Emotional Vampires
Just a few days ago I wrote about “EVP – Emotional Projectile Vomiting” … something folks who have no awareness of their emotional states other than as explosive experiences beyond their control spew the contents of their emotions all over others.
In that post I assert that this is a particularly nasty and all too common human trait. I also laid out the structure of how EVP happens and even some suggestions about what to do about it if you’re a sufferer.
However, there’s another side to nasty human emotional responses … the Emotional Vampires.
The Sad Story Of The Too Kind King
There is a fable about a very kingly and kindly king who ruled a kingdom a long time ago, far, far away.
The story goes something like this …
One day in a massive battle against another kingdom during a particularly brutal time in the fighting one of the king’s closest companions, a boyhood friend and confidant, was challenging a foe who was too big, too strong and too fast for him to handle alone.
Just as the tables turned against the king’s companion, and he found himself about to be pierced by his opponent’s sword and struck dead, his opponent unceremoniously fell to the ground … and as he did his head rolled slightly to the side sliding off it’s neck to lie still on the ground next to his body.
The shocked man followed the falling body and the rolling head with his eyes, as his body was frozen in place – unable to move, until he looked up and away to see the king with his bloody sword in hand.
Immediately the king’s companion realized what the king had done and wept tears of graditude as he hugged his friend thanking him. The king accepted his friend’s graditude simply and silently, thinking to himself there was nothing else to do, but what he had done.
After the battle ended with victoriously for the king, he and his companions went their separate ways … the king back to the palace, the companion back to farm. A few years went by and one day a small caravan passed by the king’s companion’s farm and he saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and fell in love at first sight – fortunately for him, she too fell in love with him as soon as she laid her eyes on him.
He knew he had to follow this woman and did so, back to the palace. When he arrived he found out that this woman was the king’s younger sister, a princess … who the king delightly offered to marry him to when he heard of their love. Soon after the wedding the princess became pregnant and they had a daughter born to them.
There was much rejoicing at the fortune of the young couple, as any news spread quickly in the small kingdom. However, just two years later the young princess fell deathly ill … and it seemed all hope was lost. But the king would not hear of it and sent his personal physician to care for his niece, and miraculously the physician healed the girl bringing her back to full vigorous health.
The companion and his wife, the king’s sister, were overjoyed at their daughter’s recovery, and for many more years all was well. Then there was a terrible drought and the farm failed, leaving the family near starvation. One day, without fanfare or notice a carriage from the king’s palace arrived to take them to the king, saving the companion and his family once again.
When they arrived at the palace the companion went to see the king. They met in the king’s private chamber, the king opened a bottle of his best wine and poured them both a cup. Then the king was called away for a moment on some affair of the state, and when he returned they drank together.
Almost immediately the king felt himself seized by terrible convulsions, and he knew he had been poisoned. He looked to his friend asking him with gasping breaths to call the physicians, but his lifelong companion did not move, instead he slowly sipped the wine in his own cup.
Then the king knew … it was he, his childhood friend, the one he loved as a brother, that had poisoned him. He managed to croak out but one word as he slowly died, “Why?”
The companion looked away and said, “How could I live with this … when you have done so much for me … so much I could never hope to repay you?” He continued, “For as long as you are alive, as long as I know that you live and I may see you, or hear your voice, I know that I will carry the burden of your gifts and the weight of them has broken me.”
The king was astonished at this, but did not have the strength to speak. His last breath rattled in this throat and his old friend spoke to him one last time, “This my dear friend you brought upon yourself … so much kindness can never be borne by one so common … I would say that I am sorry, but in truth, I am not.”
And so the story begins …
How Emotional Vampires Get Their Fangs
It may seem counter-intuitive to presume that an excess of kindness creates a monster, but so often that is in fact the case.
The fact of the matter is that when the scales of relationship become excessively imbalanced in favor of one person in the relationship, the other person begins to experience a kind of relentless guilt that’s unbearable and impenetrable. Simply … there is no way that the receiver of such extraordinarily excessive kindness can ever imagine how they will rebalance the relationship … so they begin to see the giver as an oppressor rather than a benefactor.
However, these folks are seldom then able to remain content with simply taking out their vengence on their benefactor, they often begin to build a kind of expectation that transitions to entitlement.
When someone begins to experience a sense of entitlement they begin to expect others to take care of them, to ensure they get to experience what they desire, regardless of the cost to others.
One of the ways this kind of expectation is expressed is in the manifestation of the Emotional Vampire … the person who drains the energy and emotions of others relentlessly to fulfill their own desires and needs.
Emotional Thievery
The nature of vampire’s behavior is often contradictory. While they seem needy and weak, this is just a smoke screen for justifying their demanding and insistent nature.
“GIVE ME! GIVE ME! GIVE ME! … I HAVE NEEDS!!!” … rings forth from them in their every breath and act. Yet their words are often softly spoken, almost inaudible at times. Their movements may be deliberate, smooth and slow, belaying their real intention to steal what they can from others.
Like a thief in the night, Emotional Vampires often take what they believe they need and want without being noticed until they have fled. Only afterwards … when the victim is feeling drained and weak themselves do they begin to notice that something has been taken from them.
By then it is too late to recapture what has been lost … but it is not too late to keep what remains … and to rebuild the emotional treasury.
“PREPARE YE!”
Crosses, Garlic Necklaces and Wooden Stakes
Like with most things a little knowledge is a dangerous thing … and when it comes to Emotional Vampires your having a little knowledge is a dangerous thing for them.
Probably all this means nothing to you if you’ve never been bit by an Emotional Vampire … but if you have this will make all too much sense.
You’ll know you’ve been bitten by the symptoms you experience after the bite … a strange, unyeilding fatigue … a terrible sense of longing for relief, but relief from what or whom remains vague or utterly unknown … what feels like complete exhaustion down to the center of your bones …
Sometimes just the thought of spending time with the vampire is enough to bring on the symptoms.
But … fear not. Now that you’re beginning to learn the symptoms and the cause you can prepare yourself to resist the onslaught of the vampires before it begins.
First you must do is to raise your level of self-awareness (as I wrote about in my posting about Emotional Projectile Vomiting this is an area we place extensive emphasis on in the MythoSelf Process work).
You need to be able to recognize the symptoms of having been bitten by an Emotional Vampire after you have been … then as you are experiencing the symptoms … and then as you are beginning to sense them coming on … and finally when you are in the presence of an Emotional Vampire before they begin their treachery.
STEP ONE: Re-gaining Your Ground
Self awareness is the key to recognizing the symptoms of being bitten, as well as being able to notice when you are in the presence of a vampire.
The kind of self awareness I’m referring to is an awareness of how your being in the moment … a body-based awareness that is somatically organized. You need to be able to notice for subtle somatic changes in yourself, and attend to them properly.
One of the key premises of the MythoSelf Process is that how we are (and how we operate) in any given moment is somatically organized … or grounded in our bodies.
This is linked to another fundamental premise that cognition is embodied as well … i.e.: that we literally think with and in our bodies … therefore you must learn how to notice the subtle cognitive shifts that show up in the body first (another thing we feature in MythoSelf Process training for good reason).
STEP TWO: Re-setting The Field
In all human interaction there is an exchange that everyone who is engaged in the interaction experiences.
Some folks like to refer to what they experience in their interaction with other using words like energy, chi, ki or prana … whatever the name for this field that something is exchanged between us is plain and clear for most people.
While the experience is ineffable, the recognition that something meaningful has been exchanged and that something meaningful has transpired between people is unmistakable.
This is part of the human field and it feeds us and nourishes us, emotionally and spiritually, as food nourishes us physically.
Emotional Vampires are gluttons for the charge of this experience … they seek only to dwell in the field of human interaction and feed … they consume much while contributing little.
To reset the field, such that you are not suceptible to the lure of the vampire, you must be able to reconnect the three main centers of human experience so they operate integrally.
The Three Main Centers of Human Experience
The three main centers of human experience are:
1. The Head Center (or the intellect)
2. The Heart Center (or the emotions)
3. The Gut Center (or the intuitions)
Working with the three main centers of human experience in an integrated way is referred to as operating in wholeform within the MythoSelf Process work.
When you are operating in wholeform manner, with all three main centers integrated, you are able to notice for what we call “Signals In The System” in the MythoSelf Process model.
Signals In The System are subtle signs that you begin notice perceptually via your five senses and simultaneously intuit via changes in the environment tat create shifts you experience internally within yourself (in part this is the power of re-setting somatic ground).
One of the effects of deep meditation practice is the awakening and re-integration of the three main centers of human experience. However, this is not the only way …
In addition to silent meditation and/or active contemplation, another process for awakening and re-integrating is working somatically.
Clinical somatic re-education, things like the Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Work or Hanna Somatics, are among the practices reported to produce an effect that is similar to deep meditation.
There are other somatic practices that are more active as well … Yoga, Chi Kung, Sufi Dancing … that also create shifts that may lead to an awakening and re-integration of the three main centers of human experience.
However, in the MythoSelf Process we use very subtle forms of somatic interventions, as well as those resembling the more familiar practices like those I’ve mentioned.
The sublte form of somatics we use when training in the MythoSelf Process model opeate at the micro-muscular level … sometimes intending to focus on the idea of twitching as little as a single muscle fiber.
STEP THREE: Keeping the Vampires At Bay
Regardless of the process it is essential for your emotional and spiritual wellbeing that you keep the Emotional Vampires at bay.
When you’ve learned to operate in wholeform the ability to notice the shift in the environment as a vampire begins to feed on the emotional charge in the field becomes instantly available to you.
When you are organized in wholeform, i.e.: in an integrated way, you can immediately shift what you are doing and disrupt the pattern the vampire runs to escalate the emotional charge.
The primary shift you learn to make is internal, the ability to maintain your state regardless of the circumstance or situation you find yourself confronting … or to change it if that’s more appropriate or useful to you.<
You’ll also intuitively know how to notice for and interrupt patterns of behavior and speech that create the kind of charge that Emotional Vampires feed on and drain you.
The third powerful resource for dealing with vampires that becomes available to you when you are operating from a wholeform position is the ability to shift the direction of an interaction, steering the emotional quality in the positive direction, e.g.: to joy, happiness, optimism … something Emotional Vampires hate.
The Final Word …
Emotional Vampires feed on negative emotions, not positive ones … they luxuriate in sharing the misery of others, and their lure is often their own misery, which they freely share to take control of the interaction.
When you refuse to have the negative conversations that vampires so often gorge on they are stunned and will reveal themselves openly.
You will be accused of not caring about them, being insensitive, ignoring their needs, acting in a hurtful way … yet, if you learn to listen closely you’ll hear that every word they speak is about them … their feelings, their needs, their desires … they deplore your selfishness!!!
Don’t give in … never, never, never, never give in …
Just say “NO!”
Best,
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
PS – My book “The State of Perfection“ has a full set of examples of me pointing out and working with Emotional Vampires in the training room … and helping the folks there learn how to deal with the ones not in the room … sometime living at home with them. Pick up a copy and let me know what you think about it …
Mike G says
Two comments!
(1) “The state of perfection” is a brilliant book, but in my opinion, operating in whole form ultimately can be learned only in personal contact with a suitable teacher
Mike G says
and (2) from my perspective, what an emotional vampire has is an inner emptiness and shame (I know, that sounds like a paradox, how can there be both shame and emptiness?). And this starts at the breast (you knew I was going there) with an inability to tolerate that completely one-sided “too kind” relationship of mother to baby
Biddy says
Two great posts, Joseph, thank you.
Interesting perspective to think of them as Emotional Vampires, rather than simply as energy vampires – they do get boring pretty quickly, and ugly, as the ravenous beast beneath the attractive exterior stretches forth its gaping jaws, insatiable.
I find them interesting in groups – very watchable as they try their patterns on the unsuspecting – but frustrating individually – they are just not there for any form of mutually sustaining/entertaining/rewarding/challenging relationship.
I would disagree with Mike G – I think it’s much more representative of the baby from whom the generous breast, encompassing mama’s love, not just her nourishing milk, was witheld – that sense about them of “It’s never enough” – love, care, attention etc
not that it matters so much how they got this way, more important to know that they, too, can change/grow up/get a life
Looking forward to Part 3 of this rich vein . . .
Joseph says
Biddy … thanks for the comment.
Much I agree with there actually.
I’ve made a bit more of my case in my response to Mike, but he has a valid point when it’s valid. I just think (as you seem to as well) that the point is more rare than common.
FWIW I love your description of the “ravenous beast” … well done!!!
Joseph
Mike G says
Biddy: “I think it’s much more representative of the baby from whom the generous breast, encompassing mama’s love, not just her nourishing milk, was witheld – that sense about them of “It’s never enough” – love, care, attention etc”
That, certainly, but more often, I think, I see the angry baby that turns away defiantly from the breast (or later, the spoon) , enraged by being given everything
Thomas says
nice followup Joseph
Joseph says
Thomas … ta.
Per says
Interesting post Joe.
You’re take on slaying the king is one side that I recognise, but what about those who will continue to suck the kindness out of the king like vampire blood, and continue to do so although they might no longer have a need for help any more, but just because they can and take the kings kindness for granted and maybe even a sign of weakness….and they keep sucking the “blood” just because they think they can, and even subtle hints, verbal outburst does not make them realise their behaviour, and it only stops when they King decides that enough is enough and stops the access to kindness and demand the vampire to take action and responsibility for their own destiny. But this is when the Vampires then plays the victim game and calls the King the King of cruelty and selfishness….Is this not the time to expel the vampires from the kingdom altogether, it is IMO…
Joseph says
Per,
Fascinating response.
Yes, there is that side as well … it could be the Part Three that Biddy refers to in her reply, eh?
I like your phrase, “King of Cruelty” that is affixed to the king when the king refuses the request for continuing the suckling behavior.
This is a pattern that is familiar to me personally as well … from both sides to some extent.
I choose to work with Roye in a kind of medieval apprenticeship relationship, i.e.: master and apprentice. (FWIW it’s the model I both learned within myself and now apply in my work with my own closest students … kind of like the continuation of a guild of workers and how the skills are passed on from master to apprentice).
There is a standard model of mentoring where the apprentice revolts against the master to break away, becoming a journeyman … with both respect and resentment for the master, their skills and appreciation for what they have learned from the master as well, but the need to be free to become themselves independently.
Depending on the master, on their side (the master’s) there is also respect and resentment … i.e.: “How could you leave me … do you have no respect, no loyalty … you are no longer welcome.” From the master’s point of view this could be done with intention to push the young eaglet from the nest, or with unconscious venom and a feeling of betrayal.
While the apprentice sometimes has difficulty separating, it is often even more difficult for the master to separate. The master needs/wants the apprentice as much as the apprentice needs/wants the master (read Karl Graf Durckheim’s “The Call of the Master” for more about this … brilliant piece of work, I’m a big Durckheim fan).
With Roye it was difficult to separate and he had a bit of the “betrayal syndrome” with anyone/everyone who went their separate way … including me. I resented that at the time, but we made a peace between us, as I came to recognize the “separation anxiety” of the apprentice leaving. In the end we were closer than during our Master/Apprentice phase, and I came to believe that he respected me as more of a peer than just a student at the end, but to me he was always the Master.
Sometimes this gets confused with the guru model, where the student is always in submission due to who the guru is, not in regard to their skills and knowledge, but in regard to their being. This model is not mine and never worked for me … that doesn’t make it wrong for others, just not a path I would choose.
When the Student/Apprentice mistakes the “Master” for the “Guru,” there are bound to be complications … resentment will abound and accusations are likely to follow, thus the affectation applied to the Master, the “King of Cruelty.”
So in the end, I too agree … when the vampire appears, regardless of the reason, it is time to break the contact … and probably best to do so permanently … exiling the vampire from the Kingdom.
Joseph
Dagfinn Reiersøl says
I haven’t thought about this in these specific terms, but I recognize the pattern. The most interesting idea to me is when you say that emotional vampires actually hate joy, happiness and optimism. So right I’m wondering how fake positive emotions and “positive thinking” fit into this. Processing it. Thanks.
Dagfinn Reiersøl says
It gets me thinking about something related. In general, I’m no fan of thinking about people’s behavior in medical terms, but I’ve found that the descriptions of specific behaviors that are supposed to be typical of personality disorders have helped me to focus and deal with them when I might otherwise have reacted with confusion and helplessness, especially if I’m caught off guard. For example the borderline behaviors: splitting (seeing people and events as black and white, either good or bad), projection and mixing up facts and emotions. I don’t care whether some “has” boderline personality disorder or not, but the behaviors are sometimes easy to identify.
Joseph says
Dagfinn,
A closet admission: me too.
I have zero, nada, niente, zilch training in psychology. While I’ve read a lot of the standard psychology literature beginning with Freud, then onto both Jung and Adler, and from there to Horney and Erickson (Erik, as well as Milton later on), I moved through the works of Piaget and Klein (and Bettelheim, although I’m not sure that he would be classified as pure psychological literature … like Vgotsky, a brilliant mofo), I really enjoyed reading Lacan (a LOT of Lacan) and Bion (who I also got into for a while along with Lewin … I consider the three of them, with Vgotsky an honorary fourth, the psychological topologists who influenced my thinking dramatically), then I skipped continents and read through James and Skinner as well as some of the folks who surrounded them, and then I tried catching up on the more modern stuff too, e.g.: Maslow and Rodgers, including some of the systems folks, e.g.: Satir and Keeney (whom I really admire) I’m not a trained psychologist by any stretch of the term.
However, after all that reading I did come away thinking about the psychological theories these folks proposed as backdrop for other ways of thinking about the human condition. Although there was a lot of focus on psychopathy and abnormal psychology, it was in the interest of helping folks become “normal” again where possible, or “coping” when that wasn’t … and finally handing the ones too far gone humanely.
(FWIW I’m a fan of Foucault and his take on madness and how we label and treat it, and why … Madness and Civilization, a must read book for all thinking people IMO)
Specifically, your comments on borderline personalities is well received, I’ve dealt with more than a couple who decided they had personal vendettas with me … and I am one of (Wilhelm) Reich’s “kindly men” and as such open to being sucked in and suffering at the hands of one who is “plague-ridden” in his terms.
I don’t bemoan being “kindly” … as Reich puts it as well the “kindly” are like healthy children and primitive man … open, loving and living in accordance with the laws of life … but sometimes because of this they are in danger of being betrayed by the plague-ridden … (I think that Reich’s description of the plague-ridden aptly applies equally well to both the borderline personality and the socially functional psychopath, e.g.: the politicians and bankers for instance):
Dagfinn Reiersøl says
Very interesting. Never read that, although I was once very intimate with Reich. Right next to him in the index of a book. In fact, I believe he was snuggled between me and Ronald Reagan. 😉
Dagfinn Reiersøl says
And since I’m already on Memory Lane, I did read some Reich at the age of about 13, surreptitiously borrowing from my father’s bookshelf. Not just because it was focused on sex (he had Kinsey too, much juicier). Probably my understanding of it wasn’t that deep.
Joseph says
Dagfinn,
Reich was probably a little insane, but also a genius of sorts.
He realized the enormous impact of the body … i.e.: soma … and the connection to the mind … i.e.: psyche.
He was among the first to really bring the two together … soma and psyche … body and mind.
For my two cent Reich steps off the tracks when he got lost in Freud’s sex drive mythology.
FWIW I don’t disagree with the idea of sex drive, or a sybaritic drive, that many powerful and successful people possess. My challenge with Freud and his followers, including Reich, was the role that this drive plays and how it manifests.
In the MythoSelf Process model we refer to “primal drivers” – which include the sex drive, but is larger than just sexual. The primal drivers include the full range of the sybaritic drives … e.g.: food, sex … but the most accessible and raw is probably the sex drive which may be why it came to such fruition in the work of folks like Freud and Reich.
In all cases the key is to ignite the life energy that the primal drivers unleash and then to sublimate the life energy in the direction of positive intention for the system-at-large.
When Roye spoke of the primal drivers he spoke directly to the consideration of life, i.e.: the realization of being fully alive, and also to the idea of living fully … and the wonder that contains.
Reich got lost in “Orgone Energy” on two levels IMO … 1. the idea that it was the source of life itself, instead of an expression of it, and 2. the idea that his clients/patients were fundamentally damaged.
I begin with those two ideas in a different place, i.e.: 1. the primal drivers are an expression of our lives, and 2. my clients are fundamentally wellformed and undamaged … and that takes me to a different place at the end as well.
Taso says
I have never understood personally how something can only be learned by personal contact with a suitable teacher.
Is it teachers all the way down… or up
Surely someone somewhere sometime didn’t have a “teacher” so to spaek
Joseph says
Taso,
Ahhhh … the lament of the Graves Six!!!!
Graves Six Mantra Paraphrase: “I am all I need to be unto myself … within me lies greatness, albeit manifest or simply waiting, pregnant, with the possibility of becoming manifest … within my hallowed breast there is a god-force waiting to explode upon the world … and by keeping to my own counsel, following my own course, I shall expose and express the god I hold within … I am all and nothing, the maker and the destroyer, Vishnu and Shiva … I AM … OM MANI PADME HUM … OM …”
I’m not that kind … so I shall tell you what I think simply, “Biology Rules”
This is NOT a discourse against the trans-material consideration, e.g.: I am not a cognitive materialist, I don’t think we are limited to what we conceive and experience via the limits of our own grey (and white) matter … i.e.: the brain (and the associated nervous systems and pathways) … I think “MIND” exceeds brain, and in that way I am a dualist of sorts … BUT, that is not the same as what the mantra of the Six proclaims or would like to believe IMO.
I recommend (again) that you get a copy of Durckheim’s “The Call For The Master” … and read it as a start.
Then read any good eco-biology book … and you’ll see that any creature on the planet operating beyond pure instinct has a teacher or teachers, e.g.: all mammalian predators learn to how to find, stalk and kill prey from their elders, FWIW typically from their mothers, except in social predators like wolves where the pack shares the teaching responsibility. If you’d like a recommendation I’m a E.O. Wilson fan myself and you could try: Sociobiology, voted the most important book on animal behavior of all time by the International Society of Animal Behavior.
Why do we, i.e.: HUMANS, insist that we need no teachers???? Why is it seen as a weakness by some to be seen as submitting to learning under the indisputable guidance of an expert????
Could you for a moment even imaging a tiger or bear cub refusing to learn from it’s mother how to successfully survive in the wild????
Of course not it’s absurd! But, we will freely challenge the need for teaches when the lives we lead are far more complex at a cognitive/social level …
The fear of becoming subsumed by a teacher or “master” (as in the old guild use of that word btw) overrides the good sense of so many who otherwise have good minds IMO … fearing that they will become puppets of some guru or another, they fear entering into the very relationship that would potentially free them of such concerns.
Joseph
PS – Of course there are things we can and will learn for ourselves, and all teaching should be experienced if not experiential, proven to one’s self by ones’s self (although to get there you may need to reside in the flames of ignorance and acceptance while you blindly follow the teacher’s whim to get what is being offered, until you can “prove” it to/for yourself).
Then you must find the moment to resist more teaching, to rebel … to become independent of the “Master” … and go it alone, the Ronin, the Journeyman, the Grail Knight seeking the Holy Grail having begun at the darkest point at the edge of the forest … but, you’d be a fool to begin that journey without the request skills you’d need to survive, thrive and prosper.
BEST OF LUCK ON YOUR JOURNEY … STAY THIRSTY MY FRIEND!!!
Joseph says
Taso …
One more thing (the posting I put up yesterday stands) …
We agree … there must always be a first, i.e.: the one without a teacher.
HOWEVER … the first is just the beginning. They usually pay a heavy price for being first, and what they learn is the start of the wheel turning.
Do you really want to be the Buddha … leaving all you know behind … your family, your wife, your child … your entire life … and live under a tree eating rice gruel for ten years hoping you’ll find the way???
The question you have to ask and answer for yourself is if you want to reinvent the wheel that is already turning?
It’s largely unnecessary to do so, i.e.: reinvent the same wheel, unless you really feel compelled. Better in my mind to stand on the shoulders of giants. FWIW the view is much better up there … and you can even see beyond where they can if you don’t topple down or leap too soon.
BUT … if you have something truly unique that you must pursue, and there is no guide, no teacher, no master … then of course you must go it alone. To do so when the guide/teacher/master appears is hubris.
If you haven’t read it read about Odysseus journey again … do it, pure hubris and the price he paid (notice the cost to others as well as you’re reading … starting with his entire crew that is killed, his wife who’s waiting for him for twenty years, and his son who grows up without a father … all because Odysseus refuses to acknowledge the help of the gods …). I prefer Robert Flagan’s version: The Odyssey … enjoy.
Joseph
Taso says
Joseph,
It is a difficult thing for me at this time as you suggest to subsume myself to a master teacher. I will see what tomorrow brings.
cheers
Taso
I have started on Durckheim
JJ says
Joseph ……
Nice post 🙂
I learned the most about myself when I tracked my own somatic responses to different situations in my life. Those responses teaches oneself a lot about themselves.
Joseph says
JJ …
Yes we agree, the grail in the somatics.
However, that does not discount my comments to Taso above.
Even in first getting to the somatics you’d be well advised to heed some of what Per offers in his comments to Taso as well.
Best … Joseph
Per says
@Taso:
IMO one side would be: There are things about our selves, values and beliefs that we hold and don’t know we hold e.g. outside of our awareness. these are influencing what we see in the world and what not, at the same time they influence our behaviour, both what we want and what we don’t want, but know not how to change. So being in close contact with a skilled teacher will enable the teacher to see from the outside, what values and belief we are holding outside of your awareness. The teacher can when skilled initiate a process where you become aware and can question these Values and Beliefs, and make a choise if they are once you want to keep or it’s time to update those that hold you back from what you’re trying to achieve in the world for your self……
Mike G says
Well, I can’t argue about the later developmental stages too, that’s true. I agree with much of what you say. The pure psychodynamic view may lack the systemic and transpersonal aspects, but to me, what’s worse, is that many lack the somatic, the skin thing that you talk about there. The BEST ones get it, but many do not. I thank you for your teaching.
Certainly, I agree with Biddy that the question is not just “how did this happen” but “what do we do next?”
As for your “too kind king”, there is a name in the various mythical systems for the one who gives everything and is murdered for it.