Merkabah

John K said:

That’s the way it has to be in any actual encounter. The poem reminded me of something that happened a few years ago that I’m still coming to terms with. Religions bring you a little way then shroud everything in veils - perhaps it’s more merciful that way. But I find my words are forced through a cheese grater when I talk about this stuff.

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Yes...there are no words for some things...experiences...but more than that...profound moments that drastically alter your pathway or reaffirm the one you travel.
No need to explain!

Wyote said:

I know I talk a lot of cheese, and eat a fair amount too

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Extra-extra sharp...crumbly yet holds it’s shape when sliced....mouth texture is creamy though...that’s my fav cheese.

John K said:

Ah - the flavour of your cheese is to be savoured carefully, a quick taste at first, then slowly to let the aftertaste develop. And with @Skarekrow

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It is my favorite food...lol.

Sandie33 said:

This. ❤

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Makes sense...
I’m sure it carries over into more areas than just chronic pain though.
Enjoy!





New research suggests that the development of a kind, caring, and warm attitude toward oneself might help those suffering from chronic pain.
The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, found that people with higher levels self-compassion tended to be better able to “get on with the business of living” despite experiencing pain, which was itself linked to lower levels of depressive symptoms

“This study in particular is part of a larger one that aims to better understand the role of self-compassion and its interaction with other psychological processes in chronic pain,” explained study author Sérgio A. Carvalho of the University of Coimbra.

“The interest in self-compassion in the context of chronic pain has been recently grown in clinical and behavioral psychology. There are several reason for that. The more obvious, and actually not specific to chronic pain, is that there is mounting evidence that self-compassion (both as a trait, as well as the more formal practice of it) is associated with less psychological suffering (i.e. less anxiety, less depression) and more quality of life.”

“It’s hypothesized that both mindfulness and self-compassion result in acceptance, but self-compassion adds to it a motivation to action, a motivation to alleviate one’s suffering in a kind a soothing manner, which mindfulness does not necessarily do. This is very debatable, and definitely an ongoing conversation.”

“Although there is accumulating research suggesting that acceptance of pain is a relevant aspect in chronic pain management, acceptance of pain comprises both a cognitive aspect (willingness to experience it) as well as a behavioral one (keeping on acting as I intend to, despite experiencing pain). And this would be a very fitting opportunity to test the hypothesis that self-compassion, but not mindfulness, is behaviorally-oriented.”

The study of 231 Portuguese women with chronic musculoskeletal pain found that both mindful awareness and self-compassion were negatively associated with depressive symptoms.

In other words, women higher in mindfulness and self-compassion tended to report lower levels of depressive symptoms.

“The results suggest that being able to be warm and kind towards oneself — instead of harsh, critical, shaming, etc — when facing difficulties is related to having less depressive symptoms in chronic pain. This suggests that a person suffering from chronic pain might very well benefit from practicing exercises that increase their ability to be kind and warm in order to navigate the difficulties of their chronic illness,” Carvalho told PsyPost.

Women who scored high on the measure of mindfulness disagreed with statements such as “I find it difficult to stay focused on what’s happening in the present” and “I find myself doing things without paying attention,” while those who scored high on the measure of self-compassion agreed with statements like “I try to be understanding and patient towards those aspects of my personality I don’t like” and “I try to see my failings as part of the human condition.”

The researchers found that self-compassion — but not mindfulness — was associated with being willing to engage in valued activities despite pain, which in turn was associated with less depressive symptoms.

“Also, it seems that the positive aspect of self-compassion that relates to one having less depression has to do with its orientation to action. In other words, it seems that being kind to oneself in troubled times may lead to a better capacity to continue moving forward and engaging in valued activities, despite the pain, which in turn is related to having less depressive symptoms. These relationships were not influenced by the participants levels’ of pain intensity, as this was statistically controlled,” Carvalho explained.

But the study — like all research — includes some limitations.

“It is very important to have in mind that these results are not definitive due to the methodology used. We have to understand that when conducting psychological research through self-report, our research is as good as our instruments. And there are still ongoing discussions regarding the measurement of mindfulness and self-compassion, in part (but not only) because the conceptualization of these phenomena is still in development,” Carvalho said.

“Regarding our study in particular, we have used an instrument to measure mindfulness that in fact measures a very specific aspect of mindfulness: mindful attention. However, mindfulness can be conceptualized in a much larger sense, including different domains that go beyond attentional processes (e.g. non-reactivity, non-judgment).”

“Also, this a standard cross-sectional design, so it is unwarranted to pick these results and draw causal relationships between variables. We have given a small contribution to understanding these relationships. But there are questions that still need to be answered. We need to better understand the physiological fundamentals of self-compassion. There seems to be a growing interest in the relationship between self-compassion and parasympathetic activity, specifically vagally mediated heart rate variability,” Carvalho continued.

“Also, there is still an absence of high quality research on compassion-based psychological interventions for chronic pain management, particularly randomized control trials. So, there is still to learn on self-compassion in chronic pain. But the accumulating research is encouraging.”

“This research is part of my PhD studies, and we will start our clinical trial of a mindfulness- and compassion-based group intervention for women with chronic pain next January 2019. If the readers are interested in this line of research, please have a look to our research unit website (https://cineicc.uc.pt), where you can find all the research carried out by our research team and colleagues,” Carvalho added.

The study, “Mindfulness, selfcompassion, and depressive symptoms in chronic pain: The role of pain acceptance“, was authored by Sérgio A. Carvalho, David Gillanders, Lara Palmeira, José Pinto‐Gouveia, and Paula Castilho.

John K said:

Ah - the flavour of your cheese is to be savoured carefully, a quick taste at first, then slowly to let the aftertaste develop. And with @Skarekrow

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This was post 8000 btw!!!
Aaaaand it’s about cheese...about sums up the thread.

Skarekrow said:

The researchers found that self-compassion — but not mindfulness — was associated with being willing to engage in valued activities despite pain, which in turn was associated with less depressive symptoms.

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Yes, yes, yes!
Mindfulness must come secondary for chronic pain (anxiety/depression) imho.
This is pretty good proof of that!
Much love all!

John K said:

OMG - at least it was in a metaphor. Sorry about that -> *heads for delete button and a major introvert withdrawal*

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OMG, please don’t delete it!
It’s not as if each post must contain the wisdom of the thread...I like that it’s about cheese hahaha!
We take ourselves too seriously - to the point of being mean to ourselves...I’m purposefully trying to back off on that now...as part of the overall theme of pain acceptance.

It’s funny, but earlier as I was stretching...which can be particularly painful on certain days/times, etc.
Anyhow...as I was relaxing my body into the pain...and as I started to strip down the emotional response to the bare nothingness that it can be, the pain which is quite intense when I stretch out certain areas of my back, started to turn from a more encompassing pain, to an almost overwhelming amount of pain...
But as I focused solely on the pain and the pain alone...relaxing the other body muscles that automatically tense...feeling the frustration, the fear, etc. that is produced as secondary from the pain - I could also recognize and tear those down in, and in turn this intensity of pain that I was giving my attention to while letting all the other things pass me by - began to feel almost warm where the pain was.
As if...there was a sensory overload and it created a feeling of numbness and warmth...at least while I was holding a position and not moving, lol.
It was not unlike a TENS unit, if you have ever felt one of those - they create a sensation of pin and needles almost...but usually not as intense (though the one I have goes up high!), and as a result it blocks some of the pain signals from getting sent out...total sensory overload.
This felt oddly similar.
Now if I can just make it feel like that ALL the time, we’d be excellent!
Hahaha

Anyway...as I gain more control over certain emotional responses...it only serves to show me a new perspective on other emotional responses that are also affecting me in various ways...as if addressing one, made them all step forward, lol.
But very clearly I am working on self-kindness now...not sure when it shifted, but it’s what keeps coming up most recently.


For a quip on cheese, I would say you got your money’s worth of rambling.
Much love!

Sandie33 said:

Key to acceptance in those words

We often, may be an INFJ thing, feel that we are being selfish when we take care of ourself and make it a priority. What's that saying regarding safe flight...put on your own oxygen mask first? Keep making yours a safe flight

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That’s the goal!
Yes...quite often when I was younger, I probably abused my body while working on the ambulance and elsewhere in other jobs.
Now they have “power-assist” gurneys (stretchers for you in the UK)...there were many a time where I just simply felt I didn’t have a choice as far as waiting to move someone and get them to the hospital.
If the fire dept gets called off the dispatch, then sometimes there was no one else to help lift and move people...even with fire there, if you are doing CPR and taking them down a flight of stairs - muscles get tweaked, backs gets strained, discs probably had a lot of stress put on them.
Home health - moving people by myself that probably could have use an assist but again...not really an option sometimes in that job.
The ER, similar.
Then standing for the decade plus in surgery...which doesn’t seem like much but standing all day in one place without being able to really stretch, while usually slightly twisted at the waist and leaning over said body part we are working on.
Of course by then the arthritis had set in pretty well...it was really just a matter of time as it’s a progressive deal.
I’m okay with it all though...it is what it is...I should have blah blah blah...
There isn’t anything that I would really change - those things didn’t mess up my back but I’m sure they didn’t help the pre-existing condition that was progressing along.
Still...I could never work at a desk...just couldn’t do it...I would go insane.
lol
Much love!

John K said:

Oh I’m not deleting a compliment no matter how cheesy. Au contraire I shall start plotting more disruption at 10,000

My wife uses a TENS machine when things are really bad and finds it help quite a lot. She hasn’t needed it for a couple of years now thank goodness. Her consultant recommended acupuncture a couple of years ago and that’s been good. It’s helped with a touch of arthritis as well.

A problem with psychogenic pain is that introspection amplifies it so meditation is out when things are really bad. It’s the opposite that helped at the worst times - gentle extraversion. Routine housework, being read to, contact with close family, short walks. Little distractions from the hard wired self negativity. Taking things a day at a time, but persisting. The compassion and optimism has to come from the outside so it takes good caring to cover that - the two of us together just about add up to a pretty disfunctional one of you lol. I think a key insight for me is how no one thing works by itself - for her the medication is the bedrock and we go nowhere if that’s wrong, but it’s not sufficient. After that we need a whole set of other approaches which together make all the difference. This stuff comes in episodic crises with longish spells of stability (of a sort) in between so we don’t have the same sort of daily challenge you face, though it’s never ok.

Your thread is an inspiration to anyone suffering from severe chronic pain or caring for someone with it. The very best sort of gourmet cheese.

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I look forward to 10,000 then, hahaha.
Thank you!
Sorry to hear about your wife...my own insurance is going to start covering acupuncture in 2019...so that is great...I’ve wanted to do it, but could never afford to consistently do such a things paying out of pocket (here in the US anyhow).
So hopefully that will be helpful!
Glad that is seems to have helped your wife a bit.

And yes...that is why I don’t recommend mindfulness until someone can learn to meditate without turning that amplification knob so to speak.
If she ever wanted to work her way into it without triggering a negative mental loop, let me know.
That was my own issue for a long time when I tried to meditate...I totally understand the gentle extraversion.
It’s just sometimes, at least with my own pain...I just can't physically do anything sometimes...so a new pathway needed to be found.

Oh, come on...I’m more dysfunctional that you think...lol....you just don’t see me when I’m losing my shit.
But I’m glad that some of the ideas and thoughts are helpful...that has always been my intention.
Mine flares up and wains in waves as well.

Yes...it’s usually a combination of many different tools available to us that end up finally helping somewhat.
But like you said...the medication alone is not sufficient...I am in the same boat...I take medication for pain, but I still have days of hardly being functional when it flares and is pissed off...then housework and that type of thing are out of the question for me...so I turn to meditation.
Again though...what works for one, doesn’t work for all...and as many have found out, meditation is a lot more difficult that it sounds.
It certainly can be difficult to fit in with modern society and the demands placed upon us daily.

If she ever wants to try meditation again let me know and I will find the ones that worked for me while I was feeling as your wife does about it now.
Nothing is a magic bullet, but there is pretty good proof that meditation helps pain in significant ways - BUT...you can’t just jump into mindfulness and I really wish people would quit promoting it as a first go-to.

Sending you both love and healing thoughts!

Just because...he’s my favorite poet/philosopher.

All is one source...

Throughout recorded history, people have reported ‘extraordinary human experiences’ (EHEs) – strange phenomena lying on a spectrum from intuition and dream insights through to the paranormal and extra-sensory perception (ESP).

However, in the modern, rational world, many of these experiences are associated with superstition and delusion, and described as ‘woo-woo’ by skeptics and scientists.

As such, it is often assumed that scientists and engineers likely do not experience such strange phenomena – and even if they did, would be much less likely to report them to anyone.

But there have been very few studies done to actually evaluate whether this is truly the case.

So researchers Helané Wahbeh, Dean Radin, Julia Mossbridge, Cassandra Vieten and Arnaud Delorme set out to change that, by surveying a cross-section of the population divided into three groups – paranormal ‘enthusiasts’, ‘scientists and engineers’, and the general public – to find out if there were differences in the number of EHEs reported by each:

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of EHEs among three categories of adults in the United States, and to investigate factors such as occupation, paranormal belief mental health, and personality that might predict subjective EHE reports.

Individuals in the three groups were randomly selected to receive an invitation to an anonymous survey.
Those who decided to participate were self-selected.

The first group was drawn from scientists and engineers, who we hypothesized would have the lowest belief and reported prevalence of EHEs.

The second sample was from among members of [BLINDED], who we hypothesized would have the highest belief and reported prevalence (we refer to this group as enthusiasts).

The third sample was drawn from the general population, whose belief and experiences we hypothesized would likely be between the other two groups. We further hypothesized that higher levels of belief in EHEs would be correlated with higher reports of EHEs.

However, the results of the study, published in “Exceptional experiences reported by scientists and engineers“, were surprising: 93.2% of scientists and engineers “endorsed at least one EHE”, which was pretty much the same level as the general population (94.0%), while 99.3% of ‘enthusiasts’ reported at least one instance of an extraordinary experience.

The researchers were certainly not expecting such a high rate of EHEs being reported by scientists and engineers, not least because…

…biases against such topics exist.

For example, college psychology textbooks uncritically dismiss EHE topics.
The fact that EHEs are not considered empirically attested to the satisfaction of the majority of the scientific establishment, plus long-standing academic taboos that restrict open discussion about these experiences, and lack of research funding, likely conspire to discourage scientists and engineers from publicly expressing their beliefs about or describing personal EHEs…

Opinions in the scientific community about EHEs are usually skeptical, often passionately so.

However, there are two important factors that should be noted when considering those high percentages.

First, the participants were “self-selected”: they were the scientists and engineers who responded to an email invitation to participate, and then completed the 15-minute survey.

So more skeptical participants may have decided not to take part in the survey – though it should be noted that both the invitation, and the survey, purposefully avoided using terms such as paranormal, psychic, psi, extrasensory perception, etc., “to reduce the risk of bias.”

Nevertheless, the researchers do acknowledge that “our results might be distorted by self-selection bias with people having a greater affinity or sympathy for these notions being more likely to complete the survey.”

Secondly, the most reported EHEs were not particularly ‘paranormal’, but instead were more tied to intuition/possibly unconscious processes in the brain. The most endorsed EHEs were “Felt another person‟s emotions”, “Just known something to be true or having a clear sensation or feeling of knowing something that you would otherwise have no way of knowing”, as well as lucid dreaming (“Known you were dreaming during your dream or been able to control your dreams?”), which were in the top five endorsed EHEs for all three groups.

However, it is worth pointing out that, according to the researchers, “these numbers stayed above 80% when items that could potentially be construed as normally perceived with the traditional five senses were removed”.

In summary, they note:

It is possible that the experiences people report are the products of imagination, rather than verifiable experiences of extraordinary perception.
It is also possible that these experiences point to unconventional sources of information that deserve further exploration.

For scientists and engineers in particular, whose work relies on creative problem solving and generation of innovative ideas, it may be useful to entertain the broader notions of perception that could complement conventional methods of achieving insight.

(And regardless of how you want to interpret the data on extraordinary human experiences reported by scientists and engineers, I think we can all take some solace from a minor individual statistic that can be found in the paper’s data: the responses to the question “Created fire using only your concentration or will?” appears to show that there aren’t too many psychokinetic fire-starters out there: 0% of scientists and engineers reported it, while just 1.1% of enthusiasts did.)

This is a really amazing talk.
Not talking the “magic” type of mushrooms here.
But rather some that have shown a remarkable ability to fight cancer and even the destruction of the honey bee do to "colony collapse”.
Fascinating stuff...I’m totally gonna get some turkey tail mushrooms and chaga.
I will let you know how the self-experimentation goes.
We are far too disconnected from nature...we try to artificially adjust the ecosystem to fit our conveniences and in turn create destructive ripples that could ruin it all.
(Paul was a speaker at a conference put on by the group I run my support group through...I was really sick from those stupid injections though, that and the tickets were sold out quite fast)
Enjoy!

Discordianism was a prank religion started in the 1960s by two young hippies named Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill – which went on to exert tremendous cultural influence in the 1960s and 70s counterculture, and even far into the 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s and likely beyond.
It is, simply, the religion of chaos – of causing maximum cognitive confusion in order to spark actual creative thinking outside the narrow confines of dogma.

Thornley and Hill wrote a foundational document entitled The Principia Discordia under the names Malaclypse the Younger and Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, which formed the template of what would become the religion of Discordianism proper.

Discordianism is founded on the worship of Eris, Goddess of Chaos, and is purely dedicated to the creation of Zen confusion in the hope of unlocking enlightenment in its “adherents.” It was an important precursor of what, ten years later, would be dubbed Chaos Magick.

Discordianism was made world-famous by the author Robert Anton Wilson in The Illuminatus! Trilogy, written with Bob Shea, where the religion not only features prominently in the plot, but shapes the philosophy of the book itself.

Bob Wilson would regularly discuss Discordianism in his later books, both fiction and non-fiction, and regularly draw inspiration from it for his own ongoing work.