Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Shinehah's avatar

Aah. Thank you. Your writing is helpful... I have been thinking about my lifelong yearning for a sense of presence/connection in communications with other humans, but then when the opportunity comes, my mind almost always veers away. So natural and easy for me to be present when no humans are around. But humans scare me/overstimulate/ frustrate/ annoy- I literally shy away. I felt a sense of recognition when you shared about the father figure , and I know there is trauma there that informs patterns of mine, but then I look at photos of me as a 2 year old, hyper-focusing on what is in front of me and not connecting with the other humans in the photo, and know that there is this way in which my mind just doesn't want to be so present with people (self-diagnosed on the spectrum of ADHD here.) Yet! Yet I am always wanting connection. Practice in safe spaces helps. Your missive reminds me to go back to some practices.

Expand full comment
James R. Martin's avatar

Thanks for sharing all of that, Caro. It is a courageous gift from the heart (Latin cor "heart").

Have you read IN THE BODY OF THE WORLD ?

https://www.eveensler.org/pf/book-in-the-body-of-the-world/

All of my early training -- in family, school, among peers, etc. -- was an outrageous miseducation ... about the body (soma -- the body as experienced from within), about feeling, sensing, intuiting and imagining in relation to thinking and knowing. It was an education in dis-association -- thus dissociation (not being truly present). I've always known this. The knowing was in the bones ... and in the shimmering sensations in the skin, the tightness in the belly and breath....

I always knew, and yet I did not know ... and could not know as "knowing" was explained and taught to me by the dominant / mainstream / western / modern culture ("civilization"). There was never an option to remain whole within myself (other than dis-associated, dissociated), as I had no guides or teachers, no support such a herculean task.

I'm now 57 years of age, and all of my life I've been following the profound tacit knowing teacher dwelling in my skin, bones and breath. I never imagined it would be so difficult and take so long!

The instrument of dowsing

https://theheronhouse.substack.com/p/the-instrument-of-dowsing

The key is the tacit, which remembers all which we've been trained to forget. It hasn't ever forgotten what we know but know not how to speak -- even to ourselves (!).

I'm writing about this now ... a book. Slowly. Folks need to know that we've all been in training ... dis-association training (dissociation) ... fragmentation training, splitting, breaking apart. It's not just in some of our families, but it's habit is woven into the fabric of our culture -- whether we live in the USA, the UK, Australia, ... most anywhere modern and western.

We have to really understand, in a whole and rounded way, what went wrong before we can put it right. And that's not just a personal problem but a collective one, and we're all in this together.

(Yes, your friend Iain McGilchrist is among my many guides in this process.)

I'm here for you in it. And you are here for me in it. And we are blessed.

Another book mention that came to mind, perhaps because a certain kind of meta-awareness (direct awareness of awareness itself by awareness itself) FEELS so core to the meta-cognitive aspect of my unfolding research, inquiry, journey home ....

The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness, by Diana Winston. ( https://www.soundstrue.com/products/the-little-book-of-being ) It's a book about how to be directly aware of our own awareness -- which I FEEL is necessary toward knowing in a whole and rounded way and breaking the dissociative spells.

Warmly,

James

Expand full comment
31 more comments...

No posts