The Tea Room

HI all,

Right around the time I hit the grounding lesson I was also hit with a very bad depression. I have episodic depression, and it can get quite severe at times. Other times, it does not bother me and I am in a normal, ok, even happy mood. When I am normal it's not hard to do the grounding eight times a day. However, when I am in the grip of depression it is difficult. For starters, I don't want to get out of bed and sit up to do the grounding. I have been experimenting with doing the grounding in bed, but I am not sure this is ok. My intuition says to try to sit up, but if I just don't have the wherewithal to do so because of depression or pain (I have rheumatoid arthritis) do you think it's ok to do the grounding lying down? It is a bit awkward but it seems to work as well for me as sitting as long as I remember to open the crown. I ask this because I spend a fair amount of time in bed resting due to RA and depression.

Also, how does one treat depression from an fst standpoint? Do I do entity clearings on it? I do surrender it when I am not depressed. The problem with the depression is that I stop caring about things when I am in it, so I don't care about Goddess, or surrendering to Her, or anything spiritual. I don't see the point of doing anything, because I believe there is no point, because I won't enjoy it. I experience a severe lack of pleasure, a displeasure, even when I am depressed. I feel like I have a bad attitude, but I don't care enough to do anything about it, like doing the grounding. It's almost like a voice tells me there's no point to do grounding, it won't make anything better, that nothing will make it better.  I feel like everything just severely sucks and I can't fix it. I don't know why I get like this. I have been experiencing depression since I was a little girl, so it goes way back. I know it is sometimes linked to my RA, if I have a lot of inflammation I will feel depressed. The depression also started with the advent of the RA at six years old.

Anyway, I ask all this because the depression is interfering with my ability to do grounding eight times a day for 45 days. Right now I just do groundings when I can and wait for the depressive episodes to clear. Advice or suggestions would be welcome.

WZ

   Position is important when first learning to ground, getting yourself oriented. Once you have it down, you could be doing a headstand on the space station, and it would still work. Don't let a horizontal position be a reason not to get grounded.

 Observing the breath is another way to ground that is posture-irrelevant.

 Louise Hay said depression is anger turned inward and I have found it to be true. It sometimes changes face though and turns into self pity. Self pity is a devastating emotion when it comes to personal empowerment. It feeds on itself and grows, its immobilizing. Anger is actually healthier in that respect. Anger is always mis-informed but at least it is active.  

 The antidote is the usual karma cleaning, find the emotions in yourself and surrender them. Depression is around the power chakra. Look at them too, meditating, embracing the shadow stuff.  Find your anger, own it. Mitigate the pity by counting your blessings, it feeds the power chakra best.

  You got the arthritis so young, and started getting a lot more and nicer attention than you had before. At lot of the attention from your care givers had an element of pity, because that is how people respond to a sick child and so you learned to look for, or inspire those emotions to get the care you needed. "Poor me" control drama became embedded. I don't think you manipulate people with that so much anymore but the internal pattern remains. I think self pity is a big element of your RA related depression.

 Self pity is poison. It is taboo for me.  I have been having kind of a hard time lately with some health issues, the worst is that menopause makes ADD a hundred times worse and some days its a train of failures, as well as the current collection of feminine heath issues, anaemia, chronic pain, etc.

  I am allowed less than two seconds of self pity before my guide starts giving me movies of so many people who are so worse off than I am:  from paraplegics and amputees, to starving African children... self pity instantly becomes embarrassing, like I am acting like a spoiled child and really have nothing to complain about, with the side effect that my focus is switched to counting my blessings, which are so abundant I feel awed.

 The power of gratitude. If you can find it in yourself to genuinely thank Goddess for all the stuff in your life that you hate, the stuff is transformed. Gratitude is the opposite of resistance, and an awesome power of itself, feeds the power chakra so you feel empowered and better about everything.
  Sometimes, it works to focus on what you really are grateful for, build up the gratitude energy inside yourself so you are glowing overflowing, then aim some of the overflow gratitude energy,  at the hated stuff. Wear away at it, like that.

 

 Thanks for responding. I find what you said to be helpful and relevant. The next part I feel a bit conflicted about.

>>You got the arthritis so young, and started getting a lot more and nicer attention than you had before. At lot of the attention from your care givers had an element of pity, because that is how people respond to a sick child and so you learned to look for, or inspire those emotions to get the care you needed. "Poor me" control drama became embedded. I don't think you manipulate people with that so much anymore but the internal pattern remains. I think self pity is a big element of your RA related depression.

Actually, I got a lot more and nicer attention from my caregivers BEFORE the arthritis. That may be one reason I'm angry, that arthritis took the attention away from me that I was used to. The attention I did get from adults in my family after my diagnosis was stress-based. I got a lot of being pushed towards independence, to the point where if I expressed anger or sadness about having arthritis, I was angrily and vehemently silenced. No one knew how to comfort me when I was in pain and yes, the word self-pity was thrown around a fair bit.  My peers pretty much overlooked me because I couldn't play physical games the same way anymore. So yeah, getting arthritis meant less positive attention, more negative attention.

Reading this feels like a pity trip, so I guess it's time to surrender that.

I guess nowadays I'm pissed off that I can't work or go to school, that I need a wheelchair and home support services to be healthy. I guess instead of resenting that I should be grateful that I live somewhere it's possible to have such things. One of the reasons I had to leave Vancouver was because my homecare services were cut to the point where I couldn't function. There is just a lot more home support available in Newfoundland. I am angry I had to leave Vancouver, even though I recognize it was time.

Thank you for saying you don't think I deliberately manipulative people that way anymore. I really don't make a habit of it, but the self-pity does come out as anger in my interactions sometimes, so the pattern is still there. I need to surrender that too. Question: how does one surrender when one is so pissed they hate Goddess? I get like that in my depressions. Sometimes they get so bad I become agnostic and don't even know if I believe in Goddess. Mental illness is a beast. It can so easily change one's perspective for the worst, regardless of whether the perception is true or not.

Gratitude is a good idea. I used to make gratitude lists, I should keep doing that. Above all, I think I need to keep talking to God/dess, even if the throes of depression and bad attitude and agnosticism and despair. Even if I am cranky with Her.

Above all, I think I need to keep talking to God/dess, even if the throes of depression and bad attitude and agnosticism and despair. Even if I am cranky with Her.

  Yeah, bitch at Her. Blame Her for everything.

  Not some patriarchal fathergod going to strike you down with lightning for saying a bad word.  Goddess does not get upset at people for what they do. She is Love.

  Is ok to get mad at Her, scream, cry, call Her names.  Don't hold back. She is All that is, so any name you can call Her, She is that too.

   Blaming Her for everything that is wrong with your life, is giving Her responsibility for it. Power, karma and responsibility are connected, they follow each other, so blaming Goddess for stuff, is an ass-backward but quite effective form of surrender.

  When you get to a calmer place, surrender that too. So your projections do not linger to limit your experience of Her.

   Blame faeries too, they give back giggles. They can see the God in you so they find blaming them for stuff to be incredibly funny.

Hello WZ,

I wanted to share some personal experiences and insights about depression and FST. Like you, I have experienced serious depression since early childhood. I have had to live in silence and shame through several, terribly scary, lonely, suicidal depressive episodes that used to lasted for months all through my adolescence till late 20s. I don't know about your specific situation and experiences but I can relate with you on certain points.

Quote"The problem with the depression is that I stop caring about things when I am in it, so I don't care about Goddess, or surrendering to Her, or anything spiritual. I don't see the point of doing anything, because I believe there is no point, because I won't enjoy it. I experience a severe lack of pleasure, a displeasure, even when I am depressed."

During my initial days of K-awakening, my depression got really bad. I have always been able to do my professional work and personal chores without letting depression take over. Even though being depressed was not new to me, I felt that with my own K awakening I hit new levels of bottom that I never could have imagined possible or wish on anyone else. I was unable to meet people socially and was having trouble with work and school because I could not sincerely give a damn about any of it.

One day, I realized that I could not and did not know/want to participate in life. When people around me got excited about their work or relationships or personal projects, I just felt numb and wanted to withdraw because I could not relate to any of them or their experiences. When I catch a cold, I cannot taste flavor or smell the food (only hot or cold) no matter what I eat. Being depressed felt like that - except I couldn't taste or find joy in life. It really alarmed me that I did not seem to care.

QuoteI feel like I have a bad attitude, but I don't care enough to do anything about it, like doing the grounding. It's almost like a voice tells me there's no point to do grounding, it won't make anything better, that nothing will make it better.  I feel like everything just severely sucks and I can't fix it.

Whatever little I did to gain control over my life, it got washed away like sand castles on a beach with the next tide of depressive attacks. One of my worst depressive episode was when I wished that I had never existed. I was so angry, exhausted, helpless, and wanted to be put out of my misery. I was very convinced that I was 'broken beyond repair' and a burden to everyone in my life. I could not take my own life because I was repeatedly shown (by my guide) how devastated my parents would be which made me angrier and feel trapped.

I wanted to kill myself because I believed that I did not matter. I could not go through with it because I was shown that my actions DO matter, both in life and in death, and that I do not have much choice about it. I could not say "Screw you! I will be dead and I don't care" to the people who gave me life and raised me (irrespective of their mistakes and shortcomings as parents). Even in my worst moments of K depression, I remember telling myself that I did not want to die ungrateful or cause more misery to anyone. I can relate with your feeling that 'everything sucks and I can't fix it'. I was watching myself fall apart and had no willpower to ask for help. I gave up on myself because I felt hopeless and wanted to be done so that I can 'rest in peace' after all the crap. But I could not take myself out and hated what I had to face.

QuoteI ask all this because the depression is interfering with my ability to do grounding eight times a day for 45 days. Right now I just do groundings when I can and wait for the depressive episodes to clear. Advice or suggestions would be welcome.

When I started doing grounding exercises, I quit several times after a few days of practice. I did not believe that I could do it because grounding 8 times a day for 45 days seemed like an impossible task - esp. when I felt I did not and could not give a damn about anything. One night, I was so miserable and desolate. I got down on my knees crying and prayed "I dunno what is going on or what to ask for. I dunno how to surrender. I don't want to be miserable. Please take this pain away from me. Please help me. Please guide me." I climbed onto my bed, cried for a while, and then fell asleep. When I woke up in the morning, I felt lighter even though my struggles with depression continued.

At one stage during my K-awakening, I felt that it was very unfair and cruel to expect me to do my grounding exercise when I already felt exhausted and unmotivated. I kept arguing with my guide - 'Make me feel better and give me motivation to do my grounding exercises.' I approached Mystress and requested to book a session with her because I thought she could fix me and then it won't be such a struggle to do grounding. She responded "I don't have a magic wand to wave at you and make you see that you're worth the effort." That really shook me.

I (re)started doing my grounding practice. The initial 2 weeks was difficult for me because I would keep worrying about whether or not I am grounding properly, how I should grow spiritually, what's the point of all this, and where is all this leading me towards. Whatever small improvements I noticed, I kept dismissing it as too trivial or fleeting. So I told myself - 'Well.. why don't you just do it for 45 days irrespective of how you feel about the outcome?' I kept surrendering my ideas and expectations about how grounding can help me.

After the first 2 weeks, it became easier to have a routine practice. I still was going through very turbulent inner stuff. But I slowly started noticing and experiencing that every step I take towards my own growth, the universe was sending more support and guidance without me asking. The more I grounded, the more unresolved things came up. The more they came up, the more I surrendered and asked for guidance. It was helpful to shift my attitude from 'I have to ground' to 'I want to ground'.

I am not saying it was all smooth sailing from there on. But establishing regular grounding practice made me feel hopeful. I had no answers about anything and everything was still very confusing. When I say grounding practice made me feel hopeful, I simply mean that I wanted to fight for myself. As someone who has had to live with suicidal depression for several decades, getting to a point where I could truly say to myself 'No... I am not giving up.' was a tremendous breakthrough for me. It felt wonderful to know that I was on my side, albeit limping and whining.

Looking back, I can say this for myself about the 45 day grounding practice: it was totally worth the effort. If I could go back in time, there is no way I can explain using words what 45 day grounding practice did for me. The proof is in the pudding. Things did get better for me after I surrendered my own ideas about what is better for me. I still have depressive episodes but it does not take over my life like it used it. I do not feel suicidal anymore. Neither do I feel helpless. When I am grounded, emotional tides can rise and fall without me crumbling into despair like I used to before. On a bad day, I feel grateful for being given enough to keep moving. On a good day, I feel grateful that I get to live and love another day.

One thing that helped me a lot during my initial K awakening turbulence was doing service. When I felt 'everything sucks so what's the point anyway', I made a commitment to do service. I volunteered at the local animal shelter and did other community stuff. It brought a lot of comfort to me. I felt useful and less miserable knowing that I helped someone. It was very humbling and life affirming to serve others when I felt really depressed and down. It also helped me get out of my own head and focus on the needs of another.

Not sure if any of this was helpful but I do want to let you know that I have experienced similar doubts and tribulations. And that I am very glad I did my grounding exercises despite my struggles with depression and fear of unknown.

Namaste! :)

Hi Gopi,

QuoteDuring my initial days of K-awakening, my depression got really bad. I have always been able to do my professional work and personal chores without letting depression take over. Even though being depressed was not new to me, I felt that with my own K awakening I hit new levels of bottom that I never could have imagined possible or wish on anyone else. I was unable to meet people socially and was having trouble with work and school because I could not sincerely give a damn about any of it.

This is where I am now, not giving a damn about getting out of bed and engaging in life. Some days I am only able to eat and sleep when I get hit by depression. If I didn't have a homecare worker, I probably wouldn't eat or shower.

QuoteOne day, I realized that I could not and did not know/want to participate in life. When people around me got excited about their work or relationships or personal projects, I just felt numb and wanted to withdraw because I could not relate to any of them or their experiences. When I catch a cold, I cannot taste flavor or smell the food (only hot or cold) no matter what I eat. Being depressed felt like that - except I couldn't taste or find joy in life. It really alarmed me that I did not seem to care

This is the most perfect analogy for depression I have ever read. It IS like having a spiritual cold where your u can't feel
The joy your u see in others. I look at other people taking joy in life and I just can't understand it. I feel nothing but a dark fog. Ever read Harry Potter? Remember the prison with the Dementors, spirits that feed on happiness? I feel like I have one of those hovering over me.

QuoteWhatever little I did to gain control over my life, it got washed away like sand castles on a beach with the next tide of depressive attacks. One of my worst depressive episode was when I wished that I had never existed. I was so angry, exhausted, helpless, and wanted to be put out of my misery. I was very convinced that I was 'broken beyond repair' and a burden to everyone in my life. I could not take my own life because I was repeatedly shown (by my guide) how devastated my parents would be which made me angrier and feel trapped.

I often wish I didn't exist when I get like this. I sometimes even pray to Goddess for an early death because I don't want
To be on this one planet. Like you, I would never committ suicide because it would devastate my family and friends.

QuoteI wanted to kill myself because I believed that I did not matter. I could not go through with it because I was shown that my actions DO matter, both in life and in death, and that I do not have much choice about it. I could not say "Screw you! I will be dead and I don't care" to the people who gave me life and raised me (irrespective of their mistakes and shortcomings as parents). Even in my worst moments of K depression, I remember telling myself that I did not want to die ungrateful or cause more misery to anyone. I can relate with your feeling that 'everything sucks and I can't fix it'. I was watching myself fall apart and had no willpower to ask for help. I gave up on myself because I felt hopeless and wanted to be done so that I can 'rest in peace' after all the crap. But I could not take myself out and hated what I had to face.

I understand this exactly.

QuoteWhen I started doing grounding exercises, I quit several times after a few days of practice. I did not believe that I could do it because grounding 8 times a day for 45 days seemed like an impossible task - esp. when I felt I did not and could not give a damn about anything.

This is what happens to me, i do grounding eight times a day for a few days and then give up when the depression takes over.

QuoteAt one stage during my K-awakening, I felt that it was very unfair and cruel to expect me to do my grounding exercise when I already felt exhausted and unmotivated. I kept arguing with my guide - 'Make me feel better and give me motivation to do my grounding exercises.' I approached Mystress and requested to book a session with her because I thought she could fix me and then it won't be such a struggle to do grounding. She responded "I don't have a magic wand to wave at you and make you see that you're worth the effort." That really shook me.

When I am depressed I do not feel I am worth it, that anything is worth anything.

QuoteI (re)started doing my grounding practice. 'Well.. why don't you just do it for 45 days irrespective of how you feel about the outcome?' I kept surrendering my ideas and expectations about how grounding can help me.

This seems like a great attitude to have. When I bitch about having to ground my guide tells me I have nothing better to do, as I'm just lying around anyway.

Quote
I am not saying it was all smooth sailing from there on. But establishing regular grounding practice made me feel hopeful. I had no answers about anything and everything was still very confusing. When I say grounding practice made me feel hopeful, I simply mean that I wanted to fight for myself. As someone who has had to live with suicidal depression for several decades, getting to a point where I could truly say to myself 'No... I am not giving up.' was a tremendous breakthrough for me. It felt wonderful to know that I was on my side, albeit limping and whining.

Looking back, I can say this for myself about the 45 day grounding practice: it was totally worth the effort. If I could go back in time, there is no way I can explain using words what 45 day grounding practice did for me. The proof is in the pudding. Things did get better for me after I surrendered my own ideas about what is better for me. I still have depressive episodes but it does not take over my life like it used it. I do not feel suicidal anymore. Neither do I feel helpless. When I am grounded, emotional tides can rise and fall without me crumbling into despair like I used to before. On a bad day, I feel grateful for being given enough to keep moving. On a good day, I feel grateful that I get to live and love another day.

Thank you for your words of advice, Gopi. You've described both the depressive process and moving through it with grounding beautifully. I've been doing as Mystress  advised, yelling at Goddess and giving gratitude when in a better frame of mind. It helps
To take things I hate and try to turn it around with gratitude. Eg. I hate needing a power chair, I love having a power chair. My homecare workers get on my nerves, I'm glad I have homecare workers. I hate walking because  it hurts, I'm glad I can walk (AGAIN!!! Thanks to ankle replacements)

QuoteOne thing that helped me a lot during my initial K awakening turbulence was doing service. When I felt 'everything sucks so what's the point anyway', I made a commitment to do service. I volunteered at the local animal shelter and did other community stuff. It brought a lot of comfort to me. I felt useful and less miserable knowing that I helped someone. It was very humbling and life affirming to serve others when I felt really depressed and down. It also helped me get out of my own head and focus on the needs of another.

I have signed up to volunteer at the local hospital and am waiting on the scheduling department to get back to me (damn slow Island Time!) i also do drumming for seniors with my local women's aboriginal group. It helps with gratitude to see
That I have it so good, especially compared
To some folks I see. It's still hard with the extra hit of empathy though.l, to see people suffering so badly. It was hard for
Me, living in Vancouver seeing homeless disabled people. It's better here in NL,
Folks look out for each other more
Than in the cities.

QuoteNot sure if any of this was helpful but I do want to let you know that I have experienced similar doubts and tribulations. And that I am very glad I did my grounding exercises despite my struggles with depression and fear of unknown.

This was very helpful,
Thanks for sharing!

WZ

Apologies for the awkward html quotes, I am doing this on an iphone and don't know how to use quotes, clearly. 😜

 Hope you are not trying to do the lessons on your phone too. I have found it kills the energy flat and isn't recommended. There seems to be a relationship between screen size and energy transmission, its better if the screen occupies most of your visual field and a tiny phone screen leaves too much in the peripheral.
I don't use the quote function, its awkward. I just paste the line I am quoting and colour it brown.
  Fixed the post. You mostly got it right, just the closing tag uses a forward slash / not a backslash. \

  Is good to see students supporting each other. :)

Hi Angelique,

I am using my phone This week because I am out of town. You are
Right, it does depress the energy rush I usually get. I hAve your grounding audio
File downloaded onto my phone so I can ground away from home.
I Find the energy comes through fine with the audio.

ThAnk you for fixing my quotes. 😀

Angelique, when I'm lying in bed a lot could I do a body scan Ala Jon Kabat-Zinn instead of a grounding? Or should I do the eight groundings exactly as you demonstrate? Can Breathing be used in lieu of grounding? Sometimes I find breathing or
The body scan is easier because they don't require as much focus.

WZ

I'm feeling better lately, maybe not physically, but mentally. Goddess forced me to leave Vancouver by making me too sick to stay, and I was feeling anger and self-pity for a long time because I had to leave my friends and social life behind. But I'm making friends in NL now and people are getting used to seeing my face, so I'm starting to feel more grounded where I live. I'm also having an easier time practising gratitude. For me, acceptance is what leads to gratitude. If I can just accept that this is my life, no matter how different it looks from what I want, then peace follows.. Then I can feel gratitude for having enough to support me when things can tough. For instance, last week I had a bad reaction to a medication and had to go to emergency. The ambulance only took 5 minutes to get to me, and then the next day when I was talking to my pharmacist he figured out which drug was causing the reaction. So I still got really sick, but I managed to get through it without self-pity or depression because I was busy focusing on the gratitude of having all this medical care without a 5 minute drive.

I've noticed that when I feel self-pity, I also feel fatigue and depression. For me, the fatigue and depression come first, and the self-pity is secondary because I feel sorry for myself because I feel like crap. I don't know what to do with the self-pity but I trust Goddess will help me figure it out. I try to remind myself that even though it sucks that I feel tired and depressed and hurty, I still have a warm, comfortable bed and apartment to keep me housed and rested until I can feel better.

The acceptance was difficult to come to. I had a period of grieving for Vancouver and everything I left behind, and there was the loneliness of not having many social connections over last winter. But I've accepted that this is my life. Parts are good, and parts suck, but it's what I've been given and I get to make the most of it. I have much to be grateful for. I have a family that loves me, I have a great wheelchair accessible apartment, I have friends, people in the community see me out and about and talk to me, I have social and volunteer opportunities. The worst I can say is that I'm often bored, but boredom is fixable if you can be creative. There are worst problems to have.

I'm still having some problems with the grounding though. When I try to open my crown, it makes me aware of the near-constant headache I have and that's a bit of a distraction. When I focus on the sun’s warmth on top of my head, I feel pressure and pain in my crown and neck. When I bring the energy back up from the earth chakra, I feel like the kundalini can’t go all the way to the top because of this blockage. I also get headaches, migraines and neck pain.

I’ve been having problems with the grounding, with letting go and surrendering completely. When I try to fill my torso with light, it is difficult because of issues with the gut and sacral chakras. Often there will be a tightness, a heaviness, a dark, murky depression around my solar plexus.I think it has something to do with three large blockages I’m feeling.
When I bring the energy into my torso, I feel a huge dark mass, almost like a black hole, with an emotional sucking-type feeling around my solar plexus. It often comes with depression, self-pity, and anger. When I feel like life isn’t worth living, that everything sucks and I can’t fix it, this is the blockage that is most active. There is a tightness around my diaphragm, and an itchy feeling in my oblique muscles. I try to bring light into it, but the blockage just sits there. I also get an itchy, tingly feeling in my obliques that starts at the diaphram and goes down to the sacral chakra.

My sacral chakra is a mess. As I indicated in an earlier post, I am a survival of domestic violence, incest, rape and sexual assault. I don't know what to say about this chakra other than that it's a mess and there is a lot of fear stored there. I surrender these issues of the gut and sacral chakra, and bring light into the blockages, but they are stubborn and persistent.

So these are my challenges and realizations. It's been a nice period of growth recently and I'm pleased about it, despite difficulties.

Note to the group, WZ brought the issues to the monthly FST chat and found help there. Come to the chats!

Hi all,

Yes, during the last fst chat in sl Angelique and some of the other students helped me figure out that my huge solar plexus blockage was the result of that chakra pulling in energy and karmic from within myself and from others. That chakra has been feeding, or vamping off the energy around me and my environment. Angelique and the others did some work on my solar plexus and the end result was that now I have a spark/ball/vortex of light that lives in my solar plexus and is my vampire guide. I asked what name I could call it, and it told me to call it 'Pip'. So if you ever hear me talking about Pip, I'm referring to the ball of light in my tummy that eats karma and trauma and grief and depression.

I've spent the last month talking with Pip and feeding it karma and energy. It loves to eat energy from people who are receptive to surrender, and Mystress told me it has a built-in consent filter so the odds of me unconsensually vamping is lower, I guess. I do find there are things Pip won't eat. For instance, it won't let me take on karma or energy from predators, just the victims of predators. I don't know, it's still very new to me, and I'm not 100% sure of how it works. All I know is that my depression has been much better this month, even with the nights coming on at 4 PM. My headaches and pain have been better as well. I'm on a wait list for a shoulder replacement and my shoulder hasn't been bugging me as much lately, which is a huge relief.

I'd say since the last fst chat I've had 5 days of depression. That's really good for December weather. I think part of the feeling blue was the result of a cold I came down with. It really did sap my energy, as infections tend to do with people with RA. I feel much better now that it's lifting.

Definitely come to the FST chats in SecondLife! They are educational and rewarding, and a great way to do satsang.

WZ

  My vamp research is still ongoing. I have started to do a bit of outreach to vamp groups on fb. It is very unrewarding, they just attack me with stupid power games and arguments. They have never heard of the vamp mark and have decided I am a cult leader who wants them all infected with an astral parasite. 

  I have been trying to decide if they are projecting all this crap onto me so I will eat it or if they are acting out from hunger and might make more sense if I feed them some energy.

  Its not the chakra that does it, its the vamp mark. It is an artifact I find in the energy body of psi and sang vampires. It is actually a wormhole to non-duality with an immense capacity and a very talkative guide.

  Feels strange to be called Angelique here, most students call me Mystress.

Oh, well if you prefer to be called Mystress on fst and sl I can do that. It just feels a little weird to me to use titles, but if you want to be called Mystress I can do that. I don't mind either way. I guess I call you Angelique because I also think of you as a friend and it feels weird to address my friends by titles. But it's no biggie either way.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but the vamp mark is not the same as the vampire guide, but comes along with a vampire guide?

Its really only a few pagan friends who know me in person, who call me Angelique.  Mystress was my email handle for decades, it is also the handle I use here and on every other forum I am on, including technical ones for web design. I know your first name too but I do not call you that here eh?  Is not appropriate.

My R&D is ongoing. Comparing the shaman guide to the vamp guide:
Shaman guide is always the opposite gender of the body, indicating it springs from the unconscious mind- specifically it is a manifestation or mutation of the shadow self. With Shamans there is the mark- the death gate is a portal and it has a portal guardian, they are linked but separate.

Vamp guides give no indication of gender and get quite upset if you try to send them into the light. They are much more connected to the body, despite being quantum and able to be several places at once, perhaps via extending feeelers. They do not want to go into the light until the vamp can come with = Ascension. One of my sangs is ascended already, via his mark. Guidance says hes the first sang ever to ascend. Given the issues they have to deal with and the rampant paranoia, its not so surprising.  The vamp guide can get you ascended much, much faster than Kundalini. You can pretty much give it consent to eat all your karma, health issues and dysfunctions and it gets right on it, no need to surrender every bit individually. Handy!!

  So far I have no indication that the guide and the vamp mark are separate, and the few times its shown me anything resembling a human form seemed to be a joke. Once when a sang's guide was being bratty it sent me an image of the nasty rich blonde shopkeepers daughter from "little house on the prairie."  Ask it yourself, that's part of joining my vamp R&D team. :)

  The purpose of the WW2 evolutionary upgrade was to give vampires the ability to clean human emotional debris from the planetary magnetic field, which in turn gives the field a tune-up (it is the physical manifestation of Her mind, Her brain if you will) and enhances Her ability to evolve to meet the current environmental challenges.

  You know, I used to think She didn't really care about us.  She loves us unconditionally and will not weep when we die, all part of the cycle of life. With closer connection that is turned around.  She is the passionate nurturer, guardian and protector of the most precious and rare thing in all of the universe: Life. She has no doubt that we will survive the mess we have created, but She has also given me this long "things to do" list and training vampires to use their new ability to give Her brain a tune-up is part of that.

The last couple of months have been full of positive growth and change. Since being introduced to my vampire guide, Pip, and since learning the sock puppet method of resolving trauma, my depression has lifted considerably. January was rough for me because my SAD lightbox broke and I had to wait a while to get a replacement. But since using the lightbox regularly and doing the aforementioned spiritual techniques Mystress taught me, my depression has been much better. Most days are happy and productive. I still do spend a lot of time lying in bed, but it's from RA pain and fatigue or fatigue from the meds I'm on. I'm learning not do put myself down for days when I spend a lot of time in bed. And in between bouts of lying in bed I am busy and productive. I volunteer at the local hospital reading to long-term care residents and assisting with activities. I am a member of the Lion's Club which raises money for charity and community members. I am taking a review course of grade 3 to grade 8, and then plan to review a few courses from high school before doing some university courses on line. I have been to post-secondary before, but struggled because I didn't have some foundational knowledge. I didn't retain a lot of knowledge from juniour high and high school because I was too stressed out. Plus, I've been out of school now for 2 years and the review is good for my brain after a year of bad depression and tiredness.

I saw my rheumatologist and he's putting me on a stronger biologic drug for the rheumatoid arthritis. We're putting off the shoulder replacement for six months to see if the new med helps with the shoulder, or if it's pure damage. If it's pure damage even after being on Actemra, than we'll do a replacement. But he thinks I will see some relief from actemra and may not even need to shoulder replacement anytime soon.

I think a big part of my fatigue is having an extra 50 pounds on. I'm designating one junk food cheat day a week and am working with portion control to take the weight off. Diets really don't work for me because I hate the food you're required to eat. I'd rather eat meat and potatoes in small portions than salads in large!

I still am struggling with making being grounded a bigger priority. I probably do the grounding exercise anywhere form 25-50% of the time. This is not optimal, but I try to remind myself than some is better than none. I set a timer to go off on my phone every hour to do the grounding. I don't always do the grounding when it goes off though. Sometimes I am busy and don't see the reminder. Other times I am doing something else and don't want to take time away from it. Sometimes I'm just too damn lazy. Sometimes I'd rather watch Netflix. Sometimes I am wrapped up on conversation socializing with my family and don't want to take a break. It's good to see my excuses in print because I know what I have to work on.

Suffice to say, things are going well with me! I just have to work on doing the grounding more and not let excuses get in the way. I'm on lesson 20 Pacing Yourself and I'm reviewing all the previous lessons before going on the next section. I'm really enjoying doing this course and I look forward to the next FST chat in SL. Blessings everybody!

I'm noticing there's a difference in energy when I ground when in pain, and when I ground while not in pain. When I'm not in pain, the energy in my body is very joyful, happy, buzzy, and energetic. When I am in pain and do the grounding, the energy is deep, serious, silent and peaceful. I am aware that I hurt and I feel serious but I'm not depressed or feeling sorry for myself. When I am not in pain and ground, the energy is very vibrant. It's easier to get grounded when not in pain, obviously, but it's nice to know I can be in pain and still ground. If my body is in a serious pain state, I find doing Jon Kabat-Zinn's body scan meditation very effective and helpful. Not only does it ground me through breathing exercises, but it also calms the anxiety in the body. I'm learning that the method I use to ground is not as important as just being mindful to stay grounded. If I'm busy, or talking I try to take five slow breaths and really focus on my breathing. I remember the first time I did FST Mystress told me that limiting Goddess to a stopwatch or 'counting' the number of groundings is not the point. The point is to notice when I am grounded, and to ground when I am not. I know there is a lesson on additional forms of grounding but it's nice to have a few that work for me now. There is a grounding meditation on youtube I use that I wouldn't mind sharing in off-site links if you are ok with it, Mystress. Let me know.

Blessings,

WZ

My depression has also been helped by the formulation of a morning routine. I get up, sit under the lightbox for an hour and eat, shower, work out and then meditate/read FST for a half hour to an hour. Sharing because it helps me and could help others to know that morning routines and lightboxes are good for depression.

In the last month I've only had two days of depression, and that came as a result of physical and emotional burn-out from too much helping. I still do my morning routine every day and find that it starts the day off on a grounded foot. In early June I was so sad I wasn't functioning for a couple of weeks, so I saw the doc who referred me to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist was very compassionate, and I felt seen and heard by him. He recommended increasing my antidepressant and decreasing my anti-psychotic. Like my last psychiatrist, he is worried about high doses of the anti psychotic leading to tardive dyskinesia, a phenomenon in which the patient cannot stop moving. I think tardive dysekinesia with rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalga sounds like my personal ideal of hell! So far I've decreased it by a third and feel no ill effects. If I were psychotic, I might not know it, but the people who live here sure would! So I'm not worried. I trust Goddess and DB have my mental health handled.

He also recommended some other changes to my meds to help with pain, but I've decided not to implement those changes until I am under regular psychiatrist care. I'm waiting to hear back from his office about an appointment, though I suspect it might take another crisis to get seen. It's like that in psychiatrist, the squeaky wheels get the grease. In the meantime, I'm doing well. I'm being mindful to stay grounded, I'm doing my morning routine, and I'm going with the flow. I'm happy. :)

WZ

Hi,

Grounding has been particularly challenging for me in 2019. I have been struggling with severe pain and the resultant depression and anxiety that comes with that. I have been travelling a lot for medical purposes, being on the road from daylight to dark for several days on end just to see my specialists and get tests run. Basically, I spend 2 to 5 days on the road, 12 hours a day, and then it takes me about a week of lying in bed taking multiple painkillers to recover fully. I do this once or twice a month. I am planning to move to the nearest city at the end of August to be closer to better medical care, as this will alleviate most of the travelling I need to do for medical stuff.

So yeah, it’s been a challenge. I spent all March and April in bed with the pain level of 8 to 9 out of 10. In May and June, I spent half of those months in bed with high pain. I have been to outpatient/ER for four or five times, and have spoken to my doctor about the pain an equal amount of times. When I saw my rheumatologist in June, he told me his only recommendations at this point are narcotics and joint replacements. He is referring me to a pain specialist, so we’ll see if there are steps we can take to ease my pain while I wait for joint replacements.

I will admit I have been very depressed, anxious, scared, and feeling sorry for myself over the past few months. Sometimes I wonder where the line is between feeling sorrowful for yourself versus wallowing in self-pity. Mystress, you said that sometimes anger turns inward but changes face to become self-pity. You also said that anger is always misinformed but at least it is active. I would like to learn healthy and assertive ways of managing my anger without internalizing it and having it become self-pity and helplessness. But, is anger always misinformed? I remember a post where you talked about how angry mothers who were losing their children to drunk drivers created Mothers against Drunk Driving. I would think in this case the anger is very well-informed. Would you care to elaborate a bit on what you meant by saying anger is always misinformed?

I am sad to say that I have still not managed to ground eight times a day for 45 days. However, in January and February I did manage to ground 4 â€" 8 times a day for 4 ½ weeks. So I know it is possible, if I can just find the time and space and discipline and prioritize the grounding, to get to the state where grounding is permanent. Although I haven’t been doing my regular grounding practice, I have been focusing on observing the breath and I have been praying, a lot. And occasionally yelling at Goddess, blaming her for my pain and despair. But mostly I just pray. Sometimes when I am in a lot of pain, I beg Goddess desperately to take the pain from me. But I think sometimes my desperation stands in the way of Goddess receiving that pain. The desperation comes from subconscious beliefs that I deserve pain, that Goddess wants me to feel pain, and that the pain is all part of the greater plan for my life. I often see Goddess as a harsh, punishing, tough love beatings kinda gal. I may just be transferring my childhood feelings about Jehovah to the idea of Goddess. He was a God of wrath and vengeance. I sometimes wonder if this severe pain I experience is my way of working off past karma. Sometimes I wonder if it is a gift with a challenge in it from Goddess. Perhaps there are lessons, joy, experiences, and opportunities in being in pain that I have yet to see. Perhaps I was given this illness so I could learn how to heal myself through Goddess love. I trust there is a reason I suffer, and I trust that there is a path out of the suffering.

I’ve been having interesting dreams. I’ve had a couple lately where I have to set down very firm boundaries for my ex-boyfriend, and tell him no, and have him take the no. In that relationship, I found I was constantly having to set boundaries that got eroded and that became exhausting. So it’s good that I’m getting more assertive in dream world.

I had a dream where I was back in high school at a dance. At first, I was stiff, shy and depressed and didn’t interact. But then I started to smile and say hello. Suddenly, women were coming up to tell me that they’d been trying to make friends with me that I hadn’t been noticing! It makes me wonder how many opportunities for friendships I missed out on in my life because I was too depressed and shy. I think the dream was subtly nudging me to make more of an effort to get to know people.

I’ve also been dreaming a lot about watery vortexes. I don’t know what that means although I suspect it has something to do with the chakras and energy movement.

Thanks for listening,

WZ

... sitting quietly and unobtrusively with you. 

 I will admit I have been very depressed, anxious, scared, and feeling sorry for myself over the past few months. Sometimes I wonder where the line is between feeling sorrowful for yourself versus wallowing in self-pity. Mystress, you said that sometimes anger turns inward but changes face to become self-pity. You also said that anger is always misinformed but at least it is active. I would like to learn healthy and assertive ways of managing my anger without internalizing it and having it become self-pity and helplessness. But, is anger always misinformed? I remember a post where you talked about how angry mothers who were losing their children to drunk drivers created Mothers against Drunk Driving. I would think in this case the anger is very well-informed. Would you care to elaborate a bit on what you meant by saying anger is always misinformed?

You are kind of, misquoting me a bit and asking me to comment on things I don't think I said?

  Louise Hay said depression is anger turned inward, I have found that to be accurate most of the time. That the anger turns into self pity is common, and hazardous because that can grow into a suicidal monster.  Self pity is a victimhood state. locked into resistance to what Is, completely dis-empowering. Turns your power chakra into a sucking black hole.

I can indulge in self pity for about a minute before my shaman guide starts mocking me to snap me out of it. Starts giving me a parade of people who are so much worse off than I, until I am embarrassed at my own whining, and gratefully counting my blessings.

Gratitude is the opposite of resistance, it is the second most powerful energy after Unconditional love.

  Grief though, is a separate thing, kind of sacred because it is a reflection of love, ... still a form of resistance to what Is. Medically, depression is a chemical imbalance of the brain:  grief is a different sort of sadness. It is a process of recovering from loss.

  My druid for example, has been clinically depressed since his 20s. I peel it off him every day and he takes meds. Last Thursday he saw a specialist for a blind spot in one eye and was diagnosed with age related macular degeneration. Docs say the blind spot won't go away, it will slowly get worse and spread to the other eye and he might go legally blind, losing all his centre focus vision and only having peripheral left. (Shamans think otherwise and we are on it!)

Without the center focus there is no driving, reading, computer or TV.  UV light can make the condition worse... and now has to stay out of the sun... he self medicates with "green time" out in nature, sailing or fishing, ... he is grieving the losses.  Worried he will become a burden on me. Whole different energy from the usual depression. I can't just peel it off him, it is a process of adjustment he has to work through himself. I can only support.

  I suggest that what you are dealing with, might also be grief, not depression. I think if you look at it that way, the steps to recovery become clearer because grief has predictable stages like a roadmap.

Anger: Candace Lightner founded MADD in 1980, after her 13 year old daughter was killed in a hit and run by a drunk driver with a blood alcohol level of 2.0, it was his fifth offense.

Five years later she left the group and now speaks out against it, saying it has become a neo-prohibitionist movement whose focus on punishment has damaged many innocent lives with unjust sentences. Typical of the fruits of anger, no matter how well justified it may seem.

Angry people always think they are right, but think about your own past anger and how often it turned out to be based  on a mis-understanding.

  Statistically, most dangerous accidents are caused by a blood alcohol above 0.15 so she was not in favour of reducing the legal limit from 0.1 to 0.08 because she felt it was a distraction from getting the serious repeat offenders off the road.  Some places have set it even lower, and you know most of Canada has pretty much zero tolerance even for levels that are not high enough to actually impair driving.  Nearly three decades after it was founded, MADD has been indirectly responsible for ruining thousands of innocent lives... possibly more than it saved, given the greed of the american institutionalized slavery they call the for-profit prison systems is always looking for more reasons to lock people up. 

Candace Lightner  https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=5399043&itype=CMSID (https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=5399043&itype=CMSID)

I have been focusing on observing the breath and I have been praying, a lot.

  Observing the breath is like grounding into your body and soul. Not a bad replacement.


And occasionally yelling at Goddess, blaming her for my pain and despair. But mostly I just pray. Sometimes when I am in a lot of pain, I beg Goddess desperately to take the pain from me. But I think sometimes my desperation stands in the way of Goddess receiving that pain. The desperation comes from subconscious beliefs that I deserve pain, that Goddess wants me to feel pain, and that the pain is all part of the greater plan for my life. I often see Goddess as a harsh, punishing, tough love beatings kinda gal. I may just be transferring my childhood feelings about Jehovah to the idea of Goddess. He was a God of wrath and vengeance. I sometimes wonder if this severe pain I experience is my way of working off past karma. Sometimes I wonder if it is a gift with a challenge in it from Goddess. Perhaps there are lessons, joy, experiences, and opportunities in being in pain that I have yet to see. Perhaps I was given this illness so I could learn how to heal myself through Goddess love. I trust there is a reason I suffer, and I trust that there is a path out of the suffering.

  Step out of yourself and read your own words. Bargaining stage of grief. So much resistance. Ego loves its stories, its reasons, all ways to resist accepting what Is.

  If you want Goddess to be your sadistic Domina then follow it through, stop fighting and start thanking Her.

"Thank you Goddess (breathe)
for this body  (breathe)
that can feel  (breathe)
pain and pleasure." (breathe)

The most important thing I learned, from masochists about the secret to a happy life.
http://fire-serpent.com/tearoom/index.php/topic,82.msg314.html#msg314 (http://fire-serpent.com/tearoom/index.php/topic,82.msg314.html#msg314)

  Comes to mind, a line from a song by a Newfie band. "And if the devil would take her, I'd thank him for his pain." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX3lG9k1-kI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX3lG9k1-kI)  Goddess is the Scolding Wife and you the battered one? Bit of PTSD in the mix, pain is trauma.

I assure you, Goddess has no need to torture you. Sometimes, life hurts. Sometimes we never know why but we know, it hurts worse if we fight, resist. 

 

Hello WZ,
Sorry to hear you are in pain right now.

Quote"I will admit I have been very depressed, anxious, scared, and feeling sorry for myself over the past few months. Sometimes I wonder where the line is between feeling sorrowful for yourself versus wallowing in self-pity."

As Mystress has pointed out, grief is a natural and healthy part of dealing with loss. Wallowing in self-pity is about repeating victim narratives. When we grieve, we are actually fully alive by acknowledging the depth and pain of what we have lost - it is a testament to our love. When we wallow in self-pity, we cast ourselves as dis-empowered, weak, and helpless about our own life and tend to believe that others/life is being unfair - we feel wronged. Poor me. As someone who has lived with depression since childhood, I can tell you that it is very easy and tempting to slip into self-pity. Byron Katie's 'Four Questions' is really effective about shedding light on victimhood.
Q3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
Q4. Who would you be without that thought?

One thing I noticed for myself is that I was much more FAMILIAR and at times even felt comfortable replaying the victim narrative. Sometimes it is more comforting to tell ourselves that 'everything is awful' because that is better than 'I don't know' (which is truly terrifying when we are in pain and feel helpless).

Quote"I am sad to say that I have still not managed to ground eight times a day for 45 days."

Nothing to feel sad about. Trust your body. Work with your body instead of trying to impose external discipline. Pay attention to how your body feels after you ground. You following your breath is good as Mystress said above.

About anger - one of the books I read about anger had a simple but effective insight.
Your anger is not about what happened but about your perception of what happened.
For example, let's say we agree to meet for coffee at 10:00 AM. You are late. And you have been late to our previous appointments. So I get angry because I feel you are being disrespectful. My anger is about my perception of what has happened. You may have been stuck in traffic this time. Or you may come from a culture where it is socially acceptable to show up late for informal meetings with friends. The fact remains same: you showed up late. However, my reaction to the fact depends on what I am telling myself about what is happening.
'I am in pain' is witnessing.
'I deserve pain, that Goddess wants me to feel pain, and that the pain is all part of the greater plan for my life.' is your perception of what is happening.

Not trying to diminish or invalidate your pain, feelings and experiences.
It is ok to feel angry. Goddess made us human so that we can fully experience all human emotions and feelings. It is ok to not know why you are angry. It is ok to feel overwhelmed. It is ok to feel scared. Give it all to Goddess. Leave it at Her feet - 'Goddess please take this from me and transmute it as you see fit. Thank you!' Ground and drink water.

Hang in there friend. One day at a time.
Namaste!
Gopi

 You are kind of, misquoting me a bit and asking me to comment on things I don't think I said?

Yeah, I’m probably misquoting you from something I half-remember from the days of the k-list in the early aughts. I should probably stick to quoting FST and K-teacher, eh?

  Louise Hay said depression is anger turned inward, I have found that to be accurate most of the time. That the anger turns into self pity is common, and hazardous because that can grow into a suicidal monster.  Self pity is a victimhood state. locked into resistance to what Is, completely dis-empowering. Turns your power chakra into a sucking black hole.

I can indulge in self pity for about a minute before my shaman guide starts mocking me to snap me out of it. Starts giving me a parade of people who are so much worse off than I, until I am embarrassed at my own whining, and gratefully counting my blessings.

Yeah, when I’m feeling really sore and sad and scared I try to remind myself that I’ve seen folks with much worse arthritis than mine. Folks who can’t walk, transfer, or open their hands, folks who have to use long-handled tools to do all of the things their hands are unable to. I thank Goddess that my hands are the least affected part of me and I am able to write and use a computer, and take care of basic personal care with assistance for the parts I need help with from homecare.

Gratitude is the opposite of resistance, it is the second most powerful energy after Unconditional love.

  Grief though, is a separate thing, kind of sacred because it is a reflection of love, ... still a form of resistance to what Is. Medically, depression is a chemical imbalance of the brain:  grief is a different sort of sadness. It is a process of recovering from loss.

  My druid for example, has been clinically depressed since his 20s. I peel it off him every day and he takes meds. Last Thursday he saw a specialist for a blind spot in one eye and was diagnosed with age related macular degeneration. Docs say the blind spot won't go away, it will slowly get worse and spread to the other eye and he might go legally blind, losing all his centre focus vision and only having peripheral left. (Shamans think otherwise and we are on it!)

Without the center focus there is no driving, reading, computer or TV.  UV light can make the condition worse... and now has to stay out of the sun... he self medicates with "green time" out in nature, sailing or fishing, ... he is grieving the losses.  Worried he will become a burden on me. Whole different energy from the usual depression. I can't just peel it off him, it is a process of adjustment he has to work through himself. I can only support.

  I suggest that what you are dealing with, might also be grief, not depression. I think if you look at it that way, the steps to recovery become clearer because grief has predictable stages like a roadmap.

So grief is a reflection of love but a form of resistance? I’m sorry to hear about druid’s eyes and I’m glad you are on it. Let me know if I can help in any way.

Grief is a big emotion with me. I’ve never truly stopped grieving the loss of my health. I have times where I am accepting, but there are still times when I miss the ability to dance, climb trees, and do sports. As I get older and the disease progresses, I find myself looking back at previous iterations of the disease where things were much less painful and a lot easier. So I grieve that too. For instance, last year I was working out 3-4 times a week for 6 months and it made me feel really good in mind and body. Now I mourn the loss of that, though I think I’ll get it back when I move at the end of the month to a town where travelling for medical appointments will be less of a physical burden. I’ve done a lot of medical travel this year, and it has exacerbated the pain and fatigue in a big way.

Even on a smaller level, when I’m stuck in bed with pain for a week I mourn the loss of being able to do small things, to be productive. Because abilities vary with this disease depending on the activity of the disease, there’s a constant process of losing and gaining, and you get all the emotions that go along with that.

I do grieve all the ways I let my disability hold me back in life too. So many wasted opportunities, because I was scared that my differences would make people reject me. I sometimes wonder if anyone will ever want to be with an anxious psychotic depressive for good, so there’s sadness about that too. And there is grief from the friends I have lost during mental health crises.

I have a book on dealing with grief, perhaps it's time to take it off the shelf.

Anger: Candace Lightner founded MADD in 1980, after her 13 year old daughter was killed in a hit and run by a drunk driver with a blood alcohol level of 2.0, it was his fifth offense.

Five years later she left the group and now speaks out against it, saying it has become a neo-prohibitionist movement whose focus on punishment has damaged many innocent lives with unjust sentences. Typical of the fruits of anger, no matter how well justified it may seem.

Angry people always think they are right, but think about your own past anger and how often it turned out to be based  on a mis-understanding.

There were a couple of Facebook conversations this month where I got angry at something a friend said and was tempted to ask “Wtf is your problem?” But then I thought “Is this really worth losing a friendship over” and the answer was no. I’m glad stayed calm, and practiced diplomacy and didn’t let my anger rule me.

  Statistically, most dangerous accidents are caused by a blood alcohol above 0.15 so she was not in favour of reducing the legal limit from 0.1 to 0.08 because she felt it was a distraction from getting the serious repeat offenders off the road.  Some places have set it even lower, and you know most of Canada has pretty much zero tolerance even for levels that are not high enough to actually impair driving.  Nearly three decades after it was founded, MADD has been indirectly responsible for ruining thousands of innocent lives... possibly more than it saved, given the greed of the american institutionalized slavery they call the for-profit prison systems is always looking for more reasons to lock people up. 

Candace Lightner  https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=5399043&itype=CMSID

Interesting read, thanks for the article.

  Observing the breath is like grounding into your body and soul. Not a bad replacement.

When I’m in really bad pain and my emotions are in a state of distress, I do Jon Kabat-Zinn’s body scan. It’s basically breathing into your body parts, toes to head, and calmly observing the breath and body.

And occasionally yelling at Goddess, blaming her for my pain and despair. But mostly I just pray. Sometimes when I am in a lot of pain, I beg Goddess desperately to take the pain from me. But I think sometimes my desperation stands in the way of Goddess receiving that pain. The desperation comes from subconscious beliefs that I deserve pain, that Goddess wants me to feel pain, and that the pain is all part of the greater plan for my life. I often see Goddess as a harsh, punishing, tough love beatings kinda gal. I may just be transferring my childhood feelings about Jehovah to the idea of Goddess. He was a God of wrath and vengeance. I sometimes wonder if this severe pain I experience is my way of working off past karma. Sometimes I wonder if it is a gift with a challenge in it from Goddess. Perhaps there are lessons, joy, experiences, and opportunities in being in pain that I have yet to see. Perhaps I was given this illness so I could learn how to heal myself through Goddess love. I trust there is a reason I suffer, and I trust that there is a path out of the suffering.

Step out of yourself and read your own words. Bargaining stage of grief. So much resistance. Ego loves its stories, its reasons, all ways to resist accepting what Is.

  If you want Goddess to be your sadistic Domina then follow it through, stop fighting and start thanking Her.

Er, do I want Goddess to be my sadistic Domina? I’m no longer a masochist and only submit when I can see it’s in my best interests. Can Goddess be loving, compassionate, and gentle as well? I don’t mind touch love spanks and kicks in the butt but I’m not interested in sadism or cruelty.

"Thank you Goddess (breathe)
for this body  (breathe)
that can feel  (breathe)
pain and pleasure." (breathe)

Is it ok to say it if I don’t fully believe it at first?

The most important thing I learned, from masochists about the secret to a happy life.
http://fire-serpent.com/tearoom/index.php/topic,82.msg314.html#msg314


I tried the experiment and yes, there is a huge difference. I was much easier able to tolerate the pain the second time.

Comes to mind, a line from a song by a Newfie band. "And if the devil would take her, I'd thank him for his pain." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX3lG9k1-kI  Goddess is the Scolding Wife and you the battered one?

Hahaha, that was hilarious, thanks for posting. It actually reminds me of how I felt about an old female roommate of mine!

Bit of PTSD in the mix, pain is trauma.

Are you saying I have a mix of PTSD, pain and trauma? And that pain is trauma? That’s an interesting way of looking at it. For me, I would say that severe pain is traumatic and remembering episodes of severe pain makes me fearful of experiencing more. After I’ve had a week of bad pain, I remember it and it makes me fearful of doing anything that might create more pain.


I assure you, Goddess has no need to torture you. Sometimes, life hurts. Sometimes we never know why but we know, it hurts worse if we fight, resist.

If Goddess has no need to torture people, and yet people get tortured by each other, and Goddess is all things, then doesn’t Goddess at least permit if not condone torture?

Synchronicity: Today my mom apologized for the things she said to me about my arthritis when I was growing up in the church. She would tell me that God had a reason for giving me pain, and that God could take it away. She told me to pray every night for healing, and if I just had enough faith, God would take the pain away from me. When I asked her why I still wasn’t healed, she told me I needed to have more faith. Others in the church were not so loving and told me things like my pain was from the devil, or punishment for doing wrong things.

From all of this, the takeaway for me was that there was something wrong with me that needed to be fixed, or I was lesser than able-bodied people. I doubted my faith and relationship with God because despite daily prayers, the disease continued to advance. My mom took me to a faith healer when I was 12 and he told me I had scoliosis, one leg longer than the other, and a spirit of forgiveness. He prayed over me, and after that the arthritis got worse. I did, however, start to forgive my dad and build a relationship with him again, so maybe he did something if not exactly what I was hoping for.

I guess accidents happen and pain happens and accepting that is the way to go. I do think it’s possible for Goddess to heal me but I think for now focusing on accepting the pain without resistance is where it’s at for me. I don’t think Goddess has taken the pain from me because when I offer it, I’m in a sense, trying to get rid of it, and judging it as bad. So perhaps using the mantra with breathing is something for me to try.

Hello WZ,

Sorry to hear you are in pain right now.

Thank you, Gopi. I appreciate that.


"I will admit I have been very depressed, anxious, scared, and feeling sorry for myself over the past few months. Sometimes I wonder where the line is between feeling sorrowful for yourself versus wallowing in self-pity."

As Mystress has pointed out, grief is a natural and healthy part of dealing with loss. Wallowing in self-pity is about repeating victim narratives. When we grieve, we are actually fully alive by acknowledging the depth and pain of what we have lost - it is a testament to our love. When we wallow in self-pity, we cast ourselves as dis-empowered, weak, and helpless about our own life and tend to believe that others/life is being unfair - we feel wronged. Poor me. As someone who has lived with depression since childhood, I can tell you that it is very easy and tempting to slip into self-pity. Byron Katie's 'Four Questions' is really effective about shedding light on victimhood.
Q3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
Q4. Who would you be without that thought?

One thing I noticed for myself is that I was much more FAMILIAR and at times even felt comfortable replaying the victim narrative. Sometimes it is more comforting to tell ourselves that 'everything is awful' because that is better than 'I don't know' (which is truly terrifying when we are in pain and feel helpless).

Quote
"I am sad to say that I have still not managed to ground eight times a day for 45 days."

Nothing to feel sad about. Trust your body. Work with your body instead of trying to impose external discipline. Pay attention to how your body feels after you ground. You following your breath is good as Mystress said above.

I’m thinking I’ll make it a goal to ground at least once every day. When I set the goal of 8 times a day, I feel stressed, overwhelmed, harried and resentful. But doing it once or twice a day is no thing. For the 4 ½ weeks I grounded everyday I noticed 4 groundings per day was a comfortable amount for me. But if I can’t ground I’ll continue to observe the breath.

About anger - one of the books I read about anger had a simple but effective insight.
Your anger is not about what happened but about your perception of what happened.
For example, let's say we agree to meet for coffee at 10:00 AM. You are late. And you have been late to our previous appointments. So I get angry because I feel you are being disrespectful. My anger is about my perception of what has happened. You may have been stuck in traffic this time. Or you may come from a culture where it is socially acceptable to show up late for informal meetings with friends. The fact remains same: you showed up late. However, my reaction to the fact depends on what I am telling myself about what is happening.
'I am in pain' is witnessing.
'I deserve pain, that Goddess wants me to feel pain, and that the pain is all part of the greater plan for my life.' is your perception of what is happening.

Not trying to diminish or invalidate your pain, feelings and experiences.
It is ok to feel angry. Goddess made us human so that we can fully experience all human emotions and feelings. It is ok to not know why you are angry. It is ok to feel overwhelmed. It is ok to feel scared. Give it all to Goddess. Leave it at Her feet - 'Goddess please take this from me and transmute it as you see fit. Thank you!' Ground and drink water.

Hang in there friend. One day at a time.
Namaste!
Gopi

Thank you for your words of wisdom, Gopi. I feel truly blessed to be getting such compassionate support from you.

WZ


* Edited by Mystress to change red to brown.

Er, in that reply to Mystress I meant to say I had a spirit of *unforgiveness*. Sorry for the typo. :)

WZ wrote: Yeah, I’m probably misquoting you from something I half-remember from the days of the k-list in the early aughts. I should probably stick to quoting FST and K-teacher, eh?

  No big, just explaining why I did not answer some questions directly.

So grief is a reflection of love but a form of resistance?

  Yes. Grief is very human, a process of recovery from loss. It is not the only way to recover or the only way to respond to loss. You would not need a process to recover from loss, if you were already at peace with it. There are some cultures like Tibetan that approach death and loss differently.

  I thought of Byron Katie too, for her techniques to reduce harmful thoughts and emotional misery but I thought you already know of her. I have been slowly working my way through her new book, "Loving what is" to resolve some persistent stuff in my own life and a few months ago I came across this Oprah interview where she talks about using the process to resolve grief.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZCkZvVBY7g (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZCkZvVBY7g)

  My point though is that depression is a specific mental illness, -  where grief is a process. Depression means there is something wrong with you that needs to be fixed, and that is leading you to these cycles of self judgment. Grieving people are expected to act a bit crazy, it is forgivable. Re-framing your emotions as grief instead of depression is a way to be kinder and more self accepting. You can be more pro-active too, using ritual, sometimes creating some type of funeral rite for what is lost can be a comfort.

There were a couple of Facebook conversations this month where I got angry at something a friend said and was tempted to ask “Wtf is your problem?” But then I thought “Is this really worth losing a friendship over” and the answer was no. I’m glad stayed calm, and practiced diplomacy and didn’t let my anger rule me.

Yeah... regrets for friends lost due to PMS, is one reason I started spending the first 3 days of my moon in isolation, meditation. I am also wary of responding from Witness because people persistently project anger onto that, like someone would only be so direct if they were very pissed.  Ultimately, anger is your own, the choice to respond with anger is your choice, based on your perspective and is best resolved inwardly. I find, if I get curious about what is really triggering my anger and resolve it inwardly, sometimes I find smooth diplomatic words to share my thoughts sometime after.

  To use Gopi's example of a late friend making him feel disrespected- what if the friend did not show at all and you found out the next day they died in a car accident on their way to see you? The bad thoughts about the friend would shame and haunt you... especially if you left angry texts for their next of kin to read.  Anger jumps to unkind conclusions and always thinks it is right, but it is always based on some kind of wrong idea that comes from the inside, not the actual events. Anger signals insecurity, it is fear based and investing in fear always gives a bad return.

  Imagine, if, instead of making a torch of her anger and running around with it setting other grieving peoples torches afire too until she had a lynch mob focused on punishment, Candace Lightner had set aside her anger and acted from love? Alcoholism is an illness.
  >40 children of Norwegian politicians were massacred by a white supremacist at a holiday camp in Norway a few years ago, but the people chose not to be vengeful, they did not increase security, get paranoid or take steps toward a police state (as many countries have in response to terrorism.) The whole country, chose not to respond from anger, to take the higher ground. That is Grace. 


Er, do I want Goddess to be my sadistic Domina? I’m no longer a masochist and only submit when I can see it’s in my best interests. Can Goddess be loving, compassionate, and gentle as well? I don’t mind touch love spanks and kicks in the butt but I’m not interested in sadism or cruelty.

  Yes, that is the question I wanted you to ask yourself. Goddess respects our free will, so if you project punisher onto Her, that will be your experience of Her but not because of anything She is doing eh? The limitations we project onto Her out of our fear have no effect except to limit our experience to what we believe.

  Before I wrote FST, I knew absolutely that all of the problems people have with kundalini, are self created of their resistance. Buddha said, pain is part of life but suffering is optional. The pain just IS, a sensation... it is our thoughts about it that cause suffering.

  Personally, I learned self hypnosis from a book in grade 6 and have used it so much to deal with pain that my sense of it is totally messed up. I can have a migraine and not even notice until I wonder why I am getting nauseous. I learned so long ago to block it out, and it kind of went autopilot.

Post op in the hospital, 2009, went for a bit of a walk, asked the nurse why was I getting cold sweats? She said it was from pain and it might be time for more morphine. I was really surprised, I had not been aware of the pain. That was not the only bad turn I had there because of it. Confused by side effects of pain, not realizing what they were because  I was not noticing the pain that caused them, not asking for the amount of morphine my body needed to rest instead of reacting to pain trauma.

  Sometimes when my legs get cold they start to cramp, but I experience the cramps as flashes of electricity that are extremely pleasurable... until it gets to the point where it feels like its trying to tear the tendon loose from the bone. Cramps as extreme isometric exercise is one thing, taking damage is overkill. 

  Some types of pain can still get me, body will over ride to make me aware to stop with the repetitive stress by giving me carpal tunnel pain from my fingertips to my temples.

Too much of my pain control comes of leaving the body to escape it, not a good long term strategy as the body becomes frail with too much time spent out of it. The body still feels the pain and is distressed by it, and feels  abandoned too.
   Long way of saying, self hypnosis can be helpful with chronic pain, if you don't overdo it.

I tried the experiment and yes, there is a huge difference. I was much easier able to tolerate the pain the second time.

  It is a simple little experiment but the results are absolute in demonstrating that our experience of pain is dependent on our approach to it. There is a switch in the brain that sends adrenaline and fear, or endorphin and bliss depending on whether we accept or resist. Pure evidence of the power of our free will to affect our experience of life. "Pain is part of life, suffering is optional." Resistance makes suffering. Gratitude is the opposite, it is acceptance plus joy. It works for emotional pain too, it works for any problem to turn it inside out and show silver linings of higher purpose. Gratitude, turns pain into bliss, turns problems into gifts, turns poverty into abundance.

  Do you remember the "Power of Gratitude" lesson? I do, am curious who else does?

  I had a very strange experience yesterday.

  Still, kind of shaking my head at it and wondering about my sanity.

  The power of gratitude lesson is companion to the power of love lesson, I remember recording the video for it, the contents of the essay, my intention to add the pinch test and some homework to it with the upgrade, and move it up to come earlier in the course. I looked for it to use a quote from it and discovered, it does not exist.  I kind of freaked, started searching my files, earlier editions wondering it if got overlooked at some point... it seems it never existed. WTF.

I search the site files for the word "gratitude" and about a dozen lessons came up mentioning it, and a truckload of posts from the old tearoom archive, and some archived chats. No lesson. I have no explanation except what I posted to my facebook yesterday, about ADD, is my life.   https://www.facebook.com/TheADHDGift/photos/a.295383650628079/1027287757437661/?type=3&theater (https://www.facebook.com/TheADHDGift/photos/a.295383650628079/1027287757437661/?type=3&theater)

I looked at the energy structure of the course, it is there... (Students are blocked from seeing that, because spoilers) but it doesn't have a page, it connects to parts of other lessons. 

I have to wonder, since my mind image of it existing was so clear, and so much of the teaching is energy-based, if students have been getting it anyway? The number of times it has come up in tearoom suggests, maybe not.      

     Are you saying I have a mix of PTSD, pain and trauma? And that pain is trauma? That’s an interesting way of looking at it. For me, I would say that severe pain is traumatic and remembering episodes of severe pain makes me fearful of experiencing more. After I’ve had a week of bad pain, I remember it and it makes me fearful of doing anything that might create more pain.     

  Yes, you have PTS like you have been experiencing decades of torture and captivity against your will.

Me and post op cold sweats, even if my mind was not feeling the pain,  the body was and experiencing trauma, we usually associate cold sweat with extreme fear. I was not feeling it because I was not in my body (fight or flight: I fled) but the cold sweat was physically externally noticeable. Pain is traumatic unless you can flip the endorphin switch with gratitude.

We have no ability to really remember pain eh? Most emotions,... you remember being happy, it makes you happy. Remember being sad, feel the sadness again. Women don't remember the pain of giving birth, only their emotional reactions to it, and not always accurately.  You cannot remember the pain, you remember the trauma you experienced from the pain, which in turn is giving you more resistance to the pain and you discovered how that makes it feel worse.

  It is a self perpetuating downward spiral that can only be stopped by a different approach to the pain itself. You have to stop fighting, surrender, make peace with pain.

  When I have done workshops about engaging endorphin, for kink or pain management, I give out cheap bamboo chopsticks (new, from the $ store)  and instruct people to take off one shoe and sock, so they can use the chopstick to whack the calloused parts of the sole of their foot. Very light cane on very thick, (though quite sensitive) skin is really safe, so matter how hard they whack themselves when the endorphin starts surging, it is all sting and no weight so they can't get more than a slight bruise.  Using the mantra of gratitude most people go "over the top", runners wall, endorphin flood in about ten minutes.  The early christian flagellants thought the euphoria was from being flooded by the Holy Spirit.

  You know, endorphin is chemically nearly identical to heroin, and heroin is almost the same as my post op morphine... but internally generated from sensation and attitude. It is not a total answer for pain, or I would not keep tylenol and CBD on hand but it certainly mitigates especially for mood.

  When the circling rats in a maze thoughts come up, remind yourself it is PTS symptom and retire some sock puppets.  Think of all those years of resisting pain, and know you may have built an army of them.  All the crazy thoughts you get when pain is bad, what if each is a sock puppet voice? How would the pain be different if all the fearful mind voices fell silent?

If Goddess has no need to torture people, and yet people get tortured by each other, and Goddess is all things, then doesn’t Goddess at least permit if not condone torture?      

  Ah, that is the question of the ages, and the validation of atheists. Why would an all powerful God of Love, allow evil and suffering to exist?  Respect for free will.  If Thou Art God, then ask your self. Ask the Fire Serpent. Buddha would say, the suffering is optional.
  Jung said there is no coming to consciousness without pain, I can tell you the pain comes of resisting the changes. It is in the nature of ego, to resist. The only way to do an end run around ego is to use free will to choose surrender.

I guess accidents happen and pain happens and accepting that is the way to go. I do think it’s possible for Goddess to heal me but I think for now focusing on accepting the pain without resistance is where it’s at for me. I don’t think Goddess has taken the pain from me because when I offer it, I’m in a sense, trying to get rid of it, and judging it as bad. So perhaps using the mantra with breathing is something for me to try.

  I wished a miracle for you, and one for myself too! For me, it will get better with waiting and that is my best comfort. For you it has been mostly a process of decline and that is harder.

   Hope is fear of the future and a desire to control outcomes, it takes you out of the moment. We can have fantasies about purpose and hold the idea that some day we find the magic key, or supplement or attitude and the health issues disappear ... and sometimes it happens, like the discovery vitamin C cures scurvy. It is ok to keep an eye out for gifts like that.

  Fantasies of hope are food without substance. Here and now, dealing with what Is, is the place of power.  With every moment, in your free will choice to love or fear, accept or resist. That is our greatest power we have, to change our personal reality and life experiences.



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

This is turning out to be such a lovely thread and I am learning a lot.

Quote"Here and now, dealing with what Is, is the place of power.  With every moment, in your free will choice to love or fear, accept or resist. That is our greatest power we have, to change our personal reality and life experiences."

Thank you for that timely reminder Mystress.

The source of my anxiety is based on expectations about the future, at times a worst case scenario. I have a few friends who live with various types of chronic illness, some manageable and others painful, and almost all of them tend to get worse with age. As you mentioned about druid's declining eye sight, I find that most people with chronic illness give into despair, which is very much understandable. Based on my own experiences with depression, here is my pattern of expectations:

(1) Everything I do has to be done in the best way possible or it is not worth doing at all. I will wake up with huge amount of enthusiasm, an elaborate plan that is impossible for any sane human to achieve for the day, and then realize I am extremely tired to do anything right now because just thinking about the enormity of what needs to be done (according to my version of the plan) is exhausting. So now I am tired and feeling guilty about not doing something that I think should only be done perfectly. My perfectionism is a desperate attempt to control what is beyond my control.

(2) Focus only on flaws and forget to enjoy the ride. As a researcher, I choose to work on complex issues but then also forget that my work feels difficult at times because I chose to do difficult work and not because I am dumb. Instead of acknowledging that we learn by making mistakes, I sometimes turn to self-flagellating myself. I have gotten much better at reducing self-harming thoughts and actions but it is still tempting at times to want to give into 'I am so stupid and I deserve this'. Recently I caught myself repeating some bullshit about 'I am not good at this' and then my Guide immediately responded 'How would you know? You never tried.' And I felt caught red handed. Fear of failure fueled by high expectations of self focusing only on your flaws leading to 'Dead on Arrival'. Oh my Goddess... I think I just described my dating life. LOLZ... I guess it is 'air your dirty laundry' day   ;D

(3) Always aim to work at 100% efficiency and make self care optional. There is always one more thing that needs to be done. I am not sure if all the items in my 'To do' list will be done before I die. LOL. I have noticed that at times I feel guilty for not working and am very easily willing to abandon my own self-care as optional. I am working on changing this by making myself to do things that are fun for me but without any agenda. I am becoming more assertive about taking care of my own needs. And I have learned through experience that when I don't put so much expectations about performing 100% and instead focus on having fun with my work, then things somehow turn out ok one way or another.

I attended a writers retreat for 21 days. One of the techniques they taught us was to stop writing before you exhaust yourself. At first, this did not make much sense. But after following it for few days, I started noticed a difference in my attitude. I actually started looking forward to the next day morning's writing session. When I write till I exhaust myself, my brain starts associating writing as a tiring activity that requires a LOT of energy. No wonder I feel anxious about starting to write on a low energy day and wait around for motivation to start again. Instead if I stop before exhausting myself, my brain starts associating writing as an exciting, fun, and challenging activity and I look forward to coming back to it next day. I have started used this insight in some other aspects of my life like exercising and find it helpful to not aim for 100% efficiency all the time.

(4) Nothing is good enough. This is when I know I am experiencing depression. Feeling stuck, defeated, disillusioned, and like a failure. Self-pity, cynicism, numbness, restlessness, indulging in escapist fantasies, and a lack of wonder for life. When I am depressed, I am very convinced that everything is crap for all of eternity and so what's the point anyway. I once a met stranger who had a semicolon tattooed on his wrist. I asked him about it and he said it was about suicide awareness and support. I asked him 'What keeps you going?' and he said 'I don't know what will happen tomorrow'. I found that to be a humble and powerful response to my own suicidal thoughts.

When I interact other people who face depression and anxiety, some of them ask me 'But what is the point anyway?' During my twenties, I was looking for a reason to justify to myself why it was worth getting out of bed everyday. If I have to do all the hard work, I at least wanted to know that there was a fool-proof correct answer to my life's problems somewhere down the line. In short, I wanted some sort of guarantee that if I do the hard work, life will turn out to be worth the pain and suffering. During my early teens, I believed in organized religion which taught me to follow a point-based system with a surveillance by God - do good, go to heaven. do bad, go to hell. Reality shattered that belief system for me in my early twenties. After that, even though I was not looking for any specific belief system, I wanted to have something to personally believe in and hope for. I have reread pages from Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and found several helpful lessons. One of my favorite quotes is Frankl's answer to the dreaded 'What is the point anyway?' question:

Quote“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by lifeâ€"daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

That's a lot more than I wanted to say. But I guess it had to come out.
I also like this story from Osho about making judgments -
https://oshostories.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/old-mans-horse/

Namaste!

Grief is very human, a process of recovery from loss. It is not the only way to recover or the only way to respond to loss.

What are some other ways to respond to or recover from loss?

You would not need a process to recover from loss, if you were already at peace with it. There are some cultures like Tibetan that approach death and loss differently.

I’d be interested in hearing more about the Tibetan approach.

My point though is that depression is a specific mental illness, -  where grief is a process. Depression means there is something wrong with you that needs to be fixed, and that is leading you to these cycles of self judgment. Grieving people are expected to act a bit crazy, it is forgivable. Re-framing your emotions as grief instead of depression is a way to be kinder and more self accepting.

Is it possible I have complex grief and the depression is both a symptom of that and a mental illness? I mean, I do tend to exhibit the classic symptoms of mental illness and antidepressants do help. But then, I agree with you 100% that I am grieving, and have been experiencing the stages of grieving since age 6. Thinking of myself as mourning a loss does make me more compassionate towards myself.

I went through my notes on my phone and saw that I had written to ask my psychiatrist about complex grief and chronic sorrow.

You can be more pro-active too, using ritual, sometimes creating some type of funeral rite for what is lost can be a comfort.

Sometimes when I’m feeling particularly mournful I see myself in a coffin, pale with red lips and wearing a white gown. DB comes in dressed like a vampire and holds my hand. It’s actually very comforting.

Ultimately, anger is your own, the choice to respond with anger is your choice, based on your perspective and is best resolved inwardly.
Anger jumps to unkind conclusions and always thinks it is right, but it is always based on some kind of wrong idea that comes from the inside, not the actual events. Anger signals insecurity, it is fear based and investing in fear always gives a bad return.

Are there ever circumstances where anger is justified? Isn’t it normal to feel anger when boundaries have been violated, or an injustice has been committed? Are you saying it’s ok to feel the anger, resolve it internally, and then respond in a way that isn’t angry?


Post op in the hospital, 2009, went for a bit of a walk, asked the nurse why was I getting cold sweats? She said it was from pain and it might be time for more morphine. I was really surprised, I had not been aware of the pain

In 2019, I was in the worst pain of my life, post-op from an ankle fusion with a tooth that needed a root canal and violent GI cramping. I remember being completely calm and detached, thinking “Who’s that screaming? Oh…that’s me.”

Too much of my pain control comes of leaving the body to escape it, not a good long term strategy as the body becomes frail with too much time spent out of it. The body still feels the pain and is distressed by it, and feels  abandoned too.

   Long way of saying, self hypnosis can be helpful with chronic pain, if you don't overdo it.

I remember back in 2003 when I was an FST student for the first time you told me that always having music in your head is a sign of being in perpetual trance. You asked me what I was hypnotizing myself from. When I am feeling terrible, focusing on a song I like helps me tune out the pain. I have a good ear for music and recreating songs in my head is easy once I’ve learned the song. I think it has been a life-long coping mechanism for me.

It helps that Pip likes music too. :)

I tried the experiment and yes, there is a huge difference. I was much easier able to tolerate the pain the second time.

  Yes, you have PTS like you have been experiencing decades of torture and captivity against your will.

That’s an extreme way of putting it, but if I’m being honest, it is how I feel sometimes, with Goddess as the Inquisitor.

Pain is traumatic unless you can flip the endorphin switch with gratitude.

I have been experimenting with the mantra you gave me and it has given me more of an appreciation for my body. Even on bad pain days there are still small pleasures like drinking tea, brushing my teeth, taking a shower, sitting in the sun, and lying on a soft bed. And I’ve started to have memories of all the good times I’ve had with this body over the years.

We have no ability to really remember pain eh? You cannot remember the pain, you remember the trauma you experienced from the pain, which in turn is giving you more resistance to the pain and you discovered how that makes it feel worse.

If I remembered the pain, I’d be screaming right now! But yes, the trauma lingers and creates resistance.

  When I have done workshops about engaging endorphin, for kink or pain management, I give out cheap bamboo chopsticks (new, from the $ store)  and instruct people to take off one shoe and sock, so they can use the chopstick to whack the calloused parts of the sole of their foot.

Ha ha, being a masochist worked very well for me until 2008 when I started having globalized soft tissue pain. But getting a spanking was wonderful for taking my mind off my sore feet before things declined.

  When the circling rats in a maze thoughts come up, remind yourself it is PTS symptom and retire some sock puppets.  Think of all those years of resisting pain, and know you may have built an army of them.  All the crazy thoughts you get when pain is bad, what if each is a sock puppet voice? How would the pain be different if all the fearful mind voices fell silent?

I never thought of applying the sock puppet resolution to my pain. Thanks for the tip.

If Goddess has no need to torture people, and yet people get tortured by each other, and Goddess is all things, then doesn’t Goddess at least permit if not condone torture?       

  Ah, that is the question of the ages, and the validation of atheists. Why would an all powerful God of Love, allow evil and suffering to exist?  Respect for free will.  If Thou Art God, then ask your self. Ask the Fire Serpent. Buddha would say, the suffering is optional.

That’s the answer my intuition came up with, that Goddess respects free will. I guess it is we who judge things as good and evil. It might be better to say those things are what they are, to be cliché.

  I wished a miracle for you, and one for myself too! For me, it will get better with waiting and that is my best comfort. For you it has been mostly a process of decline and that is harder.

   Hope is fear of the future and a desire to control outcomes, it takes you out of the moment. We can have fantasies about purpose and hold the idea that some day we find the magic key, or supplement or attitude and the health issues disappear ... and sometimes it happens, like the discovery vitamin C cures scurvy. It is ok to keep an eye out for gifts like that.

I prayed for a miracle for 6 years and got worse, so I gave up praying. I think being taught that God was going to heal me meant I never fully accepted that it was ok to be sick, to be disabled, and to be in pain. I think it would have been better had I prayed for strength and acceptance.

I never gave up believing it was possible to be healed though, and I still think it’s possible, whether through a miracle or science.


  Fantasies of hope are food without substance. Here and now, dealing with what Is, is the place of power.  With every moment, in your free will choice to love or fear, accept or resist. That is our greatest power we have, to change our personal reality and life experiences.

Thank you Goddess
For this body
That can feel
Pain and pleasure

 WZ Wrote: What are some other ways to respond to or recover from loss?

  See perfection in it. Gratitude is helpful for that.

  Avatar to Planet, I inquired, as I sometimes do, about a possible intervention on the fires blazing in Alaska and Siberia.
"No." Gut discernment added a clear "Hands off."

  Naturally I wondered about it. Is the spectacle part of the consciousness change, scaring people into going green?
  Didn't feel right, manipulation via fear is not Her style, it is more something we do to ourselves... besides, it could just as easily be interpreted as validation by the "End Times, Yay!" crowd. So I set it aside as something that would become clearer in time.

  This morning I responded to someone in a Bowie fan group talking about where his inspiration came from. I mentioned the thing about the song "Five years" being pretty accurate to the current state after the UN announcement. Someone asked me for a reference and so I had to search and discovered that was not the UN, it was Harvard science and the IEA.
   The northern ice cap is melting, the north pole is a pond. If we lose the northern icecap and the permafrost melts, it will release so much methane... methane is 30x worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, there will be no coming back from it.

  That is when I got it, She is burning off the methane!  My jaw dropped open, amazed! Besides trees, we have developed many technologies to recapture carbon, with more coming every day but methane?  Over such a large area? She is burning it off at ground level before it escapes into the atmosphere.

  "And enriching the soil" I heard... ashes are fertilizer, nitrogen. I contemplated permafrost turned to forest or farm.

  "and sterilizing it"

   Her wisdom and mercy astonished me.  We know the glaciers and permafrost hold ancient diseases, already there was an outbreak of anthrax in reindeer in arctic Europe. A unique strain of the virus, turned out to have come from a melting glacier.  Burning the permafrost to protect us from plague.

  While writing this, I got the punchline, because laughter really is the nature of spirit.

    Goddess is lighting Her farts on fire.

    The fires are still a disaster for the folks living there, I can have the complacency of distance.

  So climate scientists say the melting permafrost releasing methane will kill us all, and Goddess the Planet Mind is like, "Hold my beer, I got this..."

  Was doing some self-healing, got an impulse to give thanks for fibroids. Got back an insight that the stress I was experiencing in 2012 was redirected into growing fibroids, to protect my liver. I am grateful for that! 

I’d be interested in hearing more about the Tibetan approach.

  I encourage you to do some research on it. A few points:
   They are Buddhist, they believe in reincarnation. For the Lamas they go out looking for the next incarnation when the old Lama dies.
  They believe in letting go of attachments, the funeral rites are about supporting the bardo journey of the deceased, moving on into  their next incarnation. They believe the soul stays near the body for three days after death so they sit with the dead in vigil, praying for their safe bardo travel and letting go emotionally so the grief and loneliness does not call the dead to hang around.
  Tibet is a low resource country, they do not have wood for coffins or cremation, or soft soil for burials. The sacred bird is a Vulture.  The deceased are given a "sky burial," stripped naked and fed to the vultures in a sacred ritual at the top of a high tower.
  Prior to the Chinese invasion, Lamas and monks who were known for spiritual attainment, would instead be arranged into a lotus meditation pose in a high, cold arid cave and left to mummify. After that the corpse is taken out, dressed up and applied preservative (sometimes, gold leaf) to keep mold and insects away. Then it is put on a special platform in a temple to become an object of veneration and prayer.
  Tibetan prayer beads are skull shaped, they meditate on death every day to feel more alive.
 
Thinking of myself as mourning a loss does make me more compassionate towards myself.

  Yup. I am not a psychiatrist, to be able to diagnose you. A little beneficial spin doctoring is all. NLP stuff, re-framing the picture with a different interpretation can changes feelings, thoughts and behaviors. Many sides, many views to any story and you have free will to choose. 

Are you saying it’s ok to feel the anger, resolve it internally, and then respond in a way that isn’t angry?

  Yes. Anger, always believes it is justified.  That is the nature of anger, it always thinks it is right, but anger lies. Anger represents a loss of control, it takes over like a possession state. To feel anger is natural, but to act from anger is usually a mistake. Anger represents a type of fear and investing in fear is bad for your head and your results.

  Ya know, if as some say, we plan the important stuff of our lives before conception, that we choose our parents and DNA to fit the plan... Do you ever wonder, "WTF was I thinking???" I have sometimes.  If you were a shaman I would say, time travel back to before your conception and ask your higher self. I don't know how well it works for vamps and regular folks but I encourage you to try it. 

WZ Wrote: What are some other ways to respond to or recover from loss?

See perfection in it. Gratitude is helpful for that.

I asked Goddess to show me the perfection in my declining health. The answer I got was that it brought me back to my family. I asked to see the perfection in the accident that caused the RA and I was shown that before I crossed the road, I hesitated and looked both ways as taught by my mother. I thought I had enough time to cross the road, so I ran forward and got hit by the corner of the truck. Had I not hesitated I would have been hit full on and could have died.

I remember having a dream in the hospital that I went to heaven and saw God and Jesus, and that they told me to go back to my family. I told my family and friends about it, but they told me it was just a dream, and that made me feel sad. I sometimes wonder about that.

    Goddess is lighting Her farts on fire.

LMAO!


Was doing some self-healing, got an impulse to give thanks for fibroids. Got back an insight that the stress I was experiencing in 2012 was redirected into growing fibroids, to protect my liver. I am grateful for that! 

I am glad you are getting some new information on that. Fibroids are much better than a damaged liver, I assume?

I’d be interested in hearing more about the Tibetan approach.

I encourage you to do some research on it.

Perhaps I should read the Tibetan book of the dead. It's got to be better than researching DNRs and MAID.

 
  Tibetan prayer beads are skull shaped, they meditate on death every day to feel more alive.

My inner goth loves this.

  Yup. I am not a psychiatrist, to be able to diagnose you. A little beneficial spin doctoring is all. NLP stuff, re-framing the picture with a different interpretation can changes feelings, thoughts and behaviors. Many sides, many views to any story and you have free will to choose. 

Well, I can always do research and talk to my doctor. And check with discernment.

Are you saying it’s ok to feel the anger, resolve it internally, and then respond in a way that isn’t angry?

  Yes. Anger, always believes it is justified.  That is the nature of anger, it always thinks it is right, but anger lies. Anger represents a loss of control, it takes over like a possession state. To feel anger is natural, but to act from anger is usually a mistake. Anger represents a type of fear and investing in fear is bad for your head and your results.

I thought of a good example of 2 times when I got angry at a violation of my boundaries. When I went to kink parties, I would occasionally get groped by someone I didn't know well. Sometimes I told them off. Other times, I went home, waited until I calmed down, and wrote them an email explaining why what they did was a consent violation and how that's frowned upon in the kink community. I generally got better responses when I took the time to educate, and even got some apologies. Some people remained petulant and sulky on being called in, or tried to convince me I wanted it, so I knew who to avoid.

Shadow is letting me know that once when I was drunk at a party I grabbed a guy's ass, and that I am not above reproach.

  Ya know, if as some say, we plan the important stuff of our lives before conception, that we choose our parents and DNA to fit the plan... Do you ever wonder, "WTF was I thinking???" I have sometimes.  If you were a shaman I would say, time travel back to before your conception and ask your higher self. I don't know how well it works for vamps and regular folks but I encourage you to try it. 

My HS says I was thinking that I would learn to bear my arthritis with grace. I asked her if I was doing that and she said I was learning. She said someday I will attain grace, kissed me on the forehead, and told me she has faith in me.

Dear Mystress,

Other than focusing on songs I like, what are some other ways I could use hypnosis to deal with pain? Are there any websites or books or CDs you would recommend?

I was having a really bad day a few weeks ago where I was in brutal pain and really anxious and feeling quite sorry for myself. I got dropped off in my wheelchair for bloodwork at the hospital, only to be told bloodwork was only done for daycare patients and I had to go up the road. My taxi was booked and paid for by the government who require confirmation of attendance letters, which the receptionist refused to give me. I went outside and sniffled a little. Then I noticed two older women talking, and saw that they were amputees. They were talking about their problems, but they weren’t whining. They were strong. It put things into perspective for me.

I’m still having some trouble with gratitude. I tend to say “I’m grateful, but…” It is easier for me to focus on what is wrong with something than what is right. Thanking Goddess for my body which can feel pain and pleasure still sometimes feels forced. But I can thank Goddess for this body, with all its aches and pains. I guess that’s the same thing.

Many times when my pain and depression get really bad I beg Goddess for death. I have often resented Her for not letting me die in the accident when I was 6, for making me stay alive through horrible pain. But sometimes I trust She’s keeping me alive for a reason. With spiritual healing and medical advances, things can get better. And if I have to have a painful disability, at least I live in one of the most socialist countries in the world with one of the best healthcare systems. There is that.

And it’s exciting that Mystress and DreamWalker have used the new tech to put the arthritis into remission! Now we either need to find a way to reverse joint damage or I just have to become fully bionic.  :)

WZ

Hello WZ,
Thank you for sharing.

Quote"Many times when my pain and depression get really bad I beg Goddess for death. I have often resented Her for not letting me die in the accident when I was 6, for making me stay alive through horrible pain. But sometimes I trust She’s keeping me alive for a reason."

I have experienced suicidal thoughts since I was a child. I do not have suicidal thoughts anymore for the past 5+ years (Thank you Goddess!). Not saying I understand everything about your life but I can relate to some of what you say because I have been in those dark places. I have tried to take my life multiple times (do not recommend it to anyone) and I really don't know why/how I am still alive in one single piece with sanity. I trust that I am alive because She wants me alive.

When you are frustrated, yell at Her! Give your anger, frustrations, disappointments, expectations, pain, and sense of helplessness to Her. Lay everything at Her feet - 'Goddess... Take this from me and guide me.'

Personally, I have found that I tend to focus on what is wrong with my life when I am too scared of facing the future. During my K-awakening journey, one of the scariest experience for me was fully acknowledging and realizing my own power. It may seem counter-intuitive but we are not afraid of being powerless but we are really terrified of being powerful - meaning accepting responsibility for our own lives. It is easier to blame others and outside world for my misery. It is terrifying to accept responsibility for my own life because that means both good and bad are my own doing.

I am not a certified therapist but I do believe that people who grow up with trauma as children tend to have this kind of problems. The script of 'I am good for nothing' has been played over repeatedly as trauma victim so much that it is both familiar and comforting. When you step out of your own victimhood, it can be terrifying. Have you heard the saying [b'Known devil is better than unknown angel'[/b]? Humans crave familiarity. This is also why lots of people stay in abusive relationships even though they know better - the prospect of finding a new healthy relationship is scarier than the reality of staying in a abusive relationship because the latter is familiar.

Sometimes I catch myself repeating the 'I am good for nothing' as a sneaky excuse for being lazy or avoiding to try new things. When you begin learning something, everyone sucks and we slowly get better with practice. When I am in victim mentality, I would immediately quit trying because 'I suck at everything' and 'what is the point?'. I had to learn and accept that anything worth of value requires time and effort invested. Also I cannot suck at everything because I haven't tried everything. So I had to learn to change the script in my head 'No... I do not suck at everything. I am new to this and I will learn by doing more.' It takes time and persistence to reverse ingrained habits but it can be done.

Next time you focus on something negative, ask yourself 'What am I afraid of? What am I running away from?'
See what comes up.

HUGS
Gopi

HI Gopi,

There is a lot of wisdom in what you have posted in this thread. I really appreciate being given support from someone who has been where I am now. I always respect guidance more when it's given by people in similar life situations as mine. I have been yelling at Goddess, believe me and shouting at Her to guide me.

You're right that we focus on the negative when we're scared of the unknown or our own power. I think I will ask myself these questions you suggested the next time I find myself saying "I'm grateful, Goddess, but..." or I am finding fault with myself or my life.

Thank you for your words of wisdom, and your support. It's much appreciated.

Blessings,

WZ

I have been tallying up my groundings on a paper calendar for 2019 and I've made some progress though I am still not grounding 8 times a day for 45 days. In January, I I grounded 6-8 times a day for 3 weeks. In February, I grounded 6-8 times a day for 2 weeks. In March I did 8 times a day for 1 1/2 weeks. In April I grounded 8 times a day for 1 week. In May I grounded 8 times a day for 3 days.In June I grounded 4 times a day for 4 days.In August I grounded 2-4 times a day for 6 days.

Things picked up in August. I grounded 1-2 times a day for 1 week. Then I grounded 3-6 times a day for 3 1/2 weeks. In September I grounded 4 times a day for 1 1/2 weeks. I basically grounded every day for 42 days, which is not quite the goal but close to the goal.

I wonder sometimes if I am a bit too goal-focused about grounding. I know that the more one grasps for spiritual goals, the more far beyond their reach it tends to be. There comes a point at which one has to stop grasping for spiritual goals. I don't know if I am there yet. All I know is that 98% of the time when I ground I feel better, and doing it daily really enhances and enriches my life. I want to get back into my morning routine where grounding and FST were part of that. Perhaps that's a good goal for now.

This past Thursday I just came out of a 2 week period of intense suicidal ideation brought on my severe chronic pain and depression over my narcotic usage. I just felt so miserable and hopeless. My best friend picked up on it and starting checking in with me every day, and I told my mom and psychiatrist what was going on. Since Tuesday I've been tired and sore, but not anxious or depressed. I have been getting spiritual help from some very good friends and it has helped me heal. :)

I have had some good medical reports lately and I am significantly less stressed about my health. It looks like I'll be getting a new right shoulder in December. I'm super-excited though a bit trepidatious. Surgery is painful and a hassle, yo. But I'm grateful that I'm finally in the right place to get treated for so many of the physical and psychological problems that have bothered me for so long. Moving to the city was definitely the right choice even though I do feel lonely sometimes not having made any new friends or social connections yet. But, I'm sure that will come with time. In the meantime, I am thankful for days of calmness and productivity. Thank you, Goddess.

Hello WZ,
Glad to hear that you have a good support system. Thank you Goddess.

On really bad days, I gave myself very small and immediate goals.
For instance, when I finish first grounding for the day, I set the intention that I want to ground again after an hour. I also do not allow myself to worry or try to 'figure out' big questions beyond the 1 hour. When my depression used to be really bad, I had to be strict with myself and focus only on the next task and not worry about what comes after. One step at a time. Trust in Goddess.

Also, I used to read a set of affirmations from Peter Walker's work on cPTSD everyday morning.
"Every mistake is an opportunity to practice loving myself."

Have a lovely weekend.
Namaste!
Gopi