You Are Not Ptsd

[Dana1010]

It's really hard for me to approach pure consciousness in my meditation these days (it's really hard, period, actually). Since PTSD hit, it's like the entire focus of the meditation is my trauma and it's effects on my mind and body. I miss being able to get to a more transcendental state. It's all remedial now.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

I say just because I have ptsd doesn't mean that ptsd has me

Love this! That's a great way to approach it too. I think someone should embroider it :D

@Dana1010 yeah sometimes it's hard for me too. The difficulty is, with awareness, that "trying to be aware" usually doesn't yield any effects. Mooji (the dude in the video) says to "remember that you are already aware", it's not a thing that is coming out of the brain or that can be achieved through thinking. Which makes it really complicated sometimes :P

I think it comes and goes, these states. I used to have them a LOT back when I was still in the traumatic situation. Since then, I feel mostly very much on earth and it gets more difficult to get "transcendental". But I did have two times (both a few minutes) a couple of years ago, when I was suicidal, where I suddenly felt a switch occurring in my head, like somebody had suddenly switched on the light.

I felt so incredibly different, so insanely at peace, I just sat there laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Those moments happen spontaneously, you can never force them. But it's great to have them, because you'll still have the memory and you know that you can get there again.

 

[Dana1010]

@Radise, it seems like work and responsibility have a negative impact too. The best was when I wasn't working, the next best was when I worked menial, low prestige jobs, and now as I get better jobs with more prestige, my meditations just get poorer and poorer. What's up with that? Anyway I have to pay my own bills, because there's no husband and no inheritance coming in. Sometimes I wish I could find an ashram in America and just become a full time renunciate.

 

[Kiril]

I think what it has done to me is this; it's amplified certain parts of my personality that I had before. Impulsiveness, rigid thinking, being too hard on myself, nervousness, etc.

I am not PTSD but it has made parts of me far more difficult than they were before.

 

[Anarchy]

I've been finding skills discussed in this thread really helpful for staying grounded (sorry I haven't checked it for a few days). It worked really well yesterday, I'd sent an email out to a customer without checking it properly (I wasn't properly grounded when I sent it), so there were spelling, punctuation and capitalization mistakes in it. I had been warned about a previous rushed communication to a customer, so I was called into a meeting that had been convened to discuss it, and given a long bollocking. I managed to stay pretty well grounded all the way through it and stay grounded for a big meeting that I needed to attend soon afterwards.

I found it interesting that the director who had taken offence that I had a second crappy email - went right up to the wire of being narcissistic (Had I ignored HIM, had I failed to understand HIM), but didn't cross the wire into becoming abusive.

Thanks for starting the thread and for sharing this
@Radise

:hug:@

 

[Saria]

@Radise Interesting post, I'll check out the video later! I've been practicing mindfulness for a while, and this seems like pretty much the same thing? Your post reminds me of the metaphor with the weather.. thoughts and feeling can come and go like rainy days, storms and sunshine, but above the clouds the sky is always blue, like the consciousness observing whatever's present. Or the thoughts and feelings like pieces on a chessboard - no matter if they're black/bad or white/good and battle each other, the chessboard itself will never be affected or damaged, just observing, like the consciousness. Remembering this helps me not to get caught up too much in my thoughts and feelings, and get a little distance from it. Ideally, that is.. I can't exactly say I'm able to do that on most days.

Out of curiosity: Is there any reason you refer to consciousness with capital letter(s)?

 

[Deleted member 28942]

I am reading the book "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van Der Kolk and I came across this paragraph:

A psychiatric diagnosis has serious consequences: Diagnosis informs treatment, and getting the wrong treatment can have disastrous effects. Also, a diagnostic label is likely to attach to people for the rest of their lives and have a profound influence on how they define themselves. I have met countless patients whole told me that they are bipolar or borderline or that they ''have'' PTSD, as id they have been sentenced to remain in underground dungeon for the rest of their lives, like the Count of Monte Cristo.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

@Dana1010 sorry I'm checking in so late, but I did think about what you said. Menial, low prestige jobs can be dreadful sometimes but at the same time they're a great way to just "be", since no one expects you to be anything else. You just do the job, that's it. Maybe in the prestige jobs, there is some sort of pressure to be "more" or be "important"?

@Saria yeah, depending on how you see it, it's essentially the same thing :) Mindfulness just means being aware in the present, being aware of the self. The sky metaphor is a really good one! I did have moments, back when I lived in "the outdoors", where I would sit outside at night and gaze at the stars. They always gave me a sense of eternity, a sense of an unchangeable awareness present in the universe itself.

I refer to the "Consciousness" as such because for me, Consciousness is God. In Hinduism, this is Brahman: the "the unchanging reality amidst and beyond the world", or the "Highest Reality". From this perspective, everything that exists is divine, because everything that exists is a manifestation of the highest reality. However, people often don't remember their "true selves", because of their identification with visible matter.

From this perspective, everything that exists is One, because ultimately fragmentation and division is thought of as an illusion of the mind. The mind perceives division and sees itself as "a separate being", while awareness perceives oneness and the realization that nothing is really separate. It sounds very new age and hippie :D. I tend to keep these things to myself because of the image it has in our society.

@UniversalBeing labels are just another form of attachment :) They say: this is You. This defines You. By telling you that it defines who you are, you get the wrong sense of who you are. But I also still have a very hard time remembering that this is not who I am. It just happens to be a feature of my brain.

 

[Saria]

I tend to keep these things to myself because of the image it has in our society

I don't know if you're talking about the same thing, but if I mention meditation for someone other than friends and family, I sometimes feel like people respond to it like I'm part of some new age fad (which I don't want to be associated with). I know "mindfulness" can be intepreted in many different ways, so how similar it is depends on whether one sees it as a stress-reduction intevention in western psychology etc., or more in line with eastern traditions, I guess. Interestingly, Buddhas original "instructions" for how to cultivate mindfulness, includes both mindfulness on the body, feelings, consciousness, and dhamma/the way things are, which sounds at least a bit similar to what you're referring to? I'm not a buddhist myself, I just think Buddha seems like a pretty wise guy. Anyway... it's probably not too surprising that two eastern traditions with common origins have similarities in how they view the word (and the self) :)

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

I sometimes feel like people respond to it like I'm part of some new age fad (which I don't want to be associated with).

This is exactly why I normally don't talk about it. I am quite spiritual, but I am very down to earth at the same time. For me, saying that things have some kind of energy field, or consciousness, isn't a weird thing. It seems quite natural to me :)

The problem with esoterism and new age is the people who give it a bad image, but that happens in every religion as well. There's always somebody there to make it weird, dogmatic, or pretentious. On the other hand, I also believe that some people might be scared of a different perspective, so they label it "irrational" to be done with it.

My belief is that the teachers - Christ, Buddha, but also 'new age' icons like Eckhart Tolle and Mooji -essentially are forwarding the same message of consciousness, just in different time settings, in different cultures, and with different wording. It's all very personal and depends on how you look at it. I do notice that these views are getting more wide-spread lately. Which means that they might get more acceptance eventually.

 

[Saria]

@Radise Agreed!

 

[shimmerz]

whole told me that they are bipolar or borderline or that they ''have'' PTSD, as id they have been sentenced to remain in underground dungeon for the rest of their lives, like the Count of Monte Cristo.

Right. And the Consciousness model allows me to remove myself from the limitations and chains etc of these diagnosis. I get to say, no, I am not PTSD, I am Shimmerz and I won't ever forget that, regardless of who attempts to keep reminding me that I have been deemed to have this 'thing'.