#anyways I or XIV have to get home from therapy
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Back from therapy and Riku recommended me to ramble about this a bit here, but in terms of the narrative of our CSA as I see it, I was a very broken and very hurt child who really needed gentle care and affection and in a time of need, rather than getting that, I was fed to the wolves and eaten alive and left spat out the other end way worse than whatever horrid state I was in before I was eaten.
As far as the narrative goes, from that point my life froze for years until the past year or two, and it took a while to get time to restart, but while that pain and hurt is real and it was horrifically unjust and cruel and nothing that I deserved, I have the care and affection that I needed at the time here within the system and the few people in our life that our system puts in our company.
I was failed by the world and the adults and peers around me there and got horribly hurt and taken advantage of and that betrayal was deadly, but it really is okay now because I have what I need to live again. It still hurts if I sit on it and simmer on it and I don't think itll ever go away, but life continues beyond the simmer and I'm ever thankful for my second chance at doing and getting what I needed now that I am free and honestly, I am blessed to have the care and love I needed even if it came late and after a horrible failure.
I honestly have more support and care and a more intensely supportive system that helps me and cares about me more than I ever could have dreamt of having before hand, so honestly, I struggle to hold long term complaints. Horrible things happened, but I currently have way more than what I could imagine when I was in need, and its met so much more than I requested that it does honestly make up for all the bleeding wounds I took on.
I guess I forgive the world for the cruel joke cause I guess I am just thankful to be part of this system and have so many supportive peers in this brain and body with me. It makes me feel like part of something and like I belong and am wanted and cared and thats really all I wanted since I've existed. I'm pretty happy and satisfied and its weird to say considering I was trapped in it for years upon years, but the CSA trauma I held just seems to disappear in the background as a side arc to my life the longer I float around the front and Ray helps me integrate more into the system. It's authentically kind of becoming an "oh that, right" than the endless spiraling void it used to be.
#alter: lin#anyways I or XIV have to get home from therapy#lots of love ❤️#lin rambles#recovery#csa recovery#trauma recovery#trauma processing
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From the ten types & tropes: rebelcaptain for 10-xiv threw a book at your head and detention pleaseeeeee
From the ten types &tropes: rebelcaptain for 10-xiv threw a book at your head and detentionpleaseeeeee
HOKAY SO. I hate writinghigh school fic, so I shifted it to college AU. XD
I also think this is from the same AU with Jyn having a broken leg and Cassian mothering her with food and cuddles and telenovelas. Which means this is their meeting for that AU. So there’s that.
For clarification:
xiv) You pissed me off inclass so I threw a book at your head and now I’m in detention and jesus fuck Ihate you so much and the teacher made me apologise and wait you’re cuter upclose and the way you talk is kind of nice actually oh fuck no
“I hope I don’t have toexplain to you how many rules you just broke, doing that.”
Jyn folds her arms tightover her chest, and says nothing. She stares hard at the wall, and startsbouncing her foot. Across the desk, Mothma sighs tight through her nose, andfolds her hands together.
“Have you been going toyour sessions?”
“Yes,” says Jyn, becauseit’s the fastest way to get Mothma off her back. Mothma sighs again.
“You could be chargedfor assault.”
Jyn shrugs.
“You’re lucky you’re notbeing charged for assault, you know.” Mothma looks as though she wants torub her hands over her face, like she wants to put her head on the desk andmaybe bang it there a few times, just to give herself a concussion. “As it is I’mgoing to have to put you on academic probation. There’s going to have to be aninvestigation.”
Jyn shrugs.
“You could be expelledfor this,” says Mothma. Her voice gets tight. “I know you’re not exactly fondof school, Jyn—”
“Can I go?” Jyn asks,and stares at the wall rather than watch the hurt flicker over Mothma’s face.She doesn’t need to see Mon Mothma disappointed in her again. It happens thesame way every time, the crumpling brows and the pursed mouth. It’s like atattoo on the inside of her eyelids. “I have a shift to get to.”
“You’re not leavingwithout apologizing first,” says Mothma, and Jyn snaps her head around.
“I’m not apologizing tothat prick—”
“If you don’t he couldbring charges.”
“I don’t care—”
“This isn’t adiscussion.” Mothma stands, and wipes her hands off on her skirt. The scrape ofthe chair shuts Jyn up faster than anything else she could have said. Mothma’snot the sort to let chairs scrape, if she can help it. “Go and apologize. There’llbe a conduct hearing in a few weeks. You’ll get a letter in the mail. Don’t loseit.”
“Fine.” Jyn snags herbackpack up off the floor, heaves it over her shoulder. “I won’t.”
“This is your lastchance here, Jyn,” says Mothma, when her back is turned. Like slipping a knifebetween her ribs. “I can’t shove it under the rug this time. More than that, Iwon’t. I understand why it’s hard, but—”
“You don’t.” Sheshoves her free fist into her jacket pocket. “You don’t get it. You have noidea how hard it is.”
Mothma’s quiet, for awhile. She says, “Jyn, you have to deal with this.”
I know, Jyn thinks. Aloud, she says, “Whatever,” andleaves the dean’s office.
She can’t actuallyremember making the decision to throw the book. All the students in all her classespiss her off, but she’s never been that fucking stupid before. He’d just—been frustrating.Full of himself. She can’t even remember what he said, to make herso angry, but one minute she’d been trying to explain how wrong he was about thedefinition of frontiers and settler colonialism and then the next she’d tossedthe damn textbook at his head and the professor had tossed her out of the classroom.She can’t remember the in-between. Her palms sweat, to think of it. She hasn’tlost her temper that suddenly and that badly since she was sixteen,fucking hell, she can’t do this again, she can’t fall back into that,she can’t—
Jyn wipes her hands offon her jeans, and heaves her bag up higher over her shoulder.
Jackass Fuckface waitingout in the corridor. At least, she’s pretty sure he was waiting for her. He mightbe just waiting for Mothma to finish the meeting, go in and confirm Mothma’sworst nightmares, that he’s going to bring charges against her and the schooland everyone and their mother, but when she opens the door, he lifts his head. There’sa dark purple bruise on his jaw, from the book, and she can’t quite look at it.He’s also just a bit older than she realized. Not by much, just—most universitystudents are in their early twenties, not middling, and most of them don’t havequite so many stress lines around the mouth. Another student, closer to herage, she thinks, obnoxiously tall and very Asian-looking, shuts his laptop, andstares at her with unblinking grey eyes.
“This is the one,” hesays, without inflection. Jackass Fuckface shoves his history book back intohis ragged backpack.
“Leave it, Kei.”
Jyn stares at the floor,and doesn’t say anything. Neither does Jackass Fuckface.
“Well,” says his friend,in trim Queen’s English. “You could at least apologize for being amadwoman.”
“Kei,” says Jackass Fuckface.“I said leave it.”
“Fuck off,” says Jyn atthe same time. “I don’t answer to you, asshole.”
“You should bringcharges, Cassian,” says Kei to Jackass Fuckface. “Clearly there’s no otheroption here. Since she’s insane.”
“Go home, Kei,” says JackassFuckface. He keeps his voice even, but there’s something tight under the accentthat might be a leashed temper. “I told you I could deal with this on my own.”
“With little regard foryour own survival of this encounter, considering she threw a textbook atyour head.” Still, Kei slides his laptop back into his neatly kept messengerbag, latches everything together with the steadiness of an automaton. He drapesit over his shoulder. “I expect a text in ten minutes to confirm that you’restill breathing. If I don’t get one, I will regard you as demised, and sellyour furniture on Craigslist.”
“Thanks,” says JackassFuckface, sourly, and Kei marches away down the hall. By the time JackassFuckface has turned back around, Jyn’s staring at the carpet again, at theshitty pattern and his torn up trainers. It looks like he glues his shoestogether. The repairs are well done, and carefully hidden, but she’s done itenough herself to know the evidence. She’s had to replace the soles on herboots three times.
“Sorry about him,” saysJackass Fuckface, and Jyn can’t help it. She snaps her head up to look at him,because j’excuse? “He says whatever comes into his head. He neverlearned a filter.”
“You’re apologizingto me now?” she says, and Jackass Fuckface—Cassian bites the inside ofhis cheek. He also turns to stare at the wall. The strap of his backpack isworn, too, fraying at the edges. His jeans have holes in the knees.
“You’re right,” he says,clipped. “I won’t.”
Awkward silence for abit. Jyn scuffs her boot over the floor.
“Look,” she says. She triesto count to ten, and fails. Her stomach churns. “I shouldn’t have—shit.”
Cassian watches herthrough too-long bangs. His eyes are brown, she thinks. Brown and sad, somehow,and almost inquisitive. He waits.
“I have anger managementproblems,” she says. Jyn keeps her teeth tight together. “I’m in therapy. Ihaven’t—fucked up like that in years. But it’s been—” She stops. He doesn’tneed to know about Galen winding up in a mental hospital. “Look, it won’thappen again, okay? So don’t—you can charge me if you want, I don’t care, butdon’t fuck it up for Mothma. It’s not the school’s fault, it’s mine. So.”
His eyebrows drawtogether, very slowly. Something crawls up the back of her neck. It feels likebeing X-rayed, being watched like this. She doesn’t like it.
“Okay,” says Cassian,after a beat. “Sure.”
Jyn digs her nails intoher palm. “Seriously?”
“I’m not pressingcharges anyway.” He shuffles his feet, pushes his hair out of his eyes. “But—thankyou for clarifying.”
Jyn opens her mouth, andshuts it again. There’s no point in asking why the fuck he’s being polite toher. She should just take the win, and go. She knows that. But—
“Is your face okay?” shesays, without thinking, and bites her tongue. Cassian blinks once, and thenrubs at the bruise.
“I’ve had a lot worsethan this,” he says. The sadness creeps in around his mouth again. “I’ll heal.”
She looks him overagain, harder this time. He stands like he’s trying to slip into shadow, butthere’s a regimented kind of stiffness to his knees and shoulders that saysmilitary or police. His clothes are cheap and worn, so not working currently,but the patch on his jacket reads Alliance, and it doesn’t look like aknockoff. Just out of the military, then. Quiet and reserved. Officer, maybe. Theaccent says international divisions, not European, which means intelligencework or military deployment. Afghanistan, maybe. Indonesia. Iraq. Jedha. Whoknows. She shifts back and forth on her feet, the bootknife tickling at herankle.
“I’m sorry,” she says.It chips her teeth on the way out. “It was shitty. Like I said.”
Cassian blinks at heragain. The corner of his mouth lifts, just a bit. “I’ll heal. Like I said.”
Fuck it, Jyn thinks, and says, “Do you want—food, orsomething?”
He tips his head at her,and waits. “I don’t date. Even if I did, this isn’t exactly the rightcircumstance.”
“God, fuck, no, I don’t—”Her neck feels hot. “That’s not what I meant. Just—I’m shit at apologies. Food’seasier. Or—or a drink, or something. I’d offer to do your homework, but I’mshit at that, too. Academia’s not for me. I’m just here because—”
She stops, and almostkicks herself. He doesn’t need to know about her mother, either.
“Actually I thought youwere the only person in that class making any sense,” says Cassian, mildly. Jynstraight-out stares at him, this time, goggling, because are you high? “Ifit helps.”
“You were arguing withme.”
“Because you weren’t completelyright,” he says. The skin around his eyes gets all crinkly. “But you werestill making more sense than the professor.”
Jyn looks down her noseat him, and says, “You’re completely fucking mad, you know that?”
“I’ve been told,” saysCassian. He shifts his bag on his shoulder, and hesitates. “And I wouldn’t sayno to lunch, if you’re offering.”
She ducks her head to hide behind her hair. “Right,” says Jyn. “Thisway, then.”
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oh BOY! well. look. i know a lot of people really loved it and that is great. we are all different beautiful snowflakes and there’s no such thing as a Good movie because every movie’s “quality” is dependent on the circumstances of its viewer etc. AND maybe it depends on how much the original meant to you: every time a familiar line was delivered differently I winced, even if the delivery was good, because i love 1991 BATB so much and watched it so many times as a kid that it makes it hard for me to be objective. So if you didn’t feel that way about the real version, you might not be so harsh.
but haha, i H A T E D it.
Let’s start with the things I DID like, because there are not many of them and it will be easier!
Luke Evans KILLED IT as Gaston. He’s having a great time, has a voice, and can really communicate the combo of comic grossness, physical menace and real charisma that makes the original Gaston so effective. If I could have enjoyed any of the musical numbers (more on this Later), it would probably have been his.
Ian McKellen is a colossal value add to literally anything he’s in and this is no exception. It’s probably the only case in which the creepy, expressionless design of the objects (MORE ON THIS LATER!) actually is a plus, because all that richness and expression coming out of a lil beady eyed shoebox is hilarious.
I mean, Audra McDonald. Audra McDonald. Although I might have to say her staggering talent is actually a blow to the movie as a whole, because every scene she’s in magnifies the mediocrity of everyone else. They even make her sing a duet with autotune Emma Watson (MORE....ON THIS.......LATER), which is TRULY embarrassing to watch.
Did I mention what a relief it was to be attracted to Human Beast? A nice change from Damn U Glen Keane, What Are These Feelings U Made Me Have, I Was Only A Child Glen Keane.
haha. ahh
Whereas: I did not want ANYTHING sexually to do with CGI Beast, but how much I wanna F hockey hair Dan Stevens? Is a lot.
And I liked the new motivation for the enchantress -- having the prince be a spoiled party-boy Louis XIV asshole is a lot more satisfying than having him be an 11yo who doesn’t wanna let strangers into his house.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s face appears around the same time as Dan Stevens’, which was wonderful, but also terrible, because SHE WOULD HAVE MADE A GREAT BELLE, although i understand she may not want to be typecast.
Okay. now. What did I hate about this movie? I would say what I hated about this movie was “all but about 7 minutes of it.” Like, I would almost need to see it again to hate it enough, because almost every single frame contained at least one thing that I hated.
I don’t love the trend of remaking animated movies into live action ones, which is why I never saw Maleficent or Cinderella, and why I should not have seen this movie, hahaha. The adaptation inevitably loses a lot of what feels in animation like magic: the dreamlike quality/suspension of disbelief vanishes and everything has to be overexplained.
So the expressive, graceful objects I loved in the 1991 movie become these awful, clunky Uncanny Valley creeps who cannot make expressions and whom you would not WANT to see making expressions even if they COULD, because you dont want to look at their unsettling faces. Like, Mrs. Potts. Don’t you love Mrs. Potts? Don;t you love Emma Thompson? Two great tastes that taste great together? NO, THEY DON’T, BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?
SURE? “We just like doodled a face on there, that’s good enough right? God please let me sleep.” Every design choice in this movie is clearly thought through extensively and yet somehow manages to give the impression of having been turned in 5 minutes before deadline by a frantic, exhausted student who just wants to go home. “Be Our Guest” was just awful to watch. Like, if you gave a 4-year-old some literal candlesticks and had them act out the number by waving them around, they would give those candlesticks 9000x more soul and interest than several million dollars worth of CGI could do. There’s no showmanship. It takes 900 years.*
*which reminds me: when you adapt animation to live-action, the rhythm has to change simply to adapt to physical realities. What can be achieved in animation in a single line of music is going to require more time to do with actual people or CGI figures who have to look like they could belong in the same space with actual people. That means every number has to have ten extra measures of filler instrumentals, destroying the momentum of the songs and making them seem interminable. UGH! Terrible.
Anyway, the design choices ALSO give everything the objects do a new layer of like VISCERAL BODY HORROR. For instance, Stanley Tucci (completely squandered) plays a harpsichord whose keys?? are his teeth????? and during the Final Battle he’s shooting his keys like bullets at the villagers and I leaned over to my buddy and was like IS HE SHOOTING HIS TEETH??? LOL, PEW PEW. But then in the big reveal it becomes clear that HE DID!!!!! HE DID SHOOT HIS TEETH. WHAT????? All the objects turning from people-objects to dead-objects is also an incredibly fucked up scene which, if I were a child, would haunt me.
Speaking of which, this movie introduces like 9000 themes that are physically or emotionally AWFUL, but it doesn’t actually want to deal with them, so they just get thrown at us for 2 seconds and leave us gaping in confusion and horror.
Like: Gaston fought in The War. What War? The War. He had a great time in the War and now he has some kind of toxic PTSD where he can only be happy thinking about blood and “widows.” Why is this necessary? First of all, it’s fucked up. Why can’t he just be an asshole? He could just have been an asshole!! I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what the fuck War this would even be, and then about whether “widows” was a veiled rape allusion, which obviously it wasn’t supposed to be, BUT YIKES!!!!
Or: The Beast’s mom died and then his horrible dad “shaped” him to be just like him. There is literally a 2 SECOND FLASHBACK of a child singing to his dying mother, and then it just whams back to the regular movie. WHAT THE FUCK? The Objects -- and the movie?? -- also now believe that they DESERVE to be cursed because they didn’t, like, intercede in this abusive relationship, which makes perfect sense, because if there’s one thing that always works it’s when the hired help interferes with royalty, I guess.
Or: Belle’s mom ALSO died, of The Plague, and the Beast has a magic book that takes her back to her babyhood garrett in Paris, so at first you think it’s like, oh, the book like....reconstructs her memories and allows her to share them with the Beast? It’s like a regressive therapy session but with magic? Sure. BUT NO!!!!! It turns out they ACTUALLY WENT TO PARIS PHYSICALLY and like, RETRIEVED OBJECTS FROM PARIS? ??? ???????? This never comes up again.
Also. Why would you cast people. Who cannot do. THE ONE THING they have to do??? FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE???? Ewan McGregor is great, but he KNOWS he can’t do a French accent, so WHY IS HE CAST AS THE FRENCH ACCENT CHARACTER?? He sounds like your drunk cousin trying to do Steve Martin doing the Pink Panther.
Or, more egregiously: Belle. Like, i truly don’t hate Emma Watson. I think she is young and VERY famous and making some mistakes but doing her best. But the child cannot act. She can’t. She can make two expressions and they’re very lovely. She has great eyebrows and when she squints with them you really Feel her Determination. But she cannot communicate, say, Pain, or Wonder, or Humor, or Joy, all of which she is......called upon to communicate. AND she cannot sing???? Fine. Bring in somebody who can!!!! Pull an Audrey Hepburn/Julie Andrews!!!! THIS IS REGULAR PRACTICE! WE DO THIS ALL THE TIME!!!! DON’T JUST AUTOTUNE HER TALKING AND THEN EXPECT HER TO HOLD UP NEXT TO AUDRA MCDONALD!!!!!!!!! IT’S EMBARRASSING. I WAS EMBARRASSED FOR THIS ENTIRE MOVIE.
Anyway this is 90000 words long and BARELY SCRAPES THE SURFACE of how agonizing I found this movie to watch. BUT, as we were drinking and complaining about it afterwards, we got free tickets to the Caps game and I got to watch live hockey, which was 200x more emotionally involving and compelling than the movie, for the first time!!! So that’s good I guess.
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PSYCHOLOGICAL & SPIRITUAL THERAPY: People may sometimes require a special “spiritual lens” to accurately perceive reality
In our weekly Psychological & Spiritual Therapy column, therapist Jack Surguy is offering professional advice to The Mindful Word readers for all those questions and problems you have wanted to discuss with someone qualified and caring.
If you would like Jack to assist you in any areas of your life and relationships, fill out this form. He will respond to your questions through this column, normally published every Tuesday.
QUESTION
My partner did seven Ayahuasca "trips" and still gets tears in his eyes when he talks about "Mother Ayahuasca" and the answers she gave. I believe that he always had the answers—all he needed to do was sit quietly and they would come to him.
I think that when we go to "special spaces" through the chanting of mantras, meditation, using crystals, drumming, praying, Ouija boards and the use of Ayahuasca and other mind-altering substances, we're putting ourselves into a state of self-hypnosis. In "meeting"/"getting in touch with" angels, gods, spirits, guides, ancestors, aliens or whatever, we're simply connecting with our subconscious, our deepest selves.
There is nothing "other." It's all just us. And that "special space" is, again, just us.
In other words, we have all the answers we need, all the time. Why do we choose (and I really mean "choose") to ignore them, but look for—and supposedly find—the exact same answers in substances, chants, prayers, aliens, ancestors, therapists, drugs, gods and churches?
Why can't we accept that this is us, and that any other place is still us, as is any other dimension, state of being, god or entity? Why are we so out of touch with ourselves?
This constant human need to find something alternative to what we already have deeply disturbs me. We seem to always be dissatisfied or in a perceived state of incompleteness until, as many religions, belief systems and common garden fraudsters tell us, "we become one with" whatever we're supposed to join up with. All the while, we throw money at these "fraudsters."
This is my opinion, anyway—am I completely on the wrong track?
Jennifer, 65,U.S.
ANSWER
Hello Jennifer,
Thank you so much for submitting your question. In trying to address the question (“Am I completely on the wrong track?”), I’ll begin by sharing a story.
Leo’s story
A young boy around six years of age was continuously having behavioural problems that had been going on for a long time. Leo was around two years old when his mother took him to their family doctor due to some issues Leo was having. The doctor checked young Leo out and found nothing medically significant. He assured the mother that Leo was fine and that he would grow out of the behavioural problems.
Leo was now six years old and his problems were getting worse. He often refused to leave the house, his language development was far behind where it should be and he was throwing frequent temper tantrums, as well as becoming aggressive with his older siblings. Leo’s mother was at a loss. She'd sought help, but was again told that Leo had behavioural issues.
One day, Leo’s mother noticed that he seemed to be experiencing vision problems; he sat too close to the TV and had to hold his toys and picture books close to his face. She decided to schedule an appointment with an optometrist (eye doctor) and have Leo’s vision tested. It was then discovered that Leo had extremely poor eyesight as well as a condition known as Optical Albinism, which causes a person’s eyes to be very sensitive to light.
Leo was prescribed a special pair of glasses to help him with his conditions. His mother described him receiving his glasses in the following way:
When Leo received his first pair of glasses a few days after his test, it was an emotional moment. He noticed things that he had not seen before and kept looking around at everything, studying faces and objects. He had the biggest smile and I did have a few tears in my eyes.... Life for Leo has been changed dramatically now he has his glasses.... once he got his glasses he showed an interest in books and playing with his brothers instead of the destructive behaviour that he showed before. His speech improved within the first few weeks and he was less frustrated as he began to listen and speak more and he started copying other children’s play.
Leo’s main issues were his inability to see things clearly and his eyes' vulnerability to becoming overly sensitive to light. Now, Leo was behind in language development and reading, as well as having deficits in social skills and healthy interactions, but when he was provided with the means to see things clearly and was given the tools to prevent himself from overexposure to sunlight, he became much more interested in books, play and social interactions. He started to copy other children in order to learn more appropriate social skills and was able to put those skills into effect. The vast majority of us don't see things perfectly clearly, either.
The human mind is a fascinating thing
It's a well-known phenomenon that a person’s mind can block out or defend itself against information that may be too overwhelming for the person to process. Take a moment to really process that: A person’s mind can block out or defend itself against information that may be too overwhelming for the person to process.
Something traumatic can happen to someone, like abuse in childhood, and the person can literally go years without having any recollections or conscious memories of the event. Then, oftentimes out of nowhere, these memories will come flooding back in, often accompanied by a tremendous emotional reaction. One person with whom I worked described this process by saying, “I don’t know how I let myself forget those things. But it’s not really like I forgot it. It was there all along; I just didn’t want to see it.”
Another client with whom I worked had a somewhat similar experience, but it didn't involve any memory loss. A woman in her mid-sixties came to see me for therapy because of depression. Though she'd started medications for the depression and was seeing me on a weekly basis, there was no evidence that she was getting better.
Her case perplexed me and I decided to really question her on almost all aspects of her life to try and discover where her increasing level of depression may have been coming from. After seeing her weekly for almost three months, she finally disclosed the fact that her husband had spent close to $100,000 on scratch-off lottery tickets. Their life savings were gone and she was now forced to return to work so that they wouldn't lose their home.
I tried to discuss this with her, but she insisted that it was fine, as he'd promised to never purchase tickets again. After further questioning her, she then disclosed that he'd made that same promise on three previous occasions, only to later spend their last $30,000. She assured me, however, that she knew he was serious now and adamantly insisted that her depression had absolutely nothing to do with the lost money.
After several months of on-again, off-again therapy, she came into the office one day and vented for the entire hour, stating that she was absolutely furious with her husband and that she was probably going to file for divorce because she couldn't forgive him for spending their entire life savings.
For both of these individuals, the reality of what occurred was simply too much for them to acknowledge or process. In an effort to protect itself, the mind blocked certain knowledge from consciousness.
It appears that when a person becomes more able to deal with certain information, the mind brings it back into conscious awareness. In a very real way, it can be said that we're protecting ourselves from ourselves!
Various practices assist us in finding the "Aha!" moment
People, at times, may require a special “spiritual lens” to try and accurately perceive reality. I’m OK with this. I consider learning, understanding and wisdom to be things that are obtained and developed over a period of time.
A person may need to view things a certain way and for a certain length of time before they're ready and able to, perhaps, move to a deeper understanding. In fact, the “self-hypnosis” you mentioned in reference to meditation, drumming, praying and the chanting of mantras may alter a person’s neurological make-up, thus making it more likely for them to have the "Aha!" moment in which they gain realization of, insight into or comprehension of a situation.
Many of us may be much like Leo in that we need to “copy” or model another's spiritual experience in order to learn how to have healthy spiritual/emotional lives and experiences ourselves.
As the Dalai Lama XIV has stated, “Neither a space station nor an enlightened mind can be realized in a day.” I do believe that the vast majority of people, including myself, do need particular practices (such as drumming, prayer, mantra and meditation) to aid us in our spiritual/emotional development.
When children learn to walk, they engage in “cruising,” which involves a child pulling themselves up onto furniture and holding onto it in order to stabilize themselves as they learn to balance and strengthen their legs. This step is necessary for the child to later be able to walk of its own accord. I see the spiritual practices mentioned above as serving a similar purpose.
Buddha gave his disciples similar advice in saying,“When you know the Dharma to be similar to a raft, you should abandon even the teachings, how much more so things contrary to the teachings.” Here, the advice was to let go of even the Buddha’s teachings after realizing enlightenment.
The one caveat to letting go of the teachings is to fully realize, understand and experience the teachings. This, of course, is where most of us struggle. In this struggle, many have to “cruise” and use spiritual practices such as drumming, mantra, prayer and meditation.
So in answering your question, no, I wouldn’t say you’re completely on the wrong track. However, I'd guess that not all are able to walk that track, due to the many struggles and obscurations that most face. These prevent them from gaining full insight into the nature of emptiness, which you’re essentially describing.
The one piece of advice I'd suggest regarding your relationship and your response to your significant other would be to remember that encouragement and support is often most helpful when it comes to a person's growth.
image via Pixabay
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