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.
jimmyh wrote: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.
jimmyh wrote: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.

)