Dear lorn,

i think that i have a horrible way to regulate my feelings, i sometimes laugh when im sad

i sometimes beleive that i have a belief inside that say “crying is for weak people”

i see life in an absurd way, i don’t think i respect it, nor do i respect my feelings… some feelings has no real purpose, they create “unnecessary suffering” and i think i just laugh when they appear.

It could be that your emotions were not validated when you were a child, or perhaps you were told that “crying is for weak people”. And so you don’t want to express sadness but you laugh instead. Because crying was not allowed, or you were ridiculed for it?

its connected to my early childhood where i was left alone when i was in pain,

There was no one to soothe your pain, and we as children desperately need to be soothed when we are in pain. That’s how we learn to later soothe our own pain, in adulthood.

Now you naturally want someone to soothe your pain. You do feel pain (even if you don’t allow yourself to cry), and you want to be soothed. And you’re craving for someone of the opposite sex to do it. So I guess a romantic interest, right?

That’s all very natural – we want our emotional needs to be met. If our parents weren’t able to meet our emotional needs, we as adults crave for a romantic partner to do it. You say your craving and desire is strong, you call it addiction (the desire is so strong i began to call it the addiction). That’s normal too – our longing for love and care is so strong, that it’s almost like an addiction.

i want someone to lessen the pain, why im not doing that ? how do i do that ?

I think you’d first need to acknowledge that you have legitimate emotional needs, which weren’t met in your childhood. Your need to be soothed when you are in pain is one such basic need. And it’s completely valid. You shouldn’t judge yourself for it. So allow yourself to feel pain, allow yourself to cry  – because crying is healing. It’s not just for weak people.

Also, do you have an option to attend therapy? I think having someone to serve as a good, compassionate parent figure, who will hear you out and mirror your feelings – is what you’d need. A good therapist can fulfill that role.

A refreshing post

Reminded me of a high school moment. A Summer night I was with group of friends and girl friend who sometime during the night was making out with another close friend of mine. What I remember is my other friends being concerned as they assumed I knew and I remember thinking oh they need me to be upset. That night as I lay in bed that night I had this odd sensation wondering where emotions came from. It wasn’t that I wasn’t hurt, disappointed… mostly confused, emotions were present but not.

In that moment its possible I was in a kind of shock were I dissociated myself from the experience, only in bed that night I remember it more as a moment of clarity – we  experience emotions for many reasons, but we are not our emotions.

Begging the questions what are these things we call emotions and where and what was this thing I experienced as ‘self’ that experienced them.

Hi Peter,

we experience emotions for many reasons, but we are not our emotions.

Begging the questions what are these things we call emotions and where and what was this thing I experienced as ‘self’ that experienced them.

True, we’re not our emotions, and we’re not our thoughts either. A Portuguese neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has a very interesting theory (backed by his clinical experience), which says that emotions are key in decision making, i.e. that they help us make decisions. They are a complement to reasoning.

He studied patients with brain injury, specifically the injury of a part of the neocortex called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). He observed that those patients can do math and can speak articulately, however they lose their ability to relate to people, to read social cues and also to make decisions. Their lives fall apart, even if their intellectual abilities are intact.

He concluded that it’s because this part of the neocortex normally receives information from the lower parts of the brain (limbic and “reptilian”). If this information is not being transmitted, we’re not getting the emotional/danger cues, and we can’t make a decision on e.g. what is good for us in a certain situation. We can’t respond to danger properly either.

So he concludes that emotions are super important, even if they can be sometimes misleading (actually they can be misleading a lot of times, if we have a lot of unresolved issues that make us misinterpret things, get triggered easily etc). But still, he concludes that emotions are crucial for our healthy functioning. He describes his findings in his book “Descartes’ Error”, if you’re interested in more details.

As for what is the Self that is experiencing emotions, that’s a good question. I guess it can’t be found in one particular part of the brain 🙂 I think it’s more of the mind and heart working in sync, but I guess mind and heart clear from false beliefs and emotional wounds… Anyway, I don’t want to get too philosophical, but I just wanted to share this view on emotions, which I think is quite profound.

Richard Wagamese – says it better

“From our very first breath, we are in relationship. With that indrawn draft of air, we become joined to everything that ever was, is and ever will be. When we exhale, we forge that relationship by virtue of the act of living. Our breath commingles with all breath, and we are a part of everything. That’s the simple fact of things. We are born into a state of relationship. Relationships never end; they just change. In believing that lies the freedom to carry compassion, empathy, love, kindness and respect into and through whatever changes. We are made more by that practice.”

The sound of one hand clapping – Aum

Hi Peter,

To love our neighbor as ourselves isn’t then a reflection of how we love ourselves, or not only that, but that our neighbor is also It and so also our Self.

Yes, we are all One…

A psychotherapist Richard Schwartz, founder of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, had been working with hundreds of people, who all said that when they unblend from all their parts (the protector part, the child part etc), what remains is their true self. What that observes all those other parts is the true self. And so Richard Schwartz began to call it the Self (with the capital S).

There is a beautiful youtube video by another therapist (Dr. Tori Olds), who explains our Self from that perspective, including the 8 characteristics of the Self. It’s titled “How to find yourself: The True Self in IFS therapy“. I think it’s worth watching. It kind of blends psychotherapy and spirituality when explaining our true self, and to me, it’s quite fascinating.

Hi Brandy

Memory is a trickster so its not something I can be certain of. At the time that experience and others engendered questions more then answers not that I was fully mindful of that. At the age when Life happens I think such questions are filed away and it is only in hindsight that I sense that the questions were… being worked on.  Having often fallen into the trap of indifference while trying to convince myself it was healthy detachment, I wonder about that period of my life.

Hi Tee

Thanks for the Youtube recommendation. Intriguing thought that  ‘what’ observes the parts is the true self

Thanks Tee for the introduction to Dr. Tori Olds. Makes me feel more hopeful for the future when I discover persons like Dr. Tori Olds.

I’ve been exploring ‘contemplation’  which also evolves the notion of the compassionate observer as a path to the capital S Self experience.

I have also hoped that G_d cares… loves me… lately when that thought arises, the notion that ‘I am’ It… as everyone is It (the drop of water also contains the ocean – As above so below, as below so above – our person are “maps” to the above as the above reveals the person) Anyway when that hope arises I wonder if I’m asking if ‘I’ care and love ‘me’ in the moment when the thought arises.

When Jung was asked the question if he believed in G_d (G_d-Christ –  Brahman-Atman – capital S -Self) he replied that he did not believe because he knew. He was highly criticized for that answer and he didn’t explain himself as far as I know. But I think  that having had the experience of the capital S Self it isn’t something you believe or hope for its something you ‘know’ (To know not intellectually but from the source of the Self which is also what  Dr. Tori Olds hinds at when she talks of the Mind that is free.) Joseph Campbell also hints at the ‘knowing’ verses believing in his dialogs.  I’d go so far as to suggest that all the wisdom traditions, when not viewed as a set of rules, reveal the same truths.