so we're on the same page when it comes to dreams--that it's good to develop lucidity and Life is just a dream, so there's implications--to get those foundational assumptions clear. ok.
this morning, from this morning's dream, seems like i'm developing lucidity from a subconscious place. that might be obvious to everyone else but me, but i just realized that this morning. when i try to become lucid with my conscious mind, i wake up, lol. :P dur.
so the point is to develop conscious connections with subconscious awareness. the subconscious is driving in dream time, so best make friends with it ;)
which i've been working on for, literally, decades, so yeah, the groundwork is there. still much more to do, but this "ah ha!" moment this morning was too sweet to not blog.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Attachment, Development and Experiencing God
I'm loving graduate school and one of my classes is Loss and Grief. Recently we reviewed styles of attachment which can influence how a person handles loss. But before going into that, we learned about how early experiences, especially those before the acquisition of language at around 2 years, become "implicit memories" stored deep within the psyche in the amygdala of the hippocampus, part of the limbic system and located in the midbrain. These deep, pre-verbal memories, consisting mostly of sensations, have profound effects on our experience in the world, including influencing our perceptions and what we believe to be possible.
Developmentally, during these first few years, there is no differentiation (sound familiar?). Children's experience of reality is non-dual and completely contiguous. There is no separate "me" yet. Some consider when children first refer to themselves as "I" as the birth of the ego and dualism, at about 3 years. If parents are able to meet most of the infant's needs most of the time (perfection isn't necessary), then this creates positive implicit memories which serve as an excellent resource the child can later draw on the rest of their life.
Attachment styles are also established early, about this same time. There are four attachment styles, according to Wallin, including secure, insecure/avoidant, insecure/ambivalent and disorganized. As is typical when learning new psychological theories, I found aspects of myself that fit into each category (which is a common way to integrate new information).
These four types were defined through objectifiable behavior, by having the mother and toddler enter a room with a stranger (the tester/observer) and some toys. The observer would record how the mother interacted with them, with the child, how the child responded to the toys and the stranger as well as their overall behavior throughout. At some point the mother would leave, stay gone for a short while and then return.
For the purpose of this article, let's focus on the behaviors of a secure attachment. The child would explore freely, taking note of how the mother responded to the stranger. In the secure attachment style, the mother was usually appropriately friendly with the observer so the toddler was also free from concern. While the child might express the whole range of emotions, including crying when the mother left, the loss was not overwhelming and they would be able to calm themselves and play. When the mother returned, the child would express happiness at seeing her, they would embrace and then the child would return to playing with the toys.
Basically the theory is that people with a secure attachment style experience the full range of emotions and they are able to cope with loss, hardship, or even death, without being overwhelmed. They are able to find the resources and support they need to move through whatever challenges they are presented with.
Here's something that surprised most of us in class: 45% of the general public have secure attachment styles! We thought that was high, perhaps because, as social workers, we focus on solving problems and so get too "problem" focused. After thinking about it for a while, I really liked the implications of 45% having secure attachments in their lives.
This means that almost half of us have implicit memories of God as Ain Sof, of Adam Kadmon and of Keter. Which makes sense of how these experiences are difficult to put language to, being based in experiences we had before we were verbal. I believe this could also have positive implications for ours, and other Kabbalistic, path(s) attracting more followers. There are a lot of folks out with the potential for--or who have already experienced--gnosis!
Developmentally, during these first few years, there is no differentiation (sound familiar?). Children's experience of reality is non-dual and completely contiguous. There is no separate "me" yet. Some consider when children first refer to themselves as "I" as the birth of the ego and dualism, at about 3 years. If parents are able to meet most of the infant's needs most of the time (perfection isn't necessary), then this creates positive implicit memories which serve as an excellent resource the child can later draw on the rest of their life.
Attachment styles are also established early, about this same time. There are four attachment styles, according to Wallin, including secure, insecure/avoidant, insecure/ambivalent and disorganized. As is typical when learning new psychological theories, I found aspects of myself that fit into each category (which is a common way to integrate new information).
These four types were defined through objectifiable behavior, by having the mother and toddler enter a room with a stranger (the tester/observer) and some toys. The observer would record how the mother interacted with them, with the child, how the child responded to the toys and the stranger as well as their overall behavior throughout. At some point the mother would leave, stay gone for a short while and then return.
For the purpose of this article, let's focus on the behaviors of a secure attachment. The child would explore freely, taking note of how the mother responded to the stranger. In the secure attachment style, the mother was usually appropriately friendly with the observer so the toddler was also free from concern. While the child might express the whole range of emotions, including crying when the mother left, the loss was not overwhelming and they would be able to calm themselves and play. When the mother returned, the child would express happiness at seeing her, they would embrace and then the child would return to playing with the toys.
Basically the theory is that people with a secure attachment style experience the full range of emotions and they are able to cope with loss, hardship, or even death, without being overwhelmed. They are able to find the resources and support they need to move through whatever challenges they are presented with.
Here's something that surprised most of us in class: 45% of the general public have secure attachment styles! We thought that was high, perhaps because, as social workers, we focus on solving problems and so get too "problem" focused. After thinking about it for a while, I really liked the implications of 45% having secure attachments in their lives.
This means that almost half of us have implicit memories of God as Ain Sof, of Adam Kadmon and of Keter. Which makes sense of how these experiences are difficult to put language to, being based in experiences we had before we were verbal. I believe this could also have positive implications for ours, and other Kabbalistic, path(s) attracting more followers. There are a lot of folks out with the potential for--or who have already experienced--gnosis!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
in the darkness
ya gotta admit, february is a great month for this, dontcha think?! ;)
occasionally i find myself, plunged deep into my shadow, usually not sure how i wound up there and often wondering what to do next.
last night at circle, i found myself near tears--in the middle of netivah studies! seemingly totally unrelated. my usual tack is to search my feelings to see what's up. last night this took me into turmoil where i ended up feeling very frustrated. but again, i dove deep into it, for better or worse. i figure if a feeling shows up, it usually wants to be expressed somehow. and now, after i've been feeling better, i can see again, although i'm never sure in the moment; that feeling it, praying for guidance and letting it all go, appears to have been the right thing to do.
got a crazy schedule these days with working full-time (4 10-hr overnight shifts) and returning to grad school, still spending time with my son and supporting his life (he's 18, so he won't need me much longer!). work is sun-wed, getting off thursday morning and classes are mon-tues-wed. by tuesday afternoon's class, Life is feeling pretty surreal due to my strange sleep schedule (mostly naps from sunday till thurs). i usually don't feel like myself again until friday morning, after sleeping thursday night and turning my days/nights back around to normal. i think this is the main stressor that threw me off last night.
but there are also aspects to this path that i'm not practised or good at dealing with, like that gnosis is between knowing and not knowing. how does this work for someone who spent most of her childhood not feeling real? not very well. i've worked hard to learn how to validate my own reality, but now, with these new experiences happening and there really doesn't seem to be a way to validate, no source of context, what i'm experiencing. appears that i need to get comfortable with not knowing, but there seem to be infinite layers, for me, around that issue.
faith and doubt take on whole new meanings, for me, with gnosis.
clearly much more to contemplate.
meanwhile, like i said, i got to a place where i felt better. and believe it or not, i'm still in touch with that. at some point, after entertaining doubt, i just have to move forward in faith, trusting that Holy Mother will lead me in a way that i'm able to follow. trusting that She wants me to follow and that She'll have patience with my issues because Her Love is so beyond my comprehension, that She doesn't mind. it's not possible for me to be too much trouble for Her. somehow i know this. that as long as i, literally (lol), long and desire and put forth effort, with Her help and guidance it will be enough.
Faith can be enough.
so these times of diving deep into shadow seem to be good as inventories of issues, a sort of cleaning house, even if nothing seems to change. a good time to ask for and receive Divine help. and a good time to express gratitude when supported and lead out of the darkness, back into the light.
occasionally i find myself, plunged deep into my shadow, usually not sure how i wound up there and often wondering what to do next.
last night at circle, i found myself near tears--in the middle of netivah studies! seemingly totally unrelated. my usual tack is to search my feelings to see what's up. last night this took me into turmoil where i ended up feeling very frustrated. but again, i dove deep into it, for better or worse. i figure if a feeling shows up, it usually wants to be expressed somehow. and now, after i've been feeling better, i can see again, although i'm never sure in the moment; that feeling it, praying for guidance and letting it all go, appears to have been the right thing to do.
got a crazy schedule these days with working full-time (4 10-hr overnight shifts) and returning to grad school, still spending time with my son and supporting his life (he's 18, so he won't need me much longer!). work is sun-wed, getting off thursday morning and classes are mon-tues-wed. by tuesday afternoon's class, Life is feeling pretty surreal due to my strange sleep schedule (mostly naps from sunday till thurs). i usually don't feel like myself again until friday morning, after sleeping thursday night and turning my days/nights back around to normal. i think this is the main stressor that threw me off last night.
but there are also aspects to this path that i'm not practised or good at dealing with, like that gnosis is between knowing and not knowing. how does this work for someone who spent most of her childhood not feeling real? not very well. i've worked hard to learn how to validate my own reality, but now, with these new experiences happening and there really doesn't seem to be a way to validate, no source of context, what i'm experiencing. appears that i need to get comfortable with not knowing, but there seem to be infinite layers, for me, around that issue.
faith and doubt take on whole new meanings, for me, with gnosis.
clearly much more to contemplate.
meanwhile, like i said, i got to a place where i felt better. and believe it or not, i'm still in touch with that. at some point, after entertaining doubt, i just have to move forward in faith, trusting that Holy Mother will lead me in a way that i'm able to follow. trusting that She wants me to follow and that She'll have patience with my issues because Her Love is so beyond my comprehension, that She doesn't mind. it's not possible for me to be too much trouble for Her. somehow i know this. that as long as i, literally (lol), long and desire and put forth effort, with Her help and guidance it will be enough.
Faith can be enough.
so these times of diving deep into shadow seem to be good as inventories of issues, a sort of cleaning house, even if nothing seems to change. a good time to ask for and receive Divine help. and a good time to express gratitude when supported and lead out of the darkness, back into the light.
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