it obviously, because she could seek help (but thinks the problem is with everything else.)

I digress.

I always realise my self-attack is a pattern from childhood. An inner-mum. But worse, because my self-attack is existential.
What I forgot is that self-attack is there to serve the abuser, I know my mum doesn't self-attack after our spats, so why should I?
I'm meant to be impeccable.
I remembered that self-attack serves the abuser after listening to the "I Shot My Dog" podcast, I needed reminding,
I should be thinking "it's fucking ridiculous I'm even in the position where I should have to feel bad having lost my temper in a situation I need never have been in if I had a high-nurturance family"  not "I shouldn't have lost my temper like that."

I always think I ought not to be whenever I feel angry, agitated, frustrated, upet, offended, or any so-called negative emotion
I blame this on "reacting" out of "ego" due to a history of reading easten-influenced philosophy... well not really due to that, obviously I read those books because it was in favour of my defense mechanism of shutting down my emotions and self-attack which served the interests of my caregivers.

I know that our feelings arise out of a sythesis of our own beliefs and what happens to us

So even if these feelings are valid how can I ever believe they are for me?

I always have to be impeccable.

[sg12]

In my experience, it has been helpful to validate all of my feelings.  Every emotion that you feel was at a time created to help protect you from the world.  For me, the best thing to do was to try to relax and notice which feelings were occurring before acting on the feelings.  Self-knowledge is helpful in deciphering the causes but not in changing the emotions, for that you need to act based upon the knowledge learned.  This was really tough for me.

Self-attack can help prevent direct attacks from an abuser and help a child feel more secure for the duration of the abuse when leaving is not an option.  The survival adaptation to abuse, self-attack, can help the child conform to the desires of the abuser which usually greatly diminishes the external harm, providing temporary relief and protection.  Self-attack only helps the abuser and hurts the child when the child can separate from the abuser without physical harm but chooses not to and continues to conform to the wishes of the abuser.

Self-attacks usually occur around actions or feelings that the abuser wouldn’t want you to feel, like anger, agitation, frustration, and upset.

A way I found to diminish the occurrence of self-attacks was to remove myself from all abusive environments and relax.  Breathing exercises and meditation were really helpful.

[gnome]

Knowing cause is the first step or foundation that you build upon. Its as if a person needs some hint of intellectual understanding, which then opens the doors for further discovery and further understanding and hopefully feeling. People need a place to start, a way of comprehending what was completely unknown to them in the first place. Its kind of a domino effect, a small trail of crumbs that you follow back and forth.