2008.11.10 07:00 - Birthday, Detachment and Integration

This morning's session was one of our four new weekly guardian meetings. When I, Pema, arrived I found Adelene and Fael and Becka already present.

Adelene Dawner: hi, Pem :)
Fael Illyar: Hi Pema :)
Pema Pera: Hi Adelene, Fael, Becka!
Fael Illyar: Ah, right, happy birthday Adele :)
Adelene Dawner grins widely at Fa. You remembered!
Pema Pera: ah!
Pema Pera: happy birthday!
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Fael Illyar is working on getting better at remembering people's birthdays :)
Pema Pera quickly checking whether we are talking about RL or SL birthdays
Adelene Dawner: RL. I'm 27 today.
Becka Finesmith: Hello Pema - Sorry
Becka Finesmith: I had my eyes closed :)
Pema Pera: :)
Pema Pera: mesmerized by the fountain . . .
Pema Pera: Fael, meet Becka: it's her second time here
Becka Finesmith: indeed - The sound of the water
Pema Pera: Becka, Fael like Adelene is an oldtimer at PaB :)
Becka Finesmith: I see. Nice to meetyou Fael
Becka Finesmith: I love your wings
Fael Illyar: Nice to meet you too Becka :)
Fael Illyar smiles 'Thank you,'
Pema Pera: Becka, do you have any further questions/comments on PaB?
Becka Finesmith: oooh - Lots :)
Pema Pera: shoot!

Becka brought up an important point concerning detachment.

Becka Finesmith: I'm enjoying the company.
Becka Finesmith: it's strange, the more I detach myself, the more I have a need for people
Becka Finesmith: is that a common experience?
Becka Finesmith: "detach from myself" I mean
Adelene Dawner: Arguably :)
Fael Illyar: it's more like, you become less scared of people when you detach more and the limiting effect gets less :)
Becka Finesmith: perhaps it's the people too
Fael Illyar: yes, when you find the right people, that also tends to do that, yes :)
Pema Pera: it seems to go both ways: more detachments often means that you can be happier just being by yourself *and* more open to others and really enjoying their company when being together.
Fael Illyar: yes, enjoying things more, overall :)
Becka Finesmith: it seems a paradox to me that we can detach yet still feel grounded in the material world
Becka Finesmith: I know it's possible because I do it
Pema Pera: we detach from the barriers we put up around ourselves . . . .
Becka Finesmith: or am I fooling myself?
Becka Finesmith: so where does that leave emotions?
Pema Pera: we think we need to protect ourselves in ego fortifications . . . .
Pema Pera: and that stifles everything, including emotions
Pema Pera: when we call someone "disarming" it's an indication of the other direction
Pema Pera: towards opening the gates of the fortifications
Becka Finesmith nods
Becka Finesmith: in life, when we have been hurt, how can this practice help us to make sure we are not opening ourselves up too much?
Pema Pera: detaching from barriers implies reaffirming the real grounding attachment to Being that we can never lose -- we can only ignore, temporarily, but never lose
Pema Pera: that's a good question, Becka; it requires a sense of balance and maturity
Pema Pera: so it's good to go slow and be careful
Pema Pera: not to force openness, but let it grow naturally
Pema Pera: start by seeing . . . .
Pema Pera: then opening to what you can see . . . .

Fael introduced an interesting twist.

Fael Illyar: also worth seeing is that all these barriers we build are not to shield us from others but ultimately to shield us from ourselves.
Pema Pera: !!
Bell: *ding*
Becka Finesmith: I agree with that. I've recently come to realise that the tings I see in others which disturb me is just a mirror for who I am
Adelene Dawner: I'd argue that in some senses, Fa.
Adelene Dawner: (let me get to a stop point with this art so I can focus here)
Pema Pera: yes, Becka, very much so!
Pema Pera: the art of celebrating birthday, Adelene?
Adelene Dawner grins a Pem. "Muse found a new technique, birthday is irrelevant. ^.^
Becka Finesmith: Many happy returns Adelene
Adelene Dawner: ty, Becks.
Adelene Dawner: *Becka
Adelene Dawner: Ok, done printing, here I am.
Adelene Dawner: And with a specific example, no less.
Fael Illyar: let's hear it then :)
Pema Pera thinking about a glass of Becks . . . too early here
Becka Finesmith is all ears
Adelene Dawner: Fa and Pema both know that I have some pretty specific panic attack triggers. I don't hide that, but it's not common knowledge, because it just doesn't come up often.
Becka Finesmith: lol @Pema - I think I heard that right ;)
Pema Pera: :)
Becka Finesmith: I can emapthise Adelene
Becka Finesmith: empathise
Adelene Dawner: Night before last, someone that I know on here, who did not know about said triggers, very nearly sent me into a panic attack, simply by her attitude about those issues.
Becka Finesmith: :(
Adelene Dawner: mmmhmm.
Becka Finesmith: How do we avoid that? I often find myself in situations where others think I'm being confrontational but really I'm just trying to understand
Adelene Dawner: Now, I know it was unintentional. However, on a much-deeper-than-conscious level, I feel that I'm not safe around this person now - when I see them, I feel extremely uncomfortable in a physical sense - I get extremely tense.
Adelene Dawner: The most reasonable thing I can think of to do, then, is to avoid that person. That's a barrier. In what way is that me shielding me from myself?
Becka Finesmith: Did they make you confront something that made you uncomfortable?
Becka Finesmith: Something you would rather not confront
Becka Finesmith: then we manifest that on the other person
Becka Finesmith: as a way of avoiding it
Fael Illyar: the shielding you from yourself is clearly there. It's not the other person who creates the panic attack. They merely trigger it. The causes for the panic attack are already in you.
Adelene Dawner: Point, Fa.
Fael Illyar: so, to shield yourself from the panic attack, you avoid placing yourself in situations that might trigger it
Becka Finesmith: have you asked yourself why that trigger?
Pema Pera: (and avoidance is a good start -- better safe than sorry -- after which you can carefully experiment with being more and more open, slowly . . . )
Adelene Dawner: Becka - if I wanted to talk about that aspect of this, I would have givven sufficient details for discussion.
Becka Finesmith: of course. I apologise
Adelene Dawner nods at Pem, and grins.
Adelene Dawner: No worries, Becka.
Fael Illyar: Yes, panic attacks likely need careful approach...

We all agreed upon the need to take it easy.

Bell: *ding*
Fael Illyar: I've had enough problems being very afraid of wasps myself and it seems panic attack is one step more severe.
Adelene Dawner: mmhmm.
Adelene Dawner: There're lots of different levels - I don't consider something a panic attack 'till I'm actually at the point of irrational not-functional responses.
Adelene Dawner: Which has happened. Not often, but it has. Even getting close to that point is distressing, though.
Fael Illyar: Yes, I found myself getting irrational with wasps around somewhat.
Fael Illyar: but my understanding is that panic attack lasts long after the trigger.
Adelene Dawner: Yeah...
Becka Finesmith: I have to leave for a RL appointment :( Thank you everyone :)
Fael Illyar: Ok, see you another meeting Becka :)
Adelene Dawner: Ok, Becka. See you around :)
Pema Pera: see you Becka!
Becka Finesmith: yes. See you soon. Bye Pema
Pema Pera: thanks for stopping by
Becka Finesmith: The pleasure was mine
Adelene Dawner: I tend to be very aware of whether I'm in equilibrium or not anyway, and I'm definitely still not, though at this point it's minor. But the signifigant emotional unbalance lasted something like 10 hours.
Adelene Dawner: afk, back in a moment.
Fael Illyar: that's pretty rough...
Fael Illyar: no, not quite :)
Adelene Dawner shrugs. "Not the end of the world."
Adelene Dawner hmmms...
Adelene Dawner: I just noticed a paralell.
Adelene Dawner: It was All Souls' Day a week or so ago, which is actually celebrated in the Roman Catholic church, so I got to see a bit of that happening at work. It's a day of rememberance for people who've passed away. It struck me as odd to have that... wouldn't you want that to be just part of everyday life? So I thought about it and realized that no, they *don't* want it as part of everyday life, so they make a day for it so they can ignore it the rest of the time. (Does that track with how normal people work? I'm not sure.)
Adelene Dawner: If that's accurate... Well, it's not intentional, but my emotional state seems to work the same way. Low-to-trivial emotiona 99% of the time, and really intense emotions 1% of the time.
Fael Illyar: does sound like it matches that people generally tend to want to ignore unpleasant things most of the time.
Bell: *ding*
Pema Pera: Also, it helps to set aside special times to focus on things -- it is hard to really think about people who have passed away, every day -- so we use special days; like birthdays btw :)
Pema Pera: and like the 9 seconds as special time in the 15 minutes, even though the ideal is to ultimately use all of the 15 minutes equally fully as the 9 sec . . . .
Adelene Dawner: I guess it's pretty weird that I can generally think about those things without getting emotional, then. Even my triggers - I can talk about them in a neurtal setting without getting emotional except in the most intense parts. It's when I'm confronted with them in practice that it gets bad.
Pema Pera: in general, integration of what have learned to see takes far more time than actually learning to see it . . . this seems to be part of the human condition!
Adelene Dawner: :)
Fael Illyar: the weight of habit :)
Pema Pera: There is where I think the 9-sec can help; doing something every 15 minutes can help but seep into your life, nestling itself in a kind of direct integration
Fael Illyar: true :)
Adelene Dawner: hm.
Pema Pera: Learning to let go of *something* every fifteen minutes may help to let go of really big things, like what you're talking about, perhaps at first after 10 hours, then after only several hours, then after only a few hours . . . and then maybe even faster . . . .
Fael Illyar: yes, that's the process :)
Adelene Dawner ponders thoughtfully. "That makes sense."
Pema Pera: and we shouldn't expect progress to happen too quickly; better talk our walk through life leisurely, letting sink in what we learn so that it gets really grounded
Fael Illyar: sometimes you really have to take several wrong turns at once to really realize why it'd be useful not to take those.

Corvi joined us, and it was time for me to leave.

Adelene Dawner: Hey, Corvi-Love. ^.^
Fael Illyar: Hi Corvi :)
Pema Pera: Hi Corvi!!
Corvuscorva Nightfire smiles..Hi all!
Fael Illyar: Adele, have you managed to figure out which animal I fit in your categories?
Pema Pera would love to hear the answer to that one, and discussion following that but . . . RL is calling at the hour . . . .
Adelene Dawner: ok, Pem.
Fael Illyar: See you later Pema :)
Pema Pera: Can someone add the rest of the chat log, later today?
Pema Pera: Thanks in advance!
Bell: *ding*
Pema Pera: sorry to have to leave, Corvi!
Adelene Dawner: Fa, I haven't put any more thought into it since last time, not figured out why 'Tanuki' feels relevant.
Pema Pera: haha, tanuki, I like that!
Pema Pera: fits
Fael Illyar smiles.
Adelene Dawner shrugs. "Don't ask me, I just live in this head."
Pema Pera: hidden mischief and all that
Pema Pera: okay, see you all soon again!