Has my 'mecosystem' finally revealing itself or am I just losing it?

[MattGrimes]

edit: Oops meant to say 'Has my mecosystem finally revealed itself'

 

 

What's up guys

So, there is a lot of backstory, but I don't think it is particularly relevant so I will condense it as best I can (lol, nope that didn't work out at all. Sorry! It's still not even 1/10th of all I could say though so I guess it's better than that lol). Basically my question is regarding the 'mecosystem'/unconscious and how it manifests itself. I have listened to podcast 0-1200 and then the last few hundred of the most recent volume, so I've heard a lot about this idea of the mecosystem and how it functions, though I never understood it as more than a theory up until last night. I never understood how people could role play their 'alters' (almost always it is the voice of the 'critic' who is role played), and felt much like Greg (who, at least in the podcats I have listened to thus far, always struggled with this).

 

I have had an emotional rollercoaster the past few weeks, as I am quitting my job at my parents company of which I have worked for 5 years (I am 23). It is by far the scariest thing I can remember having ever done. I realized recently, through journaling and therapy, that I had resigned myself long ago to the fact that I would never have control in my life, and FDR has kind of screwed that all up for me (in a good way; overwhelming but good). Up until recently, I was basically a slave to the whims of my family, with not even the thought of pursuing a career.

 

Last night, I had this overwhelming anxiety and a desire to cry, and I just had to stop and lay down, pull out my jounral, and I asked myself "What do you need?" "What's going on" "What do you have to say". Immediately I got back I got this overwhelming rush of a strong 'presence' and got many answers regarding my immediate future regarding my job situation, therapy, and my girlfriend--usually I get 1 snippet of these goodies dropped on me after lots of thinking and writing, but last night I got more things that I would get a whole month. The first thing 'he' said was "You have to get out. You have to get out NOW" (regarding my job) over and over. I had to say "This is too much. I need a break", and the alter said "yes that's okay" and left me alone for a few hours, which later I said "Okay I'm ready" and it gave me many more insights. This 'presence' was distinctly separate from me, though i wasn't like hearing voices or anything; it was just an internal monologue but with what seemed like distinct separate, more powerful mind.

 

As I layed there, 'listening', another mind came up, who was called "Baby", who wanted love and affection and attention and bond but has never received what he needed. Immediately I felt that this was the part of me who loved and wanted affection from my mother. Consciously I have never been able to feel the need for affection from my mother that I, intellectually, know must exist. I have hated my mom since I was 13 and cannot recall I time where I did not firmly believe that 'I don't need her'. Even when I try to say 'okay feel it. I know you feel it' I wouldn't happen, but last night when this 'alter' popped up I knew that he was the one holding all this in. Despite have been neglected for 23 years, he did not complain when I said that I needed a break from listening to them, as I was feeling overwhelmed.

 

The first 'alter', who said his name was 'Mitch', is very strong, courageous, and with deep wisdom. He knows much more than I do about what to do next, so I said I will listen to him.

 

The only time I can ever recall having 2 distinct 'minds' in my head was back when I was 14 and I was still somewhat religious. I remember I would pray to Jesus and immediately I would get this 'FUCK JESUS. JESUS SHOULD DIE. FUCK JESUS' in my head, which I would feel very ashamed of for thinking. Mitch 'says' this was a former version of himself speaking these words, but after that he went dormant, and only now was it safe to return, as now I am finally in a stable enough situation to listen.

 

Also, as I continued to listen and meditate, immediately an image of a terrifying, pale, close up face, just of the right eye, bulging, looking like something out of a horror movie appeared in my head. They told me this was 'Dead'. He has yet to say anything. He seems to 'grunt' but no words. I am not sure exactly who he is, but he is somehwo related to the many years I spent suicidal. I don't know if he is my sucidial self or the self in me who has already died, seeing as he does not speak, and Mitch and Baby plead the 5th about him.

 

So, yeah. Is this the mecosystem Stef talks about? Or am I just losing it and/or making random shit up in my head? At first I thought I was just crazy, and I was very skeptical of 'trusting' these personalities, but the more the say the more I think this is legitimately some dissociated parts of myself that have knowledge from my unconscious that I have never been able to access.

[Kevin Beal]

Unless I'm also wrong, this is definitely very clear mecosystem work.

 

There are varying degrees of distance you can feel from the personalities in your mind and even if it's hard to distinguish your self from the other, it's still mecosystem work as far as I'm concerned. But it sounds like you had a much more vivid picture experience than what is typical (at least for me). Most of the time that feeling of separateness is only half there for me compared to the times I remember it being crystal clear to me.

 

I don't communicate often with my mecosystem – at least through conversation, so there are other people who can speak with more authority, but to me it seems very clear that is your mecosystem.

 

I'm very sorry you're exploited like you were. And I know a bit about the overwhelm, and I'm sorry about that too.

 

Have you had less clear or more ambiguous communication with your mecosystem before yesterday?

[MattGrimes]

Thanks for the reply Kevin. That makes me feel better haha. In regards to more ambiguous mecosystem experiences, i want to say yes but im not totally sure. Through writing and thinking and such i would get little nuggets of wisdom out of nowhere, but i never noticed it as a distinctly separate part of myself who was releasing them nor any method to the madness. It was always just this kind of fog of me running around in circles trying to intellectually attack a problem and seems as if my unconscious would at some point be like "okay you're gonna hurt yourself kid. here just take this nugget of wisdom and stop thinking so much lol". but , until the other day, I saw my unconscious as, at best, this just fog-topped lake in the night which will give me wisdom if i do the right rain dance to it. Though I cant recall every consciously thinking that these answers came from my unconscious; my conscious mind took all the credit and used that to justify that the thinking-myself-into-a-tornado method of problem solving was effective. So to answer your question, i would say yes it has occurred but in such a subtle way that i didnt even know it until writing this.

[TheRobin]

Sounds pretty normal to me (for a mecosystem convo). Also, from a guy, who has "lost it" (had an intense 2 month schizophrenic/psychotic episode, about 10 years ago), the real thing you have to look out for if you're worried is, checking whether the thoughts and feelings (or parts) are really talking about reality or not, which you can check empirically and ask the parts themselves, and talk about with them too.

One thing about parts of ourselves is, that they can get stuck in the past, when the emotion isn't listened to and processed. So a good thing after listening might be checking whether or not that relates to the present situation or not. (Ofc, that doesn't invalidate the feeling and shouldn't stop you from listening to that part, but just be clear, whether you're processing things from the past or reacting to a situation in the present).

[Kevin Beal]

I decided to dedicate some type to have a mecosystem chat just now, because it had been a while, and because I want to be less theoretical and more empirical. Also, I recorded it in audio and listened back to it (I highly recommend it).

 

You know how Stef says stuff like "I'm not telling you anything you don't already know" and challenges callers who quickly respond to deeper questions with "I don't know"? I bet that's got a lot to do with his own mecosystem work, because I often have this experience doing mecosystem work asking myself "how did I not catch that before?!" and then realizing that it was a part of myself that I was talking to, so technically, I did know it, just not consciously.

 

And sometimes I experience some embarrassment realizing that I had heard the valuable thing they were saying before, probably originating from that part the first time I thought about it. And, a couple times, I think I got an "I told you so". If I had only listened to that part from the beginning I could have avoided something really unpleasant. That sort of thing.

 

I think that's kind of what it means to be more conscious, or to expand consciousness, is to be more connected with different parts of yourself, who can all inform you about what they think from their separate perspectives.

 

I think it makes me more flexible too when things come up. I'm not immediately suppressing some shame or anger or whatever and instead of retreating within myself and feeling anxious, stuck, I kind of trust that I'll have something to do or say about it. Like when I'm walking around town and there are some rough looking fellows who may cause me some grief by harassing me in some way (not violent, just jerks).

 

I'm tempted to become like an emotional turtle retreating within myself in my anxiety, but when I'm more connected with myself, I'm much more curious about what kind of people they are and what I might do if they were to say some bitchy thing to me like "nice shirt idiot", lol. I imagine myself just laughing out loud and asking them if they are harassing me, as if harassing someone was ridiculous (which it kind of is).

 

That is something I'd like to get really good at. Thanks for reminding me!

[TheMatrixHasMe]

Your original post brings the book "Self Therapy"by James Early to my mind.

 Not that I recommend or endorce the book or attempting self therapy as the title reads— but I think it gives a pretty good overview of how a mecosystem works, and might find some interesting ideas in the book.

[Pepin]

I am quite convinced that we deal with parts all throughout the day, but run into the issue of attributing our own thoughts to our self. The ideas we have, the things we remember, the thought that goes on behind the scenes are all instances of the mecosystem at work. I am certain that we have all have had those times where we take a few seconds to think about something, such as an answer to a question someone has asked us, and we actually don't do any thinking and just wait for an answer. I am often amazed at some of the lightning quick reasoning my mind does at times where there is a long and intricate argument that I experience, and then a quarter of second later rebuttal, and then a quarter of a second later some sort of conclusion. The majority of my thoughts are not conscious and are rather things I experience.

 

A large part of self knowledge is to be able to identify yourself. To expand upon this, I would claim that people put too much focus on identifying parts, and not enough focus on identifying the self. There are many reasons for why this is, but my claim is that it is a far better method to have an ability to identify the self, as you will then be able to identify any part or unconscious activity as "non-self".

 

What I've found myself is that the majority of my mental activity is unconscious. The bulk of my conscious activity involves long term planning, analyzing interpreting difficult lines of reasoning, impulse control, and identifying flaws and abnormalities in sensation; arguments; and perception, and remaining neutral among conflicting ideas and opinions whether internal or external.

 

A large part of the mecosytem are parts that model other people. I am certain that we have all had the experience of arguing with someone in our head, and this is allowed because part of us has modeled this person. Though most people don't think about it in such terms, it is the most natural and everyday mecosystem experience we have. We will usually be playing the part of ourselves in the discussion, and the other part will be entirely separate from us. If you doubt this, next time you get into a argument or strong disagreement with someone, and are later playing through a debate in your head, take a second to slow down and observe. Make an argument and wait for the response. You won't have to wait for it, it'll just come, and it will be fully formed and thought out in the person's tone and rhetoric.

 

To make this point even more clear, most have had the issue of not being able to stop this debate in our heads. The conversation will continue to occur despite our conscious efforts to drop the subject. This is often because the person is literally in our head, and because the part is often debating another part within us. This is why psychological bullying can be so harmful, part of our psyche will take on the part in order to handle interactions with the bully in the best manner possible, but if we have artificially constraints in our approach to handling bullies, the bully will remain within and continue to bully us.

 

Like with all parts, there are positive intentions in this. As I suggested above, the modeling of a bully is intended to determine the best course of action in handling the bully, and not to create an internal bully that will stay with you forever. Ideally, if the conflict with the bully can be solved internally, then it can be solved externally. Though this is anecdotal evidence, my own bullying parts disappeared once I dealt with them internally. There was a few cases where I dealt with them internally, and then when I encountered the bully I played it out similar to how it was in my head, and the bullying stopped completely. For anyone who has these issues, I would suggest using the internal dialog to your advantage by finding a way to deal with the situation externally, as I would argue that this is why the internal dialog is occurring in the first place.

 

In the case of parental bullies, the modeling is vital in providing the child an understanding of actions they can and cannot take; subjects to bring up and subjects not to bring up; who to be and who not to be. It is essentially a survival mechanism which allows for predicting the behavior of others, which is quite vital in the more tribal days of mankind, as saying the wrong thing to the wrong person would likely get you killed. It is important to remember that infanticide in prehistoric times was very common, and not knowing your parents or other members of the tribe to a high degree would lead to abandonment.

 

This kind of modeling is far more difficult to overcome as our brains mold according to these people. Your parental parts will likely always be within you, which is why it is essential to deal with them.

 

To provide a more positive side of modeling, it allows us to empathize and understand people with great depth. I am certain we've all had those experiences where we know exactly what a good friend is thinking; where you'll both be on the same train of thought; where something you said makes little sense verbally, but they understand anyway; where you know just the thing to say or do to cheer them up.

 

I can go on, but my main point is that there is a tendency to think of the mecosystem in terms of unique and distinct personalities within us, when really that those parts make up a smaller subset of the mecosystem, and that the key to identifying parts is identifying the self.

[charlesp]

Wow, I had never heard of this, I'm pretty new to the podcast, but I've definitely talked to myself before, arguing logic with myself (sometimes out loud embarassingly) just blurt something out and everyone is like huh?

I'm doing a lot of digging into my past and remembering things I'd long buried, and the last two nights I've had weird dreams unlike anything I've ever dreamed before..anyone have episode numbers about the mecosystem so I can learn more?