sophiaserpentia (
sophiaserpentia) wrote2006-08-29 12:49 pm
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This essay about "New Age Bullying" has been making the rounds on my friend's list for a couple of days now.
I think the author of this list left out the most significant form of new age bullying i've seen: where people tell you to "not let your pain control you."
There's a point in the healing process where you can finally do this. I've experienced it myself -- one day, the pain just doesn't overwhelm you anymore and you wonder how it could ever have controlled you the way it did.
Well, it happens that way because there is so separation between body and mind. An emotional or psychological injury affects the way your nerve cells communicate with one another and the ways your nerve cells react to neuropeptides and neurotransmitters. It takes time to fix this. Recovering from trauma is very much like healing a physical cut. And some injuries of this sort are too deep and big to heal in the space of a single lifetime.
So, while some people find they suddenly have the ability to own their hurt and not be controlled by it anymore, it is wrong for them to then turn around to people who haven't healed yet and demand they snap out of it. To do so is more injurious than simply listening and offering compassion while someone is still healing.
But the article also made me realize i can't hide anymore how much contempt i have developed for almost all spirituality. Every now and then i come across something which is genuinely healing, but most commonly what i see is emotional manipulation, collections of platitudes meant to make us feel better about injustice.
What if people stopped believing there was a big daddy-figure in the sky who was going to punish all the bad guys after they die, a Santa Claus type figure watching everything that happens and keeping a list of everyone who's good and everyone who's bad? Maybe people shouldn't find comfort in this idea. Even if it's true. Because maybe then they would be more moved to seek justice in this life.
I think the author of this list left out the most significant form of new age bullying i've seen: where people tell you to "not let your pain control you."
There's a point in the healing process where you can finally do this. I've experienced it myself -- one day, the pain just doesn't overwhelm you anymore and you wonder how it could ever have controlled you the way it did.
Well, it happens that way because there is so separation between body and mind. An emotional or psychological injury affects the way your nerve cells communicate with one another and the ways your nerve cells react to neuropeptides and neurotransmitters. It takes time to fix this. Recovering from trauma is very much like healing a physical cut. And some injuries of this sort are too deep and big to heal in the space of a single lifetime.
So, while some people find they suddenly have the ability to own their hurt and not be controlled by it anymore, it is wrong for them to then turn around to people who haven't healed yet and demand they snap out of it. To do so is more injurious than simply listening and offering compassion while someone is still healing.
But the article also made me realize i can't hide anymore how much contempt i have developed for almost all spirituality. Every now and then i come across something which is genuinely healing, but most commonly what i see is emotional manipulation, collections of platitudes meant to make us feel better about injustice.
What if people stopped believing there was a big daddy-figure in the sky who was going to punish all the bad guys after they die, a Santa Claus type figure watching everything that happens and keeping a list of everyone who's good and everyone who's bad? Maybe people shouldn't find comfort in this idea. Even if it's true. Because maybe then they would be more moved to seek justice in this life.
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You always say so well the things I sometimes think :).
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I think that's just a variation of the statement "No one can hurt you without your permission".
You already know of my temptation to treat such people with violence and then repeat that line back to them, so I guess we'll just leave it at that. Hah.
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Ok, I'm giving in
Re: Ok, I'm giving in
Re: Ok, I'm giving in
Re: Ok, I'm giving in
Re: Ok, I'm giving in
Re: Ok, I'm giving in
Re: Ok, I'm giving in
Re: Ok, I'm giving in
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That whole 'Opiate of the masses' thing works on so many levels - I mean, I've seen LOTS of people do damage to themselves and others that they'd never even think of doing if they weren't all hopped up on religion.
My favorite was somebody I knew who had found a guru that demanded 'Absolute, brutal honesty' - Which basically ment giving his followers free reign to be the biggest assholes possible, while developing a massive persecution complex when nobody wants to talk to them anymore.
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I've been told that I'm "addicted" to my condition. That if I just exercise control over my consciousness, I won't have PTSD or OCD anymore. I'm still "letting the abusers have control" because I still react to sudden movements, still have flashbacks, still fight every day to try to live beyond the range of certain memories. I need to "transcend my fear" y'see. If I just meditated better, differently, more...I'd be free. The fact that I'm not yet free indicates that I'm not enlightendedy enough yet, that I'm holding on, maybe out of some sense of karmic debt, and I need to examine the "payoffs of pain" that I'm doubtless getting from everyone around me. I'm creating this reality after all, so I need to just re-think, envision, imagine, project, say some affirmations..
If I object or express a different perspective, then I haven't "gotten it yet" (the phrase which DROVE me from the MFA program I was attending in the New Ager University I went to).
The whole thing is the same old crap message: "I" am better than "you". I "get it" and you don't. You're a "lesser being" than I am and if you'll just do what I say and act like I act, you can convince people you're more than you are - that you've "figured it all out" and have a life filled with stripping others of their power, condescension and the dispensing of pithy simplistic advice.
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I feel this way about "forgiveness." I hate that word. As far as I'm concerned, forgiveness is an organic, physiological process, like scar tissue going away.
And I tend to get keloids.
And people blame me for it, because I don't "forgive." To me, that feels like blaming me for the damage done by the original assholes who were abusive to me.
*spit*
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"Maybe people shouldn't find comfort in this idea. Even if it's true."
1. No. If it were true, then there would be nothing to fear in the first place. But no one actually believes in God. Well, very few. Those people usually can't be found in this society. Because they would die pretty quickly. I usually don't like to confront people about this too much because they don't understand it themselves. But literally, if you had faith, nothing would be a problem. You would give everything away and live off the land till you died in short order with a smile on your face. Everyone else is just sort of ambiguously hoping that God exists...
2. And I am against all forms of the "noble lie" argument. If something is true, people should know about it. Deception is never just.
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Buddha said "Samsara has suffering". ITS HIS FIRST NOBLE TRUTH. It doesn't say you suck or are a "toxic" person becuase you hurt.
That's just the beginning of what some the New Age ignore in order to be feeling smugly superior over other people. If they don't get part one, you know they don't get any other part. I read the article, read the mention of buddhism, and saw the New Age complaints, and was like "oh great, another person who probably read Surya Das". Because like there's plenty of buddhists who teach buddhism (which s/he clearly as not learning), but there was also lots of new age writers who pretended to teach buddhism a few years back when it was the fad going around.
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Many humans really want simple answers to all problems. I fall into that one when I want all crooked politicians rounded up and executed. But I am just shooting off my big mouth. Many I have met really believe the simplistic solutions they spout. And most of those simplistic solutions are ones they learned, rather than came up with themselves.
Many humans like them/us. They define characteristics which they like and call it "us". Then they define characteristics they do not like and call it "them". So when someone in the "us" group starts saying things which make others uncomfortable (like expressing pain over hving been hurt) they are "corrected" to make his/her trauma less unacceptable. So people in the "us" group learn to speak and think in acceptable code words instead of being honest about their feelings and what is going on in their heads.
When I was much younger, I once met a Thelemite who claimed "if someone were to shoot you, it must have been your will to get shot." I walked oput of the room, got my hunting rifle, came back, pointed it him and said "if that is how you feel about it, I guess I have no choice but to assist you in actualizing your will." My friends knew I would not blow the dude away. But the asshole thought he was about to get nailed. I am not sure my little stunt actually got him thinking, but I just could not let such idiocy go without making a statement.
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This is also probably the biggest impediment to healing.