How Neurodiversity can lead to narcissistic Coping

[Lyubov]

7 hours ago, Joshe said:

You can spiritually reframe value all day, but your nervous system still responds to it. If you're out at a party and ask someone "what do you do?" and they respond "I'm a reddit mod", and another person tells you they're a neurosurgeon, you will feel something different between these two responses. And that feeling comes before any thinking ever takes place. It happens before your enlightened belief kicks in.

Awakening doesn't delete this circuitry. If you claim it does or deny this circuitry, you're fooling yourself.

One way to not respond to value hierarchies is via dissociation, which I think is often mistaken for enlightenment or spiritual work. I too can bypass the value hierarchy with this method if I practice it enough, but I see it's the wrong approach. Dissociation can be learned, but it's bypassing, not integrating.

I’m sorry but this is victim mentality. it is your beliefs. You are not a slave or victim of your emotions, you create them through the beliefs that you choose. Make them conscious and make sure they’re helping, not hurting you. That feeling comes quickly because you are choosing the belief about  society’s value in the blink of an eye and it’s a choice you can choose to no longer make if you so wish to examine and understand those beliefs and see through them as false. I’m not claiming awakening deletes body circuitry. Nothing I wrote here contradicts you have a nervous system, but you have to be careful because I’ve found most people want to blame or find ways to not take responsibility for awakening as the creator. There’s also gaps in people’s knowledge on what’s true and what isn’t that needs examining, which there are plenty of members here that are sharing paths that lead to clarity. Not believing a lie is not disassociation. You’re playing games with yourself. You either align with what’s true or you don’t. I’m not disassociating from anything, I see what is true and do my best to live in accordance with that, do you? 

Edited 10 hours ago by Lyubov

[Joseph Maynor]

Yes.  Thinking of others as below comes off as immature to me.  It does come off as a cope because who cares.  It just shows a need for comparison to others, which is something you shake off as you age.  

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 minute ago, Joshe said:

Of course certain things can be rewired over time, but HOW (there is more than one way) and maybe more importantly, why?

This is a question for you, a good inquiry one. 

2 minutes ago, Joshe said:

At what point does "clean up" become neurotic? 

It isn't so intentional (not for me, anyway) - awareness just slowly and naturally cleans it up after awakening. Neurotic for me, implies overthinking. There isn't so much thinking involved in that way because you don't enter the cleanup phase with and end goal in mind. It ends up being a process of life. Something to be engaged with in the absence of 'completion'. Observation, realisation - maybe I can change this and see what happens? - exploration of experienced results. I think there isn't a goal or intention. Awareness begins the cleanup when you see through the illusion; the illusion sort of breaks its tight grip once you see through the ego self. I think this is the initial rock pulled away that can lead to little avalanches of change.

7 minutes ago, Joshe said:

And all for what? Non-reactivity? 

You react, but you aren't taken away into the grip of it so as to feel out of control. There is peace in non-reactivity. You respond, not react. And the responding carries less attachment than the reacting. I feel it in my body differently - the responding feels deliverate, grounded, slower, cleaner, aligned. Not about winning. Like I am pausing, choosing my words and reacting on values/principal. Prior to this I would react and feel it as automatic, emotion led and fast/sloppy/defensive. It felt like it happened outside of my control. In both reaction/response there is a body grounded feeling, but the response does not carry all the weighty attachments of the ego.

In no way was it about being better by not reacting. I feel that is a fantasy. 

Responding feels like it widens the gap between trigger and choice. The flavour of feeling, being, emotion is DEFINITELY still here.

Feeling and emotion should NEVER be deleted in the spiritual process. Something is very very wrong if it is.

[Joseph Maynor]

3 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

You react, but you aren't taken away into the grip of it so as to feel out of control. There is peace in non-reactivity. You respond, not react. And the responding carries less attachment than the reacting. I feel it in my body differently - the responding feels deliverate, grounded, slower, cleaner, aligned. Not about winning. Like I am pausing, choosing my words and reacting on values/principal. Prior to this I would react and feel it as automatic, emotion led and fast/sloppy/defensive. It felt like it happened outside of my control. In both reaction/response there is a body grounded feeling, but the response does not carry all the weighty attachments of the ego.

In no way was it about being better by not reacting. I feel that is a fantasy. 

Responding feels like it widens the gap between trigger and choice. The flavour of feeling, being, emotion is DEFINITELY still here.

Feeling and emotion should NEVER be deleted in the spiritual process. Something is very very wrong if it is.

Sometimes I trust reactivity more than non-reactivity actually, but I'm a very intuitive person.  There is insight in reactivity, but I agree with you it's good to be careful and not careless with reactivity -- because it can ruin your life if you let your impulses run wild without some degree of strategic insight into what you're doing.  

[Natasha Tori Maru]

8 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Sometimes I trust reactivity more than non-reactivity actually, but I'm a very intuitive person.  There is insight in reactivity, but I agree with you it's good to be careful and not careless with reactivity -- because it can ruin your life if you let your impulses run wild without some degree of strategic insight into what you're doing.  

In terms of our emotional/feeling responses reactivity I agree with you there.

That initial whip-crack feeling is usually correct, if we are grounded and relatively whole within our truth.

I think the key takeaway is widening the gap between the trigger and the choice to take action, when it is an egoic/small-self responce.

But there are elements of our survival and base nature that require a fast response. Fear as in example. To run from danger.

This is why I think our emotional/feeling responses are more intelligent that our minds/thoughts.

You see a tiger; your fear prompts you to fucken MOVE faster than a thought can do that.

There is some nuance to this topic I need to think on further. Good one for contemplation!

Edited 9 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Joseph Maynor]

3 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

In terms of our emotional/feeling responses reactivity I agree with you there.

That initial whip-crack feeling is usually correct, if we are grounded and relatively whole within our truth.

I think the key takeaway is widening the gap between the trigger and the choice to take action, when it is an egoic/small-self responce.

But there are elements of our survival and base nature that require a fast response. Fear as in example. To run from danger.

This is why I think our emotional/feeling responses are more intelligent that our minds/thoughts.

You see a tiger; your fear prompts you to fucken MOVE faster than a thought can do that.

There is some nuance to this topic I need to think on further. Good one for contemplation!

Generally, my instinct is spot on but the presentation of it could be refined.  Sometimes a raw insight isn't ready for prime time, so that's where -- like you say -- minding the gap between feeling and presentation is a good habit and practice.  It's good to develop more or less of a habit of this, I agree.  It's actually hard for me to put this into practice because I place a lot of trust in my reactions actually.  They're just not always as socially calibrated as they might have been if I used more detachment and reason.  But my reactions are key to me finding out how I feel about something deep down.

[Joshe]

19 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

This is a question for you, a good inquiry one. 

I spent some time with it. The question was for you 😝

23 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

It isn't so intentional (not for me, anyway) - awareness just slowly and naturally cleans it up after awakening. Neurotic for me, implies overthinking. There isn't so much thinking involved in that way because you don't enter the cleanup phase with and end goal in mind. It ends up being a process of life. Something to be engaged with in the absence of 'completion'. Observation, realisation - maybe I can change this and see what happens? - exploration of experienced results. I think there isn't a goal or intention. Awareness begins the cleanup when you see through the illusion; the illusion sort of breaks its tight grip once you see through the ego self. I think this is the initial rock pulled away that can lead to little avalanches of change.

It sounds like you're saying waking up does the clean up for you?

 

[Joshe]

47 minutes ago, Lyubov said:

I’m sorry but this is victim mentality. it is your beliefs. You are not a slave or victim of your emotions, you create them through the beliefs that you choose. Make them conscious and make sure they’re helping, not hurting you. That feeling comes quickly because you are choosing the belief about  society’s value in the blink of an eye and it’s a choice you can choose to no longer make if you so wish to examine and understand those beliefs and see through them as false. I’m not claiming awakening deletes body circuitry. Nothing I wrote here contradicts you have a nervous system, but you have to be careful because I’ve found most people want to blame or find ways to not take responsibility for awakening as the creator. There’s also gaps in people’s knowledge on what’s true and what isn’t that needs examining, which there are plenty of members here that are sharing paths that lead to clarity. Not believing a lie is not disassociation. You’re playing games with yourself. You either align with what’s true or you don’t. I’m not disassociating from anything, I see what is true and do my best to live in accordance with that, do you? 

Spoken like a true neurodivergent 😂. Embrace it bro. It's not victim mentality to own what you are. 

Do us a favor and hit that enter key from time to time.

[theleelajoker]

4 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

It doesn't delete it - but it shows you it is conditioning. External.

You see through the conditioning. You see through the illusions. And that does not delete anything, it lessons the grip and hold these previously believed immutable thoughts had. Then the work of awareness begins to clean these things up and help dissolve unnecessary stuff. 

Sort of like - you went your whole life assuming certain traits you had (IE reacting to slight) were fixed. Someone is mean - you get angry! Then something reveals to you that you were actually choosing to react. So with this new awareness, you slowly begin to catch yourself when you react, and learn how to stop the response. It is a slow process. It can be done. Your nervous system stops responding in the way it did as a response.

Wake up, clean up. Not my saying, but a very, very frequent one in seasoned spiritual process.

+1

Sums up pretty much my experience. The deeper I go into the rabbit hole, the more the conditioned self I uncover and the more freedom I am able to gain 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

I spent some time with it. The question was for you 😝

To end unnecessary suffering. Peace. 

1 hour ago, theleelajoker said:

+1

Sums up pretty much my experience. The deeper I go into the rabbit hole, the more the conditioned self I uncover and the more freedom I am able to gain 

It feels natural. No force. No neuroticism like with 'self improvement'. Open, in attached exploration and questioning without conditioned beliefs. The process just resolves itself as we go. Experience no longer feels localised - it is just happening. Without the construction of the 'I am the experiencer' as a result of subject/object collapse, the egoic reactions seems to resolve themselves in a (to me) surprising way! 

2 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Generally, my instinct is spot on but the presentation of it could be refined.  Sometimes a raw insight isn't ready for prime time, so that's where -- like you say -- minding the gap between feeling and presentation is a good habit and practice.  It's good to develop more or less of a habit of this, I agree.  It's actually hard for me to put this into practice because I place a lot of trust in my reactions actually.  They're just not always as socially calibrated as they might have been if I used more detachment and reason.  But my reactions are key to me finding out how I feel about something deep down.

I think it is really important to have meta awareness of our thoughts through mindfulness/meditation. You can begin to reverse engineer a feeling from a thought, and assess if the thought is a belief. Resolve the belief (if it no longer serves) and the feeling lessons to the point we can respond over react. 

Requires being deeply in touch with feelings and thinking. 

See clearly when a feeling or emotion is in response to survival, an egoic manifestation, or even completely false originating from fantasising about a future event that doesn't exist. The feelings all point to something. I think it is my job to figure that out, to reduce unnecessary mind chatter and suffering.

Meditation helped me so much. Diving into thought and feeling, equally.

Edited 7 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Natasha Tori Maru]

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

It sounds like you're saying waking up does the clean up for you?

It plays a big part, in my experience. There is a dark night of the soul that often smacks you about for a bit prior to the process taking over. Many people stop there.

[Cred]

@Natasha Tori Maru Spoke of waking up vs cleaning up. And you seemed to have discussed in what way waking up influences the process of cleaning up. But you forgot an important one, which is growing up (integrating the spiral). I would say there is a reciprocal relationship between the three. You can not sustainably develop each if you don't develop the others. If you only rely on waking up then, again, you engage in "spiritual bypassing". I press you to look this up.

Learning about, experiencing, and contemplating ND helps foster cleaning up and growing up. It both addresses your personal trauma in interacting with neurotypical people and trying to live by their rules (cleaning up) and also helps you gain new insight into the lived experience of ND people as well as of neurotypical people (see video learning=making distinctions). I would count this as part of "wokeness" and therefore stage green (growing up). It is important for your epistemic integrity. Think of the blind people and the elephant. Every group in society has a different lived experience and it is especially important that you know exactly which group you are a part of and which you are excluded from.

It also strengthens your ability for systemic thinking and see different forces in the society interacting. For example, I believe that a not unsignificant potion of the narcissism in the world stems from people coping with their executive dysfunction. Notice that Elon Musk is autistic. If you want to reach solid tier 2 thinking, you need to educate yourself about ND. Period.

 

 

 

[Lyubov]

8 hours ago, Joshe said:

Spoken like a true neurodivergent 😂. Embrace it bro. It's not victim mentality to own what you are. 

Do us a favor and hit that enter key from time to time.

I see you’re unable to give a proper response 🤷‍♂️