061123 June 5, 2023 Therapy Session with Lori (Continued) -
I keep procrastinating on this topic, so I have no doubt it is important. Lori (our therapist) thinks that while I might be in tune with my emotions, she observed that they are not coming through in my facial expressions or my body language.
She had me do an "eyes closed" visualization, which I enthusiastically participated in. I thought it was a "parts therapy" kind of exercise, but she gave me the name for it (something else), but the name eluded me.
With my eyes closed, she asked whether there was any part of me which was stopping me from experiencing my emotions.
YES there was -- "The Keystone."
Visualization: The Keystone:
The Keystone was a child's wooden block toy shaped in the shape of a bridge. It was straight on the top and sides, but it was a semicircle on the bottom. It called itself the "Keystone" because without it, all the other pieces of the bridge fall apart into pieces.
The Keystone also had the shape of a black-and-white triangular antenna. It said it was hundreds of years old, and that it joined me when I was born. It later told me that I created it which contradicted its initial statement, but to me, it seemed like an angel (a malach).
Lori was asking questions to get me doubt whether I really wanted it around. It seemed like she wanted me to realize that it might have served a helpful purpose at one point in my life -- like the "Framework" which came to me in an earlier visualization that I built up and around a blackened-soot-and-angry childlike version of me -- but I actually enjoyed the presence of The Keystone.
The Keystone genuinely desired to help me and to protect me "from the wooden spikes that would shoot out of my heart and injure me deeply." (Funny how it was a wooden toy, and the spikes were from the same wooden toy set - I wonder if there is something there latent in my memories with that set.)
I imagined that maybe it was evil (and I visualized it as possibly evil), but it really radiated a warmth and a protective comfort. I didn't want to kick it out of my psyche -- rather, I wanted to hug it and thank it for protecting me all these years. It was quite tired from all the hard work, but it was willing to persist for as long as I needed it. It did this out of a sense of loyalty and duty to keep me safe. This seemed to be it's reason for being inside me.
Lori had me show it around to my "adult" life -- my wife, my home, my shul, my kids. I think she was trying to have me ask it if still thought it was needed in my life or not. It asked me this, and I answered that I do still need it in my life, and I appreciate all the help and safety it continues to give me from the spikes shooting out of my heart.
Lori wanted me to ask it if it was willing to step aside, and it was willing to, but it was concerned I would be injured [not killed, but badly hurt] by the spikes from my heart.
The AI from Mindsera.com (link) wants me to answer, "What would it feel like to fully embrace and express your emotions without the presence of "The Keystone"?"
Funny, it thinks The Keystone prevents me from expressing my emotions.
Lori also had me visualize this. Without The Keystone, I would get injured by painful emotions that my heart is ejecting out of it, but I would live. I realized that The Keystone could be bypassed by asking it to be transparent. It is still there if I do this, but I deactivate its function, and it is willing to let me do this.
I don't think I get positive benefits from this, because it appears to me as if the job of The Keystone was only to prevent me from getting hit by the spikes because they can badly hurt and injure me. I have not thought much about what the spikes actually are (although I have imagined a few times that they remind me only about the COVID spikes, but these are actually like thin wooden sharp cylinders which are so thin they are thick, but needle-like.
Without The Keystone, I would still not be able to feel my emotions because... I noticed that there are two other characters also protecting me.
Visualization: The Black & Grey Globs
At first I thought it was one large, thick, black, slippery but rubberlike glob that was covering over my heart ("The Black Glob"), but then I realized that there were two of these (the second one was more grey'ish, and it looked the same, but it said it shared a different function) ("The Greyish Glob").
What was interesting to me is that The Black Glob did not want me knowing it was there. As soon as I noticed it, it caused me to forget what it looked like. The Grey Glob did this too (made me not be able to see it), but it seemed busy doing its work while The Black Glob was more concerned about me seeing it.
I thought it was silly that The Black Glob thought I wouldn't be able to remember what it looked like because I had a short term memory of what it looked like. However, I was impressed and a bit surprised as how effective it was at causing me to be unable to see it, as if it didn't turn itself invisible, but rather, it literally blinded me as to its existence.
I still, however, was aware of its presence even when I couldn't see it anymore, but I knew it was still listening to me and it would respond to my questions.
The Black and Grey Glob each were pretty focused on its mission. I do not know what the grey one was doing -- it seemed busy during my visualization -- but the Black Glob's job was literally to thickly cover over the bright red radiance of my heart, specifically to absorb the wooden spikes that shoot out of it quite frequently.
When I spoke to it in Lori's visualization, it too seemed to have good motives, namely, it was there called by me to protect me from the spikes. However, the Black Glob seemed more intent on doing its job with a serious intensity which I found to be interesting.
Lori had me show these Globs my adult home, my wife, my family, etc., but the Globs didn't seem interested in stepping aside. It seemed they were unimpressed, and more focused on their mission rather than communicating with me to do my will or my bidding.
The Keystone had Self-Awareness; the Globs were Machines.
While the Keystone seemed to have its own consciousness or benevolence to it, the Globs seemed like they were task-oriented entities, like a fireman putting out a fire, or a vacuum cleaner seeking out the mess that spilled.
Trying to Switch them Off
Without the Keystone and the Globs, I believe I would experience more emotions without them accidentally filtering and in some cases with the Globs, accidentally blocking them entirely in their attempts to contain the spikes which would damage and injure me.
I tried to imagine they were all transparent (meaning, switched off), so the spikes and everything else would express my heart's feelings to me, but noticing that I was squeezing my eyes and feeling sadness and pain in my heart, I am concerned that there is a lot of this that is being covered up also.
That was all I wanted to cover. I shared this with my wife and she was impressed that I had such visualizations with Lori, but she didn't have any other comment.
Poison in the Heart
Personally, I think this trio helps me to manage an otherwise raw and inflamed heart. I think there is an inflammation of the heart, and it is shooting the spikes to eject the poison from my heart. These spikes might be feelings of sadness or pain, they could also be anger. Intuition tells me this is cortisol.
The problem is that I don't think I am in a healthy emotional place, especially if I am visualizing a raw and aggravated heart which is pumping and shooting out poison just to survive. I think I am poisoning it with my pain, and my heart is just trying to survive.
I imagined what would happen to me if I were hit with the spikes, but I don't know the answer. I think they would stick in me, but my immune system would be knocked out and I would get sick.
I would really love to stop feeding my heart poison -- these are clearly my emotional stresses and sadness and pain, just as they are the additional stress I carry from trying so hard to manage my ADHD while at the same time keeping myself deceptively productive and normal (not showing that I am struggling to keep my executive functions at "normal" levels) just so that I do not "annoy" those around me with my stupidities.
No comments:
Post a Comment