Quote
Ryk
If someone can help me make sense of these experiences, I'd really like to know (or was this just me?)
I remember during the Joyspring workshop, going towards the stage to get my life contract validated- I wrote things on a piece of paper that for sure was not my hand writing- I write very illegibly, but this was pure and beautiful.
About where to go for help making sense of these experiences - I don't know. This is what I have found helpful (and not helpful)
(I'm writing it as advice but considering I am pretty skrewed up still, take it all with a pinch of salt and a lot of skepticism).
(Also - I've said some of it before, but there are new things that I hadn't considered before)
To summarise first: the "transformation conditioning" poison works at several levels
- Disabling critical thinking (verbal)
- Disabling the 'ego' (various methods)
- NLP (verbal with some other cues)
- hypnotic (NLP mixed with altered state of mind)
- biological and chemical (permanently opening new neural pathways and temporarily altering brain chemisty, adrenal system balance etc)
-
Ritualistic symbolism (I am not sure of the right word for this)
- Possibly more unkown levels
You could say,
it is an holistic assault on the body, mind and psyche.So all those levels need to be addressed. It is a big job. Frankly, I don't think the damage can ever be undone, only ... patched up.
So the list below - is about what can and can't help with the different levels.
1) Logically and critically expose the faulty logic that was part of the spoken part of the training. That was the superficial verbal layer of conditioning, mostly NLP. If you need help with that, do a search on the username 'anticult' - he (or she?) is devastatingly intelligent at knocking down the shallow yet slippery logic of the conditioning. I think he (or she) should write a book on this stuff. But even while you are doing that, question and intelligently challenge what is said.
2) You said you saw a psychologist who was not helpful. Same here. In fact, it made things worse. My opinon is that my mind and emotions were damaged when I handed authority over myself to Quest. The minute I try to hand myself over to any 'psychological' or 'spiritual' human authority, I am re-traumatizing myself. I am not saying I consciously decided to hand over authority over myself, but that is what happened, and what always happens when you put yourself into a relationship of Healer - Patient and you are the patient. Maybe okay for some people, for me it made things worse.
3) Psychology is "the talking cure". You talk about feelings and that is totally unrelated to what the conditioning does. The conditioning works verbally to disable the mind, and works non-verbally on the emotions. So talking about the emotions misses the mark in both directions. They can't correct the logic because they don't talk about logic or use logic - they talk feelings - but the emotional damage that was caused
symbolically and non-verbally can't be undone with words.
4) Hypnosis - some claim this helps, to "unhypnotise" yourself. I think this is also re-traumatizing. It opens up unconscious parts of the mind that may not want to be reopened. And once again, under somebody else's authority. Even if it may work on some to a limited extent - it only addresses the verbal aspects, once again. If the conditioning was simply "My life contract is I am caring" then hypnosis may try to undo that unconscious verbal message with a new unconscious verbal message like "life contracts don't exist" or some other verbal message to counteract all the conditioning. That won't really work because the contract and other crap were stamped into you non-verbally with symbolic ritual plus hypnosis plus biochemical stress plus emotional overload plus disabling of logic and intellect.
5) Biological and chemical - if you need drugs, use them carefully as needed, temporarily. I got prescribed a bunch of stuff with awful side effects ... not sure I'm allowed to say this here, but old fashioned valium in low doses on bad days does the trick with hardly any side-effects. Most psychiatrists try to prescribe more modern, complicated, expensive and less safe drugs, under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry and because they are afraid of being found negligent by not prescribing stronger drugs... I'm not pointing the finger at them, they are a bit tied up in the legalities of their industry.
What I find useful about valium is that it does not numb my emotions or make my brain foggy. I am able to think and to feel, without getting overwhelmed (you know that overwhelmed feeling you mentioned when the memories come rushing back - very physical effects. I decided I need to remember and think about all that Quest stuff but without that automated emotional overload effect.
6) Then.... the ritualistic symbolism.... this is a new set of thoughts I have, which I'll put into a separate post once I figure out what I'm talking about, and if so, how to explain it. It is related to what you wrote about your life contract, for example.