For the sake of viewpoint diversity / productively critical clash of ideas:
The #SobSquad movement falls into "most disagree + I don't yet have an argument which stands up to their criticism + maybe they know something important".
I have tons of questions about it which'd be cool to hammer out.
Like:
-For traumatised adults only, or would children get value?
-For all hang-ups, or mainly social ones? (Food hang-ups, spider fears?)
-Is it the only way to get desired effects?
-Do you REALLY not suffer‽
-etc
▸ What the heck is happening when someone cries a bunch and then something releases and it feels good after and traumas appear cleared out?
▸ Is crying from being moved by beauty bad‽ If so, why?
▸ Mourning?
▸ How else do you solve deep trauma?
New followers—my thing is a kind of relentless 'positive' focus:
- all problems are soluble
- feeling bad is bad & unnecessary
- feeling bad sabotages thought
- it's always possible to solve problems w/o things getting worse
- local maximum traps are myths
- Step 1. #StopTheHurt
The idea of my whole philosophy is to get away from authority (/force) deciding between ideas.
Rather, using merit instead.
This includes ideas within one person, and subconscious/inexplicit/emotional ideas.
So there's a question: Does crying = badfeels = stuckness = coercion?
My current guess is basically yes, basically bad feelings are the inexplicit guide for what's coercive or wrong avenues of thought. They're implementing critical epistemology on the inexplicit level.
I learnt this skill even exists as a thing in 2018.
(CFAR introduced Gendlin Focusing, then I heard the body is practically relevant to emotions ~somehow~, and that intellectuals like me have a blindspot about that. Humph!)
Sucked at it for 2 years.
2/
I found Gendlin Focusing very difficult at first.
First, it was hard to find sensations in the body at all. Or I’d catch one and it would flit away.
Words dominated my mind instead.
Then, the only way I could hold on to a feeling was intensify it until it was overwhelming.
3/
Never mind particular frameworks, what are some the most fundamental concepts and skills for happiness and free thought?
Thread on some I’ve found
👇
[P.S. You can see why it’s hard to claim one framework will solve all your problems.]
1. Ability to think any thought, rather than have your mind flinch away from it.
Found in…
- Buddhism: equanimity
- Art of Accomplishment: impartiality; non-resistance
- Alexander Technique: expanded awareness
- Karl Popper: non-authoritarianism
- TCS: non-coercion
2. Not having your conscious explicit mind interfere with your subconscious inexplicit mind.
Found in…
- Alexander Technique: non-doing
- Kahneman: System 1/System 2
- write drunk edit sober
- life-threatening sports like BASE jumping
- improv
- Ian McGilchrist’s whole deal
A lot of people think introspection is unusually error-prone, subject to confirmation bias and making up stories, with no way of being verified or refuted.
This is false—if you have the right instruments.
1/
There are multiple ways to verify/refute introspective conjectures.
The most foundational is Gendlin Focusing.
(It can be learnt in 70mins via the audiobook Focusing by Eugene Gendlin. Though it may take some practice. The book includes a guided session.)
2/
In Focusing, when you find a story (word or image) that is accurate to how your psychology is set up—or genuinely solves a problem you have (indicative of there being real problem in the first place)—you get a “felt shift”: a physically felt sensation of “yeah, that’s it”.
3/