Fire out at the CA Coast
Hello Everyone,
I didn’t realize it had been so long since I last posted, but the break has been good.
Like everyone else right now, I’ve been feeling the pressure of the spread of The Rona, the out of control fires in the West, and our current divisive culture. The stress adds a layer to everything and everyone. It’s like invisible soot that blankets all of us. At least I’m somewhat prepared for the mental health issues, but the world is filled with people who land somewhere on the trauma spectrum and are not just undiagnosed but completely unaware. You can see the effect of this on individuals, institutions, and entire populations.
With constant trauma, stress reactions in the body can quickly become the norm– hypervigilance, paranoia, fear, racing thoughts, insomnia, low-grade continual anxiety, heightened startle reflex, disassociation, and much more. Basically the nervous system is keyed up, always preparing for danger. This is not a disorder but a healthy reflex of a body receiving warning signals. If you receive danger signals consistently for a period of time they get solidified and become normal functioning. You can even forget how relaxation and normal levels of productive arousal feels.
Trauma shuts down the prefrontal cortex which enables us to think clearly and rationally. It’s a survival technique so our body can react to the situation quickly, and keeps our big brains from getting in the way. If this becomes constant we learn to live with it, ignore it, push through and get on with surviving. We will literally forget what happened so we can move on. This is why people forget what happened to them, and why what does come through can be fragmented.
This natural habit to turn away and forget leaves us wondering why we feel SO angry or sad at a situation that maybe doesn’t warrant so much emotion. Just look at Facebook. People are strung out. It’s like an alarm bell ringing so often you don’t even hear it anymore. That’s a dangerous state of affairs and one we are all racing towards collectively. So I hope you’re taking care of yourself because your body keeps score. Any and all trapped emotion will be released, eventually, somewhere, somehow.
Honestly I haven’t had it in me to write. I’ve been learning to regulate my nervous system and the moments of regulation I’ve achieved have made all the difference. Part of that is taking care of myself when I’m feeling tender, not just bullying through and calling myself names. This is not the dampening or tweaking I did before. I’m not running scenarios in my mind to stay away from intense feelings, nor am I using orgasm, withholds, exercise, food, drugs or alcohol to dampen whatever comes up physically or mentally. I now see clearly the folly of consistently striving for a certain state of mind or body. I understand that any practice that is used to change the state of your existence is garbage. It’s “life lite.”
RJ Testerman and The Welcomed Consensus still sell orgasm as a way to a better life, more pleasure, more honesty, more fulfilling relationships, but it’s only more ways to deny reality and make a buck. They might as well be tuning out with drugs or conspiracy theories because it all comes down to the same end. It’s a fantasy that includes only a small portion of the world. It’s like wearing foggy glasses where everything more than a foot away is hard to discern.
The Welcomed Consensus’s aren’t even rose-tinted glasses, because once inside the group the world looks worse. Everyone outside is allegedly a lesser being; the outsiders are withholding pleasure and caught in the Judeo Christian construct. Things only look good inside the bubble, and only things that won’t pop the bubble are allowed in. It’s not only about being removed from trouble and pain, but also about being enlightened and better than everyone else. They insist that by making all your sensations and emotions about your crotch and then orgasming yourself to peace, you will have a happy life. What that actually creates is sexual addiction and perversion. How could it be otherwise when the sex is mostly DOing and the natural ebb and flow of sexual energy is scheduled and mandated. Additionally, the group actually discourages real honesty and actual human connection. Conversation topics are highly regulated and women are discouraged from speaking about anything outside of the approved topics, in the approved way. This is a way to limit the depth of friendships.
RJ likes to say that the shit level is just under your nose so you better keep looking up, striving for “better” or you will get a snout full. Outside of the inherent toxic positivity in that statement, let’s unpack that. Is life really just shit up to your nose? Even in the worst of times life has beauty. Even in the way it’s consistently painful, always with the yin and yang, life while you live it is full of both, every day. To call it all shit is the simplification of a fearful mind. As if by the mere sight of bad your internal self will crumble. “It will fuck up your orgasm” is a common warning with The Welcomed Consensus. This only points to a helplessness and very little ability to cope outside of the construct, like a child covering their eyes.
Then the phrase goes on to say you’ll get the “shit” on you if you look down, so the advice is to ignore pain and suffering for your own comfort. Maybe that will work for a while, but then life is just less all over as well. It’s like reading a book that is missing every other page. You get to the end and it’s unclear why the characters are doing what they are doing and why the story ends the way it does.
This is one of the reasons why people are so confused around this information. Everyone wants to be happy and free of pain, have amazing sex and good friends, so it sounds like good life advice. Then you find out that everyone living is struggling to keep up the facade. This struggle is what strikes that false note in their groups and courses. It’s a strained, disconnected imaginary happiness. You can see that the beliefs and orgasm must be liberally applied everyday, all day, to squash down the reality of what it is to be a human being. This is sold as a higher calling, enlightenment, but it’s just the same tired, old recycled Kool-Aid that so many serve.
When all this “striving for better” was removed from my life, it felt like I was falling through an endless, dark well. I constantly questioned my beliefs and choices. I thought more than once that I’d give anything to go back to before; before my mind broke down and decided it was time to take in all I’d been stuffing down, and before I knew that so many of the demons I was battling were “gifts” from RJ. Now, I can’t say that there is a bottom to the well, but I no longer mind. I can, however, promise that it doesn’t stay dark. The light comes in and illuminates the simple beauty and pain of everyday life. This can make me melancholy for all the years I spent running away from how I felt. I welcome all the feelings now, even regret. I’m not scared. It might hurt some but it also makes me a more compassionate and awake human, and that can’t be a bad thing. I’m no longer frightened to let my mind off the short leash of a belief system. I don’t have to encapsulate myself from uncomfortable feelings. In many ways, I’m stronger than I have ever been, and definitely more who I was born to be.
Ode de la méditation (2012) by Ru Xiao Fan.
Meditation and mindfulness practice helps. it’s the exact opposite of managing your mind or body. It is the careful attention to exactly what you feel and thinks right at this moment. It’s not navel-gazing, but with practice the gaze of a parent who loves their unruly child and finds their antics more curious than important or damning. My experience has been that continuous meditation and mindfulness practice does bring fast change. You can’t help but start to know yourself and you probably won’t like what you see at first. The concentration will seep off the cushion and the self-awareness will bleed into everything else. It is truly not for the faint at heart.
I still get tipped into being reactionary and triggered, but now I can feel the difference between being triggered by the past or the conditions of the present. Both are calls for me to set some boundaries, but the rampant need to get away from what I’m feeling is gone. Sure–I still hear the siren song of all those things that can remove me from the feeling (notice it is not removing the feeling from me, because that is impossible) but it is easier and easier to keep my seat and see things through.
I’m good, my family is good, we’re all thriving by any measure. I didn’t get here alone. I’m grateful for the professionals that help/ed me stay on the path and promised me the light even when I was sure it was gone forever. Also for the friends that are teaching me how to be a good friend, trust people, have deeper connections, and authentic unvarnished moments of love and support. Most of all I’m grateful for this life, even with The Rona and the division, and I’m glad you’re here with me, too.
Take care. Stay safe. Reach out. You are not alone.
I’ll write some more soon.
Thanks for reading,
Christine
