We’ve talked about the self-defeating nature of our Shit Avoidance Strategies, especially over the long term. Not that they’re totally, 100% bad; they can even be life-savers! But long-term, Shit Avoidance doesn’t help us rise to the challenges of life, fix the problems we’re facing, accomplish our meaningful goals, or grow as a person. At…
Category: Trauma & healing
135) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 14: FACT Exercise #1 — Focusing
I’ll never forget the first time I looked at the moon through a telescope. I was in my early 30s, and after having looked at the moon regularly for three decades, it was like I was seeing it for the first time. The vague spots my eyes could see on their own were now cliffs…
124) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 10: Finding out who you really are: Rational self-analysis
The predominant workhorse of the psychological healing world is a family of therapeutic practices and exercises centered on what I call “rational self-analysis”, or more colloquially, finding out “who you really are”. This journey towards “authenticity” is central to most forms of talk therapy, and what most people likely think of when they think of…
121) When you feel you’ve been turned into a newt
“Waking up this morning, I smile;24 brand new hours lay before me;I vow to live fully each moment,And to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” — morning gatha; Thich Nhat Hanh * * * * * So, I started this practice about 20 years ago, after reading one of TNH’s books. The…
120) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 9: Healing, and the Doctrine of Original Awesomeness
The essence of all three approaches to healing that I am planning to cover is the same. It is rooted in what I have previously called the Doctrine of Original Awesomeness (https://dandolderman.org/2020/09/22/88-jordan-peterson-part-7-psychology-at-the-ending-of-the-world-subsection-2-the-doctrine-of-original-awesomeness/). This, in short, is the basic starting point of Humanism, and is increasingly recognized within the bio-psycho-social sciences as “the way we are”.…
119) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 8: Oops, I fucked up
I made a mistake in my last post, and it has caused me some consternation. More accurately — I made a mistake in my last post, and it has activated a set of sub-routines in my consciousness-program, or “parts of my self”, that function to erase me from existence. Yikes. What was this oh-so-terrible mistake? …
118) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 7: Resistance, the sneaky bastard
In this series on healing, we have been discussing the “problem” of resistance, and noting how people’s deeply internalized self-feelings and beliefs can be so strong, so reactive, so “resistive” that they are able to forestall, sabotage or otherwise prevent the person from truly walking the path to healing. In other words, far too often,…
112) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 6: Backlash, resistance, and dissociation
Why am I making such a big deal about Backlash & resistance? It’s because resistance, learning to feel into it, to approach it and eventually learn from it and harness it, IS much of the healing path. If you want to heal, or “grow” as a person, then you are working with resistance. Inevitably. …
111) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 5: What Backlash can teach us about ourselves
Backlash, as we were discussing, is a major impediment to healing. I believe the technical term is “pain in the ass.” Backlash causes so much bloody suffering, causes us to perpetuate our own misery, undermine our goals, mess up our relationships, underperform in our careers, neglect our health, and transmit our dysfunctions onto the next…
110) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 4: Healing, when you hate yourself, think you don’t deserve it, want to die, believe it’s impossible anyway, avoid doing what you most need, and constantly sabotage yourself
When you start to turn towards “healing”, you will very likely experience a backlash. Probably lots of backlashes. You and Mr/Ms Backlash are going to become really great friends, in fact. But first, you’re going to be enemies. Epic enemies. Like, Avengers vs. Thanatos kind of epic. Sparta vs. Xerxes. The Boston Bruins vs. Montreal…