Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
New aversion to my 'self'...
I've posted this in Advanced Ideas on the basis that I've tried to explain it to a number of people now and they really haven't understood it. Apologies in advance (heh) if it belongs in another forum.
I've been having counselling lately, and have been feeling really ambivalent about going. I get totally tongue-tied when he asks how I'm feeling, and struggle to find the words to express myself. So I sat down to do some writing, as this often helps to unblock me...and what emerged was that I am, quite literally, bored with myself.
Not with me as a human being, though. Not my REAL nature. This 'self' that I am recoiling from is the one that sees faults in everything, blames everything but her own actions for her problems, creates drama and conflict with others, and seeks approval and affirmation wherever she goes. It's my egotistical, self-obsessed 'self'. The one that, according to my understanding, Buddha advised to let go of.
I'm bored with my problems, my issues, my past, my psychological symptoms...all of it. Not in an angry way; I actually feel very calm and matter-of-fact about it. I have spent so many years analysing, obsessing, agonizing over my state of mind and my life that I've been forgetting to actually LIVE in the world and hence I feel isolated and 'different' from everyone else. Rather than feeling my emotions, accepting them and letting them be what they are, I've twisted and distorted them out of all recognition and made them into defining aspects of 'me'. Looking at myself now is like looking into one of those bendy mirrors at the fun fair!
What I need is not more space to focus on my problems, but actually the complete opposite - space to NOT focus on my problems but to just BE, as a being interconnected with other beings and phenomena (the very things I get from the Triple Gem). Hence, I feel that counselling is not appropriate at this point in my life.
I tried telling the counsellor how I feel, and he became very angry and defensive. Told me I was 'belittling' myself, that I was 'resisting' him, and that I had 'fantasies' of being difficult. I ended up being the one to reassure HIM that HE was OK, that I wasn't criticizing his profession or what he had tried to do - just that I felt I had gone far enough along this particular road and wanted to take a different turning. I also acknowledged that having what I thought I wanted - an hour a week to be about as self-indulgent as it is possible to be - turned out to be the thing that showed me what my true purpose was. And the bitter irony was that this week, the first week I have ever been truly honest and opened up to the guy, he accused me of 'hiding' my true self. I must have done a great job of presenting a false self before, I think.
Has any of you ever experienced this with regards to your ego/self? An actual aversion to it that has led to a new openness to the Buddhist ideal of letting go of the delusion of self? I have tried explaining this to a few people since the counsellor and none of them has understood what I'm trying to get across.
I've been having counselling lately, and have been feeling really ambivalent about going. I get totally tongue-tied when he asks how I'm feeling, and struggle to find the words to express myself. So I sat down to do some writing, as this often helps to unblock me...and what emerged was that I am, quite literally, bored with myself.
Not with me as a human being, though. Not my REAL nature. This 'self' that I am recoiling from is the one that sees faults in everything, blames everything but her own actions for her problems, creates drama and conflict with others, and seeks approval and affirmation wherever she goes. It's my egotistical, self-obsessed 'self'. The one that, according to my understanding, Buddha advised to let go of.
I'm bored with my problems, my issues, my past, my psychological symptoms...all of it. Not in an angry way; I actually feel very calm and matter-of-fact about it. I have spent so many years analysing, obsessing, agonizing over my state of mind and my life that I've been forgetting to actually LIVE in the world and hence I feel isolated and 'different' from everyone else. Rather than feeling my emotions, accepting them and letting them be what they are, I've twisted and distorted them out of all recognition and made them into defining aspects of 'me'. Looking at myself now is like looking into one of those bendy mirrors at the fun fair!
What I need is not more space to focus on my problems, but actually the complete opposite - space to NOT focus on my problems but to just BE, as a being interconnected with other beings and phenomena (the very things I get from the Triple Gem). Hence, I feel that counselling is not appropriate at this point in my life.
I tried telling the counsellor how I feel, and he became very angry and defensive. Told me I was 'belittling' myself, that I was 'resisting' him, and that I had 'fantasies' of being difficult. I ended up being the one to reassure HIM that HE was OK, that I wasn't criticizing his profession or what he had tried to do - just that I felt I had gone far enough along this particular road and wanted to take a different turning. I also acknowledged that having what I thought I wanted - an hour a week to be about as self-indulgent as it is possible to be - turned out to be the thing that showed me what my true purpose was. And the bitter irony was that this week, the first week I have ever been truly honest and opened up to the guy, he accused me of 'hiding' my true self. I must have done a great job of presenting a false self before, I think.
Has any of you ever experienced this with regards to your ego/self? An actual aversion to it that has led to a new openness to the Buddhist ideal of letting go of the delusion of self? I have tried explaining this to a few people since the counsellor and none of them has understood what I'm trying to get across.
0
Comments
It is easy to see it in other people, but the challenge is to put yourself under the microscope and catching it. Congrats on the awareness you have created. I too see it in me, I just have to catch it in action sometimes. Its hard thing to do. We have been conditioned by society to live by the demands of the ego. It can never be satisfied, there for it it a huge money maker to our society. Every five mins the tv pumps out demands to the ego. It is truly sad.
Its not right for a professional counseller treat you like that. Its their job to be open and observent. Not critical.
Good luck on this new path.
That is what meditation is for.
Yeah I went through the whole merr.. I am not my thoughts, I am true nature this and that.. and it did eventually bring about calm when I realized that I was just thinking too much and my life path was set out before me each day.
Eat, drink, work, school, smile.
oh and poop! haha
I wish you the best good sir, let us know how it works out with your counselor and your spiritual path.