Moments

[Zigzag Idiot]

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[Forestluv]

For those in SD. . . Consider the below statement regarding the current social unrest:

”The social movements that are in the front of this "war", are characterized as green, I didn't said it is fully integrated green as only a few people are and a fully integrated green would be way more peaceful in their approach to social change.”

This brings up the concept of criticizing from below or criticizing from above. Orange criticizing Green is a different dynamic than Yellow criticizing Green.

Here the criticism is that “fully integrated green would be way more peaceful in their approach”. Imagine that this criticism from blue/orange-level view. Well of course blue/orange would want green to be more peaceful. . . It would be like an abusive alcoholic facing resistance saying “if my family was healthy, they would be treating me kindly”.

Yet this is progress for blue/orange, because they can recognize Green’s issue - they are just criticizing Green’s approach as not being Green. Blue and Orange love to criticize and demonize Green values, yet they also like to define how Green *should* act. This is part of narrative control.

What would “criticizing from above” look like? What might be a yellow perspective? Well, there are lots of different yellow perspectives. In Tier1, people like to claim that there is one Yellow perspective, yet this is silly. . . Orange is filled with logical people, yet is there one logical perspective? Of course not, there are many different logical organge-level perspectives. Similar with yellow.

This would be one of many yellow perspectives. . . Yellow would “get” green because they have embodied green. It’s not just an intellectual analysis from orange. They get it. A yellow person can easily sit down with green people and “get” them because they are green. For example, imagine that you sibling died when you were a teenager. You go through years of therapy and work through it. Years later, you meet a teenager that just lost their sibling. You don’t have to intellectually make sense of it. You don’t have to think “I read that there are four stages of grief after losing a sibling. It appears that this person is in stage two of the grief process. The book I read says that to help this person I need to talk about how they need to work on acceptance”. . . . That is fine and can be helpful, yet it is very limited. A person that actually lost a sibling, worked through it and embodied it has a much broader and deeper understanding. They are not limited to intellectual frameworks. They can connect on many different levels, because they know what it’s like. Similarly, a yellow level person is not limited to Orange level intellect about how Green ‘should’ be behaving. They are not limited to “I’ve read a book on SD theory and I watched Leo’s video - according to this theory, Green ‘should’ be behaving like xyz”. This theory is fine, yet it is limited. An integrated yellow also has green experience and embodiment in addition to the orange level theory. 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Your articulation reminds me of hearing Ken Wilber once say in an interview about 2nd tier folks- "They are able to meet people where they find them".

[Forestluv]

Sometimes I sit in a cafe / restaurant and just listen to the chatter. Lots of people telling stories. We are all familiar with a “table story”. This is the story being told at an individual table. And all the table stories merge to create a cafe story, a chatter story. All the table stories get mixed together to create a song. Just like how the sounds of musical instruments get mixed to create a song. In the collective chatter story, there are no words because all the words get mixed together. There is no longer any linguistic sense. Traditional language diffuses and a new language arises. The chatter story is more than the sounds. There is an energy and essence with it. All the individual stories blend together into the chatter story. Happy stories, frustration stories, love stories, scary stories, vacation stories - all merge into a single chatter story. And no two story chatters are the same. 

I’ve sat in cafes and listened to chatter stories in over 20 foreign countries - from ritzy cafes in Sweden to poor village cafes in Belize to ski lodges in Canada. They all have chatter stories. Each have their own flavor. Just like we do with music, I’m aware of unique subtleties in each chatter story song. There is the cadence. The crescendos. The ebb and flow of calmness and intensity. There are percussion components and splashes of laughter. Occasionally, I’m with someone and mention this. Usually the have no interest. It’s just ‘background noise’ to them. They are not in tune with it and cannot see or appreciate the unique elements within the ‘background noise’. Some people perceive me doing this as ‘weird’. Yet those who hear not the music think the dancers mad.

My parents love to visit cafes and restaurants. They are in their 70s and have been to hundreds of cafes and restaurants around the world. Yet they’ve never heard the chatter music before. Last year I was in a restaurant and mentioned this. There was a lull in the conversation and I directed their attention to the chatter story, the chatter song being played by all the people in the restaurant. My father is very immersed in table stories, usually his personal story. He had no interest in the chatter story. To him it is background noise that is distractive to the table story. Yet my mom heard the chatter story for the first time. She heard the chatter song and said “Omigosh! I’ve never noticed that before“. She took a moment to listen and asked “Does it sound the similar everywhere?”. Yet my dad became impatient and directed attention back to our table story as he began to tell a new personal story. 

Once I heard the chatter story in cafes, I started to hear chatter stories in nature. Chatter stories have no words or linguistic meaning, including human chatter stories. Human chatter stories in cafes and nonhuman chatter stories in nature are similar in that both are nonverbal and lack linguistic meaning. 

@Zigzag Idiot ? ? 

[Forestluv]

I underwent root canal surgery yesterday. Before the surgery, I got a bit anxious - mostly due to the unknown. The endondontist picked up on this a put in extra effort to make me comfortable before and during the surgery. 

After the numbing agents where injected into my jaw, the doctor put a bridge into the opposite side of my mouth to keep my mouth open. Before doing so, he framed it perfectly. He said that the bridge would allow me to *rest*. He also said that most people like it, yet if I don’t like it, he can remove it yet it will make things a bit harder for him and the process will take longer. For those with anxiety, the frames are “it will allow you to rest”, “most people like it”, “we can remove it if you want”. Thus, this mouth bridge is beneficial for me and I have the power to make it go away. I am not trapped with it. This is huge for people with anxiety disorders.

As the surgery started, there was an initial appearance of anxiety such as “It doesn’t hurt now, but it might soon.” and “My mouth is forced open”. The next key ingredient is trust. He told me if I experience pain at any time to lift my arm. This served as a “safe word” and allows a mind to work through anxiety. This is the equivalent of someone carrying a benzo during a trip. If things get too hairy, they have an exit. . . . As well, my mind shifted that my mouth wasn’t forced open, yet rather I could relax. . . The only unknown issue was that I felt strong impulse to swallow and I didn’t know if it was ok to swallow. It wasn’t so much that I *needed* to swallow, it was that I didn’t know if I could swallow IF I needed to swallow. This caused some anxiety. Yet, I did a test and gently did a swallow contraction in the the back of mouth, trying to keep the rest still. He didn’t say anything and I don’t thing he even noticed. This was the last hurdle, and then I was able to let go.

And let go I did. I have experience letting go in all sorts of anxiety inducing situations: psychedelics, sensory deprivation tanks, crowded areas, enclosed spaces etc. . . Here I was able to let go and it was quite an experience. I went into semi-lucid dream states, I had an out-of-body experience and I became as relaxed as I do in yin yoga, a massage or in nature. At one point, my body felt as if I was in a coma, yet there was awareness floating around in the room. At another point, I was flying in a space ship and all the noises and grinding was simply noises of the spacecraft. . . . I actually wanted the exploration to continue and when he said that he was finishing up, a feeling of disappointment arose. It was like being immersed in a movie and realizing there is only ten minutes left in the movie - and when the movie ends, you’ve got to return to “regular life”. . . Afterwards, I looked at the clock and realized that over 90 minutes had past. I lost track of time and couldn’t estimate how long it was, yet it certainly seemed much shorter than 90 minutes. 

One other point of interest. Before the surgery, he put on a cheesy TV program on fishing. The commercials were awful. Ads for automobile accident attorneys, how to lose and easy 50 libs with the new smoothie diet etc. This was not the type of background I wanted and asked him if it’s ok to turn it off. He said that he likes it as “white noise”, so he doesn’t get distracted by things like the phone ringing in the entry office. Obviously, I want the endodontist to “get in the zone”, so I agree it stays on. My mind could have locked on to the TV, yet it didn’t. I didn’t even remember the TV. Afterwards, I was like “was the TV on the whole time?”.

Today, I reflected on the experience and places I ‘could have gone’. One of them would have been to enter a space of masochism. I could have gotten direct experience with that dynamic and an understanding. That space had never entered for me to explore, yet I certainly could have entered it. During the surgery, there was a period in which I was actually enjoying it. Yet the enjoyment was associated with the relaxation and lucidity. However, with a slight tweak I could have maintained that sense of enjoyment and changed the context to someone drilling into me. Things just didn’t go in that direction, yet during the surgery there was the option of going in the direction and I didn’t. . . Yet now, I can much better imagine the dynamic of masochism and get a sense of what it is like, if I wanted to. It’s just not appealing or practical to do so at this time. 

Taken together, it’s so fascinating to observe the inner workings of the mind.

[Forestluv]

Below is a quote by a white sports journalist that grew up in Mississippi. It highlights the power of social conditioning, subconscious selective awareness and the inability to see another perspective. The debate of the confederate flag in south has been going on for decades, and this individual had an “enlightening moment” yesterday. Also notice the relativity of an “enlightening moment”. It was an “enlightening moment” for him, yet totally obvious to many other people that have been screaming it for decades.

”On Thursday morning, staring up at the confederate flag, I had an enlightening moment. In my youth, I spent years attending functions within its bowels—music concerts, Mardi Gras balls, monster truck events—but I’d never noticed the flag flapping overhead. Had it always been there? Why hadn’t I seen it? What’s wrong with me? I felt a moment of guilt. The flag has never meant much to me. My family never really embraced it. The image was scant inside their homes. While the flag means nothing to me, it generates feelings for others: fear, hatred and terror, a reminder of men who fought for the wrong reasons, and that includes my own great great great grandfather, a private in Louisiana’s 18th Regiment Volunteer Infantry. In my disregard for the flag as nothing more than assorted colors on thin fabric, I failed to realize the significance it holds for my minority neighbors. And maybe that’s rooted in this place I call home.”

Also notice the attitude of “Gosh, how would anyone know?”. As if there was a super secret coded message that he became aware of. . . . It’s like someone living in a city with a large mural of a jungle painted on a building. There is a large tree frog in the mural. A man passes by it everyday.  Hundreds of people have pointed the tree frog out to him. The tree frog is discussed in newspapers and cable news. Festivals highlight the tree frog. Politicians, athletes, musicians and movie stars all around him comment about the tree frog. Dozens of people have stopped him on his way to work to discuss the tree frog. . . After 20 years of this, the man has an “enlightening moment” in which he realizes there is a tree frog in the mural. He is so astounded by this that he uses his platform as a journalist to write an article to let people know there is a tree frog in the mural and he can now see it. . . 

[Forestluv]

Sometimes being an empath is amazing. It’s like a super power. And sometimes being an empath is fucking hard. Like when you can see cruelty, yet can’t help those getting hurt. It’s so obvious, yet no one around you can see the cruelty and you can’t explain it to them. They are incapable of seeing it. It’s just how they are. It hurts. For any empaths that can relate, I know how it feels.

[Forestluv]

I’ve noticed a lot of minds have difficulty seeing that Everything = Nothing. Here is a simple example I noticed today. . . 

I bought some new Vegan protein powder. I noticed there was a warning label that read “This product contains a substance known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm”. This surprised me since the Vegan powder was supposed to be organic and the ingredients were: Organic peas, brown rice, pumpkin seeds and natural flavors. Perhaps the toxic substance was one of the “natural flavors”. Or perhaps there were contaminants from the factory processing. So I researched the product and manufacturer. Not a single negative comment about the manufacturers or product related to this. . . .

Well. . . it turns out that every food manufacturer in California is worried that their product may have an ingredient that is later found out to be associated with a birth defect or reproductive harm. They are worried that they could potentially be liable in the future without the label, so every food manufacturer puts this label on their products to protect themselves just in case. All food products in California have this label. Nobody takes the warning label seriously because all food products have it.  I then realized “Every food product having the warning label is the same as no food product having the warning label”. The warning label becomes useless. Everything = Nothing.

[allislove]

Heh, funny story ☺️?

[Forestluv]

One thing I like about taking a trip is that is feels new. It feels far away from my normal space. It feels new. One way to do this is to get on an airplane and travel far away. To find a forest in New Zealand. . . Another way to do this is to take a psychedelic. It’s actually similar in a way. I can go my local nature center while tripping and it’s like going far away. It feels new, like I’ve never been there before.

As I was walking through my nature center today. I felt bored. I introspected the boredom. Part of it was due to being in this nature center so many times. I then realized, I have a “mind map”. This mind map is constructed from previous visits and knowing where I am in relation to images beyond my field of perception. For example, I know which way the path will turn ahead. I know where the barn is. I know where all the parts of the town is and my house in relation to where I am standing in the nature center. This map has been re-enforced, creating a mind map in the background. This mind map leads to familiarity. Not just familiarity with my field of perception, yet a subconscious mind map of what surrounds my field of perception. 

I realize this while I was hiking today. Just this awareness of this can open doors. I asked if I could right now enter a mind space as if I had never been here before. Yes it’s possible. In a way, this was the first time I was there. All the leaf positions, the shadows, angles of sunlight etc. where all unique. As well, a psychedelic would erase my mind maps. . . Why would traveling erase a mind map? Part of it is being in a new place, yet part of it is giving yourself permission. An international trip takes months of planning. You’ve got to pack, get on a plane, get the rental car, find the AirBnb etc. It feels so far away because of the backstory it’s so far away. 

So. . . I was able to do it, somewhat. It was sorta like drifting in and out of an awake lucid dream. There were briefs periods in which it was like I was seeing it all for the very first time. I really didn’t know where I was. Yet then my mind would drift back into memory and the mind map and I became re-familiarized. Yet it was cool I could do it, even for brief periods. It’s almost like learning to juggle. You can do it for 10 seconds or so and are like “I’m juggling” and then you lose it and the balls fall down. . . 

 

[allislove]

On 7/5/2020 at 4:37 AM, Forestluv said:

One thing I like about taking a trip is that is feels new. It feels far away from my normal space. It feels new. One way to do this is to get on an airplane and travel far away. To find a forest in New Zealand. . . Another way to do this is to take a psychedelic. It’s actually similar in a way. I can go my local nature center while tripping and it’s like going far away. It feels new, like I’ve never been there before.

Reminds me of 

 

[Forestluv]

I’m observing a lot of conflation between development / abilities and arrogance. An important distinction can be made.

In terms of SD, a blue level person often perceives higher developmental stages being arrogant. For example, a mind at blue may perceive issues as simple binary constructs. For example, it is either good or bad. A mind at orange can see nuances, such as the  spectrums of good and bad. Also, some things can be a combination of good and bad. A mind at green can begin to see relativity - that “good” and “bad” are relative terms. There is no one objective, universal standard of “good” or “bad”. These cognitive abilities are distinct from the personality trait of arrogance. For example, could there be an orange level scientist that is very good at seeing spectrums and nuances that he considers himself “superior” to those at blue? Of course. Might Orange mock Blue? Of course. It happens all the time. Every night on late night TV shows. However, the personalities are distinct from the abilities.

Another example: imagine someone who can only speak English is traveling through Europe. He is in an area where everyone around him can speak 3 languages. The English-speaking person is lost and needs help and the Europeans are mocking him because he can only speak English. They even speak other languages he cannot understand in a condescending tone. Is it fair to say “You are being arrogant!” Of course. Yet it would be absurd to say “The ability to speak three languages is arrogant!”. Of course not. 

[Forestluv]

I’m observing some meta-intellectual mindsets contracted within intellect. . . 

We could spend many hours of creating intellectual models of intuition, yet that ain’t intuition. We can spend many hours creating intellectual models of empathy, yet that ain’t empathy. An intellectually-dominated mind will want narrative control within intellectual frameworks. It will not want to surrender space to emotional, intuitive and empathic modes of intelligence. Just as an intellectual mind will struggle to let go of the intellectual ideas it is attached to, it will also struggle to let go of intellect itself. 

In terms of SD, transitioning into Tier2 involves meta awareness. In terms of intellect, the mind may realize that it’s own intellectual constructs are relative. It may become aware of attachment to those constructs. This can allow the mind to let go and become more fluid with constructing and deconstructing within intellectual realms. Yet there are other modes of intelligence. Transitioning into Tier2 for an intellectual mind also means becoming aware of attachment to intellect itself. Surrendering attachment to intellect allows a different type of fluidity. A fluidity that integrates various modes of being, including intellect, emotions, energetics, empathy, intuition etc.

Similarly, there is transitioning into Tier2 empathy that involves meta awareness. In terms of empathy, the mind may realize it’s own empathy is relative. It may become aware of attachment to specific forms of empathy. This can allow the being to let go and become more fluid within empathic realms. This involves surrendering attachment to certain forms of empathy. The being is no liberated to empathize beyond it’s previous contraction. For example, in Tier1 a person may only be able to empathize with people that have similar life experiences. This is an empathic contraction. In Tier2 attachment to self-related empathy is transcended and the being is now free to empathize and understand experiences outside of it’s own limited experiences. At higher levels, this can include empathic essence way beyond one’s own life experience. For example, at a high level of empathy, a being may empathically grok the essence of a person that lives in a small village in Peru that interacts with dark spirit entities. This could be well outside the empathic person’s life experience and belief system. They might not know anything about small Peruvian villages, they might not even believe in dark spirit entities. Yet there is an empathic essence that arises and the person is like “Whoooaaa, so that’s what it’s like to be a Peruvian villager who interacts with dark spirit entities”. The person actually interacts wIth dark spirit entities. Since this is not an intellectual realm, constructs like “is this real or imagined?” don’t even appear. It is beyond, or prior to, such intellectual constructs. . . This is a Tier2 level of empathy. There are likely many other forms of Tier2 empathic manifestations. I can only describe what has appeared for me. 

However, one being can have different levels of development for each area. Similar to how a person can have different levels of fluency in foreign language. A person can be fluent in English, partially fluent in Spanish and lack fluency in French. If someone is fully fluent in English and at an intermediate level of Spanish, what will there default language be? English of course. By default, they will naturally think in English and will have a habit of translating Spanish into English. It takes effort to break this habit and learn to understand and communicate directly in Spanish. Then the person can become an integrated bilingual. 

Similarly, a mind can be fluent in intellect and be at an intermediate level of empathic fluency. The default mode of being will be intellect. The mind will translate empathic essence into the intellect language. It takes effort to break this intellectual translation and learn to understand and communicate directly in empathy. Then the person can become an integrated bilingual.

To me, the orientation of being intellect-dominant and expanding into being intellect plus empathic bilingual is most obvious. Probably because this is the orientation I have been evolving. As well, it seems this orientation is more common for males that females. There is also the orientation of being empathic-dominant and expanding into being empathic plus intellect bilingual. I imagine this would be a more common orientation in women. 

[Forestluv]

 

I love this image. The integration of colors, nature, art, femininity, eye gaze. Beautiful.

[Forestluv]

I just did a google search for empathy and let’s just say that the current resolution is very low. Imagine the evolution of vision. Early on, animals had very crude vision. They could barely make out shapes. All they could see was the outline. They could barely make out light and shadows. All they could see was grey contrast. They could not see colors, textures and other details. That where we are with empathy. Most of the psychological theory I saw had one vague idea of empathy, that it’s about being able to feel what others feel. From psychological theory, the most distinctions of empathy I saw was three. . . Three! That’s some looow resolution. I’ve search what self-described empaths have written, the most distinctions I’ve found is five. Five! And this is from self-identified empaths. So all the psychologists and empaths combined have written about a total of eight forms of empathy. I could easily add another 20 distinctions. . . Neuroscientists are trying to map empathy to brain regions in monks meditating on compassion. These neuroscientists don’t even know the difference between empathy and compassion. How the fuck are they going to be able to map empathy in the brain. Imagine a surgeon not knowing the difference between your elbow and ankle. . . 

Folks, we are in the dark ages of empathy. Future generations will look back and be amazed with how crude we are today. Imagine having a language with eight words. Yet that’s how language did indeed begin. They began with just a few symbols of representation. 

Recent articles in business are starting to see that value of empathy in leadership. A good leader can sense the needs of others. It’s comical how they are patting themself on the back for this deep “insight”. It’s like realizing “Hey, you ever notice it’s good for a basketball player to be tall?”. . . 

Guides on how to improve empathy are equally shallow. “Listen carefully to the other person and try to imagine where they are coming from”. It’s like trying to describe how to spot a ball with flashing neon lights in an empty room. . . Ahhh, but there-in lies the rub. The room isn’t empty. . . One of the worst places to observe one’s potential empathic abilities is with another person. There is too much noise. There is all sorts of energy regarding how I am perceived, what they are thinking, co-decency, wanting affirmation, being right and on and on and on. . . A much better way to test yourself for human forms of empathy is when there is no other person around. Yes, this sounds counter-intuitive because empathy is supposed to be about feeling what the person you are with is feeling. Yet let’s remove the human noise and get a clear look.

When you are watching a movie, you can relax and let yourself go. There is no concern about what the characters on the screen think about you. There is no concern about impressing the characters on the screen or being right in a debate. You can let yourself go. Imagine you let yourself go. You forget that “I” am watching a movie. You forget that you are in a theatre. You forget what time it is. You are immersed in the movie. What is your relationship to the characters? Is it like you are an outside observer watching the lives of others? Do you think about and analyze the plot?. . . Or do you have a different engagement. . . Do you feel like you know one or more of the characters? Does a character almost feel like your friend? If she gets in a dangerous situation, do you feel your friend anxiety for your friend?  If so, that is a form of empathy. . . Also, do you ever feel like you are experiencing through that character? Do you feel like you are experiencing their sadness, hope and joy? If so that is also a form of empathy. You can do it. You can do the same test with characters in a book. . .  Movies and books are a clean, direct form. With actual humans in real life, things get messy because all sorts of other noise variables are thrown in.

If the movie example resonated with you, test your range. . . It is much easier to empathize with a character you can relate to or you like. If you are a female that likes a handsome guy to romance you and sweep you off your feet, it is much easier to relate to a movie character that is a female being romanced by a handsome guy. This is empathic bias. You will empathically relate to her and adopt all of her biases. Just like there are intellectual biases there are empathic biases. . . Observe your range of empathic ability. Can you merge with a movie character unlike you and your desires? If you are a young English straight male, could you merge with an old gay Mexican guy or a Portuguese lesbian woman? If you are scientifically-minded, could you merge with a paranormal witch? This is a much harder empathic test, because there is greater distance between your identity and the character’s identity. This is a higher level of transcendent empathy. In developing empathic skills, one can use similarities to get closer and closer to the character, yet there are identity blocks that need to get released. One way to do this is letting go, another way to do this is curiosity and indirect relating. For example, if there is a character getting marginalized and stigmatized for having an anxiety disorder, it’s easy to relate to the character if you have had an anxiety disorder, you already know what it’s like. Yet even without having an anxiety disorder, the jump may not be that far. For example, you may have ADHD and know what it’s like to be marginalized and teased. You know what it’s like to be told you are just making it up. You know what it’s like to feel like no one understands you. This can bridge the gap with the character. . . Or you may have had one experience of an anxiety attack that you long since forgot. For example, maybe as a kid you were standing on the high dive at the pool scared and had a panic attack about jumping. . . Or you could have had minor anxiety experiences and you can imagine them as being as severe as the movie characters disorder. All of this can help draw you into merging with the character.  

[Forestluv]

If a person doesn’t have a sense of “what it’s like” to be another person, they will have a limited view and fall prey to extrapolating that. This causes distortion at the wider view, because it is not comprehensive. Imagine taking a 3 x 5 image and extrapolating it to an 8 x 10 image. What happens? It becomes distorted because limited pixels have been extrapolated into a larger image. To retain clarity, more pixels need to be added in - yet we cannot simply guess what those pixels are. We need to discover actual information we were missing and add that to the image. Similarly, if someone has a narrow view they cannot simply extrapolate that into a larger view. That will cause blur. To create a larger view that is clear, they need to go and find out what they were missing. However, with personal views, people don’t want to do that because they are attached and identified to the personal view. Many people feel like they would be wrong if they acknowledge they are missing some pixels.

For example, many men believe that women in abusive relationships just say they don’t want to be in an abusive relationship, but they actually do want to be mistreated by an abusive boyfriend / husband. Why would they stick around in an abusive relationship when they can just leave? . . . From a narrow view, this has some truth to it. The problem is extrapolating this view into a wider truth. Without adding in more “pixels”, this extrapolated view is distorted. What are these “pixels” that are missing? . . . The above view doesn’t understand what it’s actually like to be in an abusive relationship and not being able to leave. This is where one’s own experience or empathic understanding comes into play. A person that lacks this experience or empathic understanding and believes that someone can simply leave an abusive relationship is not going to *get it* on multiple levels. A mind cannot cognitively think it’s way through this and think “yea, yea. I know women can be pressured to stay in a relationship”. Yet they don’t actually *get* what that actually is. I’ve been in an abusive relationship with a high level narcissist. I know what it’s like to be gaslighted and manipulated to the point where I cannot tell anyone what’s going on. I cannot tell a psychologist or any friends. I know what it feels like to be trapped with no way out. I know what it feels like to not even be aware that I am trapped and should be looking for a way out. I also spent years volunteering in a psychiatric ward and had hundreds of hours of conversations with people (nearly all women) entrapped within abusive relationships. There is an understanding that cannot be figured out intellectually. It’s got to come through either direct experience or an empathic awakening of “ooohhh, so that’s what it’s like. . . “.  We can create intellectual constructs of why people stay in abusive relationships. We could say that even though they are trapped, they are sticking around for something they subconsciously want. This has some value and truth to it, yet it will be limited without the understanding of what it’s actually like. 

Does one need to be trapped and suffer within an abusive relationship to know what it’s actually like? Sadly, I’m coming to the realization that the answer is “yes” for cognitive, intellectual types. Even if they are well-intentioned, they are so immersed into creating intellectual constructs that they are unable to add in non-intellectual components, such as indirect empathy and intuition. They don’t have the imaginative abilities to indirectly *get* what the experience is like. For people with imaginative empathic skills, watching a documentary of women explaining what it’s like may be sufficient. I watched a documentary of a teenager / young woman who was kidnapped and abused. The guy kept her in a small box in which she couldn’t move. Sometimes 20+ hours a day. Or even consecutive days or weeks. This was used to punish her for disobedience and break her. He also psychologically brainwashed her and physically abused her. She came to believe that there was a larger group of men watching her every move and if she tried to escape, they would kill her and her family. They guy even created newspaper articles to this effect to brainwash her. After years of this, he could allow her to go outside on her own. She went for walks on her own and to the market. He even brought her to see her own family!! They actually spent an afternoon together with her family and she didn’t say a word. She made no effort to communicate that she is trapped and cannot leave. We could create all sorts of intellectual theories about why she didn’t reach out for help when she could have. These theories have value. Yet it is incomplete without the knowing of what it’s actually like. As I watched this documentary, I slipped into a non-intellectual space of what this would actually be like and from that knowing, it makes complete sense why someone would not try to leave. Yet this understanding isn’t an intellectual theory. It’s an “I get it”. Type of thing. From my observation, hyper-intellectuals have a very difficult time indirectly imaging what it’s actually like. Intellectually thinking about it is insufficient. Unfortunately, to get a sense of the actuality they would actually need to be entrapped in this way to the point in which they become that person and they themselves cannot leave when they have the opportunity. Then once free, they realize “Ooohhh, so that’s what it’s like”. 

[Forestluv]

When we get into the deeper levels of empathic understanding, the question of “what is knowing” arises. If someone ‘seems’ to experience the experience of another, do they actually ‘know’ what the other person experienced?. . . Yes and no. This gets into the seeping levels of empathic knowing in which distinctions can be made.

As an example: one evening during a laying meditative state, there was a ‘clearing’ and no ‘me’. What arose was a past traumatic experience that ‘I’ never experienced. However, there was no ‘I’ at the time so this didn’t matter at that time. This memory of a traumatic form of abuse arose and there was a re-experience of it. There was a spiraling down period in which I wanted to get out, yet I couldn’t. I couldn’t make it stop and it was like it was happening again. The past episode was being experienced again. There was observation as well as experiencing. It was very stressful to the mind and body. Afterwards during re-grounding there was a realization that appeared “That is what a dynamic of PTSD is like”. There is a form of knowing. It is not an intellectual knowing by reading theory from a textbook or trying to figure it out. It is an experiential knowing. The question is: Do I actually know what it’s like? This gets into deep levels of memory, experience, imagination and reality. This isn’t theory creating the ISness of the experience. This is the ISness of the experience trying to express itself through theory. . . 

Can I know walk around and claim that I had this traumatic abusive experience in my life, a PTSD flashback and that I know what it’s like? Not quite. It would be extremely misleading to state this others, because I never went through the actual abusive traumatic episode. During my empathic development, a ‘teacher’ came that intensely reprimanded me for making this claim and showed me how I don’t ‘know what it’s like’ from one aspect of actuality. I felt awful for doing this and was brought to tears for claiming I knew what certain experiences were like without ever having that actual direct experience. I later came to realize, that this is one dimension of experiential ‘knowing’ and that there is another dimension of experiential ‘knowing’. When I get grounded in this dimension of experiential ‘knowing’, I can deeply relate with someone who has had abusive trauma and PTSD flashbacks. It is an empathic connection that opens a channel of communication.

From another perspective: you wouldn’t ‘know’ what it’s like to experience your own experiences. This may seem absurd. “Of course I know what is was like to experience what I actually experienced!!!”. Yet ‘experience’ is a contextualization occurring now. The ideas of what I experienced is not the same as what was experienced. The person who underwent the experience is not the same person that is reflecting on the experience “I” had. This is one reason PTSD flashbacks can be so intense. It is not merely someone reflecting or remembering the experience - it is the stored ISness of an aspect of the experience. As well, contextualized memories can also be very different than the actual experience. In this context, my person ‘now’ does not truly know what the experience is like form my previous person. . . For example, suppose I underwent back surgery and was hospitalized for weeks. Obviously, I can claim I know what it’s like to undergo back surgery and be hospitalized for weeks. In one context, this is true. Yet consider another context. . . Studies have shown that people in serious hospital treatment will contextualize and remember *what is was like* disproportionally based on what the ending of the experience was like. There were studies that looked at people’s scores of pain during a hospital stay and how they later remember it. People remember the experience disproportionately based on the last few days. For example, a person that had a series of intense 7,8,9 pain days that ended the stay with some mild 2 and 3 pain days (with some loving care and laughter the final few days”, tends to remember the experience based on the last few days. They will say “Oh, back surgery isn’t so bad.”. The final 2/3 days are preferentially remembered over the series of 7-9 days. The flip also occurs. Someone could be receiving proper pain medication and loving care from nurses and have a series of 2/3 pain days. Yet the last few days, some overworked nurses may rotate in, take him off the pain meds and be dismissive of him. This may be remembered as 7-9 pain days. This person will have a tendency to remember the overall experience as being really bad and think “Back surgery is awful”. . .

So. . . Does this person actually ‘know’ what their own experience was like? Imagine the person who says “Oh, back surgery wasn’t so bad” due to selective memory of the final 2/3 pain days. Imagine he visits his earlIer self during the initial 7-9 pain days. His previous self undergoing 7-9 pain days would tell him “You don’t know what it’s like to have back surgery”, even though it’s the same person!! This highlights that there isn’t the ‘same’ person because the ‘person’ is a construct, as are experiential memories of a ‘person’ over time.

I speculate, and propose, that a mind that operates in a binary mode will have a tendency of remembering the experience as either “It wasn’t so bad” or “It was really bad”. It’s how they perceive the world. Their mind does not contextualize in mosaics, nuances and degrees. How might this mind contextualize the back surgery experience? More like “The first week was mostly roughly days. Some were more intense than others. When they were weaning me off the meds, there were some spots that were more uncomfortable than others. Yet even within my worst days of pain, there were some bright spots. There was one nurse that came in a couple times a day and could make me laugh. Even during the most painful days, he could inject humor and make me feel good for a brief moment”. This memory portrait is a much higher resolution. It can include 2/3 moments within 7-9 pain days. It’s not either all bad or all good. That is a low resolution memory portrait.

However, a binary mindset may have been perceiving either / or during the time. It could have perceived the entire hospital stay as awful during the stay and filter things out like the friendly nurse because the friendly nurse is inconsistent with the binary mindset that it’s all awful. The awful filter will filter out non-awful. 

 

 

[Forestluv]

Being willing to be the first to walk through the door. 

For those that want to develop empathic skills, observe how you are an empath to yourself. This is a very basic level of empathy to become aware of and build a foundation.

What does it mean to be an empath to one’s self? Simple. Reflect on a unique experience you’ve had. Something that most people haven’t experienced it and wouldn’t know what it’s like. Perhaps skydiving or giving birth. If you have done sky diving, do you know what sky diving is like? Of course! You are an empath to yourself. If you have given birth, do you know what giving birth is like? Of course! You are being an empath to yourself. . . You are reflecting on a prior experience and you know what it’s like. 

Now. . . Would someone with limited experience have a narrower or wider range of being empathic to itself? Narrower of course. Imagine a child raised in a rural farm without internet. He grows up to be a farmer and farms everyday. He goes to the local tractor supply store on occasion. This is a very limited range of experience. Clearly, he will not what it’s like to be a farmer, what it’s like to work long, hot days in the field. What it’s like to have a unique relationship with the weather, since his livelihood is inter-twined with the weather. He can easily be empathic to himself and empathic to other farmers with similar experience. Yet his empathy potential is highly limited due to limited experience. .. . Now imagine someone who had experience as a farmer and then they moved to the city. He worked as a taxi driver, waiter, grade-school teacher and politician. This person now has a wider range of experiences and has a wider empathic range, in relation to himself and others with similar experiences.

Now imagine we have a townhall meeting with rural farmers and urban taxi drivers, waiters, grade-school teachers and politicians. Which individual will be able to empathically relate to the widest range of individuals? The person who was a farmer or the person who has experience as the farmer as well as experiencing all those other careers. Of course the person with the wider experience. And it’s not just intellectual. The theoretical understanding is just one component. There is also an empathic understanding component from the direct experience. As the farmer argues from his perspective, the guy can say “I get it” (not just intellectually, also from experience). He will be able to empathetically talk to the farmer and the farmer would be like “yea, you get it”. Similarly, the taxi driver may say “But wait a minute, what about xyz”. The person who has been both a farmer AND taxi driver can also communicate with the taxi driver on both intellectual and empathic levels. The taxi driver will be like “yea, you get it”. 

One to the features of the Big Five personalities as the trait of wanting to experience new things. Like really new things. For example, a lawyer who lives in a upper-middle class area in America wanting to spend three months living in a poor village in Honduras to experience what that is like. People with this personality type will have a wider range of empathic understanding to their own experience and people with similar experience. Yet this is still limited to ‘knowing’ one’s own experience. For those who want to venture into the highest levels of empathetic knowing, there comes a time in which your start learning ‘what it’s like’ without having to actually spend years and thousands of dollars actually experiencing what it’s like. Yet as I’ve written, I’m starting to see how some people do not have this ability, or it is a very weak ability. I think some people have a higher innate ability / gift for empathetic and intuitive knowing. Yet I also think their is a developmental component. 

For example, someone may start off with a 2/10 baseline level of empathic potential due to genetics, past lives, early childhood conditioning etc. Yet, if they can personally develop and transcend attachments to their own conditioned beliefs and conditioning, they may be able to develop up to a 6/10 level of empathy. Yet they just don’t have the innate abilities to go higher. Similar to how a people have upper potential limits such as with height. 

Personally, I would say I started with a baseline level of around 6/10 - slightly higher than average. Yet my potential abilities were repressed for various reasons. Often, I operated at around a 3/10 level, yet at times I would reach 6/10 and even have quick glimpses of 8/10. So, the question now is how I can my development go? What is the upper limit of my potential? Is there an upper limit?

Once realizations and awareness appeared, clarity began and it became super easy to get grounded in the 6/10 zone. Once outside influences and noise is removed, the natural resting state is 6/10 for me. Anything under 6/10 is actually discomfort for me. When I was repressed and living in a forced 3/10 zone, it was miserable. Yet once awareness of that arises, those chains are removed. Once can now go from a 6/10 baseline level and develop upward. Yet in some respects, the higher one goes, the harder it gets. Getting up to 7/10 wasn’t so hard. Yet going higher has challenges. There just aren’t many role models in the 8+ zones of mature ability. To pull one up. Thus, there is a lot of self-exploration. This brings up trust. How can you trust yourself to become the first master in an area? How can you trust yourself to enter and explore high levels of empathy and intuition? How do you develop the confidence and trust to be the first one to walk through the door? That is a trait of a true explorer and leader. To be willing to be the first one to walk through the door. And then to report to others by creating models and teachings of what lies on the other side of that door. 

[Forestluv]

When I was younger, I had an alcohol addiction to the point it almost killed me. I was able to quit and haven’t had a drink in over 27 years. I spent over 20 years working with alcoholics, trying to help them recover. There were times in which I worked with non-alcoholic psychologists to build models of what alcoholism is. Why alcoholics continue to drink despite the consequences. Why the stick around in their addiction, what they are getting out of it. These are intellectual-based views, with some intuitive nuggets of insight. . . It has some value. . . And then I go into a room of fellow recovering alcoholics and we laugh our asses off because the psychologist has no clue what it’s actually like to be an alcoholic, yet he thinks he does.

I can gain the trust of a fellow alcoholic in five minutes, because I am one. I know what it’s like. I speak that language. A non-alcoholic psychologist has value, yet they wouldn’t be able to enter that space because they don’t know what it’s like. Unless. . . The psychologist has high empathic skills. For example, Gabor Mate is a psychologist with both empathic and intellectual abilities. He has never had substance abuse addictions, yet he had a hardcore shopping addiction. Due to Gabor’s empathy skills, he is able to transverse into what addiction is sorta like for an alcoholic. He gets it in some areas and he can relate to alcoholics and drug addicts in a way few psychologists can. 

[Forestluv]

This quote on the forum is a great example of an empathic bias:

“A woman doesn't even understand what fear is until she's experienced what it's like for a guy to cold approach a hot girl and try to attract her.”

This is highly empathically biased. It comes from a male that has a lot of experience with the fear of cold approaching hot girls. While it is true that many women may not truly understand exactly what this is like, it is absurd to suggest that they cannot empathize with what this is like. This comes from a mindset with a very limited empathic range. It is biasing one’s own empathic experience as separate from yours. As well, the mind creates so much distance such that you would be unable to understand it. This Is a low level of empathic awareness and empathic skills.

What would a higher level of empathic skills look like?

Are women really incapable of getting a sense of what the fear of rejection for men cold calling women would be like? Parts of it would be difficult to grasp. For example, males have higher testosterone levels and have biological and social conditioning to compete for females - just like thousands of other animal species. This would be difficult for a woman to understand. Since men are conditioned to be “masculine” and a lot of their perceived physical and social worth is based on their ability to attract women. Women don’t have this form of social worth conditioning, yet women also have a type of conditioning regarding their social worth regarding being attractive to men. Based on this, they can get a sense of what that would be like for men. As well, many women have been in situations in which they liked a guy and wanted to attract him and had an intense fear of rejection.  It’s not exactly the same, yet there is a lot of overlap. . . As well, woman have all sorts of fear that are on par with a male’s fear of cold approaching an attractive woman. It’s absurd to distance woman away from saying “you don’t know what fear is until you’ve experienced what it’s like for a guy”. . . This destroys bridges, rather than construct bridges. . . Bridge construction would be to reach out in an effort to connect. Something like “Imagine you were in situation like xyz. It’s kinda like that”.

As well, I am a male and I have experienced the intense fear of cold approaching a hot girl and trying to attract her”. And I think it’s absurd for one male to speak for all males. Based on my actual experience of this as a male and my discussions with women, I think they can get a sense of what it’s like. 

The same person reveals the flip-side when he writes:

”While it's true that women have fears of sexual assault and so-on that men do not, it's absurd to say that women fear more than men.”

This too is at a basic level with empathic bias. At least there is the awareness and acknowledgement that women have fears of sexual assault that men do not. However, it creates an empathic duality of “women have their forms of fear that men cannot understand and men have their forms of fear that women cannot understand”. Yet this empathic duality breaks down upon further inspection. While it is true a male cannot literally become a female and truly understand a fear of sexual assault from the perspective of a female, it’s absurd to say a male cannot get a sense of this, especially if they are open to learning about it. I’ve contemplated this very thing many times. For example, while walking alone in nature preserves I’ve contemplated “What would it feel like to be a women right now with a background fear of sexual assault risk”. With imagination, there can be an arising. I can get a sense of what it feels like to be vulnerable. I can imagine walking in a nature preserve in which their are bandits in the area. I have experience of this as a tourist. I’ve been out in nature in foreign countries in which their is risk of bandit assault. . . I wasn’t in immediate danger, yet the risk level was heightened and the fear / stress level was higher. And as dusk approaches and it gets dark, the anxiety starts to rise. I can imagine not knowing if a male will jump out of the bushes up ahead. I just want to get out of their and be safe. . . Then I see a woman walking in the nature preserve with a dog and it makes total sense. Yes, I wish I had a dog right now. 

Is this exactly how it is for a woman? Of course not. Yet I’ve also had many conversations with women about what it’s like and they tell me “yea, that kinda what it’s like. Pretty close”. 

Creating dualistic empathic dualities of “you don’t know what my experience is like and I don’t know what your experience is like” is a major block from developing empathic understanding of what it’s like.