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bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
 Posted - 03/07/2013 : 19:34:16
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Hi Nicole,
Thanks for the update on your personal life, and the reminder about your personal courage.
And, again... reminding us that you are beloved by the scores of people you've touched.
I guess we'll wait around a few more weeks until you can get around to actually providing some insight around here like Ace, Dr. Z, Dr. A and some of the more enlightened professionals have.
Anyway, good luck with the book sales!
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eric watson
USA
601 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 05:42:56
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am i out of line here or was that a low blow-
come on |
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eric watson
USA
601 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 05:48:35
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quote:
Originally posted by tennis tom
"I have witnessed people evolve from crippling pain and incurable "conditions" first to tentative hope, and then finally to the kind of realizations that have assured me they will 'never be fooled again.'
...But no ****; I have seen all of these things. MANY TIMES."
Page 7
when you can set there and tell someone they have the ability to heal and then over weeks and months or even years show them how. and then at the end of this time they have their life back and living a full life, its all worth it. but still folks wont believe ya, its a powerful thing to see those heal youve helped. thanks nicole and tom |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 08:00:49
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Your welcome Eric, whenever I read your words, they are very comforting.
Cheers,
tt |
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 12:15:14
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| Bryan. Remember key #26 ask your self is what I am doing helping me calm my revved up nervous system? So if there is an option it is always better to choose peace. If you actions are taken to change harm to you or others, that is different. However if your action has no effect in changing anything, choose peace for your own healing. |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 12:52:05
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Ekhart Tolle -- A New Earth
BEING RIGHT, MAKING WRONG
Complaining as well as faultfinding and reactivity strengthen the ego's sense of boundary and separateness on which its survival depends. But they also strengthen the ego in another way by giving it a feeling of superiority on which it thrives. It may not be immediately apparent how complaining, say, about a traffic jam, about politicians, about the “greedy wealthy” or the “lazy unemployed,” or your colleagues or exspouse , men or women, can give you a sense of superiority. Here is why. When you complain, by implication you are right and the person or situation you complain about or react against is wrong.
There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position – a perspective, an opinion, a judgment, a story. For you to be right, of course, you need someone else to be wrong, and so the ego loves to make wrong in order to be right. In other words: you need to make others wrong in order to get a stronger sense of who you are. Not only a person, but also a situation can be made wrong through complaining and reactivity, which always implies that “this should not be happening.” Being right places you in a position of imagined moral superiority in relation to the person or situation that is being judged and found wanting. It is that sense of superiority the ego craves and through which it enhances itself.
*************************
“Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the
three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living” -- Ekhart Tolle |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 13:15:40
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Human behavior is very interesting, for what I see in others I also see in myself. When I come to this realization it becomes more difficult to criticize what others do. But many times I forget this point, and when I do it is then my finger pointing commences.
I was reading the comments section on an online article today and a person responded that what the author wrote is "is 100% true!" Now that is quite a statement and I was wondering how the person came to that conclusion until it occurred to me that he holds the opinion that what the author wrote is "is 100% true!" because the author is taking a position he is agrees with. Think about that for a second. This person is taking as his criteria concerning what is true or false to be whether the author agrees with him or not. I think we all do this at times. We read something and if we agree with it we too will make the statement that what the author wrote is "is 100% true!" but if we disagree we say the opposite, that the author is being false. But how do we know for sure that our position is 100% true or not? Many times the basis of our belief in anything is rather flimsy but, because we feel comfortable with it, we embrace it and make part of our belief system. We then proceed to dismiss anyone who disagrees with us and even attach labels to them in order to further justify our position and demonize our opponent. This is drama -- or ego if you like -- on a small scale, but on a nation state level, this kind of thinking has brought about a lot of pain and suffering throughout the course of human history.
I invite readers to read the section titled "The Vanity Of Knowing Better" in Dr Abraham Low's book "Mental Health Through Will Training." It can be read at the following link (part 2, chapter 6): http://www.bahaistudies.net/neurelitism/library/mentalhealththroughwilltraining.html
I cut and paste the chapter below:
Lucille, on the Saturday panel, reported that some time
ago she bought an ashtray and "just loved the looks of it."
She showed the new acquisition to her sister Martha expecting
to be complimented on her good taste. But the sister,
little impressed, burst out laughing. "Why," she exclaimed,
"that's no ashtray. It is something to hang on the wall.
Don't you see it has a hole in it?" An argument developed,
Lucille insisting it was an ashtray "for sure" and the sister
claiming with equal insistence that it was a wall decoration
"at best" and "certainly not an ashtray." Lucille was upset.
"I hated to admit that I had made such a silly mistake. But
I checked my temper and refused to continue the argument
.... A few weeks later I was in the same store where I purchased
the dish and saw it was still on sale there. Just for
curiosity I asked the salesman what kind of an article it
was. "Why," he said, "these are ashtrays." I felt the impulse
to rush home and tell my sister that she had been wrong
but that would have led to an argument again and might
have given me my symptoms. When I arrived home I said
nothing about my conversation with the salesman and felt
proud that I could exercise self-control."
What Lucille and Martha fought about was not the ashtray
or its possession or its value. The contest was to decide who of
the sisters was more competent in discerning the meaning of the
otherwise paltry and insignificant object and finding the proper
name for it. As such it was a matching of wits in which the
question at issue was: Who knows better? Whose is the superior
intelligence? Bursting with contemptuous laughter Martha
indicated that in her mind Lucille figured as a dunce, a person
who did not know the difference between an ashtray and a wall
plate. Lucille, with the humility born of persistent Recovery
training, retired into silence, tacitly admitting that perhaps she
did not know, that perchance her intelligence had its limitations.
To admit one's limitations is humility, to insist on one's superior
knowledge is vanity. Martha was vain, Lucille was humble.
I well remember the time when Lucille used to come to my
office complaining about her choking and sweating and palpitating,
her air-hunger and pains and numbness. All I had to
do was to inquire about her recent experiences at home to find
the unfailing source of her symptoms and distress. It was invariably
battles with her sister, her son and husband about sheer
trivialities in which she was "sure she knew and was right" and
the others contested her claim and were equally "sure she did
not know and was wrong." From these battles about superior
knowledge Lucille emerged regularly prostrate with agony and
weariness and torturing symptoms. In those days the vanity
of proving her superior knowledge rocked her body with endless
turmoil and torment. Today, with a humble awareness of
her average limitations, her body is in repose and her mind at
peace. Which method effected this transformation of a vain
superiority hunter into a humble person mindful of her average
limitations?
You who have gone through the process of training in Recovery
techniques know that the method is that of spotting.
From what you have been taught in Recovery you know that
everybody, not only my patients, has the natural impulse to
prove the superiority of his thinking abilities (intellectual validity) and to demonstrate the exquisite quality of his strength,
forcefulness and prowess (romantic vitality). Both impulses
result from claims. The intellectual person claims he knows
better how to -think, the romantic individual has the equivalent
claim to know better how to act. Both insist they "know" and
know better. This claim to know better, being a claim, is nothing
but a pretense, a vanity. The trouble is that your brothers and
sisters and friends have the same variety of claims and vanities,
belonging as they do to the same universal tribe of romanto intellectuals who people this globe of ours. All you have to
do is to advance your claim of superior knowledge and they will
promptly feel that their identical claim was challenged. Your
statement will be hotly contested and stiffly resisted. This merry
exchange of claims and counterclaims we call temper, and its
essence is that vanities clash and pretenses collide. The violence
of the clash and the heat of the collision produce anger; the
anger gives rise to tenseness which, in nervous patients, precipitates
symptoms. If my patients are to be rid of their symptoms
they must learn to dispense with the vanities of claiming superior
knowledge and to cultivate the humility of realizing their limited
efficiency in thinking and acting. This requires continuous
and unrelenting spotting, the pre-eminent method of self-control
taught you in Recovery.
In order to spot your temper correctly you must give up your
claim to know, to know more and know better. This ought to
be easy. It ought to be easy to drop a claim which is nothing
but a pretense, a vanity, an illusion. The tragedy is that the
illusion of superior knowledge provides you with stimulation,
excitement, thrill. It gives you an opportunity to fight, to score
a victory, to prove your shoddy excellence and spurious value.
Your symptoms make you feel helpless. They deprive you of
your vitality, of zest and self-confidence. Dragging along day
after day, tired, weary, listless, despairing of ever again experiencing the thrill and rapture of being alert and dynamic you
crave the exhilarating sense of being vigorous, vital and selfassured.
As it is, with your symptoms straining your energies,
with your nervous fatigue sapping your efficiency, you miss the
spark of life, the stimulation of interest, the throb of spontaneity.
You would do anything to recapture that delightful feeling of
being alive, active and forceful. Along comes the occasion for
a temper outburst. You feel challenged to maintain your claim
to superiority. True, it is nothing but a claim, a preten-se and
vanity. But if it promises to restore, even for a few minutes,
your waning sense of vitality you will plunge into the fray and
again live through the rapture and ecstasy of fighting and proving
to yourself that your vitality, far from being exhausted, is
again brimming with energy, throbbing with life. If a miracle
of this kind can be performed by the sheer claim to know better,
well, let it be a pretense, a vanity and illusion.
It has the mysterious capacity to restore vitality and spontaneity and if spotting it correctly is likely to undo its effect you will strain every nerve to avoid spotting. You will rather retain your symptoms than relinquish the supreme thrill of a rejuvenated vigor.
And memory is fresh yet of the days when I grappled with
Lucille trying to persuade her that the thrill provided by the
tantrum is nothing but a momentary exhilaration certain to
be followed by intensified suffering and aggravated symptoms.
She listened and seemed convinced but when the occasion for
a temper reaction arose she craved the thrill and yielded. One
day she came to my office beaming with joy. She told the story
of how she felt provoked by a neighbor, how her temper rose
and she controlled it. "After that/' she continued, "I was relaxed
and as comfortable as never before. I really felt proud
of myself." She had hardly completed the sentence when a
shadow settled on her face. "Doctor/' she said, "if I feel proud
of myself doesn't that mean that I am vain instead of humble?"
I asked her, "Is a mother vain if she is proud of her child? A
wife if she adores her husband? A citizen if he basks in the
glory of his country?" And I went on explaining that to be
proud of actual and realistic accomplishments is desirable and
valuable. What the mother prides herself on is the effort and
labors and deprivations which the raising of the child entailed.
She is proud of her self-effacing or self-control. And if a wife
is proud of her husband be certain that what she has in mind
is his accomplishments which are the result and product of his
self-control, and similarly with the citizen extolling the virtues
of his nation. These virtues are an index to the labors, successes
and exploits of past generations which were secured at the cost
of vigorous group discipline and collective self-control. Lucille
understood. As I continued my explanations she grasped the
fact that every act of self-control produces a sense of self-respect.
This self-respect is a form of pride. Another form of pride
is vanity. The latter does not point to actual and realistic
accomplishment, to no effort or self-discipline. It is merely a
claim, pretense and illusion. Lucille learned the distinction between
the two varieties of pride, the one realistic, the other
illusional. Realistic pride leads to self-respect, repose and relaxation, illusional pride or vanity, to self-torturing, momentary
thrill and enduring tenseness. In nervous patients it leads in
addition to perpetuation of symptoms.
Many a patient has told me, "I have learned to control my
temper outbursts. I no longer want the victories of vanity and
prefer the peacefulness of humility. But my fears are still active."
With the one patient it is the fear of collapse, with the
other the fear of the permanent handicap. These fears do not
seem to stem from the vanity of knowing better. To the contrary,
a fear appears to be the expression of a shrinking and
retreating disposition, hence, to be related to humility rather
than vanity. But when I try to explain to a patient that his
fears are groundless; that they are due to a thought of insecurity
in his brain; that he can dispose of this thought if he accepts
my authoritative knowledge; that he can brave his fatigue and
step out forcefully without any danger of collapse; when I tell
him that his so-called sleeplessness is a myth; that even if he
feels he hasn't slept, nevertheless, he did a good deal of sleeping
and perhaps of snoring; when I confront him with the store
o my knowledge about these subjects and point to my solid
experience of half a lifetime he argues and opposes and clings
stubbornly to his notions and engages in insipid verbal fencing
and knows better. He knows he has not slept a wink last
night; he knows the fatigue is "real" and not nervous; he is
certain his head pressure is the result of hypertension. And when
I take his blood pressure and assure him that it is within normal
limits and nothing to worry about he is likely to counter with
the exclamation, "But doctor, when I arn in your office I relax
and my blood pressure goes down. I am sure it will go up
the moment I step out on the street." You see, whether it is
the angry or fearful temper the situation is the same. The
patient "knows better." He is an arch romanto-intellectual who
knows and is sure and cannot be convinced without a long,
drawn-out struggle. If he is to be cured he must be trained to
assume a humble attitude and to divest himself o the vanity
of knowing. The road to humility leads through spotting to the
determination to abandon the craving for the divine thrill of
knowing better.
*************************
“Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the
three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living” -- Ekhart Tolle |
Edited by - shawnsmith on 03/08/2013 13:24:49 |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 14:29:29
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"I can't help you if you sit, arms crossed, like a defiant teenager, justifying the reasons that your specific brand of pain or conflict cannot be touched by my words."
Page 8 |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2013 : 10:34:45
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"This may be "the way" for YOU and your messed-up clients, but it's just not for me!"
..."STOP USING EVERY OUNCE of our energy to fight against feeling 'bad' or 'defensive' or 'wrong' or 'ashamed'".
Page 9" |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2013 : 10:30:56
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"...if you feel yourself getting annoyed, or angry or (God forbid) apathetic, ...Be mad at me! Feel free to tell me to **** off any time you choose while you read this book. I can take it."
Page 10 |
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pspa123
672 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2013 : 11:15:28
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quote:
Originally posted by tennis tom
"...if you feel yourself getting annoyed, or angry or (God forbid) apathetic, ...Be mad at me! Feel free to tell me to **** off any time you choose while you read this book. I can take it."
Page 10
That sounds like a strain. :) |
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eric watson
USA
601 Posts |
Posted - 03/27/2013 : 09:46:58
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quote:
Originally posted by pspa123
quote:
Originally posted by tennis tom
"...if you feel yourself getting annoyed, or angry or (God forbid) apathetic, ...Be mad at me! Feel free to tell me to **** off any time you choose while you read this book. I can take it."
Page 10
That sounds like a strain. :)
yes defiantly - then she can point them ya know
its not to hard to find issues with a person that's angry
we all get angered- its how we control it-
but sometimes we don't even know
we have to be told - then if its like
from family it just makes you boil more
then one day being aware you catch
yourself in the midst of this emotion
or like Nicole would hear it or see it then -
its like game on
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2013 : 08:11:11
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Page 24: "THE MEANING OF TRUTH" by Nicole J. Sachs, LCSW:
"I tend to say that we are "innocent liars". There is no direct malice in these "lies" that we tell, to ourselves or others. In fact, there is a good chance that we keep the truth from ourselves AS VEHEMENTLY as we do from the world. We PROTECT ourselves by being CERTAIN of "what happened," or "who we are," or "what we could handle." Yet if you can listen for a moment without DEFENSE (remember, no one can see you,) I have something that you need to hear:" |
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TRUTHS from Nicole J. Sachs "THE MEANING OF TRUTH"
