* Everything is up for sale, including humans, religion, knowledge, relationships, wisdom, health etc.
* Value of everything including humans and relationships etc. are measured in monetary terms, this is even true for religious beliefs and spirituality ...
* An individual is worthy more if he or she spends more and more on consumables, poor are therefore worthless creatures ...
* Purpose of a human being is to buy and sell in ever increasing quantities, there is no upper limit, nothing is enough ...
* The more irrational or impulsive the buyer the better he or she is ...
* It's always morally correct to buy more even if you do not need anything ...
* Only market can fulfill all human needs including emotional, social, moral and spiritual needs ...
* Needs which the market can't fulfill better be ignored, or fulfilled through the stuff sold in the market even if the needs are emotional, moral, social or spiritual ...
* Sharing culture is bad for the economy, unless it can also become a source of income ...
* Every individual should ideally purchase for themselves,
* You must borrow money if you don't have enough, you must perpetually remain in debt ...
* You must dispose stuff as quickly as possible, products are designed to fail after a while so that consumers are unable to use them beyond a certain time ...
* Purpose of natural resources is to fill the bottomless stomach of the modern consumer, who can only stop when his money or the limit on his credit card runs out ...
* Resources will flow towards those who can pay better but not those who need more ...
* Products must be made as addictive as possible to ensure perpetual purchase ...
* Customer must remain oblivious of the harmful affects of consumption, or how the workers were abused in the process of manufacturing or how the environment was damaged, better not known to the consumer ...
* Its legit to emotionally or even religiously manipulate the customer into buying something ...
MY ANSWER to the 1st part: By not following social media influencers, or take their rants seriously ... by reading the original scholars like ( Carl Jung, James Hillman, Marion Woodman, Richard Schwartz, Peter Levine, Bessel Kolk, Stephen Porges, Bruce D. Perry etc. ) and evaluating and comparing each and every line you read with your personal insights gained through intuitive self-exploration of your internal experience! put any thing you read on hold if it doesn't match with your intuitive self-reflection ... your or other's over reactions, triggers and fears can also give indepth insight ...
Discard any experts or school in psychology who explicitly reject the existence of human soul or is grounded in purely materialist world view ...
And do not go near Freud, at least in the beginning, and even if you read him, do that from purely from an academic perspective ...
I have found Jungian psychology to go toward depths which other schools of thought in psychology are not even aware of ... but of course one should keep wearing their critical lenses while reading any school of psychology ...
Up till now I have found the work of Jungians (Jung himself, Hillman, Woodman, Franz etc) and the work of Trauma psychology (see Peter Levine, Bessel Kolk, Gabor Mate', Stephen Porges) and the original work of Bruce D. Perry in Neuro-sequential Development, and the work in the domain of Islamic psychology like that of Abdullah Rothman to be overlapping and converging toward some common points, which also aligns with my own intuitive reflections on the subject ...
Now, Why learn it?
Don't we deal with humans all around in all shapes in sizes, in family, at work place, on the road, etc. if we have a better understanding of how their hearts, minds, souls, brains, guts, bodies are all working together, then we can save ourselves and others from a lot of trouble which we otherwise unintendedly get into ... and I can bet that our understanding a.t.m about who we are, how we function and how others function is profoundly limited and is already causing lot of troubles perhaps everywhere for almost every person around ... leave others aside for a moment, self-awareness - I have come to believe - is critically important for our personal well-being, and also to strengthen our connections with our Creator ...
A country's historical narrative is a derivative of its founding ideology ... it binds the people together while creating a sense of bondage on sacred grounds ... it isn't wrong or right, rather it provides a criterion to majority to define what is wrong and what is right ...
Some local self proclaimed (pseudo) liberals are trying to challenge this historical narrative in the most ruthless/careless manner which this country have developed during last few decades without realizing the consequences ... this they are doing without realizing that its always a meta-history - an ideologically driven criterion - which gives you a formula/filter to define history and drive a sense of national identity from that historical narrative ... this means their version of history is also being formulated through a counter meta-history - liberal in their case - which is giving them another version of history ...
The thing which hurts these local liberals most is the religious orientation of Pakistan's historical narrative grounded in a meta-history which is also religious (how aligned it is with Islamic political philosophy is another debate) ... had it been some ethnic or some other secular criterion, they would have not much bothered about the so called correctness of such narrative, which is really bothering them now.
But the problem is that they don't have the balls to directly attack the religious foundations of this narrative, therefore they attempt to argue about distortion of history which they see from their own distorted vintage point, without realizing that this new version of distortion, and the ruthlessness of their argument can cause more harm to the collectivism which is already damaged to a great extent because of variety of reason ...
So if they really want to help then I would advise them to keep their mouths shut ...
(Note - this in continuation of an older post which said: History is always distorted, and there is no way to identify which distortion is better then the other distortion, other then its ability to establish and maintain COHESION with the help of a certain shared historical narrative which unites or binds a certain social collectivity... you take away that narrative, the collectivity disintegrates/divides leading to chaos and violent conflict ... so its a philosophical question whether survival and peace within a established community is more important or their exposition to the so called truth, which in fact is another distortion devoid of any objectivity ... )
> Knowing the source of your fears, anger, frustration, urges, cravings, sadness, grief etc ...
> Knowing the story behind your wounds, how deep the wounds are, how much they hurt or had hurt ...
> Know the content of your shadow, and the nature of demons which lurk there
> Knowing your longings, calling, purpose, the meaning of your life which emerges from your core, and how you align it with your belief system
> Knowing your limitations and for what exactly you will need help from others and your Creator
> Knowing your needs and wants and the difference between them
> Knowing the values or principles you stand for and the ones you feel less concerned about, when and why ... (Often people compromise on their principles in front of some people)
> Knowing why you like or dislike something, not just rational but emotional reasons also ...
> Knowing your core / primary intentions behind every action/decision or preference
> knowing reasons (emotional in particular) behind your priorities
> Knowing your biases, perceptions and to what extent they distort the view of reality, and the sources of your biases ...
It's not a short journey of course, but I believe one need to be on it if they intend to come in terms with their own self ...
Either you bump your head somewhere, or someone scratch your car, or you see garbage on the road, or your favourite sports team lose a match, or a dear one leaves this world, or your property is demolished on accusation of illegal encroachment and there is no one to give you justice, etc. etc., unpleasant events push us into grief, minor or major, but some level of grief is generated ... if so then there are five levels of grief: 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Sadness, 4) Sense making, 5) Acceptance ... in case of major grief, we even move back and forth on these stages many times over the period of months if not years, and may pass them within a few minutes if the incident is small ...
The common mistake here, which is almost become a cultural phenomenon, is to jump on to the sense making stage without completing the anger and sadness stage. This i believe could be because of western antagonism against eros (our emotional side) and glorification of logos (our rational side) ... whatever the reason maybe, we end up accumulating grief in our system, which makes us reactive in the long run, and then we stress out ourselves while suppressing the accumulated grief as no one wants to see our ugly outbursts. But this suppression just make it worse eventually.
People then instead of looking at the root cause keep using some distraction strategies to keep calm or motivated, even use medicines to numb themselves ... Sense making is a necessary part of the process but can be best used when we fully allow ourselves to pass through the 2nd and 3rd stages ... so as Stephan Covey says 'first thing first' ... Sad part is, our modern lifestyle doesn't give us enough space for this purpose, so creating such a space need to be a necessary life goal and a mandatory act of self-care we need not ignore ...
Some glaring contradictions in Yuval Noah Harari's line of argument in his book Sapiens:
1. Science is a slave of myths of capitalism, liberalism which makes science deadly, biased and a commodity of the rich ... science will positively shape the future of homosapiens without consequential effects of capitalism and liberalism
2. There are so many modern myths like capitalism, modernism, nationalism, communism ... but science do not have a mythical foundations (assumption of mechanical causations, what can be measured exists rest don't, only falsifiable statements are worth investigating etc.), not even the theory evolution which use some circumstantial evidence to assert itself as a generalizable fact over billions of years of biological history etc.
3. If happiness is totally subjective and determined from within and not the external world, then why pursue techno-scientific progress? what's the purpose?
4. Liberal humanism is unscientific because it regards human being as the supreme being, however science is trying to transform humans into a supreme being!
5. Science and technology are one and the same thing
6. Climate change may not be that bad, its just a natural outcome of human unintended actions, however, genocide and torture of many lifeforms including human beings in the industrial process is bad
7. Every ideology and religion is a myth, I (Harari) also believe in some myths (but I dare call them myths), which all of you (the readers) should believe in too …
8. Religions is a myth, but it has enhanced our subjective sense of wellbeing in history, but today we must follow scientific progress despite it fails to enhance the subjective wellbeing of people in the modern society …
9. We don't know much about the lives of the people who lives thousands of years ago, however, we are now living in much more peaceful time, thanks to the genocide of 100s of millions in the last 300 years at the hands of the Europeans …
I am open to correction, let me know if I have missed something in the comments below.
Experiences if too painful are pushed in to the unconscious naturally, but only to be purged out later in life to unload it's burden but it's not easy.
So, the unconscious or the shadow purge stuff out into the consciousness only when its possible for the person to bear the difficulty of the subjective experience.
Our unconscious even influence our choices to make us go through the same experiences, and it keep making us do that until we are fully conscious of the subjective aspect of the past experiences, or fully feel the emotional content of the experience with conscious awareness ...
Once the subjective content is fully purged out into our conscious awareness, our unconscious no more push to make us repeat the experience, at least on a subjective level ... we move on and no more remain stuck in the past ...
The ego though always try to counter the tendency of the unconscious to keep the subjective material in the shadow, but conscious-will can be used to ask the ego to step aside so that purging happens uninterrupted ...
If it's too much to handle in one go then purging out will happen in stages ...
(Inferred after reflecting on the work of Carl Jung, Marion Woodman, Peter Levine, Bessel ven der Kolk, Richard Schwartz, Gabor Maté etc.)
Finally someone wrote about the toxic parenting here (see below for Mr. Yameenudin Ahmed's article)... a sizable number of parents around will fall under the mentioned toxic category, because of their own unresolved issues, typically the behaviors are unintentional, often parents just unconsciously repeat an intergenerational cycle, assuming that's how it's done. What's worse is that they use the religious card to justify their actions or snub their children when they rebel ... the utter silence of society had been criminal I believe in this context, on top of that there is just one sided emphasis on the children (can't be any objection on that) to remain obedient, while their caretakers can do whatever they want despite the instruction for parents in Islam or message in Prophet's example as a parent is clear.
Someone need to call them out and prevent the new generation from further damage ....
I won't claim to be a perfect parent, had been repeating some intergenerational mistakes, which I am trying to eliminate from my interaction with my kids. In this process i have learnt that it is fundamentally necessary for parents to complete their stress and grief cycles, so that they don't vent out frustrations on their kids. Mere councelling or guidance or pointing out of mistakes or workshop on best practices will not suffice, as often the lashing out on kids is almost beyond their conscious control.
When our nervous system is already stuck in a fight/flight mode, we react in rage when triggered by an act of others (including children) which is perceived as problematic (which is often not problematic). To release the nervous system from the fight/flight mode, one must complete their grief and stress cycles, about which I have already been posting on my timeline since a while. My article on the stress regulation is also available on medium dot com. Once we achieve this state of calm, refered to as state of autonomics balance (between the two half's of the nervous system) or a regulated state, we can remain much in control of our reactions towards our children ...
کسی جگہ یہ بات چل رہی تھی کہ آج کل پیرنٹنگ پر کورسز ہوتے ہیں اور مختلف لوگ اپنی دکانداری کررہے ہیں جبکہ ان کورسز یا کوچنگ کی کوئی ضرورت نہیں ہوتی ہے۔ پہلے بھی والدین بچے پالتے تھے اور کوئی کورسز وغیرہ نہیں ہوتے تھے تو اب ان کی کیا ضرورت ہے؟ میں نے وہاں یہ فرمایا تھا کہ بچوں کی تعلیم و تربیت ایک وسیع مضمون ہے اور میرے اپنے پاس پچھلے 15 برسوں سے سینکڑوں والدین مشوروں اور کاؤنسلنگ کے لئے آتے ہیں۔ مجھ سے پوچھا گیا کہ والدین کو کیا مشکلات ہوتی ہیں اور کیونکر انہیں پیرنٹنگ سیکھنے کی ضرورت آن پڑی ہے؟ میں نے اس کے جواب میں ایک تفصیلی مثال سے بات کو سمجھایا تھا۔ افادہ عام کے لئے یہاں شائع کررہا ہوں۔
ظاہر بات ہے کہ ایک کمنٹ کے اندر تمام تر مشکلات کا بیان نہیں ہوسکتا۔ لیکن میں ایک مثال دیتا ہوں جس میں والدین اور بچوں کے ساتھ میں نے سیشنز کئے۔ حال ہی میں مجھ سے چار بچوں کے والدین وقت لے کر ملنے آئے۔ انہوں نے پیرنٹنگ کا کوئی کورس نہیں کیا ہوا۔ یہ گھرانہ مروجہ معنوں میں ایک مذہبی گھرانہ ہے۔ والد ایک بڑی کمپنی میں پروڈکشن مینیجر ہیں اور والدہ گھر پر ہی ہوتی ہیں۔ بچوں کے دادا دادی بھی ساتھ ہی رہتے ہیں۔ حال ہی میں ان کا سب سے بڑا 16 سال کا بیٹا میٹرک کا طالب علم اچانک بغیر بتائے گھر سے چلا گیا۔ ایک ہفتے بعد اسلام آباد میں ماموں سے رابطہ کیا اور ان کے ہاں پہنچ گیا۔ یہی بچہ 13 سال کی عمر میں بھی گھر سے بھاگ چکا ہے لیکن ایک دن میں ہی واپس آگیا تھا۔ بچے کی پڑھائی میں کوئی دلچسپی نہیں ہے۔ والدین نے مجھ سے رابطہ کیا تھا کہ میں ان کے بچے کی کاؤنسلنگ کروں اور اس کو سمجھاؤں۔ میرا کہنا یہ تھا کہ بچے سے پہلے آپ کو کاؤنسلنگ کی ضرورت ہے لہٰذا آپ دونوں پہلے مجھ سے ملیں کیونکہ مجھے ایسا محسوس ہورہا ہے کہ آپ کے پیرنٹنگ کے اندر مسائل ہیں اور ان کا حل ہونا ضروری ہے۔
ملاقات میں یہ بات مکمل طور پر سامنے آگئی اور کنفرم ہوگئی کہ بچے کا بھاگنا اور پڑھائی میں دلچسپی نہ لینا تو symptom تھا کسی انفیکشن کا جو گھر کے نظام میں موجود ہے اور بڑے یعنی والدین اور دادا دادی اس کے ذمہ دار ہیں۔
1۔ دادا ایک روایتی سخت گیر انسان ہیں۔
2۔ دادی ہمیشہ اپنی بہو اور بچوں کو ذہنی دباؤ میں رکھتی ہیں۔
3۔ بچوں کے والد اپنے والدین سے کچھ بھی کہنے یا سمجھانے سے قاصر ہیں اور وہ اسے والدین کا ادب سمجھتے ہیں۔ ان کی ہر صحیح غلط بات کو بغیر کسی ڈسکشن کے مان لیتے ہیں۔
4۔ بچوں کو باہر دوستوں کے ساتھ کھیلنے اور بیٹھنے کی اجازت نہیں ہے۔ سوائے ہفتے میں ایک دن ایک گھنٹے کے لئے۔ کیونکہ دادا کو یہ پسند نہیں ہے۔
5۔ امتحانات میں ہر صورت میں بہت اچھے گریڈز چاہئیں ورنہ خاندان میں ناک کٹ جائے گی۔ اور اس کے لئے ہر وقت پڑھتے رہنا (بقول والدہ کے اس سے مراد یاد کرنا اور رٹا لگانا ہے) بہت ضروری ہے۔
6۔ والد انجینئر ہیں تو بچے کو بھی آگے جا کر انجینئرنگ ہی کرنی ہے۔ کسی اور چیز کے بارے میں سوچنا ناکامی کی علامت ہے۔
7۔ ہر وقت اپنے بچوں کا خاندان کے اور بچوں کے ساتھ تقابل کرتے رہنا جس سے یہ بچہ بھی اور باقی تین بچے بھی احساس کمتری کا شکار ہوچکے ہیں۔
8۔ بچوں سے کوئی غلطی ہوجائے یا امتحانات میں نمبر والدین کی توقعات کے مطابق نہ آئیں تو بچوں کو ڈانٹ ڈپٹ کرکے اپنے دل کی بھڑاس نکالنا۔
9۔ امتحانات میں نمبرز، گریڈز یا پرسنٹیج کو کامیابی کا معیار سمجھنا اور اپنے بچوں کے مستقبل کی تعمیر اس بنیاد پر کرنا۔
10۔ پورے سال میں صرف دو یا تین مرتبہ گھر سے باہر آوٹنگ پر جانا ورنہ سارا سال گھر پر ہی بند رہنا۔
11۔ والد کا بچوں کے ساتھ کوئی جذباتی تعلق نہ ہونا، اور 90 فیصد وقت اپنے والدین اور بہن بھائیوں اور ان کے کاموں کو دینا۔
اب آپ بتائیے۔۔۔ان ساری باتوں کے سامنے آنے کے بعد مجھے والدین کی تربیت پر کام کرنا چاہئے یا بچے کی کاؤنسلنگ کرنی چاہئے؟ یہ صرف ایک والدین کا مسئلہ نہیں ہے، میں نے پچھلے پندرہ برسوں میں سینکڑوں والدین کے ساتھ سیشنز کئے ہیں اور کم و بیش یہی اور اس کے علاوہ کئی معاملات سامنے آئے جن پر کتاب نہیں تو ایک کتابچہ تو مرتب ہو ہی سکتا ہے۔ بہرحال ان والدین کی شدید قسم کی کاؤنسلنگ کرنی پڑ رہی ہے بلکہ بچوں کے دادا دادی کی بھی تربیت کرنے کی ضرورت ہے۔
والدین کے ساتھ چند سیشنز کے بعد جبکہ انہیں یہ بات سمجھ آگئی ہے کہ ان کو اپنے اوپر بہت کام کرنے کی ضرورت ہے، اب میں اس بچے کے ساتھ سیشنز کر رہا ہوں۔ اس بچے کا کانفیڈینس تباہ ہوچکا ہے اور مستقل فرسٹریشن کی وجہ سے اچھا خاصا ڈپریشن میں ہے۔ والدین کو یہی نہیں معلوم کہ بچہ ڈپریس ہے اور ڈپریشن کے مریض کو ڈانٹ ڈپٹ نہیں کی جاتی۔
یہ ایک کہانی نہیں ہے۔ میرے پاس لاتعداد کہانیاں ہیں جو میں سنانا شروع کروں تو شام ہوجائے۔ مسائل صرف یہی نہیں ہیں جو اوپر بیان ہوئے ہیں۔ اس کی ایک دوسری انتہا یہ ہے کہ بچے بالکل آپے سے ہی باہر ہیں اور شتر بے مہار کی طرح زندگی گزار رہے ہیں۔ اس کی الگ مثالیں موجود ہیں۔
بات سمجھنے کی یہ ہے کہ پیرنٹنگ یا بچوں کی تربیت ایک وسیع مضمون ہے اور سخت محنت کا متقاضی ہے۔ سینکڑوں والدین سے انٹرایکشن کے بعد آج کے تیزی سے بدلتے ہوئے حالات میں، ایک distracted دنیا میں ہر والدین کو اسے سیکھنے اور سمجھنے کی ضرورت ہے۔ یہ بات بالکل درست ہے کہ پہلے اس طرح کے کورسز تو لوگ نہیں کرتے تھے لیکن ہماری تاریخ میں ہمیشہ سے mentoring کا تصور رہا ہے تو جو لوگ اپنے مینٹورز سے جڑے ہوتے تھے، اور اپنے سے زیادہ علم، حکمت اور تجربہ رکھنے والے لوگوں سے سیکھتے رہتے تھے تو بچوں کی تربیت بہتر کرتے تھے اور ایسے لوگوں کی تعداد پہلے بھی کم تھی اور آج بھی کم ہے۔ لیکن جو لوگ اپنے تئیں خود کو ہر فن مولا سمجھتے تھے وہ پہلے بھی بچوں کی کوئی خاص تعلیم و تربیت نہیں کرتے تھے اور آج بھی نہیں کرپاتے ہیں۔ بلکہ آج کے اکثر والدین خود ذہنی طور پر اتنے distracted ہیں کہ وہ توجہ سے بچوں کے مسائل کو سمجھنے سے قاصر ہیں۔
یہی وجہ ہے کہ ہم عام طور پر ایک اوسط یا اس سے نچلے درجے کی نسل پروڈیوس کرتے چلے آ رہے ہیں جہاں ہماری نگاہ میں ہمارے بچوں کی کامیابی کی معراج امتحانات میں اچھے نمبر لینا اور پھر کسی ادارے میں ایک عدد نوکری حاصل کرنا قرار پاتا ہے جہاں دادا ایک انجینئر تھے اور نوکری کرتے تھے، ابا بھی انجینئر ہیں اور نوکری کرتے ہیں تو بچہ بھی انجینئر بنے اور نوکری کرے۔ مثال کے طور پر بچے کا انٹرسٹ لکھنے میں ہے یا باغبانی میں ہے یا سائیکالوجی میں ہے یا درس و تدریس میں ہے تو اسے ان میدانوں کا شہسوار کیوں نہیں ہونا چاہئے؟ اسے انجینئر یا ڈاکٹر ہی کیوں ہونا چاہئے؟ بچے کی نفسیاتی اور جذباتی ضروریات کو پورا کرنے کے لئے والدین کو اپنے اوپر کام کیوں نہیں کرنا چاہئے؟ کتنے والدین کو اس بات کا ادراک ہوگا کہ بچوں اور بچیوں کی مختلف عمروں میں کیا نفسیاتی اور جذباتی الجھنیں ہوتی ہیں اور انہیں کیسے سلجھایا جائے؟ آج کی تیز رفتار زندگی، ٹیکنالوجی کے بڑھتے ہوئے اثرات اور الیکٹرانک اور سوشل میڈیا نے والدین اور بچوں دونوں کو کس طرح سے متاثر کیا ہے اور ان سے پیدا ہونے والے مسائل کو کیسے حل کیا جائے؟ کیا والدین کی اکثریت اس حوالے سے بصیرت رکھتی ہے؟
اگر والدین کی اکثریت کے پاس یہ صلاحیتیں نہیں ہیں تو کیوں ان کو اس حوالے سے کورسز اور ورکشاپس نہیں کرنے چاہئیں یا کوچنگ کے پراسیس میں کیوں نہیں ہونا چاہئے؟ ہمارے بچوں کو اور ہماری نسلوں کو لکیر کا فقیر ہی کیوں ہونا چاہئے؟ ان کو نئے راستے تلاشنا کیوں نہیں آنا چاہئے؟
امید کرتا ہوں کہ میں اپنا نقطہ نظر آپ کو سمجھا سکا ہوں گا۔ آپ لوگوں کی اس حوالے سے کیا رائے ہے؟
Stress can be because of a few reasons. External stressors in the environment like a toxic work culture, unemployment, poverty, toxic or abusive relationship with family members or partner, etc. can cause a lot of stress. Or it could be because the nervous system has been stuck into a disbalanced state with a sympathetic dominance or the part of the autonomic nervous system (the sympathetic side) which is responsible for generating a stress response is not able to let go. If a stressor in the external environment has stayed for too long, like for few months or more, it’s possible for us to get stuck into a stressful state, and remain there unless a deliberate attempt to release the stress is not made. We can even stuck into such a state because of a high stress event like an accident or surgery even. Another important reason can be the inability to be to true to your emotions like anger and frustration and not being able to express them openly because of fear of rejection from people you depend on for financial or emotional support. Again remaining stuck with such people for long can put you into a habit of pushing your difficult emotions under the carpet and not allowing yourself to feel them fully, or express them even in an appropriate way even if the same people are no more around.
According to Peter Levine[1] and Bessel Ven Der Kolk[2], external stressors either long term like an abusive relationships or short term like a car accident, create a fight or flight response in our bodies. The body accumulates high amount of energy to generate a fight or flight response, and if we perceive that it is not possible to do that, then our nervous system typically shut us down and force us into a freeze state. In case of an abusive relationship or an unavoidable toxic work culture a response may even be to passively comply with all the demands to prevent any backlash, this can be referred to as ‘fawning’ (see Figure 1 above).
We are under stress when the energy mobilized by our nervous system to fuel fight or flight response is not fully allowed to do its thing. The energy which is stuck in our system is also referred to as trauma by Peter Levine, the more it is and the longer it remains stuck, the worse its impact on the systems in our body, immune system in particular. Often we suppress the fight or flight response because it may appear to us as socially inappropriate. Staying in such a situation for too long can make our nervous system stuck into a stressful state where the sympathetic part of our nervous system remains dominant, while the parasympathetic part become less or no more active.
Following is a list of activities recommended by different experts to regulate one’s stress:
24. Spending time with children (for the elderly) (JM)
So if the stressor is external, and it remains there, then doing the activities mentioned in the list of stress regulating activities above may have a limited impact, as the external stressor will keep triggering the sympathetic side of the nervous system. This implies that getting out of the external stressors is fundamentally necessary. This is very unfortunate for people who are stuck in poverty, unemployment and toxic relationships where escaping the circumstances is beyond their control[3]. Lockdown ironically has worsen this situation for many[4].
But somehow if you are lucky enough to have eliminated the external stressors or got rid of them or at least have been successful in creating some space for yourself despite the presence of external stressors, and wants to complete your stress cycle, then you can start with different activities recommended above.
Your choice of activity may depend on how much stress you have stored in your body. HRV is now being recognized as a sound measure of autonomic disbalance. If you have a smart watch or a wristband, then you can simply measure your HRV value over the period of a few weeks, and see if it’s on the lower side, if so then it perhaps means that your sympathetic part of your nervous system is more active than it should be. In parallel also notice:
· If your sleep is constantly disturbed
· If you are addicted to something (including work, shopping, music, games, junk food etc. and avoiding them generates withdrawal affects)
· If you panic easily or If some trigger gives you a full blown panic attack,
· If you feel sacred or anxious for no apparent reason
· If you get angry easily
· If you breathing is shallow,
· If you remain alert most of the time,
· If you easily get irritated most of the time,
· If you crave to eat junk or processed food more,
· If you get tired or burnout easily,
· If you get allergies or catch cold easily, or suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, or autoimmune,
· If you find yourself demotivated or have lost interest in what you loved to do
· If you find it hard to focus on the content of the present moment
· If there is constant tension in your muscles like in your shoulders or neck
(There are some stress measurement scales developed by concerned experts, click here to jump to them)
If some the above happens then perhaps you have stress stored in your system, and more of the above means more stress. So depending upon how much stress there is and how much it is stored there and for how long and for what kind of circumstances, you might want to pick up the activities mentioned in in the list of stress regulating activities above.
But the choice of activities is not as straight forward, and depends on some factors. If you are already stressed out then it might not be possible for you to sleep regularly and deeply unless you get it out of your system, if you are addicted to something, then again you would have to work on releasing some of the stress otherwise the withdrawal affects may be devastating. I personally find working-out difficult if I am stressed out. If you have been conditioned to believe that crying is a sign of weakness particularly if you are a male then you might find it hard to cry even when you need to. Lack of belief in yourself may not allow you to assert yourself, be autonomous, more so if you are co-dependent on your partner. If you have not been able to complete your grief cycle then it may be difficult to develop a sense of gratitude for what you have.
Table 1 below can help you evaluate which strategy to pick first depending on your circumstances and experiences. You might notice that trauma and stress trapped in one’s body in itself is a barrier in doing some of the above activities. But if one is able to bring the stress levels down by starting the activities which are easier (like getting some sunlight, trying some somatic awareness and experiencing, keeping hydrated, talking to some friend, writing down your feelings, or intentional breathing etc.) and release or process some of unresolved trauma then eventually they can get easier and may further help in keeping the stress and autonomic balance in control.
Chronic stress is painful, it literally cause inflammation in the body, which in turn may also cause depression as well. The resulting personality and behavior may not be socially acceptable or may put one’s financial security at risk. So if that is true for you then you might be unconsciously seeing yourself negatively as well. Gabor Mate says that often during childhood, children learn to prefer attachment over authenticity, they perform as per the wishes of their parents while suppressing their authentic reactions to unpleasant situations. So as a child you might have learnt to suppress your anger or disgust because it agitated your care givers [5].
Looking closely, it appears that the problem of stress is primarily a problem of disconnecting with one’s self, losing touch with one’s physiological and emotional needs as they arrive, for the sake of forcing ourselves into performing as per socially acceptable standards or as per the wish of a people around, more so if we are dependent on their acceptance or financial security. You cannot yell at your boss despite how toxic he or she maybe or leave the job just like that because of the obvious repercussions.
When we spend too much time in circumstances where we have to ignore our need to fight or flight or freeze for months or years, then a point come that we even forget what the need actually were. We just automatically drag ourselves into an unhealthy repeating pattern of suppression and performing in socially acceptable way, which turns vicious with its consequences on our psychological and physiological health. Constantly focusing on the things to-do at home or at work, perhaps makes us even oblivious of our needs to even breathe deeply, keep hydrated, go to toilet on time, take some sunlight, or consume healthy food, etc.
So the journey of recovering ourselves may start from noticing at first what actually our primary needs are!
Try to bring more and more focus towards your body to relearn what it actually needs, and try to honor the needs as they arrive. But if you have been disconnected for a long time then you might not even recognize at first what the need actually is, and it might even freak you out or even give you a panic attack. So try to go as slow as possible. Imagine if you have been ignoring even pushing away a person you live with for a long time, and then try to reestablish the relationship when you do not even know the language the person speaks. It is definitely tough at first.
You can start by paying attention to the minor needs emerging in your body like the need to change the posture while sitting, taking a deep breath every few minutes, drinking water as soon as the need arrive, etc. The needs appear minor but acknowledging them serves an important purpose: when we begin to notice and honor the needs, we eventually begin to form a long broken relationship with ourselves. Self-awareness can lead to self-understanding, and then deliberate attempts to honor the identified needs can eventually lead to self-acceptance and self-respect.
Peter Levine suggests that our bodies knows it naturally how to release the trapped energy, like it will shiver, tremble, tears will come out, breathing will become intense, you will fidget more, you might feel an instinctive need to move or shrink or stiffen certain muscles. Important thing is to form this relationship of respect where we listen to the body’s urges and create a safe space to behave the way it wants to behave [6].
It should be noted that stuff which people are addicted to like smoking, alcohol, sugary stuff, junk food, pornography etc. are not the needs, rather they are stuff which people consume to distract themselves from the pain of their unmet needs. If the primary needs are met instead, the addictive tendency may decline. Relapses will happen, but their frequency will slowly reduce. It may take a few months to a couple of years depending on the disconnect to form a relationship with oneself where we understand, value and honor all our needs, and thus eliminate the need to suppress the pain through smoking, alcohol etc.
The self-awareness will also help eventually to pick an activity from the list and not feel bad if the body resist instead, because there always is a good reason. Like if your body is resisting working out then there may be inflammation in your body, and working out may make it worse when your immune system rather pushes you to rest instead. So the self-awareness and respect will slowly tap in the wisdom of your body, and will eventually help you pick the next activity to incorporate in your lifestyle.
Most of the activities mentioned in the list above will not require some extra time, except like yoga, spending time in nature, and working out, but are to be integrated in our way of life, and state of being. So Pick up the stuff from the list, and see which are difficult for you and which are manageable, which can be immediately incorporated and for which you will eventually need assistance like therapy. You can then start with the stuff which you find easy.
Recommending readings
· ‘When the Body Says No’ by Gabor Mate (on the impact of stress on our bodies)
· ‘Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers’ by Robert Sapolsky (on the impact of stress on our bodies)
· ‘Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind over Body’ by Jo Marchant (how our mental state affect our health and possible ways to cure)
· ‘The Four Pillar Plan’ by Rangan Chatterjee (on lifestyle changes to boost immune system)
· ‘Immunity: The Science of Staying Well’ by Jenna Macciochi (on lifestyle changes to boost and protect the immune system)
· ‘Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle’ by Amelia Nagoski and Emily Nagoski (on how to release the stress trapped in your body, but may not work for people with severe trauma)
· ‘Walking the Tiger: Healing Trauma’ by Peter Levine (on somatically releasing trauma from our bodies)
· ‘When the Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma’ by Bessel Kolk (on how the trauma is stored in our bodies and different therapeutic techniques to release it)
[1] Levine, Peter A. (2005). Healing trauma: a pioneering program for restoring the wisdom of your body. Boulder, CO: Sounds True
[2] van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
[3] Maté, G. (2003). When the body says no: The cost of hidden stress. Toronto: A.A. Knopf Canada.
[4] Jia, R., Ayling, K., Chalder, T., Massey, A., Broadbent, E., Morling, J. R., Coupland, C., & Vedhara, K. (2020). Young people, mental health and COVID-19 infection: the canaries we put in the coal mine. Public health, 189, 158–161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2020.10.018
Bourdillon N, Yazdani S, Schmitt L, Millet GP (2020) Effects of COVID-19 lockdown on heart rate variability. PLoS ONE 15(11): e0242303. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242303
Généreux, M. et al. (2021). The evolution in anxiety and depression with the progression of the pandemic in adult populations from eight countries and four continents. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(9), [4845]. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094845
Despite you change your experiences objectively, your subjective experience may return if the unconscious source of the subjectivity is not changed ...
If you find yourself getting stuck into a certain routine like a loop, or a certain kind of experience, or a habit, and crashing back into it even after escaping temporarily, it is likely because there is some aspect of the subjective experience which your unconscious mind wants to bring into the full attention of your conscious awareness, and once you identify what it is, and bring it into full attention and let it stay there and dissipate, you will find yourself naturally slipping out of repeating experience ... this may not happen at once, the pattern may repeat a few more time until you are fully aware of the subjective content ...
Thus, experienced is a person who has been able to ride the roller coasters of both the external and 'internal' experiences.
An external experience is worthless, until we embrace the jolt it gives us from the inside disintegrating us only to be reintegrated again.
In the process of reintegration lies the source of our growth.
A person who has been resisting the breaking down from the inside, because of the fear of pain, may remain stuck at a point in time in the state of perpetual misery, and thus may not be seen as experienced.
So more the cycles of disintegration and reintegration a person has gone through, the more the wisdom, the more the experience.
Our nervous system is designed to complete it's emotional reactions to adverse external situations. If somehow we are unable to complete that response in real time, our nervous system will find every opportunity later to complete it.
Any reminder to the original event in the past will trigger the residual response.
We try to suppress it again typically because often it is not making any sense, but if we understand that it is not the present event to which our nervous system is reacting, but to some resembling past event, then we may allow and create space for the emotional reaction to complete (with due diligence of course).
But if we keep accumulating then the over load on our system can create some serious damage in the long run ...
Often intellectual or spiritual bypassing is used for that purpose!
Bypassing, is the use of some intellectual gymnastics to distract one self into an illusion of wellness.
This often involves creating rational justification of the discomfort being felt in our hearts and bodies as a result of some difficult experience.
We then focus on this rationalization so much that we tend to forget what's actually happening within ourselves. This can create a false sense of wellbeing.
Spiritual bypassing involves rationalization of some beliefs to force ourselves into this false perception of wellness.
Bypassing thus evades the natural and Divine process of restoration and healing, which is activated by embracing and by not evading the difficulty of the experience.
The pain is also not a sign to run away from our internal experiences, its a signal by our defense mechanism asking the higher self to let the healing system to do it's thing.
If you are feeling pain it's because your system is healing your wounds. But bypassing makes people feel numb, and they perhaps fall into this illusion of wellness ...
Being spiritual or having a deep connection with the Divine is not suppose to make you emotionally numb or sterile ... it rather creates an internal safe space to experience all the difficult emotions, a space where difficult emotions turns into a catalyst to strengthen the Divine connection, a space where these emotions transmogrify into hope, calmness, peace while also bringing a sense of gratitude ...
In fact, it has also been observed that often difficult emotions force us into a spot where we don't have any choice left but to find this space inside of us, where we are completely vulnerable and left with no other option except to seek help from the Divine ... and eventually we experience the healing through the Divine light which thus brings a sense of bliss and serenity ...
But we can't find this space or connect with the Divine if we keep forcing ourselves into a delusion of wellness during moments of pain while pretending to be religious and spiritual, which also prevent us to experience the sweetness of the healing process ...
Intellectual or spiritual bypassing thus prevents us from connecting to our core and thus disconnects from the Divine as well ...
There is a two layer filter between you and any other person around, even the ones who are closest to you.
One layer is their own perception of who you are, and likewise there is a perception you have of who they are ...
We typically react to what the person in front brings out from with in us, and this happens both ways ...
So, when two people interact, they often interact not to each other, but to their own inner experience which is more dependent on their past experiences and less to what the other person is doing or saying ...
So, if both can't see their own perceptions, and mistake it as objective reality, then both gets trapped to their own inner experiences of the person in front.
Its like echoing inside an invisible shell, and not really interacting with others around ...
This happens more with people who are unable to process the subjectivity of the present experiences if its difficult, which accumulates at the back of their mind and eventually distorts their experience of the outside world ...
That's probably the case with 99.999% around us ...
In other words, people live in a matrix of their own unresolved, unprocessed subjective experiences which if left unresolved and unprocessed furthers the distance they have between themselves and reality ...
So typically they don't see you, but themselves, and you don't see them, but yourself ...
Waking up and coming out of this matrix can be a very lonely experience ...
"A large proportion of the lonely people's up-regulated genes were involved in inflammation, whereas many of their down regulated genes had roles in antiviral responses and antibody production. In sociable people, the reverse was true — biological activity in their immune cells was skewed towards fighting viruses and tumour cells and away from producing inflammation. Crucially, the difference related most strongly not to the actual size of the volunteers' social networks but to how isolated they felt themselves to be." - Page 215
"We are humans, not machines, after all. When we’re receiving medical care, our mental state matters. Those who feel alone and afraid do not fare as well as those who feel supported, safe and in control." - Page. 154
Page 130
"More than three quarters of clinical trials in the U.S. are funded by drug companies, who understandably have no interest in proving the benefit of any approach to care that might reduce the need for their products. Pills and medical devices are clearly a more attractive business proposition than hypnotherapy or biofeedback. The enthusiasm for physical interventions goes beyond market forces, however: almost all public money goes to conventional drug research too. The annual budget of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) is around $30 billion, for example, of which less than 0.2% goes towards testing mind–body therapies. The bigger problem, I’d argue, is a wider, deep-seated prejudice against the idea that the mind might have the power to heal, or to keep us well. The materialist worldview described in this book’s introduction—which prioritizes physical test results and interventions, and sees subjective experience as a distraction—still reigns supreme in science ... Ignoring subjective experience is great when you’re trying to eliminate bias from your scientific experiments but is not always helpful in caring for patients, when psychological and physical wellbeing are inextricably entwined." - Page 294
Page 128
"When we’re under chronic stress, however, cortisol is released into the body all the time. This acts as a permanent off-switch, and suppresses the immune system. Chronic stress impairs our response to vaccines, and makes us more susceptible to infections from the common cold to HIV [and perhaps covid 19 as well]" (addition is mine)" - Page 161
