https://pixabay.com/users/Shafin_Protic-16278454/
.
.
The self is conditioned primarily in early interpersonal relationships, and we then tend to see only those things that confirm who we think we are, and we screen out everything to the contrary.
This is what it means to self-seal: closing off possibilities for yourself and sealing your identity, and your fate, within whatever self-construct was created when you were quite young.
This self becomes a prison of beliefs that color and distort your experience of who you are.
Margaret Wheatley’s quote offers insight into how we can free ourselves from this prison of funhouse mirrors with distorted reflections that we mistake for reality.
If you can experience yourself from the immediacy of here-and-now awareness rather than through the narrowed perceptions of a self created long before this moment, you can find another way of being in the world.
How do you develop this here-and-now awareness?
Mindfulness is the key, and as you work your way through this book, we’ll offer many practices that will help you develop this perspective.
Because it’s important to understand where you’re starting from, in this chapter we’ll explore how an identity of deficiency is constructed and persists from a Western psychological perspective as well as from the point of view of Buddhist psychology.
As you learn to bring mindful awareness and inquiry into these self-limiting constructions, you’re likely to discover possibilities for greater freedom and peace.
It’s like the Zen cartoon that shows an anguished prisoner clinging to the bars of his cell while a small door in a dark corner of his cell is clearly open.
Until you let go of the bars of your prison of self and begin to explore the dark and unlit places within yourself, you can’t find the door to freedom.
.
.
PTSD - A Way Out.com 
Posted by rudid96 on August 22, 2020 at 1:42 pm
Today’s share speaks very much to a track I’ve been on and hope to continue. My question Mindful Marty relates to staying with the facts of here and now.
As I go about my day, I’ve been working at trying to stay aware and stay in the moment. Inevitably, when my other thoughts pop into my mind, I try and return to the current. But daydreaming in the past has given many creative opportunities and solutions. I feel like part of me is always retrieving a wayward child. Is there no ‘dreaming’ in Mindful awareness?
Posted by Marty on August 22, 2020 at 4:06 pm
Ok, here goes,
We who have serious trauma, childhood PTSD or PTSD can not let our minds wander into the past or future unguarded.
It’s called Dissociation and it is the lynchpin of all symptoms.
Realize ptsd refuels, powers itself when we think about the specifics
We have to calm our fight or flight mechanism from firing when we do wander into a thought or trigger.
So we need to limit the time we spend in unsupervised thought or rumination
Have a plan. Tap each finger to thumb and say relays release release release
Know how to take a step back and use your meditation skills to focus and let the thoughts go
They will recede in time Rudid96
It will get easier and your ego is doing everything to get you to quit or be discouraged.
Our egos are in control when we leave this present moment and let our minds wander
Our Ego is in control when ptsd rules us
I am going through this new trauma from college and it takes me time to knock it down and figure out how it was stored.
For me I had to change the narrative because my abuse was stored with the extreme bias and confusion
I will wager a dollar with you that your creative abilities will be much greater when you learn to let the storyline go and build your intuition meditation, trusting your inner guide.
Our creative hemisphere only has the present moment, the right hemisphere does not know past or present exist
Sounds like daydreaming causes suffering and ptsd to grow
You have to attack this, by letting go and meditating and practicing till it breaks
Subtle changes happen and it takes us working past the intital frustrating part
You are in the right path
Keep going
It may even seem harder
When things come up
Try to breathe and stay present.
Visualize your thoughts are right beyond your outstretched arms in front of you.
They are not part of our core, they are impermanent an appendage
Observe them without judgment or influence
Each time these thoughts arrive is an opportunity to heal a little more
Remember ptsd is a boulder and our hammer and chisel carve a little kore each day
Have this attitude and leave results alone for a while
Hope that helps
Posted by Linda on August 31, 2020 at 3:37 pm
Great response, Marty!