Question: Self-hypnosis in deep states

[Richard@DecisionSkills]

Relax Richard, no one is going to make you change. Moonlightress is just sharing her opinion on a public forum, and even went out of her way to say that it’s your prerogative to not change.

Lol...again interesting. I would not think my post would be interpreted as needing a “relax” response. I understand Moonlightress is just sharing an opinion. I welcome the discourse.

Did I make a type II error in offering that suggestion?

Absolutely not. I think you offered a nice alternative. I do see it as a bit of walking on ‘egg shell’ approach, but so what?

[moonlightress]

Jimmy: I don’t know if you know Mark Manson’s writing? He’s written a little ebook titled Self-Knowledge, which you can download in exchange for your email address (to send you his newsletters, which you can always unsubscribe from after you download it.)

I thought he gave a good, expanded explanation of the “third person perspective of watching yourself” that you wrote about in your blog post, just using the words: ‘thinking mind’ and ‘observer mind’.

I learnt about ‘observer mind’ when I used to meditate in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition; they call it ‘observer consciousness’. Can't say I ever mastered non-attachment. My observer mind still gets waaaay too sucked into my thinking mind (which was all too clear here). I was WATCHING myself defend with intellectualization, ffs and I still got sucked in.

The newsletter just arrived in my email, and it was a synchronistic reminder for me.

[jimmyh]

I feel sheepish now. Why did I kick up all that dust? All that arguing… I was even defending my defending, ffs!

Haha

You know, going into this I actually didn’t have a good answer to this. While the rationalizations weren’t surprising or new to me with this kind of thing, I was definitely left with the feeling that I was doing something suboptimally, and that if I could just figure out what was going on I should be able to cut it short and get to the good stuff. I think you actually answered it for me.

Why? I hadn’t grasped what you meant.

Right here. I think this is it. This is cool, and it might be helping clarify some mistakes I’ve made elsewhere.

You simply didn’t understand, and you were simply doing the only thing you knew how, all while (almost?) fully aware that it doesn’t actually make sense but unable to make sense of why you’re still doing it or, more importantly, what to do instead.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I don’t like focusing too much on achieving hypnosis or hypnotic responses, and kinda like to just let it happen naturally when it’s called for. In a couple instances, it even surprised me when I noticed what was happening because “hypnosis” wasn’t on my mind at all and yet I was getting strongly hypnotic responses. Yet, when I look back at it, I was clearly telling them what to do.

Here though… several things were different. For one, my interest here has been in testing my ability to *teach* the model to see if I can get you to implement it for yourself, rather than just seeing if I can implement it to good results. I didn’t say “shh, follow me”, because that would kinda defeated the point and ruined the test.

I did say “here’s how to decide when to shut up and listen vs when to be critical”, but that is hugely different. You don’t know have to know how to do things to follow, but you kinda do in order to lead — and I was suggesting you lead yourself into hypnosis, if that’s what looked best to you. Because I was only pointing at the map, it was necessary for you to put the details together yourself, and one of the details you didn’t have yet was that when you don’t have an answer you don’t do *anything* object level. You sit, and you process, and you do something once you have an answer that actually makes sense.

I had been taking it for granted that *of course* when you have nothing else to do, you do nothing. When you have no anxieties, it just happens automatically, right? Like in the example I gave?

Well, not quite. I mean, technically yes, but that misses a big part of why that interaction went that way. She didn’t have that piece either, going into it. I was modeling it for her, and even calling it out as what I was doing when I wasn’t talking, and why I was doing it. There was a hell of a lot of nonverbal communication to give her guidance, and I had even explicitly said “shhh” earlier in the conversation. None of that happened here, and largely couldn’t if I had wanted to because the medium of text doesn’t convey nonverbals well, and especially does not allow for the “I see you seeing me seeing you seeing me see you” stuff that allows for common knowledge of calibration and intent to calibrate which allows bolder jumps to be taken with the confidence that they’d be received well even if off the mark.

So yeah, *no wonder* you responded the way you did. Super cool. I wouldn’t even call it “defensiveness”, really. As you said, it’s *not about* space and safety, and it doesn’t seem like it actually got in the way. It’s not rationalizations propped up by a need to defend yourself, it’s rationalizations propped up by “I don’t know what else to do?”. Nothing. On the object level, the answer is “nothing”. Shoulda mentioned that earlier. I’ll make sure to keep it in mind for next time. Oh well, it was funny

(I’ll extend myself a little self-compassion for defending, it’s an old self-preservation impulse, but it wasn’t necessary here and it was pointless and counterproductive.)

I’m not sure I buy “counterproductive” to any significant extent, since it doesn’t seem to have stopped you from processing the suggestions anyway without further intervention by me — even if you did slip up for a moment and get lost in it before finding your way out. “Pointless” and “not necessary”, sure, but what else are you supposed to do? Nothing? That’s absurd too! :p

Anyway, you don’t get to feel bad for those behaviors. I just stole the responsibility for them, and you can’t have it back.

Yup, and that was a sticking point. It was what the <litany of defences> was about, wasn’t it? I did get stuck there. I hadn’t seen, or rather, I didn’t believe, what you said earlier about me already having the kind of courage called for. I’d rejected that observation out of hand. How can I have courage if I’m scared? Nope, doesn’t make sense.

What, did you start to believe Richard that I was just feeding you the sugar and telling you what you wanted to hear with stuff like “you’re *so* courageous!”? Do I seem like the kind of person who would say that kind of thing if it wasn’t true just to make you feel good!? Does that make any *more* sense?

Just teasing, of course

Expected, yes. When actually confronted with the end-point though, “whoa, not what I had expected. I knew it’d conflict with my worldview or what would be the point of even going into this? But I didn’t know it would quite so mind-bending: "I'm afraid of spiders - here, stroke this one that's as big as you are” (is how my mind saw it)

No matter how much you expect to be surprised, it can only make you not surprised about the fact that you’re surprised

Is that what you meant by “Shh, bad Amanda, *look*”?
(Is my interpretation of what you meant in the post, right?)
Summarizing; have I understood this right now?

That all seems close enough to me, I’ll sign off on that. It seems like you’re getting it

I’m excited to see what comes of it.

[jimmyh]

Absolutely not. I think you offered a nice alternative.

Good, I'm glad you appreciate it.

I do see it as a bit of walking on ‘egg shell’ approach, but so what?

I see how it can seem that way, but that's not actually the considerations that drive it. It's actually remarkably easy once you're in tune with how other people see you. That example didn't take me any longer to come up with than it does for me to actually speak the words out loud.

[jimmyh]

Jimmy: I don’t know if you know Mark Manson’s writing?

I am, and I have a lot of respect for the way he goes about things. He's actually a "former PUA" and the way he's been able to take the things the PUA community knows and piece them together in a way that is appreciated by feminists is pretty awesome. Find the value, disregard the nonsense, and then find the overarching picture that delivers the same predictions in the cases that PUA stuff gives the right answer, but without the offensive (and incorrect) implications. Actually reminds me a lot of what I've done with the "hypnosis" stuff and kinda consider myself a "post hypnotist" now.

[moonlightress]

Uhhhhhhh and now I've just found out it's the same thing as 'going meta' in NLP. I'm climbing back into my burrow now. Bear with me, please... it's all still new to me

[jimmyh]

You might be discussing a different type of ‘reasoning’ than I’m use to.

As I’m using it there, I just mean it as a catch all term for “the way humans form conclusions”, not anything philosophically precise.

Yes. And I think or believe that this is where we mainly differ. I believe I am more conservative. I fear or am more risk averse when it comes to making claims of ‘truth’ that I perceive as having higher consequences. I’m not saying I’m correct about the consequences, it is just my perception. When it comes to hypnosis then, I’m fine with exploring and enjoying the idea of the potential, but when someone asks if it can solve XYZ issue then I am less willing to make a claim based on personal empiricism. If that makes any sense?

Sure. The problem is that if you want to stick to the bus for safety, you can never leave the bus stop. You can say “here are some studies I was able to find which you might find relevant”, but if you actually want to be able to say “no, it can’t solve XYZ” that requires interpretation. Is it that hypnosis can’t solve XYZ, or that Eric can’t, and the scientists only studied the buffoon? The science itself didn’t say, and a hell of a lot of the danger shows up between the bus stop and your destination.

Far more dangerous than careful extrapolation is unwitting extrapolation. If you’re careful you can pretty reliably walk the mile from the bus stop to work without getting hit by a car. If you don’t pay fine grained detail to where you are exactly and just say “at the bus stop”, then those ten steps that might seem like an “insignificant” distance from the stop can bring you right into oncoming traffic.

You can say “I *don’t know* if hypnosis can solve XYZ” and be safe. If you’re read the science, you can add “but the hypnotist who has been scientifically studied did not succeed” and be safe. You can tread lightly and say “which is some evidence that hypnosis can’t solve XYZ” and a bit more firmly to say “which is enough to convince me not to look harder for evidence that it can”, but the moment you venture as far to definitely “hypnosis can’t solve XYZ” you’ve walked out into traffic and exposed yourself to being dead wrong in your first step.

If you want to stick to “I don’t know” and “Here’s a study that found X which seems like it is related” and “given that the science hasn’t been able to demonstrate that hypnosis can do XYZ, it seems at the very least not trivial, and I wouldn’t bank on it working out if the stakes are high”, then that’s all pretty safe, and safe is reasonable. If you want to explore the frameworks from a position of idle curiosity because you’re not sufficiently confident in them to start placing weight on them, that’s awesome. In fact, not placing too much weight on them before they’re very solidly grounded is wise. Full agreement on all that. I’ll add that there’s a lot of fun to be had without exposing oneself to worse than scrapes and bruises should your framework fail, but it’s your call what you’re willing to risk.

[jimmyh]

There is a balance between type I and type II errors. In participating in the forum people must decide for themselves which error they would rather risk. Obviously I don’t want to make any errors, at least not intentionally. But, in participating for several years I have decided that if I am going to make an error, I would rather it be type II. I would rather offer up honest advice and run the risk of it being rejected. This means that I can fully expect that at least a percentage of people will take it wrong and reject it because they feel it was delivered with the wrong tone, etc.

I try to adjust to reduce errors, but I also recognize that there is a limit to exactly how far I’m willing to shift to make sure a type II error never occurs. To completely reduce type II error in a public forum, in my opinion, is counterproductive. The very purpose of a public forum, even one labeled self help, is to share viewpoints that don’t necessarily agree with each other.

This is a really cool response, and I want to thank you for taking the time to write it.

I actually very very much agree with a lot of this. Yes, you have to be willing to err on the side of type II. Yes, voicing disagreement is a wonderful thing, and one of the things I’ve always liked about uncommon forum is the diversity of viewpoints and the ability for people to express all sorts of thing without people trying to shut them out.

I’m not sure whether it comes across here or to what degree, but I’m actually very much on board with the whole “better type II than type I” thing. For the first twenty something years of my life I was completely unapologetic about stating the truth and letting people either be offended or not. I wouldn’t even have called it an “error”, just “if they can’t handle the truth, that’s not my problem”. There are a lot of advantages to this way of doing things. Besides just getting more viewpoints out there to be seen, it also causes people who can’t handle honest discourse (and would therefore impede it) to run away and leave the floor open to those who can. It breeds thicker skin, and selects for people who have it. One of my all time favorite compliments I’ve received was “If anyone else had said that, I’d be offended”.

This method is great when people are aggressively trying to shove their stupid ideas in your face and you need to filter out the ones who can’t handle the truth. It’s terrible when you want to want to be able to connect with more people or connect more deeply with those you choose to connect with. If your goal is to engage with or help the person, you want to not make any errors, and you want to recover from the ones you make. It doesn’t have to be some open-loop thing where you make a guess at what you can say and then just charge forward and commit to that path. It’s better as a closed loop dance where you nudge the line, test their reactions, show them that it’s okay to say “no”, and that it would be cool to say “yes”, and then take things further. In this thread you can see me calibrating to that point, and calling it out explicitly as I do. When you keep going with this, you can form really cool relationships where people are ready and willing to take all sorts of brutally honest and unflattering feedback, and even appreciating it. Tight feedback loops are important, and any time you make a type II error, it should be *very visible* and *acknowledged by the person you’ve erred on* that you recognize the error and are fixing it.

The downside of type I is that you don’t get to say anything in the moment. The downside of type II is that you don’t get to say anything *ever*, if you cross the line to where they shut you out for good. When you actually want to engage with/help the person, the optimal strategy is to err on the side of type I errors initially, and walk in towards that line, only crossing it in small amounts that are correctable, and then pushing that line out to where it needs to be in order to have fun get stuff done.

That’s half of it.

The other half is that there are two very very different ways people can reject and dislike things you say. In your comment I’m replying to and in this comment so far, we’ve been talking about the cases where people experience cognitive dissonance because they don’t immediately know how to engage with your input while staying “okay”. It’s about emotional “safety”.

It’s not always that, though.

If some average Joe crackpot starts arguing with a physicist on the topic of dark energy, the physicist is unlikely to get offended because of any inability to address the idiot’s arguments. If the physicist is at all bothered by it, it’s because it’s socially frowned on to flat out inform people that their ideas are unworthy of consideration, and so the physicist might reasonably resent the idiot for putting him in a position where the only context appropriate thing to say is socially unacceptable and will get him frowned at.

The security guards error was of this type. The difference is that I was completely ready to hold him as beneath my consideration. He didn’t get to even pretend that he was right in our argument, because there was no argument. I concluded that he’s a loser without caring what he might think about that. He *cared* what I thought, and was foolish enough to conduct himself in a way such that my thought was “you’re not worth addressing or even hiding my view from”. That’s why his feelings were hurt, and he had to try to pretend like they weren’t. The crackpot error isn't any different or better than this, it's just that the crackpot might be genuinely oblivious to how people see him if people get frustrated enough that it can look like a normal "type II error", and he gets to pretend if people get frustrated at all.

There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this failure mode. It does not provoke cognitive dissonance. It does not earn you respect. If you say something, and your input is just regarded as stupid and unworthy of addressing on the object level, then the only thing you’re teaching people is that you’re an idiot and you can safely be treated like an idiot. Even if you’re right about the object level thing, if you willingly let people conclude you’re an idiot, and then don’t 1) fix it, 2) humble yourself enough to regain their respect, or 3) write them off as unable to get it and *leave*... then they are right about you being an idiot. No non idiot non loser purposely puts themselves in the position of the loser over and over and over.

That's why it's really important to have tangible and *unarguable* things you can point to so that you know you aren't just giving into the temptation to believe the more flattering thing about yourself.

[Richard@DecisionSkills]

Tight feedback loops are important, and any time you make a type II error, it should be *very visible* and *acknowledged by the person you’ve erred on* that you recognize the error and are fixing it.

The downside of type I is that you don’t get to say anything in the moment. The downside of type II is that you don’t get to say anything *ever*, if you cross the line to where they shut you out for good.

There were a lot of good points to digest from the last few posts, so going thru point by point and doing each justice is unfortunately not realistic given other commitments.

I will offer up one thing, with two points for consideration. In a public forum there is another variable to consider...the public. When a response is written, the type of error you are willing to make is not always based or focused on how it might impact a specific member.

This goes to the heart of the difference between private and public discourse. It also goes to the goals of those participating in the discussion.

To your points...IF the goal is to not *err on* a specific individual then, in my opinion, the type I and II errors play out exactly as you described. The downsides are as you have noted. Type I is a process of delay and coaxing, scaffolding the conversation to get a specific individual to a different place. Type II can result in being shut out by the individual for good.

But, what if getting a specific individual to a different place is not the goal? What if achieving consensus or agreement with a specific individual is not the goal? How might that impact how you balance the risk you are willing to take in making a particular error?

As for being able to identify an *idiot* regarding a certain domain/topic and therefore safely dismiss their opinion, I understand what you are saying and my intuition likes to agree with you. But, the rational side of me says that it is precisely what we need to strive to work against, especially in public discourse. The *idiot* that we are so sure doesn’t know anything might turn out to be correct. The person we want to burn at the stake for heresy because they say the earth revolves around the sun, when the consensus is so certain it is the reverse, is also an error.

Today we see this in public discourse on things such as global warming or politics, where your opinion can safely be dismissed and you can be labeled an idiot and publicly ridiculed if you don’t agree with the overwhelming consensus. In some cases even presenting the question is enough to be dismissed. But, the person says their opinions anyway and while they might err with a specific individual or even a group of individuals, only time will tell if the idiot actually had a point. This is actually why academics receive tenor, to protect them against the consequences of being labeled the idiot.

Note, I’m not saying identifying the idiot and dismissing whatever they say is never a correct action. I’m saying there is the risk of error, especially when the opinion is mainly being dismissed because it is not comforting or doesn’t validate what a person wishes to believe. For instance, in a forum on hypnosis I think it reasonable to expect that the consensus is that hypnosis is much more effective than we might find in forums on other topics. Therefore, opinions that don’t validate the use of hypnosis are more likely to be received critically than opinions in support of hypnosis.

Last, because I am aware it can be interpreted this way...I’m not making any sort of comparison or trying to present myself as an individual presenting unfavorable opinions against the consensus. Remove me from the equation and consider the two points I’m making from the broader perspective that:

-1- In public discourse, dependent on the goal, making a type I or II error is not always about addressing a specific individual.

-2- We need to be very careful in safely dismissing opinions, because we think a person has no idea what they are talking about. Not always, but this too runs a risk of error.

[jimmyh]

There were a lot of good points to digest from the last few posts, so going thru point by point and doing each justice is unfortunately not realistic given other commitments.

Good.

I will offer up one thing for consideration. In a public forum there is another variable to consider...the public.
[...]
But, what if getting a specific individual to a different place is not the goal? What if achieving consensus or agreement with a specific individual is not the goal? How might that impact how you balance the risk you are willing to take in making a particular error?

It depends entirely on what you’re trying to accomplish with the public. What is it that you’re trying to accomplish, exactly?

As for being able to identify an *idiot* regarding a certain domain/topic and therefore safely dismiss their opinion, I understand what you are saying and my intuition likes to agree with you. But, the rational side of me says that it is precisely what we need to strive to work against, especially in public discourse. The *idiot* that we are so sure doesn’t know anything might turn out to be correct.

Absolutely. At some point you have to be willing to move on instead of being held back by a single unwilling or unable person, but it’s still something that people do too hastily, on average. Or rather, *try* to do too hastily. People will *try* to tell themselves that someone is beneath consideration when in reality they’re offended and swimming in cognitive dissonance. Security guard tried that, and it was transparent. If there’s any cognitive dissonance in yourself, you’re not ready to dismiss the person. It’s critically important to be able to recognize cognitive dissonance in oneself, and to not believe anything you say until you can get it figured out — even though you may well be right anyway.

On the flip side, it’s important to be able to induce cognitive dissonance in people who you are willing to write off. It’s your proof that they can’t keep up, and that you’re not just laughing at galileo for contradicting common wisdom. That, or be able to teach them. You don’t actually have to *do* either, but you have to be *able* to. If you were to try and fail to either induce cognitive dissonance or change their minds, then this should be *surprising* to you. If you wouldn’t honestly be surprised, then you’re not ready to move on without hearing their side. This *still* isn’t proof that you’re not missing something they know, but it can at least tell you that their knowledge set does not fully enclose yours, and that they anticipate that they couldn’t change your mind or induce cognitive dissonance in you.

The person we want to burn at the stake for heresy because they say the earth revolves around the sun, when the consensus is so certain it is the reverse, is also an error.

Careful. “Heretic” is not the same as “idiot”. Heretics are people you hate for provoking cognitive dissonance in you. Heretics are to be welcomed and loved, even if they’re mean jerks. This is difficult, but important. Heretics are our friends, and idiots aren’t worth burning. You’re not supposed to burn anybody.

But you *can* tease people until they’re actually able to free themselves of their own cognitive dissonance for long enough to actually engage in conversation, and you can politely decline to engage with people who you could teach but aren’t worth taking the time to teach, for whatever reason(s).

Today we see this in public discourse on things such as global warming or politics, where your opinion can safely be dismissed and you can be labeled an idiot and publicly ridiculed if you don’t agree with the overwhelming consensus or in some cases even present the question

Oh jesus, you’re a global warming denier too?

Kidding. I agree with the point you’re making.

For instance, in a forum on hypnosis I think it reasonable to expect that the consensus is that hypnosis is much more effective than we might find in forums on other topics. To then say something that doesn’t support or validate hypnosis will be considered a form of heresy.

Yes, the average person on a hypnosis forum will probably believe hypnosis to be more effective than the average person on a gardening forum. There can be many potential causes for this. Maybe they’re the ones that realize the truth. Maybe they’ve just had unusually good experiences with it. Or maybe they’re the only ones unwilling to accept the proof that it doesn’t work too well. You can’t know without actually getting into the nitty gritty of it.

And yes, to say things that don’t support hypnosis *can* be taken as heresy, by people who are too emotionally involved in it and generally unwilling to engage with interesting and challenging ideas. It’s not always taken as heresy though. That’s why it’s important to be able to identify cognitive dissonance, so you can know whether you’re actually saying something that they haven’t been able to engage with, or whether they just don’t see you as saying anything they don’t already know and haven’t already taken into account.

Honestly, I don’t see a whole lot of “heresy” type responses in hypnosis forums. I just see “idiot wandered out of their pen”/”lets poke the troll for fun” type responses when the person is particularly aggressive with it, and “we’d love to teach you about what hypnosis actually is and what the limitations actually are” to those who are genuinely more open minded.

Last, because I am aware it can be interpreted this way...I’m not making any sort of comparison or trying to present myself as an individual presenting unfavorable opinions against the consensus. Remove me from the equation and consider the two points I’m making from the broader perspective [...]

Of course. Your points stand on their own, regardless of how it may or may not apply to anything else. “Oh, you just think you’re galileo, don’t you” would be a sign of cognitive dissonance, after all.

[moonlightress]

Interesting discussion you two are having.
---
Just so you know, I’ve cut up and quoted your post out of order, for the sake of the flow of mine.

What, did you start to believe Richard that I was just feeding you the sugar and telling you what you wanted to hear with stuff like “you’re *so* courageous!”? Do I seem like the kind of person who would say that kind of thing if it wasn’t true just to make you feel good!? Does that make any *more* sense?

Did I start to believe Richard? Look, I know I have some issues, but really…

Nah, I never judged you to be someone who’d say that kind of thing. I wouldn’t have gone into the “test” if I thought you were. I wanted to be challenged. And, like you're talking about with Richard, your closed-loop "softly, softly, catchee monkey" approach, works very, very well. Not that you were trying to "snare" me in any way, but why ruin a good analogy, just because it doesn't fit, exactly. -- I've just never understood it when people have said I'm "courageous" and always just rejected it. I don’t know what to do with it because it doesn't make sense to me. So when you said it, I did what I always do, reject it. I did wonder, in passing, why you'd say that, since letting go into trance wasn't difficult and didn't take any courage? Again, it didn't make sense. But I just let it pass.

You simply didn’t understand, and you were simply doing the only thing you knew how, all while (almost?) fully aware that it doesn’t actually make sense but unable to make sense of why you’re still doing it or, more importantly, what to do instead.

Yes. That's how it was. I *was* aware, fully I'd even say, that it didn't make sense. I thought if I could get all the rationalizations out of the way, it would clear up. That was my model of how this sort of thing works; the only way I know how to approach it. But it didn't clear.

Because I was only pointing at the map, it was necessary for you to put the details together yourself, and one of the details you didn’t have yet was that when you don’t have an answer you don’t do *anything* object level. You sit, and you process, and you do something once you have an answer that actually makes sense.
I had been taking it for granted that *of course* when you have nothing else to do, you do nothing.

*Now* you tell me???

But I don’t actually understand that. Maybe because I’ve not done that before and I don’t see how. "You sit and you process and do nothing"? I'd got to the point of "I'm not intelligent enough to grasp this; I don't understand what he is talking about." I hadn’t given up (because I bloody well was going to ‘get’ this, if it killed me) but I did feel well and truly stuck. In the end it got solved not by processing but by *stopping* processing. Throwing up my hands and saying “I just don’t know, I’m at the end of what I know to do, here subconscious, please fix this” and going to sleep.

Are you saying that what eventually happened after I handed it over to my subconscious and went to sleep, was also part of "processing"? If that is what I was doing by throwing up my hands, then why let that way of doing things even get to the stage of “I just don’t know anymore”, why not just ponder it a bit and if the answer doesn’t come, *quit* processing and hand it over to the subconscious to come up with an answer? How would sitting and processing till an answer came, work? There was no answer coming.

That all seems close enough to me, I’ll sign off on that. It seems like you’re getting it

I think you might be disappointed and I'm sorry about that. The thing is, I’m not sure I am. For sure, for what we just did it for, I got that I actually *can* do, what I didn't think I could, as it applies to a fear. And that you don’t have to know *how* to do something to be able to do it. That much I got. I got what I needed to get to solve that. I'm not trying to take anything away from that.

But if there was supposed to be a method to take away and be able to implement for other things, then no, I can’t say I get it. I can’t see how to extrapolate from it. It was 7 days ago I got that memory, thought and realization, and worked it out. Since then I’ve sat and tried to apply it to another pretty big issue, without any success. Just can’t extrapolate. Can’t see how it can apply or how to implement it. So there is obviously something I didn’t ‘get’.

I went back to "what did I actually learn from what we did?"

1. Being able to assess when a suggestion is good and the situation is safe/appropriate to let myself be suggestible and follow along and see where it goes. Check.

2. Seeing that the whole belief I had that I can't handle people's anger and negative emotions directed at me, and can't stand up for myself, is untrue. Check. I feel like that issue got resolved; see my next post.

But what was it actually you were trying to teach me to do about “here’s how to decide when to shut up and listen vs when to be critical”? You were trying to teach me how to think about it? I wouldn't be able to tell you what you were trying to teach though, if you asked me to explain it back to you. You were trying to show me how to lead myself and not just follow, but it seems to me I just bumbled around until I stumbled upon the exit, and didn't get there by design.

It’s not rationalizations propped up by a need to defend yourself, it’s rationalizations propped up by “I don’t know what else to do?”.Nothing. On the object level, the answer is “nothing”. Shoulda mentioned that earlier. I’ll make sure to keep it in mind for next time. Oh well, it was funny

I tried to inject a little humour into my confusion. See, it's a great way to defend? Entertain and deflect from the fact you're clueless. I did know you're way too sharp, and I definitely wasn't trying to fend you off or back out, otherwise what was the point, but yeah, like you said, I was doing the only thing I knew to do.

Yes, lots of fun, it was. Worth stumbling around in the dark for!

*Next time*? Be careful how you say that; you know sometimes just how it’s delivered can trigger “permanosis in a suggestible individual…. But since you mention it: did you get what you wanted to get from this, for your test "project"? Or, now that I have a missing piece from the puzzle, are you up for another round, to help me understand what I didn’t get, and still don’t get? (I’m serious, but it’s just a suggestion, and I’m not a hypnotist. )

[moonlightress]

I’m excited to see what comes of it.

Needless to say, I am too! Time will tell. But as for here and now: there’s been a shift, though I’m not sure I can put my finger on what it is. A feeling….? Or maybe it’s a feeling connected to a thought. Or a sense. Not sure? I’ll chew on it and get back to you.

(^^ I wrote the above 2 days ago, it’s been drifting around at the back of my mind since then.)

It’s a kind of resting in myself? A feeling of rediscovering a piece of solid ground inside that you’d forgotten was there, that makes it not matter that there’re angry people you don’t have control over. That you don’t have to have control over them, because if you needed to react to something they said, you’d have that solid ground to stand on?

To re-use the metaphorical monster-under-the-bed example, the feeling that you could go to sleep, knowing the monster was under your bed, but be ok with that, because if it tried to grab at you, you had a mallet under your pillow you could bop it on the head with, send it scurrying back under the bed and maybe show you a bit more respect next time - and go back to sleep.

That’s a very cool feeling. *Really* cool. *Totally* worth stumbling around in the dark for.
Heartfelt thanks…

[moonlightress]

Cool! Let us know what happens when you check.

Joe

Joe,

I couldn't find anything there anymore.

But..... I think it had a lot to do with what Jimmy and I were doing, plus me sending that FB message to my sister-in-law. The "kill-em-with-kindness" technique. A face-saving 'out', defusing the situation, being the one to hand the olive branch with so much friendliness as to totally disarm. They don't know what's hit them.

Then that particular brand of "monster" can't really do anything else but slink back under the bed... And if it comes out again, you flash your widest smile once more, till it feels ashamed of trying to grab you. Then everyone can all just go back to not wasting life on being mad at each other.

Some you bop on the head, some you shine your brightest light on.

[jimmyh]

Are you saying that what eventually happened after I handed it over to my subconscious and went to sleep, was also part of "processing"? If that is what I was doing by throwing up my hands, then why let that way of doing things even get to the stage of “I just don’t know anymore”, why not just ponder it a bit and if the answer doesn’t come, *quit* processing and hand it over to the subconscious to come up with an answer? How would sitting and processing till an answer came, work? There was no answer coming.

Yes, exactly that. It’s different than consciously trying to make sense of it like you were doing before you threw up your hands, but it’s still your mind trying to make sense of things. Like walking outside and seeing a bright green sky. It’s not words and conscious thought that does the work, it’s just being speechless and taking it in while your subconscious mind tries to process what the heck is going on. You can let that process run whenever you recognize that you don’t have any good answers consciously, and you don’t have to try and try until you feel like throwing your hands up first.

I kinda try to stay in this mode by default. When someone says something to you there’s often the reflexive response (which can sometimes be defensive or whatever) where you already know what you’re going to say before they even finish talking. There’s *also* the response that comes if you just sit with their words and let your brain come up with something and just “I wonder what my brain is going to come up with in response to this!”.

For example, if someone were to say “is that what you think?”, one reflexive response would be to simply say “yes”. Another might be “what do you think”, or “no, I just said it for no reason /s”. What I’m talking about is noticing those reflexive responses and just kinda saying to them “okay, thanks, but I’m gonna think this one through” and then just looking at the person, and taking in where they’re coming from. Why is *that* the thing they chose to say? Not that you ask yourself consciously or in words, but coming from that perspective. Then when it comes to you, it’s like “Ah! They aren’t sure if I’m keeping my mind open to their perspective!”, or whatever it is, and so you respond to *that*, which you couldn’t have done reflexively.

1. Being able to assess when a suggestion is good and the situation is safe/appropriate to let myself be suggestible and follow along and see where it goes. Check.

[...]

But what was it actually you were trying to teach me to do about “here’s how to decide when to shut up and listen vs when to be critical”? You were trying to teach me how to think about it? I wouldn't be able to tell you what you were trying to teach though, if you asked me to explain it back to you. You were trying to show me how to lead myself and not just follow, but it seems to me I just bumbled around until I stumbled upon the exit, and didn't get there by design.

Yeah, like “being able to assess when it’s safe/appropriate to let myself be suggestible”.

And yeah, it was a little awkward gesturing towards the exit, given that I didn't realize I had to mention that one piece, and given that things aren't always clear on the first iteration (like "being able to assess when I should let myself be suggestible" and "how to decide when to shut up and listen vs be critical" being the same thing, as I see it), but hey... it was very intentional gesturing, and you seem to have gotten to the destination.

[Joe100]

Cool! Let us know what happens when you check.

Joe

Joe,

I couldn't find anything there anymore.

But..... I think it had a lot to do with what Jimmy and I were doing, plus me sending that FB message to my sister-in-law. The "kill-em-with-kindness" technique. A face-saving 'out', defusing the situation, being the one to hand the olive branch with so much friendliness as to totally disarm. They don't know what's hit them.

Then that particular brand of "monster" can't really do anything else but slink back under the bed... And if it comes out again, you flash your widest smile once more, till it feels ashamed of trying to grab you. Then everyone can all just go back to not wasting life on being mad at each other.

Some you bop on the head, some you shine your brightest light on.

That's awesome! I'm happy to hear that.