INVISIBLE GURU FORUM

Hi Jed,

I was Ahab from June 2011 forward for about 2.5 years, after finding out about a massive betrayal (after a string of other Big Disillusionments unrelated to that one--life paraded out a string of them, culminating in the June 2011 one).

I hid the carnage from everyone, pretty much.  Walked around literally feeling like my torso had been sliced open and my guts were falling out, for ages.  The burn was high and hot, and I had no idea what was going on.  Kept functioning in my life, thought I might be going crazy, was totally relieved when someone handed me your first and second books and in the Incorrect book saw that I was going through THAT.

Sometime about 8-9 months ago, something shifted and it felt like the movement "further" seemed to slow way down.  Now, I still have short periods of the massive shredding feeling within.  I have short periods of feeling like my body is filling up with air, or like INSIDE my body somehow is floating (but it's not of course).  I have times when there is a cavernous emptiness...and I have seen how if I can just stay with that, keep looking at it and opening to that, it somehow morphs into a fullness that buzzes every cell in my body and makes me feel like I'm going to bust...and something you could call "joy" seems to be the thing filling me up and almost making me burst....

In life with others, I see that I am acting all the time, playing a role--this role, that role--and it is very interesting and kinda cool not to be prone to worry about things--even my two teenage kids (as a mom, I used to do somewhat less than the normal mom-amount of worrying about them).  The outcome of some money issues was a huge question mark up until a month ago; now interestingly there is a ground to stand on there for at least a few years.  That has not existed financially in my life for over a decade.

And my two kids are suddenly gone from my home--daughter went off to boarding high school (her choice, she made it a goal 4 years ago), son went off to live with dad (he was helped to make that choice, but is happy with it).  I am an empty nester 4 years too early, and I see this as a suspicious opportunity, alongside the financial circumstances becoming more solid....

I don't really care about or feel investment in anything other than this process--and it appears life has opened up a space for me to do whatever it takes.

I've emailed a little bit with Scotty Kiloby; I get what he and B Katie are saying, and that "noticing" he talks about (and "resting in presence") is something I am getting more and more disciplined about doing.  It happens a lot sort of "by itself" now.  Doing that does seem to act like a letter-opener, slid in between my laminated layers, wiggling about...and Scott K says continuing to do that is all that is needed (plus the Inquiries, of course, or whatever technique of brutal self-honesty/seeing clearly/shining the light on EVERYTHING).  I do spiritual autolysis...I have done it all my life, actually, without realizing that is what I was doing (have kept a scathingly honest journal since I was 9 yrs old).

I am not convinced that "noticing" and "resting in presence" is all that is needed, but of course I don't know...!  I will keep doing it forever and ever, for as long as it takes, but I am writing you because I want to know if there is anything else to try.  Wu Wei Wu's stuff "speaks" to me, arrests something in me, and that "arresting" I've come to see as at the very least a good ushering-in of more wiggling of the letter-opener.  So I have ordered all 8 of his books.

I see it all, intellectually or conceptually or whatever.  I understand your book TOE (conceptually).  I understood that from your trilogy--before you put out TOE.  I know from experience what Bernadette Roberts is talking about in her description of the stages through what she calls the "unitive state" and you call Human Adulthood.  Sometimes now I feel like I might be on that "fine line" she talks about, but--I'm still here.  And for me, HA is not going to be a resting place.  It's a way-station.  I can see clearly that it's not a life I can take up residence in.  I suck as an actor and I'll never be able to rest in this kind of life.

Here's my best guess at what awaits me to do:  Via something Scott K said about finding my core belief (in order to see it, which will make it dissolve), and via watching the movie "Ender's Game" and seeing the whole thing about how destroying the queen(s) destroys all of the Formics, I suspect that though much has burned off, I have some core belief/the queen/my deepest most cherished & tightly held belief that is hanging on.  Hiding.  I have been looking for it everywhere--especially outside of me now (the place where I have the worst vision), trying to SEE what I am projecting consistently onto others.  I'm not finding it (though it maddens me to know that if it were a snake it woulda bit me by now...I'm sure I'm standing right by it....).

I am wondering if my queen bee-lief that is eluding my search is The Thing (or something related to The Thing) that launched me like an arrow shot from a bow, which landed me in the Ahab situation?--THAT was finding out about having been massively betrayed by someone I loved and who I thoroughly believed loved me--and I surrendered to the work of "loving my enemy" instead of hating and condemning him.  Now, I care nothing about having been betrayed (though the shredding-me feelings of shock and hurt still arise sometimes, and I watch them, and I welcome them because they feel somehow "productive"), and I recognize that the loving-one's-enemy thing is one of a list of things that if REALLY done, will get a good burn going like a meteor getting burned away upon entering the earth's atmosphere....

At first I was horrified and furious to see that whatever it was in me that generated all that love for him and belief in him and belief in our love was GONE (I had a really gigantic heart, I was incredibly loyal and passionate and this was the case across the board in my life, not just in my relationship with him)--I resented that having been destroyed, and hated that, and howled at the moon for a long time over that--but after I opened to all that, it all got fully felt, it all fully shredded in me, and I was shocked to find eventually that I'm over that and I see after all this time that that stuff is really gone, and I don't mind anymore that I don't have the "love"-making & projecting mental/emotional equipment anymore, which would be needed in order to go on forward and fall in love with someone else some day.  I am fine with this, have been for 2 years now. 

But what I REALLY WANT TO KNOW is how to use what still remains of my sometimes-still-Ahabian extreme focus/inward energy with regard to him--if it can still be used.  Since I still have times here and there when the rawness of the feelings of betrayal or the missing-him (the him I thought existed) get going with some shredding in me, this can still be useful, right?  So where is the belief?  If it's the belief in "love," well, I already have seen through that (but maybe not all the way?).  If it's the belief in my own unworthiness of love or unworthiness of whatever else, I've already seen through that too (but maybe not all the way?).

How do I find the core belief?  I don't think there are tons of layers left around it, but it appears there are enough to hide it.  I sense that if I can get to it and SEE IT CLEARLY, it will shred me the rest of the way, dissolve, and end this thing.

Please advise, if you can.
--Misha  Wait--PS--after what happened, I mean, after what I found out in 2011, I did a lot of research on sociopaths (he turned out to be a well-behaved sociopath, as in, not homicidal).  I discovered that they have an ability to "draw out" in others/their "victims" the massive attachment and belief that later, when the victim finds out the truth, has so much energy in it, they cannot get de-tached from the "sociopathic fiction" that was created for them to enjoy.  The best illustration of this is a book called Lunch With a Sociopath, based on the experience of some woman in Texas.  The projections elicited by the sociopath "catch" the victim in a web of illusion that it's not possible to get out of--IMHO--EXCEPT BY going through the shredding/burning, all the way to the end.  Of course, the victims do not know or understand this.  They only know they can't move on inside, even if they know they have to move on in three dimensions because their favorite sociopath (harhar) has moved on and left them in the dust.  Or been found out.  Or shown him/herself to be dangerous.  Etc....  I see these sociopaths who work only with projections (not with instruments of torture or murder) as actually being incredibly efficient at creating the exact right conditions for the awakening of their "victims," without knowing this.  The puppet strings they expertly find and learn to manipulate, are the very attachments/projections that form the scaffolding of their victim's "me."  That's me, Jed.  I still feel enough re my favorite well-behaved sociopath that I know I am still bound to a certain degree by those puppet strings, even though he put me down and walked away years ago.  Nobody knows this but me in my life, and I already know this is not a psychological or emotional problem, but rather a situation of all or nothing vis a vis the truth.  And I think it's the case, also, for all those who have fallen under the spell of a sociopathic fiction and can't get out.  To get free from that, it's necessary to get free from the whole self/belief/personal will/emotional structure.  So is it safe to assume that my "core belief," my "queen," is in there somewhere?  In those puppet strings he found and played with for so long?  I am IMBUING this, I am FEEDING these strings with energy, and I have no idea HOW I am doing that, so I don't know how to stop.  The projector in me is stuck in THIS ONE AREA and I have the sledge hammer in my hands ready to bust the projector (my self, I know) to pieces, but I cannot FIND it in order to do that!

If you can, please help me find it and take it to pieces.--Misha

Hi Jed,

I get the imagining/visualization thing; I will do this.  I will do it these times and also whenever the "stuff" arises.  Some questions:

I can make it arise--I can turn TO it and make it come up.  I have done that periodically over the past few years to "check" and see if it's still there (it is), and to see if it's just as strong or if it is waning (it varies, sometimes it's not there at all, and I get fooled into thinking that part is done).  I MIGHT also be able to refrain from doing that checking but I'm not sure, because sometimes it seems to happen automatically (like an automatic pulse-check), and I'm not sure if that is a very good idea (resistance might make it stronger?)--I have wondered at times if that "checking" makes it stronger, or weakens it (because it definitely is like facing it, opening to it, etc.--whenever it arises it has that shredding power and energy, so it seems possible it might weaken it even if in the moment it is larger in my awareness).

I have a swather I use to cut hay and I'm going to use that image instead--more than a weed wacker is needed, I'm pretty sure...

But I'm already seeing that an odd kind of resistance comes up when I go to do it.  When I even picture doing it.  The resistance has to do with not WANTING the tendrils to be severed from me (I used to be embarrassed about admitting that sort of thing--now I don't give a flying u no what, I just want to know the truth about what is going on, what this is, what this isn't, and how to end it).  This suggests to me that what we have here is a very strong/ropy/thick projection of some invisible contents of ME onto my image of HIM.

Any suggestion re the resistance that comes up?  I've learned to see resistance anywhere as a signal to LOOK VERY CLOSELY, and OPEN OPEN OPEN.  Same with this? Or no?  Thank you--Misha

Hi Jed,

Well HELL-o. 

I wasn't thinking for a second that I wouldn't do it.  So I looked back at my post to see if I sounded like I was considering not doing it...?  Didn't see that.  But let me make sure I am clear on this here n now:  fyi I am deadly serious.  I'll be doing it the rest of my life, not for five days.  (Until it's gone.) 

There is no life to return to--not bc "things suck" or are "not going my way" (weirdly, they actually are in some astounding ways), but bc in me, there is no investment in life the way there was before.  There is no life like there was before.  Whoever or whatever I am now cannot participate in what everyone else seems to be doing.  I fake it ALL THE TIME, mainly bc I have 2 kids who still need the mother they grew up with (from a distance now), for awhile longer.  That is not SO hard to do anymore (to fake it), bc it appears there is a kind of auto-pilot-faking-it-mechanism that kicks in now, but this thing I am doing, which looks to others like "living," is not real to me like it was.  There's no "meaning" except what people invent, and tho that can be very beautiful, the vast ability I used to have to create a sense of meaning has been ix-nayed.  So, there are only 2 options for me--further, or stuck. 

In my response to you I was trying to ask a question re the resistance.  I will try again, & see if I can be clearer. 

So far along this...trajectory...I have noticed (harhar) that noticing resistance in any form tends to seem important--watching it arise, seeing it, opening to it in the sense of opening to whatever it's about, whatever it contains, etc..  Not ignoring it, not contracting against it, not trying to not see it, not being a bulldozer with/against it.  I KNOW the tendrils must be severed or ripped out by their roots--the question is, in THIS kind of thing, is it going to be more effective for me to continue doing (vis a vis the inward resistance to the blades) what I've done before, these 3+ years with whatever comes up, or is there a different approach, different orientation toward the resistance that would be more effective?

I hope I was clearer this time with that question.

I've been using the inward-swather today, as many times as the thought came up (which was more than it has been, I think bc now it's on my mind since we are talking about it).  At one point the big giant John Deere swather morphed itself into one of those little stick-blenders, you know, that you use to puree soups, etc., and that made me laugh.

Thank you for the clarification that I should do it more first, without waiting for it to arise on its own.  I did not understand that from your original note except for the 1p and 1a scheduling.

It occurs to me that I could turn the blades on the resistance, too?  (In my imagination.)  But is that more effective than opening to it?  The resistance is very interesting, and I sense it has a lot of information for me if I could see it more clearly--but I also know from past experience along this wild ride that SOMETIMES (not always) such interesting info-filled things are just side alleys.  Detours.  Delays.  (Although, usually also "productive" ultimately.)   Do you have a suggestion re best orientation toward the resistance?

Thankee--Misha




 

It is first a STOP inside (bland, no positive or negative feeling to it).  The inward movement freezes (w/out the cold connotation) re the "task" of starting up the blades and turning them on the tentacles.

Btw, I have a sense that the tentacles must be me (sensing that, not just conceptually figuring that out)...but sensing that does not seem to give me better access to them, either w/ the blades or ability to SEE them.

Then when I proceed in spite of the inward STOP (without waiting for it to cooperate), there's a feeling of heaviness across my elbows area (as if they were linked), and across my middle--the bottom of rib cage.  And then I am pretty sure something "dissociates."  In an escape way, not in a de-laminating way.

And then the image holds no energy--it's empty and unreal and the swather or stick-blender or whatever image I started out with (or try to bring in more directly) doesn't seem to be related or effective or relevant or something like that.

I will do the unfindable inquiry, yes.  Dunno why that didn't occur to me (the resistance at work behind-the-scenes, probly), thanks for the suggestion.

I will try all this, plus one other idea i'm getting...talk to you soon, & thank you....  But I will check back here to see if you have any more suggestions, mientras tanto.
--Misha

Keep at it Misha.

If it's all imagination (which it is) you might as well have some fun.

Love ya, Jed.

That is not a personal question.

It's a wondering if you have forgotten.

If you have not forgotten, and you "had some fun with it" at this point, that indicates a possibility I have not yet seen in this...task.

(But ho, I am not complaining, nor being sarcastic, ironic, etc.)

Many roads, many diversion, and only one final destination. It's all just fun so don't take it for seriously.

Love ya, Jed.

Whose tentacles? Where are they? Coming in or going out? All of this is made up, but sometimes not to be messed with because they need un-messing later.

Love ya, Jed.