The self as object

Ooops having trouble using this blog thing. I've posted just a title twice.
Now i could manipulate "my self" to feel better or I could figure out how to use this thing. Manipulating the "self" is called retroflection in the psychotherapeutic thinking of Frederich Perls. The process consists in "identifying" a " self" by thinking it is this or that image or set of thoughts and clinging to them. Then one manipulates how the body/mind feels to fit the image or set of thoughts. One can further manipulate by trying to fit what one thinks the image is others want. This process of taking the self as object is the core of schizophrenia theorized Victor Frankl MD, author of Man's Search for Meaning written in a Nazi concentration camp.
The process keeps one's body/mind in a constant state of stress. One is always straining to be something other than one is at the moment. This strain wears one out.
The process of taking the self as object is also the core of separation and thus is the source of suffering.
What to do? Be one.
How to do that?
Let me give an example, an awareness experiment. Hold your right hand in front of you. Stare at it as if it were an object. How does that feel? Pretty strange for most of us.
Now put your left hand in your right hand and rest them in your lap. Feel the right hand as part of you. This is the feeling of "being one with".
When you meditate on the breath, let your awareness meld with the breath. If one counts the breath, "one" on the in breath, "two" on the out breath, "three" on the in breath, "four" on the out breath and so on up to 10, one merges with the inner sound of "one" "two" and so on. This comes with practice. The thoughts of the next number fade away the more one practices. One "is" the sound of the number. Once learned this begins to pervade one's experience and one joins with what one is experiencing like the right hand merged with the left.
One lets go of thoughts and images as they arise and nolonger "identifies" the "self" with images or thoughts. One's mind settles down, peacefully abides.

the self as object

It is most interesting

Life is most interesting when absorbed in a task one loves. Studying recovery from extreme mental and emotional states is something I love. It is part and parcel of my ability to live a fulfilling life. I have for a long time used what I call the AUM principle to do this. "A" in Sanskrit means arising. "U" in Sanskit means sustaining. "M" in Sanskit means passing away. I a mindful of when extreme states arise, what sustains them and when they pass away. Extreme states are referred to in popular psychological jargon as things like "anxiety", "mania", "hearing voices", "depression" and so on. These labels are not the most helpful to me since they seem to fix them as unalterable in stone. When I am mindful of my daily life when these states arise, what keeps them going, when the pass on, I become aware of how changeable they are. Most helpful is being aware of HOW I AM RESPONSIBLE for the arising, the sustaining and the passing on. That is my ability to respond. Response ability. This ability is what helps me understand that "I" am intimately involved in that I experience in extreme states. What seems "objective" or an object out of my control, is actually interdependent with me in arising, keeping on, and passing. With this insight I am able to live a fulfilling life. This blog will center around life style issues of recovering from extreme states.