Apparently I'm on a mystical quest

Today I realized...

* It was exactly one year ago that I made a conscious decision to explore my Inner New Agey. To try being more mystical.

* In July 2011 that I read the first book that really helped me turn a corner (Hold Me Tight). The first time, after nonstop reliance on my oracle cards, after much internet perusing and reading forums and sites that were less than helpful--it was the first time I read something that 100% spoke to me, that gave me new ideas, and gave me a serious paradigm shift towards the world. A book I added to my Core Values Library.

* In August 2011 I read another piece of the puzzle: Dr Jill Bolte-Taylor's book (My Stroke of Insight) about what the right side of our brains do for us. It was the science side of the mystical stuff. I had taken a leap of faith into mysticism, and as in the fourth Indiana Jones movie, a platform was right there for me to step on.

* In March 2011 I read another holy-crap book (Mindsight). It was another plank under the mysticism, and another book that gave me a concrete understanding of my situation and how it can change.

* And finally this month I was cataloging my books and cleaning up, and came across a book I bought a couple years ago but hadn't read (Steering by Starlight). Sitting on my bed I randomly opened it up to the last chapter and read it, and decided I had to read it right now. When I started my Mystic Quest, it wasn't for the purpose of aiding my personal issues. But it's where the solutions lie. Like I was already taking the prescription, before I'd even experienced all the symptoms, and before I'd been diagnosed with the disease.

So it's exactly one year since I decided to broaden this part of me, and I feel like I have all the basic building blocks to do it. It's like what the Storywonk people would call the Discovery and Magic stages of writing a novel--gathering ideas, research, images, ideas, and inspiration. And now it's time to write the book.

I'm going to look for the blog posts this past year that deal with My Quest for My Inner New Ageo, and put up a link to them or something. And I'm going to try to keep sharing. We'll see what comes of it all.

Coming up: Martha Beck's method for dream interpretation. It's rather cool.

In the meantime, here's her book if you're interested. (No ebook yet available.)

Steering by Starlight from abebooks: $1 before shipping

...bargain book from Indigo: hard cover for $8

...used audio book: $12

...downloadable audio: $24
   

Show Some Respect (to your fears)

I'm once again blogread! Phew. 

Yesterday Skye wrote about the three reactions to danger: Fight, flight or freeze. And then said something that reminded me of the book Mindsight: "And the primitive part of my brain is very strong."

I think she's so right.

One of the chapters in Mindsight is about helping a newly-teen girl who was developing OCD, though this part of his advice that I'm about to mention would be helpful to just about anyone.

He told her that part of the brain developed over millions of years to keep us safe. He calls the system "the checker" and it scans for danger, alerts us, then motivates us to act.

He had her begin meditating, and learning to discern when an alert was being sounded, and to differentiate the checker part of her brain from the feeling of terror. Then he advised her that, when she felt it kicking into action, to say:

I've seen on some blogs where the idea is promoted to bitch-slap negative voices in our heads. Like, if we have a negative self talk (you're a failure, you'll never do this, etc) -- to tell that bitch to sit down and shut up. I've never been crazy about this idea, cause the thing is... that's still you talking. Why would you give yourself a smack down? 

So I liked this next part where Siegel explains the thinking behind this bit of self dialogue:

Heh heh, I love that. This is a millions year old part of your brain, dedicated to the thing your body most wants--to survive. If you fight it, you'll lose. Just show some respect.

We all afraid of something here

Cause you ain't human without fear

   

Your Unremembered Past (the kinds of memory)

I'm back in Montreal now, giving luff to the cats and settling in. Onto today's show.

 

The Dr Siegal book Mindsight has a great chapter on trauma, specifically on memory. There are apparently two kinds: implicit and explicit. Explicit memory comes when we're about one year old and the hippocampus emerges, and it's the place where you learn facts and figures, and create your biography. Implicit memory comes from birth or before, and takes the form of sensations that you record in the body, but don't remember recording. When you remember implicit memories, you experience them like they're in the present. This can mean flashbacks, or mysterious body pain, or avoiding certain things without knowing why, or numbing.

 

He gives a great example of a doctor studying a woman who didn't have any explicit memory. So every day when he came, she wouldn't remember him. One day when he came in and shook her hand, he had a pin in his hand and pricked her. The next day when he arrives, she wouldn't shake his hand.

 

He treated a woman who'd been raped during a heavy rainfall. She disassociated from the rape while it was happening, so didn't have an explicit memory of the details. But one day she was showering with her boyfriend and the sound set off the implicit memories, which is something you can't disassociate from. That is to say, the feeling of being raped. She was overcome by the feeling, and it felt like it was her boyfriend doing it to her.

Siegal works with such patients to go in and retrieve those fragmented memories, while keeping them grounded in the moment--to make implicit memories explicit. Something you're not reliving. Something you can look at, integrate with your biography to create a whole story, reflect on, and then release.

When we have an unremembered implicit memory, our brains are likely to come up rationalizations for why we feel a certain way--we think we're making logical decisions. Or decisions based on trustworthy intuition. When in reality we might be making a decision based on something negative. Like his patient who was reluctant to try new experiences because when learning to ride a bike she fell off and broke her arm.

C'est intéressant, n'est-ce pas?

 

Mind itself is magic

I'm reading a book called Mindsight by Dr Siegel which is about the power of the brain to grow underdeveloped bits, to integrate the parts that aren't well integrated, to repair damage. I'm only partway through, but it's done through meditation, journaling, linguistic exercises and such. The beginning of the book is a description of brain science, and then he goes chapter by chapter with a case study and how this person was helped.

The second case study is about a 90 something old man who'd always been fairly disconnected from his feelings (and other people), but had recently become even more so. The doctor practiced right brain exercises with him so he could get in better touch with his body and emotions and how to express them. The next time the doctor heard from the wife, a year later, he was a changed man.

Apparently the reason why the right brain picks up on body sensation better (which is where emotion begins) is that it's the bit that receives the body's cues. It's the bit that develops first as well, so we start as right brained bebbies.

He gives a nice brief summary of the differences:

This must be why when Dr Bolte-Taylor had a stroke that affected her left side, her right side took over and made everything feel whole--she had trouble distinguishing between her hand and her desk, cause the right brain is more holistic, more physical. And as the right side doesn't use language but uses physical cues, like a baby, she could still feel when a visiting doctor was treating her disrespectfully, as opposed to when someone came in who was respectful or caring. She was hyper-aware of nonverbal language. And though her left brain didn't recognize her mother when she arrived, her right brain did a happy dance when this being came in, climbed into the hospital bed with her, and held her.

Anyway, I really liked this bit next:

It seems like the right side is what allows us to accept contradictions and not try to solve them all--to allow for mystery. For example, when someone says to me "there are no coincidences" the left brain science oriented side of my brain is skeptical; but the right side of my brain says "It's okay to not understand everything... we can accept an impersonal universe AND a magical one."
    

Song of the Day: God is Alive, Magic is Afoot 

sung by Buffy Ste Marie (written by Leonard Cohen)