Fixing our cores - the ongoing engineering project

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

    FHTH!   Glad you joined this party!

You said a lot of good stuff there, but I'm rushing and just had to reply quickly to this part - which was the easiest thing for me to relate to in a hurry; meaning I recognize it most clearly and immediately:

I got another lesson in that last week, I was physically sick for a few days (that nasty burrito from the food truck, I'm sure), and my emotional state went to all those dark places, life sucked, yadda yadda, and then the following day I felt better and suddenly I'm on top of the world.  What changed?  The emotions I was experiencing, influenced by my physical state, nothing more. 

Hormonal changes, in women and men, occasioned by lots of different things, often have a similar effect to bad burritos. And yes, I've often thought how we are so much in our heads - especially now, in this historical moment - that we forget that our heads (brains) are part of our bodies and subject to all kinds of vagaries over which we don't have control.
Worth remembering for sure.

OK, there's my caffeinated brain dump for the morning, I look forward to other's musings.

Good brain dump. Cheers for that!

Much to cogitate on here, that's for sure. And, drained, I think we all struggle with "me", don't we.  I'm reading that book that schwing recommended. It always takes me a few days to process stuff. So I'll be back. May the party continue in my absence. Just don't use the butter dish for an ashtray. 

[VitaminC]

    FHTH!   Glad you joined this party!

You said a lot of good stuff there, but I'm rushing and just had to reply quickly to this part - which was the easiest thing for me to relate to in a hurry; meaning I recognize it most clearly and immediately:

I got another lesson in that last week, I was physically sick for a few days (that nasty burrito from the food truck, I'm sure), and my emotional state went to all those dark places, life sucked, yadda yadda, and then the following day I felt better and suddenly I'm on top of the world.  What changed?  The emotions I was experiencing, influenced by my physical state, nothing more. 

Hormonal changes, in women and men, occasioned by lots of different things, often have a similar effect to bad burritos. And yes, I've often thought how we are so much in our heads - especially now, in this historical moment - that we forget that our heads (brains) are part of our bodies and subject to all kinds of vagaries over which we don't have control.
Worth remembering for sure.

OK, there's my caffeinated brain dump for the morning, I look forward to other's musings.

Good brain dump. Cheers for that!

Much to cogitate on here, that's for sure. And, drained, I think we all struggle with "me", don't we.  I'm reading that book that schwing recommended. It always takes me a few days to process stuff. So I'll be back. May the party continue in my absence. Just don't use the butter dish for an ashtray. 

[fromheeltoheal]

I got another lesson in that last week, I was physically sick for a few days (that nasty burrito from the food truck, I'm sure), and my emotional state went to all those dark places, life sucked, yadda yadda, and then the following day I felt better and suddenly I'm on top of the world.  What changed?  The emotions I was experiencing, influenced by my physical state, nothing more. 

Hormonal changes, in women and men, occasioned by lots of different things, often have a similar effect to bad burritos. And yes, I've often thought how we are so much in our heads - especially now, in this historical moment - that we forget that our heads (brains) are part of our bodies and subject to all kinds of vagaries over which we don't have control.
Worth remembering for sure.

Yes, the hormones and their effect that I'm most familiar with are cortisol and testosterone.  Cortisol is released by the adrenal gland in response to stress, lack of sleep, and/or low blood sugar, states I'm way too familiar with, the fight or flight response, and having learned that excess and repeated cortisol spikes decrease testosterone and can lead to muscle wasting, I've been focusing on reducing it.  This of course after probably a few decades of workaholism as a distraction from me, but hey, live and learn.  And reducing cortisol and doing the other things that encourage testosterone production has been profound for me, mostly in the way I feel about myself and the inner calm it creates, although still fleeting and intermittent, it's another piece of a worthy goal. 

And the thing we do have control over is what we focus on, and as we float on that ocean of emotion, having that target of a compelling future in our sites as a homing beacon, something to swim towards, an empowerment buoy, can make all the difference as we navigate the big swells confidently, as he rides the metaphor ad nauseum... .

[VitaminC]

That's beautiful, FHTH!   

That was a bucking bronco of a metaphor! A sailing ship on a stormy sea of a metaphor! Dorothy's house picked up by a tornado of a metaphor!

I have to lie down.


Came here to post a very wonderful article I am still reading; on grief, the complexity of our emotions, the  stages that we pass through and how little like stages they really are.  I'm going to put it in a more suitable place as I don't want to derail this thread - in which I still want to be very clinically (meaning precisely and laserly) focused on the gawping hole I mentioned before.

I'm not done with that yet, so not ready to join on your ship on the ocean of emotion careening wildly, yet with intent, towards the lighthouse.

   

[jhkbuzz]

I've been doing a lot of reading lately, mostly Pema Chodron - the American Buddhist nun. I'm not a buddhist, but her teachings are down to earth, refreshing, and reassuring. The thrust of her teachings are this: everything is impermanent and constantly changing, and we expend an awful lot of energy fighting this fact (and struggling to find "solid" ground). Her advice is to accept it, and recognize that even within OURSELVES everything is in a constant state of motion - and that even those emotions that seem so sharp and painful are already passing. (“We fail to see that like the weather, we are fluid, not solid.”) Her other advice is to befriend yourself - even the dark ugly shameful parts - and not to take yourself so seriously (because that's just your ego talking).

“Egolessness means that the fixed idea that we have about ourselves as solid and separate from each other is painfully limiting. That we take ourselves so seriously, that we are so absurdly important in our own minds, is a problem. Self-importance is like a prison for us, limiting us to the world of our likes and dislikes.”
― Pema Chödrön, Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion

I don't know if any of this helps, but I find her teachings to be remarkably comforting. They've also helped me take myself way less seriously.

[fromheeltoheal]

The thrust of her teachings are this: everything is impermanent and constantly changing, and we expend an awful lot of energy fighting this fact (and struggling to find "solid" ground). Her advice is to accept it, and recognize that even within OURSELVES everything is in a constant state of motion - and that even those emotions that seem so sharp and painful are already passing. (“We fail to see that like the weather, we are fluid, not solid.”)

I agree with this to an extent, that our emotions are constantly changing, although not everything is changing, underneath all of that is our core, what Masterson calls our real self, separate from our emotions; we are not our emotions.  Unlike a borderline or someone else without a fully formed self of their own, therefore the need to create a false self, and a markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self that is a trait of the disorder, those of us without a personality disorder have a "me" that is consistent over time and circumstance, and that is our ego, not a bad thing, without it we would feel like we don't exist at all, like a borderline does without an attachment. 

Now taking ourselves too seriously and making ourselves absurdly important is a matter of focus and beliefs, which in turn and in part determines our emotions, which are always changing and therefore changeable.  And I agree, self-importance, the erection of boundaries that are too strong and therefore no one gets in, is a prison, so how do I be me and let you be you, but let the boundaries down enough so that we're not separate?  A worthy focus... .

[schwing]

I've been doing a lot of reading lately, mostly Pema Chodron - the American Buddhist nun. I'm not a buddhist, but her teachings are down to earth, refreshing, and reassuring. The thrust of her teachings are this: everything is impermanent and constantly changing, and we expend an awful lot of energy fighting this fact (and struggling to find "solid" ground). Her advice is to accept it, and recognize that even within OURSELVES everything is in a constant state of motion - and that even those emotions that seem so sharp and painful are already passing. (“We fail to see that like the weather, we are fluid, not solid.”) Her other advice is to befriend yourself - even the dark ugly shameful parts - and not to take yourself so seriously (because that's just your ego talking).

I appreciate this wisdom.

Acceptance of chance is the ultimate acceptance of everything. At some space-time frame of reference, *everything* will change. This includes every single one of your molecules/cells, or the universe.

I agree with this to an extent, that our emotions are constantly changing, although not everything is changing, underneath all of that is our core, what Masterson calls our real self, separate from our emotions; we are not our emotions.  

I've read that human beings are able to look at their past and see how as individuals (including their "real" or "authentic" selves) we have changed over time. Yet we are not so good at anticipating how we will (or are likely to) change in the future. But judging how much we've changed in the past, is it not inevitable that we will change in the future?

And depending upon our future experiences, some parts of our identities will carry over. And some parts of our identity will change. (Do these statement even mean anything? Or do they cancel each other out? Ha "everything changes, except when they don't"

Unlike a borderline or someone else without a fully formed self of their own, therefore the need to create a false self, and a markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self that is a trait of the disorder, those of us without a personality disorder have a "me" that is consistent over time and circumstance, and that is our ego, not a bad thing, without it we would feel like we don't exist at all, like a borderline does without an attachment.  

If I were talking to someone with BPD, I would frame this point as: the degrees of change in our "selves" is different.

We all want to change when something in our identity is associated with a negative quality. And some means of exercising this change can help us alter these qualities; such as with practice and persistence (think cognitive behavioral therapy). Other kinds of change, such as by projecting/creating a "false self" don't really alter the underlying issues; but can be of comfort (think psychological defense mechanisms). Again, I think non-BPD and BPD people both (can) do this but to differing degrees.

For pwBPD, they *need* to create this "false self." In fact they've probably been doing it for so long, they cannot recall ever not doing so. My understanding is that this started happening before their "real self" got a chance to be more established; it was the result of maybe some kind of traumatic experience. The real self is there; they just don't know how to reach it. And any effort that stirs this real self, can trigger a flood of trauma. Unprepared (i.e. with new tools to manage emotions, dialectical behavioral therapy, etc... ) pwBPD cannot reach that part of themselves. And when they feel sufficiently overwhelmed, I believe they can change their "false self." Kind of like a restart button.

For nonBPD, we have cognitive dissonances.  We can be in denial. We have an idea of who we imagine/perceive ourselves to be and that can fly in the face of our actual emotional well being. We can be unaware (by choice or unconsciously) of specific qualities of our "real selves." Compared of the "false self" of pwBPD (or other disorders), our "real selves" are more static.

And so I would describe our differences by "degrees." And we are both better served when we face the issues within our cores.

And from some perspective, say of an apathetic feline, we are more or less the same: a source of food.

Now taking ourselves too seriously and making ourselves absurdly important is a matter of focus and beliefs, which in turn and in part determines our emotions, which are always changing and therefore changeable.  And I agree, self-importance, the erection of boundaries that are too strong and therefore no one gets in, is a prison, so how do I be me and let you be you, but let the boundaries down enough so that we're not separate?  A worthy focus... .

... .we share our ideas... .from a position of compassion... .in order to persuade and allow ourselves to be persuaded.

[fromheeltoheal]

I agree with this to an extent, that our emotions are constantly changing, although not everything is changing, underneath all of that is our core, what Masterson calls our real self, separate from our emotions; we are not our emotions.  

I've read that human beings are able to look at their past and see how as individuals (including their "real" or "authentic" selves) we have changed over time. Yet we are not so good at anticipating how we will (or are likely to) change in the future. But judging how much we've changed in the past, is it not inevitable that we will change in the future?

Sure, and what changes?  With new experiences and new knowledge we gain new perspectives, new beliefs about what things mean, new areas of focus, new roles we play, although under all of that is that stream of consciousness we've been experiencing since our earliest memories, that "me" that formed as we detached from our primary caregivers and developed as autonomous individuals.

And depending upon our future experiences, some parts of our identities will carry over. And some parts of our identity will change. (Do these statement even mean anything? Or do they cancel each other out? Ha "everything changes, except when they don't"

Yes, an identity is just a belief, the strongest kind, a belief about who we are, and we can adopt and discard identities, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes taking on an identity that was assigned to us by someone else, and some identities are empowering, some are not i.e. "lover" vs "loser".  And we've all got multiple identities (as opposed to multiple personalities), human, son, daughter, professional, drug addict, father, loner, lone shark (!), Mets fan (sorry), humanitarian, and identities are the strongest force in the human personality, since we need to stay consistent with who we say we are, although who we say we are is changeable.

Unlike a borderline or someone else without a fully formed self of their own, therefore the need to create a false self, and a markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self that is a trait of the disorder, those of us without a personality disorder have a "me" that is consistent over time and circumstance, and that is our ego, not a bad thing, without it we would feel like we don't exist at all, like a borderline does without an attachment.  

For pwBPD, they *need* to create this "false self." In fact they've probably been doing it for so long, they cannot recall ever not doing so. My understanding is that this started happening before their "real self" got a chance to be more established; it was the result of maybe some kind of traumatic experience. The real self is there; they just don't know how to reach it. And any effort that stirs this real self, can trigger a flood of trauma. Unprepared (i.e. with new tools to manage emotions, dialectical behavioral therapy, etc... ) pwBPD cannot reach that part of themselves. And when they feel sufficiently overwhelmed, I believe they can change their "false self." Kind of like a restart button.

Or a redevelop button.  Most of us discover at some point in our development that we are separate from our mother, there's a "me" and a "her", and this is new news since before we were born and slightly thereafter we do not distinguish between ourselves and our mother, to us we're one person, not a stretch really since we are or just were inside her.  And at some point there's a separation between "me" and "her", and now what?  Is she coming back?  So then begins what Masterson calls the abandonment depression, a weathering of the emotions around that separation, a necessary step, detachment, in becoming an autonomous individual with a "self" of our own, a real self.  A borderline never does that, for what could be a variety of reasons, but they never weather that abandonment depression, so spend their lives attaching to others to feel whole, to complete themselves, a reenactment of that earliest bond with their mother, and also developing a false self, malleable and unstable, but mandatory to function in the world.

So yes, a borderline could theoretically go back and weather that abandonment depression and continue developing from there, although that phase of development happens so early that it literally gets hardwired into the personality; how do you unwire that?  And we tend, for the sake of discussion, to get real binary round here, borderlines and not, disordered and ordered, although as we know all of it is on a continuum, more accurate and a place to go once we're clear on the binary concepts.

For nonBPD, we have cognitive dissonances.  We can be in denial. We have an idea of who we imagine/perceive ourselves to be and that can fly in the face of our actual emotional well being. We can be unaware (by choice or unconsciously) of specific qualities of our "real selves." Compared of the "false self" of pwBPD (or other disorders), our "real selves" are more static.

Yes, that's the "me" we've been talking about, and are not cognitive dissonances and denial just beliefs and areas of focus that are not consistent with reality and/or blind us to alternate perceptions?  And when we become cognitively consonant or come out of denial, we do it by changing beliefs or focus, although the "me" under it didn't change.  But our perception of who we are might have.

And from some perspective, say of an apathetic feline, we are more or less the same: a source of food.

Yikes!  Here kitty kitty... .

how do I be me and let you be you, but let the boundaries down enough so that we're not separate?  A worthy focus... .

... .we share our ideas... .from a position of compassion... .in order to persuade and allow ourselves to be persuaded.

I prefer influence over persuade, persuade implies an agenda and a desire to control to me, but yes, and also connect; we're social animals, born to connect, to the point where we can literally die without some kind of connection.  And not only do we have a need to connect and to love, we also have a need to be unique, to be significant in some way, a need that opposes the need to connect.  All part of the fun of being human, and where do you draw those lines anyway?

[VitaminC]

Hey, nice party ☺
Think I’ll rejoin briefly

Her other advice is to befriend yourself - even the dark ugly shameful parts - and not to take yourself so seriously (because that's just your ego talking).

I appreciate this wisdom too, jhkbuzz. It’s an elegant and simple way of looking at things.  I wish it were enough for me to just ‘get’ this or believe it or see it.  Talking about impermanence and change is like a couple of layers up for me – I’ve realised that, at my core, I do not like myself much at all. And knowing that all is impermanent and therefore either meaningless or deeply meaningful, is either a nice philosophical/poetic conceptualization or a panacea that fails to address the ickyness at the core.  For me.

I agree with this to an extent, that our emotions are constantly changing, although not everything is changing, underneath all of that is our core, what Masterson calls our real self, separate from our emotions; we are not our emotions.

Having just mentioned cores, I am now going to contradict myself and say that I am not even sure we have such a thing. I am not sure that we have any kind of a “real self” that persists over time. I think more that we are a bunch of mechanisms and patterns, running on probability.  That might be a mechanistic way of looking at it, but I am opposing it to the optimistic and celebratory way of talking about a “self”.

I also feel like disagreeing with the notion that “we are not our emotions”. I think we very much are, in the sense that we filter pretty much everything through them. There’s plenty of literature on that in applied psychology and philosophy.

At the same time, I understand why we, and Buddhism, want to try to separate this out a little. Because it is possible to slow ourselves down in doing that and observe with something approaching (the ultimately impossible) objectivity. It’s a goal worth striving for, absolutely, and there’s much to be gained by it.

It was mentioned very recently, on another thread, the need we have to “settle on a narrative that makes sense” for ourselves. I think that’s all we do. Whatever way we approach the making of that narrative and whatever we allow to shape it, is influenced by so many things.  

In a way, it’s neither here nor there. I’ve spent years thinking about this stuff at the level of theory. It’s my natural inclination to build theories. I am dubious about how useful this has actually been to me.

My understanding is that this started happening before their "real self" got a chance to be more established; it was the result of maybe some kind of traumatic experience. The real self is there; they just don't know how to reach it.

So yes, a borderline could theoretically go back and weather that abandonment depression and continue developing from there, although that phase of development happens so early that it literally gets hardwired into the personality; how do you unwire that?  And we tend, for the sake of discussion, to get real binary round here, borderlines and not, disordered and ordered, although as we know all of it is on a continuum, more accurate and a place to go once we're clear on the binary concepts.

This is exactly the thinking mistake that I made with my borderline person.  Thinking that all he had to do was to “unwire” himself by seeing how the original wiring happened.  I am now thinking that I, far less damaged (I think), have to work so hard to (hopefully) re or unwire myself.  It doesn’t matter anymore, but it struck me when I read that sentence that was the belief that I operated on.

Compared of the "false self" of pwBPD (or other disorders), our "real selves" are more static.

And so I would describe our differences by "degrees." And we are both better served when we face the issues within our cores.

Yes.

Assuming that we are able to see what our most underlying and undeniable mechanisms are. That’s what I think I have discovered, or at least been looking at.

I think now that when I look into the most underlying layer of the fundament, I see hardness. And that hardness is anger. I can access it and draw on it quite easily. It’s a strength I can rely on. It’s always there for me.

All the love and joy and appreciation of beauty and things that can make my heart sing – they’re there too.   But that hardness… I just finished describing it as a compacted little nut of pain, something like that. Dense, thick.   You could stab at it with a knife and the knife would splinter off.

I reserve this for myself. Wow.

I'm reading the Engel, don't worry. I'm all over this.  

And when we become cognitively consonant

Cognitively consonant. Such a nice way of putting it. Something to aim for.

[fromheeltoheal]

I agree with this to an extent, that our emotions are constantly changing, although not everything is changing, underneath all of that is our core, what Masterson calls our real self, separate from our emotions; we are not our emotions.

I also feel like disagreeing with the notion that “we are not our emotions”. I think we very much are, in the sense that we filter pretty much everything through them.

Yes, we are emotional beings, beings who experience emotions, but let me ask you this: when an emotion is felt, who's feeling it?

It was mentioned very recently, on another thread, the need we have to “settle on a narrative that makes sense” for ourselves. I think that’s all we do. Whatever way we approach the making of that narrative and whatever we allow to shape it, is influenced by so many things.

I agree with this, and that narrative is our model of the world, and includes identities, rules, values and beliefs, all the stuff we've been chatting about, and all changeable.  And the quickest was to change an emotion is to change our physiology and our focus.  Emotion is created by motion, and choosing what to focus on and what we make things mean fundamentally affects our experience of it, it's our heaven or our hell, if we say so.

[schwing]

Maybe at our core we are just ultimately unknowable and the truth we telll ourselves about who we are is just a mask we identify with. That people wear multiple masks for different situations such as professional, in public, when one is anonymous etc. Maybe we like to believe their is someone out there who has it all figured out and maybe that person is just a mask too.

Chaotic neutral?

[VitaminC]

Yes, we are emotional beings, beings who experience emotions, but let me ask you this: when an emotion is felt, who's feeling it?

Aha! :-)
You metaphysician.

Emotion is created by motion

That's nice, FHTH. I can work with that. Thank you.