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Originally Posted by FooZe
"What if?" Are you saying that did happen for you, or you just want to be prepared in case it does?
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Well, she did disappear. I could not find her at all when I did this exercise. And the world expanded into blackness and I was drowning in it. That was my experience. But what you are saying about the stories we tell ourselves.. after I had this experience, it became a story. I processed it in words and began to analyze it. I think I actually do this to the majority of events that noticeably change my emotions in any way, good or bad.
As in,
given the scalpel, they dissect a kiss, or, sold the reason, they undream a dream. And, writing that, I should caution myself not to make another story out of it. But I will, anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FooZe
Going out on a limb a bit here: I say that if it's your experience, the tendency will be for you to move through it and out the other side to whatever's up next for you. If it's a story, the tendency will be for it to become more solid, persistent, believable and convincing.
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Absolutely. Thank you for this. That is exactly the difference. I struggle a lot to tell the difference between my experience and the story-about-my-experience (the judgments, the analysis). This is exactly it. Ha. This is how I
experience my "stories."
Quote:
Originally Posted by FooZe
Last year you turned me on to Steven Hayes and his colleagues, whom I've been reading ever since as time permits (doing my laundry, waiting for my flight to be called... ). I was tickled to find that they draw a distinction between something they call "clean pain" and "dirty pain". Clean pain is whatever you're willing to experience, allow to happen, let go of and move on. Dirty pain is what you subject yourself to in order to avoid clean pain, and is by far the more unpleasant of the two. I hadn't seen these terms before and I know that if someone had told me earlier that I was subjecting myself to "dirty pain" it would've sounded pretty awful to me and I would've subjected myself to a whole lot more dirty pain to defend myself from the accusation. |
Clean pain vs. dirty pain has been my favorite ACT explanation so far, actually! It's cool to hear you bring it up! I also like the "struggle switch." I ask myself, "is your struggle switch on?"
Actually, do you remember the thread after my last session with my old T? At the end of the post, I said something like, "this is clean pain, this is life-lived-well pain." I was totally thinking in ACT terms at the time. And at that time, I drew heavily on ACT skills to get me through the whirlwind of crazy emotion.
Each metaphor has a tendency, though, to trap and trick me, since I can use
any metaphor to avoid internal experiences. Or, I should say, I have a tendency to use metaphors to trap and trick myself. Even one like distinguishing between clean and dirty pain. But maybe that tendency to trap and trick myself kind of plays along with this idea:
If you know what I mean.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FooZe
My experience of such "situations" is rather different. I typically find myself thinking, "I disappear? OK, I disappear! I've been creating my experience (and my story) since way back so what's one more time?"
Heck, I disappear every time I fall asleep and create myself again when I wake up. I'll bet you do the same!
Many have said this and I'm not sure exactly whom I'm quoting: the only way out is through.
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I don't feel ready to believe that I disappear when I sleep! I feel I'll go insane if I allow myself to notice, like Sylvia Plath, that when I close my eyes, the whole world drops dead. Right now it is a story, so I can bear it, but the experience is something different. My brain sometimes starts to scream when I meditate, well screaming like sirens, telling me that this experience is dangerous. And who am I to know whether it is possible that I could approach a gate which would propel me to "another side" and my "self" on this earth would be forever lost? Who knows what makes people really lose it?