How do you suggest you get to this state?
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they're not necessarily the same thing. You can give a problem to God (whoever/whatever that is) and feel it's dealt with, if you have enough faith. Otherwise, detachment is the key.
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get used to looking at feelings in the body and that they aren't you. Meditate on feelings in the body. Are they you?
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the core is realizing that fear is just a sense object, not your and not important. It's not the easiest thing, but when you get it, it's an "aha!"
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I don't feel like this is very great for handling "live" traumas.
This is the sort of insight that helps break the cycle of forming new ones, by depersonalizing what's already there.
It doesn't help much when your life is going to pieces. Calming w/o resorting to insight does.
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Insight practice really dials up the intensity of what's there when you're triggered. I found it very destabilising when I was having rage fits.
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interesting. I found it useful, but I may be the minority. What worked for you?
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I read a bunch of books on trauma and (still need to re-read to deepen this understanding) came back with the impression that the key is that feelings get stuck somatically. Need to be released.
The 3rd Cutting Machinery step is very close to somatic experiencing therapy.
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The key:
Calm and detachment needs to be cultivated. Breathing techniques, mantras, or whatever.
Then the feelings need to be elicited. A therapist or a deep insight practice helps here.
Finally, they need to be felt, and potentially reacted to (trembling, crying, tensing...)
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my experience is that in standard shamatha practice steps one and two will happen. Three is usually discouraged, but would be easy enough to add.
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Three is completely essential to releasing the physiological aspect of the trauma!
Detachment may mean problems of the body don't bother you, but they're still there.
And most people will never get that detached, so they need that release.
Like Ian I find trauma surfaces with focus, rather than open awareness, and so swapped the recommended order in the cutting machinery. I've found Step 3 very effective, but maybe I'm lucky with not much live or buried trauma.
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It's nothing if not effective! Just may need safety gloves on for some people. You are indeed lucky if you're not one of them. ;)
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yes. spiritual bypassing, sas they say, though I hate the term. Actual resolution is different from being able to disregard.
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The thing is, it's fantastic if you can hit complete detachment.
But along the way, and hell, even when enlightened, there is a nonzero chance you end up ignoring live problems.
Moral problem as an enlightened practitioner, and much worse for someone less detached.
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