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.
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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.
But this is measured against the chance of explosions by going straight through the feelings.
Hence why I keep mentioning (well-developed) therapy.
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complete detachment can resolve most issues, IF you don't ignore them. It's a weird thing.
Real belief in a God, as an aside, can let you lay problems off on them. I did it with one of my most major traumas and it worked.
Sadly, I have lost said belief! ;)
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if you believe in a good God, don't throw that away till you must. It's a lovely and useful thing.
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