Sometimes my mind is stirred up and some relatively persistent fear emerges. It’s relatively weak at first, but intuitively I sense that the fear already has some authenticity and it demands more attention and if I give in I’ll end up dwelling on it, it will grow, and possibly manifest as one or another unwelcome appearance or pattern that might be harder to get rid of later when it’s no longer just a feeling (or a feeling+idea).
So I realized that trying to deny or to straightforwardly banish or to push out the feeling is sometimes not effective for me. I can quickly banish or dissolve most fears when they occur, but once in a while I do come across a rather stubborn one (or even a particularly “convincing” one).
And then I found a little handy device. I realized that if the feeling is too well rooted to just summarily dump it, what I can do instead is domesticate it.
I visualize a box and then I open this box and put my worried feeling (or feeling+idea) into this box and lock it. Then I lovingly and carefully store the box on a mental shelf. So, the idea is, I’m not getting rid of the bad feeling, and I am also not pretending that I don’t have it. Instead I frame it in a way that makes it contained and makes it unable to grow. It becomes more like a pet or a scientific sample instead of a wild beast.
And these boxes don’t need to be permanent. The idea is to tame the feeling to level off the brunt of its strength and to channel its “energy” into something tame. Once the feeling is properly channeled and tamed, it’s OK to forget it, or to deliberately dissolve the box with the feeling in it. So the idea is not to keep these boxes forever, no, but to tame feelings (or feeling+idea bundles) that are too wild and too powerful to just eliminate on the spot as they occur.
It’s too early for me to tell if this affects manifestation very significantly, but one thing I can vouch for is that it gives a huge peace of mind and a sense of control over feelings I’d normally struggle with when attempting to outright negate/banish/dissolve head on. By using a redirect-the-flow attitude I can frame and tame the charged feeling instead, which is easier. If any of you studied any tai chi concepts, it’s the same as: by using a small force one can lead a larger one. Direct opposition is avoided in this method.
“Taming the hard to control feeling.”
Originally posted by u/mindseal on 2016-10-26 13:41:14 (59f8bw).
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Originally commented by u/[deleted] on 2016-10-26 21:51:50 (d98bjhr)
I was talking about a fear that has too much energy to just pull out of it. I like all your advice and agree with it, but not every fear can be handled using these tactics, and you should remember not everyone is equally capable. What might be easy for you might be impossible for someone else. I’m talking about a situation where you know you’re losing the fight with the fear, because the specific fear under discussion is like a whirlpool which you cannot outswim using simpler methods. So instead of abandoning it, you channel it into a box, tame it, frame it and keep it. So you’re not trying to divorce the fear, which is the whole point, and yet you’ve framed it and thereby tamed it.
I noticed that strong emotions tend to take the whole mind screen and induce strong hypnotic states. When fear or another emotion rise up and is recognized (usually by its feeling signature) I simply look at it.
I’m talking about a situation where this step is the step that fails. You can’t do it. In this step you’re dissociating from fear already. So if you can dissociate, you don’t need to do what I was talking about, of course.
There is another reason for the magick box too. The idea is that if you play with your fear using a magick box, like your presently overpowering fear is a toy, then it changes your relationship to that fear. The relationship becomes a less serious one. The whole experience acquires a playful quality. Fear becomes something you can move around and manipulate in creative and imaginative ways.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2016-10-27 09:36:05 (d996i6w)
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Originally commented by u/[deleted] on 2016-10-28 10:24:10 (d9aoz3k)
What was left here ? Me
I don’t like this analysis for 3 reasons.
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What’s left is not so much you but this or that aspect of your vision for the future that you now think may not happen. That’s not the same as you. Your vision for the future can change, but you will always be yourself. To identify yourself with this or that aspect of a vision is a mistake, but once you stop a firm identification of that sort, you’re not gone, on the contrary, you’re present even more so.
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It’s skillful to insist on your vision sometimes. It depends on what your vision is. Sometimes it’s proper to cling to the vision. It’s not always good to let go of your vision.
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If you end up thinking you don’t exist, and you don’t take responsibility for this, you’re screwed, because then you think the circumstances have forced you to be a certain way and yet you have no way to take responsibility. You’re giving all the power to the circumstances, which is the functioning of the subconscious mind. That’s back to square 1, being tossed around by the subconscious, having bad dreams, and having no say in your dream content. But if you do take responsibility, then it’s not what everyone thinks when hearing talk of “surrender.” Taking responsibility means acknowledging your power and is not surrender. You’re not surrendering. You’re conquering. You’re there and on top. So “surrender” paints a bad (or misleading) image.
So I definitely don’t agree with anything you’re saying here. Bare minimum the way you have phrased it is not for me at all. But potentially even the meaning behind the words is also not for me. And I don’t mean it in some “clever way” like “not for ‘me’ huh, huh.” Not like that. I mean it straightforwardly.
My own strategy that I discuss on this sub is one of personal empowerment, and in this there is no ambiguity. I don’t talk about surrender (and if I do, slap me please).
The bad thing about the point number 3 is that it’s only good in the occult context. In a conventional context all the beings have to share the power and thus they share responsibility. Thus in a conventional context no being is 100% responsible for their own life. And this is the proper way to explain things outside this subreddit. What I’m talking about with taking total responsibility is basically God mode, solipsism, occult, and it’s not for the public consumption. You cannot build a society on this principle. It will never work. This principle of total responsibility is only something an individual can use and mostly in secret too. The society must instead use the principle of shared responsibility and shared power.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2016-11-06 13:16:42 (d9nnv0z)
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I’ve been doing something like this for a while now. I got some advice from a shaman once that was something along the lines of: “If you have wild animals roaming around, chain them up in the basement. If they start to get loud, go downstairs and feed them. Eventually, they’ll be tame, and you can let them go.”
When I encounter things that are too difficult to deal with directly, but which are clearly not going to simply go away on there own with any haste, I put them in a box. But that box can start to shake and rattle and grow unstable, and when it does, I spend some time directly dealing with them. For example, if a fear that has particularly gripped me has to do with indulging in a particular kind of meditation, I’ll intentionally go into that kind of meditation from time to time to ‘feed the animal’. And then things calm down again. And the box will go a little longer without rattling around. And then I’ll do it again, and it’ll go a little longer still. And eventually, the problem goes away.
Sorry for overlapping two analogies there. Hopefully it was sufficiently clear.
My larger point is that I agree with this approach and have used it successfully, but for me, I’ve found that just putting it on the shelf isn’t a permanent fix. You’ll still want to go back to it from time to time and work with it in whatever way you see fit. But it will cease to be such an obstacle as it was before, absolutely.
Originally commented by u/Utthana on 2016-10-29 21:15:24 (d9clppl)
I’ve been doing something like this for a while now. I got some advice from a shaman once that was something along the lines of: “If you have wild animals roaming around, chain them up in the basement. If they start to get loud, go downstairs and feed them. Eventually, they’ll be tame, and you can let them go.”
That’s exactly what I was trying to say.
My larger point is that I agree with this approach and have used it successfully, but for me, I’ve found that just putting it on the shelf isn’t a permanent fix. You’ll still want to go back to it from time to time and work with it in whatever way you see fit. But it will cease to be such an obstacle as it was before, absolutely.
I agree. In my case just doing what I did calmed it way down, so there was little need to feed it. But it’s the same pattern: when something is wild and yet doesn’t look like it will leave on its own, there is way to lead that experience toward something more skillful without trying to do something which can be much more difficult, like an instant transformation of everything.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2016-11-06 13:21:59 (d9no2t5)