This was such a wonderful read and a great teaching, Caroline, and has brought many of my wonderings home for me. As a fellow opinionista, I've also been attempting to leave patches of my opining fallow, just to see what comes up (and what doesn't). I'll be reading it again - what a brilliant and timely rumination - thank you! 🌹🙏❤️
I love the flow of this piece. Bringing the wisdom of the body and nature in with the preferences of enculturation that I be “right”. How to hold all of that gently, with compassion, even for the ticks that must be removed before their poison infects. Gratitude for your thoughts.🙏
I think one day I'll know what the little birds are that seem to quite enjoy eating my mind ticks, from time to time. Here in England you sometimes see blackbirds, starlings or even corvids on deer's back, performing this service. I am wondering what the psychological equivalent of such interspecies friendship might be.
The quote below on opinions changed my life many moons ago (as did Sensorimotor Psychotherapy - all tracking of feeling, no story permitted, healing cptsd like almost nothing else could, returning agency to my life, surrendering thought attachment trapped in my nervous system).
I don't say this lightly. I noticed just how brittle my thoughts had become, the stories of justification masking my deep and profound inner pain and prison of conditioning and obligation. I appreciate the discernment in this passage, truly. Lately, I've noticed my vessel feeling dense from tracking others' opinions - I'm not really built for it - and more and more grateful for it. More time being spent away from even Substack, more time with paper and flower and cloud. More qi gong. More prayer.
'Do not seek the truth, just cease to cherish opinions' Hsin Hsin Ming - this is but one small part of the larger sharing of Hsin Hsin Ming, however that 'simple' sentence was like an alkaline wash for my calcified thoughts.
One day I’ll share my ‘openion’ on the value of holes and the beauty and usefulness of holeyness. Thanks Caroline for the catalyst to this discussion. Sharing the repairing of things holey is so very human. We are such holey creatures when we really look at life’s damages and stress fractures and the invisible repairs we all need to our inner worlds.
As friends and strangers we find ourselves falling in to each other’s spaces and helping out. I need to do some ‘subtle seamstress’ work today.
As a much younger woman I often sat in the middle and looked either way, cautious, careful and shy, but also quite wise and considerate as well, I never wanted to foist my opinion on anyone. As I got older somewhere along the line I decided that I needed to be more assertive (oh how I have come to hate that word), and that it was high time I developed opinions! Then as the oestrogen fell away, I pretty much became a gob shite! I am trying to reverse this process, get back to the wisdom of my youth and it's a great idea just to leave things and see what comes. I will also be reading this again and thinking about it all week. Thank you
I had a menopausal gobshite phase. I think it's an essential part of the unravelling. And some bridges are better off burned, if we are honest with ourselves.
I can relate to this! I have definitely been through a few gob shite phases myself. I look back now and see how lacking in self awareness I was.
But on the other hand, now I’m probably - and painfully - “too” self aware. I think spending less time in my head, more time in my body, and a regular dose of self compassion might be helpful
Our work is to be well enough to stay present to the unmade world... A deep thank you Caroline, i love how you 'explain' from lived experience the workings of the left hemisphere. You inspire me to keep going with sharing my own very personal how in a similar way...
Jul 3, 2023·edited Jul 3, 2023Liked by Caroline Ross
Thanks for your standpoint/opinion distinction. I was going to write about this, maybe, at some point, and am looking for ways to express a similar idea.
Separately, a helpful exercise with difficult feelings, emotions, and opinions, is to allow them to come to mind and then to notice where they settle in the body: often in the stomach, chest, or throat, but sometimes other places, and with a very particular quality.
Being able to put a word or phrase or metaphor to this quality can help release it, especially when the word/metaphor arises spontaneously E.g., “anxiety like a squirming lizard in my belly”, etc, and when the attitude is one of observation and acceptance (not acceptance because we like it, but to avoid clinging to it).
Away on taiji retreat (with Sam and many friends). I love this piece.
As our thoughts and opinions relax and open and I too gain more inner space and peace, maybe then they can be called ‘openions’. Just saying it like that seems to soften the hold...
Lyme’s is an occupational hazard for us wild-woods-women. A risk I willingly accept, because I could not and will not give up my adventures. I have removed hundreds of ticks from my flesh but it took 60 years for one with Lyme’s to find me.
Thanks, let’s see if I can get Sam down to Bournemouth next week between retreats, if you are around. He’ll be with us at the northern edge of the New Forest 🤞
I will actually be away in Scotland with family in Stirling! Right before he is... Perhaps he can get there a day early. Anyway, we have been in touch. Have a great time.
So much wisdom in this piece! One to come back to. As a child and teenager I really longed for someone wise to introduce me to the nature of my mental & experiential phenomena in this way so that perhaps I wouldn’t have to feel so controlled / compelled by them. Thanks for answering my prayers and helping to set me on a path to greater maturity in my 40s, hopefully.
Lovely essay, Caroline. The distinction between opinion and standpoint is particularly helpful and apropos medicine for me.
“But, even if I disagree with you, if I can see where you are standing, I might see who stands there with you, or get a sense of how you got to be standing there, and imagine what things might look like from over there. That’s not defending harm, it’s refusing to dehumanise people.”
Movement is the medicine. And if we can humble ourselves to truly understand others, we are likely to find ourselves standing in surprising places.
This was such a wonderful read and a great teaching, Caroline, and has brought many of my wonderings home for me. As a fellow opinionista, I've also been attempting to leave patches of my opining fallow, just to see what comes up (and what doesn't). I'll be reading it again - what a brilliant and timely rumination - thank you! 🌹🙏❤️
Excellent stuff. Picking off the mental ticks - now there's an unpleasant but very useful image to keep in mind.
I love this. Thankyou.
Rough meadows are where you find the orchids.
This is true, especially in Dorset...
I love the flow of this piece. Bringing the wisdom of the body and nature in with the preferences of enculturation that I be “right”. How to hold all of that gently, with compassion, even for the ticks that must be removed before their poison infects. Gratitude for your thoughts.🙏
I think one day I'll know what the little birds are that seem to quite enjoy eating my mind ticks, from time to time. Here in England you sometimes see blackbirds, starlings or even corvids on deer's back, performing this service. I am wondering what the psychological equivalent of such interspecies friendship might be.
Thank you.
Thanks for this, as ever, Caroline.
The quote below on opinions changed my life many moons ago (as did Sensorimotor Psychotherapy - all tracking of feeling, no story permitted, healing cptsd like almost nothing else could, returning agency to my life, surrendering thought attachment trapped in my nervous system).
I don't say this lightly. I noticed just how brittle my thoughts had become, the stories of justification masking my deep and profound inner pain and prison of conditioning and obligation. I appreciate the discernment in this passage, truly. Lately, I've noticed my vessel feeling dense from tracking others' opinions - I'm not really built for it - and more and more grateful for it. More time being spent away from even Substack, more time with paper and flower and cloud. More qi gong. More prayer.
'Do not seek the truth, just cease to cherish opinions' Hsin Hsin Ming - this is but one small part of the larger sharing of Hsin Hsin Ming, however that 'simple' sentence was like an alkaline wash for my calcified thoughts.
100% that quote, I was thinking of it just the other day. It is a classic Zen or Tao instruction.
I also agree, tracking others' opinions is also exhausting.
Tonight I hand-sewed a very holey ancient blanket back together with my nieces and now appear to be tick free!
One day I’ll share my ‘openion’ on the value of holes and the beauty and usefulness of holeyness. Thanks Caroline for the catalyst to this discussion. Sharing the repairing of things holey is so very human. We are such holey creatures when we really look at life’s damages and stress fractures and the invisible repairs we all need to our inner worlds.
As friends and strangers we find ourselves falling in to each other’s spaces and helping out. I need to do some ‘subtle seamstress’ work today.
The subtle seamstress, I like this very much. Do you also read https://sarahcswett.substack.com/ ? I think you will like it.
Thanks, yes I do read her work, I found her via your shares a while back.
My subtle seamstress skills are mainly metaphorical. Stitches and rips and folds and patterns woven into the fabric of time and space.
Though I do rather enjoy mending holey things.
*acid not alkaline...
As a much younger woman I often sat in the middle and looked either way, cautious, careful and shy, but also quite wise and considerate as well, I never wanted to foist my opinion on anyone. As I got older somewhere along the line I decided that I needed to be more assertive (oh how I have come to hate that word), and that it was high time I developed opinions! Then as the oestrogen fell away, I pretty much became a gob shite! I am trying to reverse this process, get back to the wisdom of my youth and it's a great idea just to leave things and see what comes. I will also be reading this again and thinking about it all week. Thank you
I had a menopausal gobshite phase. I think it's an essential part of the unravelling. And some bridges are better off burned, if we are honest with ourselves.
I can relate to this! I have definitely been through a few gob shite phases myself. I look back now and see how lacking in self awareness I was.
But on the other hand, now I’m probably - and painfully - “too” self aware. I think spending less time in my head, more time in my body, and a regular dose of self compassion might be helpful
Our work is to be well enough to stay present to the unmade world... A deep thank you Caroline, i love how you 'explain' from lived experience the workings of the left hemisphere. You inspire me to keep going with sharing my own very personal how in a similar way...
Thank you. I feel it's a form of 'witnessing'. I am glad it is of use.
Thanks for your standpoint/opinion distinction. I was going to write about this, maybe, at some point, and am looking for ways to express a similar idea.
Separately, a helpful exercise with difficult feelings, emotions, and opinions, is to allow them to come to mind and then to notice where they settle in the body: often in the stomach, chest, or throat, but sometimes other places, and with a very particular quality.
Being able to put a word or phrase or metaphor to this quality can help release it, especially when the word/metaphor arises spontaneously E.g., “anxiety like a squirming lizard in my belly”, etc, and when the attitude is one of observation and acceptance (not acceptance because we like it, but to avoid clinging to it).
ah, this is a good practice, thanks for sharing it.
Ah this was a good read first thing in the morning with my coffee. Thank you. Very helpful.
Thank you for this piece - rich food for thought. I especially appreciate the distinction between standpoint and opinion.
It's a case of 'writing what I most need to read', this week.
Away on taiji retreat (with Sam and many friends). I love this piece.
As our thoughts and opinions relax and open and I too gain more inner space and peace, maybe then they can be called ‘openions’. Just saying it like that seems to soften the hold...
Lyme’s is an occupational hazard for us wild-woods-women. A risk I willingly accept, because I could not and will not give up my adventures. I have removed hundreds of ticks from my flesh but it took 60 years for one with Lyme’s to find me.
Good to hear this! Give Sam a hug from me. Was hoping to see him this visit.
Openions! Nice.
Thanks, let’s see if I can get Sam down to Bournemouth next week between retreats, if you are around. He’ll be with us at the northern edge of the New Forest 🤞
I will actually be away in Scotland with family in Stirling! Right before he is... Perhaps he can get there a day early. Anyway, we have been in touch. Have a great time.
We’ll all be in Stirling for tai chi caledonia, but it looks too tight this time for meeting. Enjoy your family trip too.
So much wisdom in this piece! One to come back to. As a child and teenager I really longed for someone wise to introduce me to the nature of my mental & experiential phenomena in this way so that perhaps I wouldn’t have to feel so controlled / compelled by them. Thanks for answering my prayers and helping to set me on a path to greater maturity in my 40s, hopefully.
Lovely essay, Caroline. The distinction between opinion and standpoint is particularly helpful and apropos medicine for me.
“But, even if I disagree with you, if I can see where you are standing, I might see who stands there with you, or get a sense of how you got to be standing there, and imagine what things might look like from over there. That’s not defending harm, it’s refusing to dehumanise people.”
Movement is the medicine. And if we can humble ourselves to truly understand others, we are likely to find ourselves standing in surprising places.
Loved your distinction between standpoint vs opinion!