Doesn't Spirituality Reveal A Monumental Flaw In The Practice Of Psychology?

[Nahm]

@BeginnerActualizer I have to chime in and give some first hand experience on this one. I think you're 100% right on this. My wife was a social worker and counseler for a decade. We have my friends circle, basically from highschool 20 years ago, an otherwise misc bunch -  and her friend circle, basically from the social working field. Guess which circle has the most issues? Like attracts, in the mind. 

[Martin123]

@Phil Hippies are all good, nothing wrong with hippie philosophy.
It is preaching hippiism I find problematic. You don't get INTO the hippie vibe of love and compassion by practicing hippie lifestyle (at least in my definition of hippie lifestyle). You get there through hard work.

But you said it yourself, you didn't get there just through eating healthy, you mentioned meditation, and I'd assume that included emotional labour. :-)

[Martin123]

5 minutes ago, Phil said:

@BeginnerActualizer I have to chime in and give some first hand experience on this one. I think you're 100% right on this. My wife was a social worker and counseler for a decade. We have my friends circle, basically from highschool 20 years ago, an otherwise misc bunch -  and her friend circle, basically from the social working field. Guess which circle has the most issues? Like attracts, in the mind. 

Haha you should see my class (counseling course). It looks to me like a big bunch of victimhood, anxiety and depression. Of course there are exceptions. Thank goodness. 

[Nahm]

I am being completely honest when I tell you, I have experienced the opposite. Meditation has never been work or labour to me.  It is more like my "me time". Like golf, or playing guitar, or playing PS4, or singing, or reading a good book. What you are saying hits me like you are saying "I've been getting massages for many years and I'm finally breaking through the labor of it".  In my experience it is the letting go of all thinking. Thanks to daily meditation (and lots of PD sources), I have not worked, labored, stressed, or anything like that in years. 

[Martin123]

@Phil I would assume your path is very different from mine, I have lots of trauma stored in my subconscious and Im letting it out. Interesting though. I always assumed that on the path there is always emotional labour involved. 

[Nahm]

@Martin123 Have you ever come upon the idea that we create our reality with our words? I did a while back. Maybe from Tolle, can't remember. That lead me to learning neuro linguistic programming. Not the Hitler kind. The PD kind. I can often tell right where someone is by the words they use. I use words thoughtfully based on how they feel to me.  After some time passes, this makes a very big difference. I'd even go so far as to say that without this, the increased happiness and vision I obtain from learning does not become the default happiness I wake in, or my baseline if you will. 

[abrakamowse]

3 hours ago, BeginnerActualizer said:

When you go to a psychologist, or a therapist, isn't the first thing they do is to say, 'Ahh, okay. You are depressed/You have OCD/You have anxiety/You have PTSD'.

Totally agree with that. I was in the hospital due to depression. Anyway the experience taught me a lot, now I realize that there are better methods to get out of that. Because is like you say, when is the ego who is trying to do it, it comes back.

They say that if you have depression once, and after taking their pills you get better, the chance of have another time the same depression is 50% , then if you have depression a second time you have 90% of having depression again, so now they will prescribe you pills during the rest of your life.

WTF!!! Isn't that a belief too???? I didn't have any problem anymore with depression after begin to meditate consistently.

[Martin123]

@Phil I do believe language is a strong factor, but it is not the cause it is the effect. 
I made a decision I want to live my life trauma-free. And that is what I am getting, nothing more, nothing less. 

[Martin123]

@abrakamowse Pills have a huge relapse again.
You gotta understand, in the "official" mental health field nobody really knows what they're doing. Everyone is just derping around with the attitude of "yo howboa dis".
There is no proof of drugs working, it is just an assumption, a theory.
As well as for meditation, therapy, and psychadelics.
All these are approached as theories.
Now the only ones who kinda know what they're doing are some conscious therapists, who of course go baybay private practice because after a while they simply don't see any benefits from being restricted by the government. 

[Martin123]

18 minutes ago, Phil said:

I am being completely honest when I tell you, I have experienced the opposite. Meditation has never been work or labour to me.  It is more like my "me time". Like golf, or playing guitar, or playing PS4, or singing, or reading a good book. What you are saying hits me like you are saying "I've been getting massages for many years and I'm finally breaking through the labor of it".  In my experience it is the letting go of all thinking. Thanks to daily meditation (and lots of PD sources), I have not worked, labored, stressed, or anything like that in years. 

I am still in my beginning stages of PD, it's been a little more over a year since I started my own personal journey, and it was in a huuge place of depression and anxiety I was getting up from. 
I can imagine meditation and PD being effortless and joyful. In fact I have been there where everything was in this beautiful flow of life. But there is initial work to get there.

[abrakamowse]

10 minutes ago, Martin123 said:

@abrakamowse Pills have a huge relapse again.
You gotta understand, in the "official" mental health field nobody really knows what they're doing.

Totally agree with that. Pills works if we believe they can help. As meditation works if we believe meditation can help.

I told one of the doctors how I feel much better after meditation, and I suggested that they should teach patients to meditate. And she was like "Yes, but meditation doesn't work for everybody"...

[Martin123]

@abrakamowse Heard this argument. Well she's right though right. It works for people who are willing to put in the work and grow. Just like therapy.
Drugs are a different story. Drugs can give you an ability to get up if you're way too deep in the shit. But only temporarily. Being on drugs long-term will very likely destroy many aspects your life.

[Martin123]

@abrakamowse In other words if you're a victim you are going to be giving victimhood solutions. 
Hence the difference between psychiatrists and hardcore mindfulness teachers.  Guess who's the victim here

[Nahm]

@Martin123 I'm running the risk of going right back in the hippy category to you, but for what it's worth...and man, I really really hope I don't offend you, that is not my intention at all...but......You are where you are, and it is perfect. I think you are letting go of the memories of the traumas of your past and that is just awesome. Perhaps, as you meditate and let those things go, on their way out, you are experiencing the emotion that is attached to those memories. It is important (please don't take offense here) to acknowledge that while you were a victim of someone else's actions, unequivocally you were, (and fuck them by the way!) ... take responsibility for the attaching that transpired. Maybe you were too young to understand anything like this when the trauma happened, and again, it is not your fault, you were a victim, you were not responsible for what someone else did, but, you did the perceiving. Let me just articulate one more time - I'm not saying you brought it upon yourself, you didn't. You deserved better. I say again - FUCK THEM. What I am saying is, ever since the event or events - you and only you have the control over how you choose to think and talk about it, and the thinking and talking is what you experience with your emotions. The thinking and talking are NOW. Those events are not NOW. You are keeping them in your NOW with your focus & word usage. 

So I'm saying - use it to your benefit now. Forgiving is "for giving". Whoever did you wrong, try to think about giving to them. Imagine giving them what you have learned in your life. I bet what you now know could and could give them would be the exact thing that could free them. It is the thing they did not have when they harmed you. 

When I think "what is the opposite of hippies", science and specifically quantum physics comes to mind. So I'll go that route.

Consider using the Uncertainty Principle to your advantage. You are probably familiar with it, but perhaps applying it in this manor will be a fresh approach. We can look at where an electron is or where it is going. Never both.  The more information we have about it's position, the less we can know about it's trajectory, and vica versa. Neither observation is more or less real. So, consider, are you looking at where you were/are, when you could be looking at where you are going? We have a tendency to think that looking at where we are is more logical, reasonable and respectable. But I say The Uncertainty Principle is a description of reality itself, not an opinion. So I never look back, I focus on what's coming, where I'm going, and it is as real to me as where I've been or where I am. On my best days, even more so.

Feel your words for a while. Trust your emotions. Notice the subtly of how each word feels. Pick better ones. Pick the best feeling words you can. They define where you are headed.

Over time, it will culminate and you won't see the wrong or feel the pain of your past. Instead, you will appreciate the catalysts that led you to your salvation, your liberation. It does take time, but doesn't it feel good enough just to feel that you are going in the right direction?

 

Edited February 6, 2017 by Phil

[Martin123]

@Phil You misunderstand how I view my traumatic past.
There is emotional trauma stored in my body that I am letting go of, every day, getting better at it, learning better techniques and releasing more energy.
Thats it. There is no attachment to the past or the feeling that "I've been hurt in some way".
I am going to give a little more thoughts to the language part and think it over, maybe sleep on it, however this is the thing I can say right now.
It is not the word itself. It is the emotional energy behind it, the emotional colour of the word/thought is assigned unconsciously.
You don't purify it by using a differet word, u purify by releasing the energy.
Thanks though, most of what you said was spot on.

[The White Belt]

Your worst days are your best fellas.

Simple as.

I got depressed as a teenager. I became interested in why I got depressed, therefore I become interested in the mind. So I got interested in psychology, and then personal development, and then spirituality, and now I guess you could say I'm working on my liberation. 

My worst days, opened doors to things I didn't even know were damn possible. I had no clue. Incredible. 

[Nahm]

I'm gettin preachy. My apologies. That's great to hear. Sounds to me like you got this and I think you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. Perhaps my understanding that my emotion follows my thinking is more of a philosophy.   

[Martin123]

@Phil No worries I didn't get a preachy feeling out of your words, they were kind.