Previous article We talked about the emotions, thoughts, and feelings that plague us, and the ways we can relate to them. My purpose is not to give you a mental massage, but to show you the doorway behind it. Today's text may reshape your understanding of yourself and the world, and re-examine your emotions, thoughts, and self at new heights.
In addition, when we comb through the history of the evolution of the concept of sex, love, and marriage, we have always emphasized one concept— the power of ideas. This text will also take you to directly feel the power of ideas, and how it manipulates us, affecting our moods, sorrows, and thoughts.
Finally, I hope to take you on an easy journey through the real world and the spiritual world without being trapped by it. At the very least, it will give you a look at our opportunity to regain our spiritual and behavioral freedom, and what is called mental flexibility.
The pie painting is too big, and it is time to make the pie below. Hopefully, throughout the reading process, you will always be skeptical of the text and let your skepticism be what it is.
A species that tortures itself
Let's start with a heart-wrenching news story:
DANIA, Florida, June 16 – A 6-year-old girl who committed suicide on the tracks today once told her siblings that she "wanted to go to her mother." There are reports of his mother dying of an incurable disease. (The New York Times, 1993)
Generally, two-year-old children do not commit suicide. When they are slightly older, that is, able to recall the past, think about the future, and evaluate their imaginations, they may feel that life is worse than death, and then they may engage in extreme behavior. If a 6-year-old girl commits suicide by lying in the tracks because she wants to follow her heavenly mother, then adults like you and me will certainly be more capable of finding a thousand ways to torture themselves psychologically.
We generally don't act particularly aggressively, but we most likely have thoughts of suicide. Beyond that, the self-torture, that is, the experience of playing with oneself, is innumerable.
When I wrote this text, I brushed up in the circle of friends that some people were distressed by feelings. The gist of it is: "If you are not entering into marriage because of love, then what is the purpose of marriage?" Do you have to hand in your homework for a long time... The thought of some people's parents being very reasonable, and the thought of their own parents being so incomprehensible to themselves, my emotions are particularly broken..."
We humans are the only species that has to figure out why in the matter of male and female mating. And they will also be moved by their own estrus, describing estrus too touchingly, reveling in estrus itself, so that they forget the original intention of estrus and live toss themselves to death. That's great love! [See "When Love Is a Child|.] Awkward birth, huge impact - "Maybe you should find someone to talk to 29"]
Why is that? This is where our exploration begins.
Second, the blessing and curse of symbols
Love, affection is still only a part of life, in fact we humans have to struggle with all kinds of psychological pain: troublesome emotions and thoughts, unpleasant memories and memories, desires and emotions to avoid. Therefore, our gang thought about it all day, anxious, angry and resentful, expectant and worried and afraid.
At the same time, we humans have shown infinite courage, deep compassion, and remarkable ability to continuously develop ourselves and move our lives forward step by step. Although they know that they will be hurt, they still love others deeply; they know that they will die, but they still look forward to the future, hoping to bring beauty to the people they love; they face the nothingness of life while carrying ideals. It was really touching.
How can we do that?
All of this is based on the extremely developed language ability of human beings. Human language is a highly complex symbology that includes words, images, sounds, facial expressions, and body postures. We typically use these symbols in two scenarios: public and private.
Symbols used in public include: conversation, speech, imitation, gestures, writing, painting, carving, singing, dancing, acting, etc.
Symbols used in private situations include: thinking, imagining, planning, daydreaming, analysis, worrying, fantasizing, and so on. The symbols that are generally used in private are also called "cognition" or "thinking".
What you and I do from childhood to adulthood, learn, practice, use, express, are all in it, and our entire mental activity and thought process rely on the above-mentioned complex and exquisite symbol system, that is, human language in a broad sense. However, this ingenious symbol system is a double-edged sword, and when used well, it can help us solve all kinds of problems, and conversely, it will cause us endless damage and trouble.
On the sunny side, symbols help us better perceive the world, predict and plan for the future. Learn from past historical experiences, imagine things that never existed, and create them. Make rules that effectively guide our behavior. Share your knowledge and experience and pass it on from generation to generation...
On the dark side, we use symbols to lie, to falsify, to deceive; to spread rumors, slander, and ignorance; to incite hatred, to sow discord, to induce prejudice, to create bloody violence; to experience painful events of the past; to constantly compare, judge, criticize, and condemn ourselves and others with excessive fear and fear of the future; to set for ourselves the rules of the game that can destroy and crush our own lives...
This is the charm of the symbol, both a blessing and a curse. This is also the bottom line of the height and depravity that our psychology and thinking can reach. This article focuses only on how we use symbols to harm ourselves.
Third, life is really hard, and symbols can make you suffer more bitterly
It is said that life is really hard, but where does suffering come from?
First of all, everyone experiences a lot of setbacks, frustrations, losses and failures in their lifetime, and is also destined to suffer from disease, pain and aging. At the same time, we have to face the death of our loved ones and the possibility of being hurt by our loved ones. In addition to this, the nine basic emotions that humans possess, love, joy, curiosity, anger, fear, sadness, guilt, shock, disgust, except for the first three, the last six are not so pleasant. It is conceivable that innate pain is a large part of human normal emotions and we are like shadows. On the road of life, we will continue to experience them repeatedly.
In fact, these are nothing, the real problem is that because of the symbolic assistance, we have the ability to think of pain and fall into pain anytime and anywhere, even if we are deeply happy at the moment.
Shu Fen is at the beautiful wedding scene, all her relatives and friends gathered together, with blessings to witness her happy time today. But at this moment, she remembered her father, who died three years ago, and a thought flashed in her mind: "If only my father were here", thinking about it, she was embarrassed for a while. She could not allow herself to continue to be happy, because her happiness was a disregard for the fact that her father had died, a betrayal of the regret buried in her heart. In this way, on this festive day, Shufen fell into deep pain, and no one knew.
In fact, like Shu Fen, we are all in the same boat. No matter what we have at the moment, how high the quality of life, how honorable the status, how much special treatment we enjoy... It's all useless. There's always a moment when something bad happens, or when we imagine something bad going on in the future, or criticize ourselves harshly, or compare ourselves to those who are better off, we immediately fall into pain. From this point of view, all beings are suffering, and all beings are equal.
What kind of mystery operation is this?
My family used to have an earth dog, and I have a very good relationship. But it was particularly afraid of my mother, because she had been beaten several times by her. So every time he saw my mother, he curled up, walked around with her tail between her legs, and sometimes made a miserable sound. It looks particularly pitiful. However, as long as it cannot see my mother, cannot hear my mother's voice, it can completely release itself as if nothing had happened.
It's a pity that I don't have the ability of this earth dog. If I have been seriously hurt, even if the threat disappears later, I can still experience pain, feel fear and helplessness, and even feel that this life is over. Because I have symbols, with the help of symbols I can remember, I can associate, I can regurgitate pain, I can constantly amplify pain and possibly suffer from traumatic stress disorder. Fortunately, my dog does not need me to comfort, it only has basic conditioned reflexes, as long as the danger does not really appear, it will not appear obvious anxiety and worry, let alone self-trouble.
Man lives in history, and psychological pain is also a kind of history, and it cannot be erased. The past and painful experiences that have been unbearable are preserved and remembered through symbols. And for the rest of his life, he was constantly stimulated by various clues. Or let us re-experience painful memories, or get lost in a terrible future, or get caught up in unpleasant comparisons with others and negative evaluations of ourselves. You don't even need to have an unpleasant experience, you just have to see or imagine someone else's unpleasant experience, you can turn it into your own experience and experience, and you can also feel empathy. Every time a celebrity couple has a scandal on the Internet, some people express their belief in love or do not believe in love, which is the best evidence. We have this ability to regard the affairs of others as our own affairs; to give our own affairs as everyone's affairs.
But now we know that those painful memories, bad thoughts, are just symbols! It is just pictures, memories, beliefs, judgments, worries, and even simple words, sounds, and images in our minds.
In other words, it's all fake! Of course, saying this may hurt the emotions of many people, but let's put it more objectively: they are not false experiences, but they have become abstract symbols of the present. With the help of symbols, we bring the pain of the past to the present and the future, relive it over and over again, continue to suffer, and continue to torture ourselves.
Why? Is it to boil sugar with pain?
More importantly, why would we be hurt by something fake? Why don't we open our eyes to this real world? Why are we caught up in memories and worried about the future? Is it better to live than to be as happy as a dirt dog?
Fourth, when it is false, it is true and false
We have been living in two different worlds, one is the real world and the other is the symbolic world. When we are born, we simply live in a "world of direct experience" where babies perceive and interact with the world through their own facial features. But as we grew older, we learned symbols and began to think. This has greatly accelerated our growth. With the enhancement of thinking ability, we spend more and more time in the symbolic world, constantly planning, executing, evaluating, reflecting, reviewing, output, iterating, word, Excel, Ppt...
Time has passed so long that we merge with the world of symbols without knowing it. Children can play with a pile of sand all day, but it's hard for us adults to do that. We will often lose our minds, or indulge in the past, or worry about the future, but we can't enter the present, we can't enter the real world.
In this way, we begin to lose the experience of direct contact with the real world, and we are increasingly unable to live in the present.
Many people think it is difficult to fall in love, where is the difficulty? Because there's no way to get along with a real person. We always mentally compare the real object with the ideal partner and constantly judge them. If you continue like this, love really doesn't need to be discussed. But this is not a big problem, anyway, a person can live very well. There are two things to really pay attention to: cognitive fusion and empirical avoidance. It's worth saying.
Let's start with cognitive fusion.
The so-called cognitive fusion, in simple terms, is that the drama is too deep, and the symbol is mistakenly regarded as reality.
I'm ugly, I'm old, I'm not attractive, I'm a failure, I'm miserable, I'm depressed, I can't see hope, I'm not going to love, I'm definitely going to fail, I can't, life is too painful, men are not a good thing...
These are just the ideas in our heads, the symbols! But we cling to these thoughts because we are too deep into the play. Once you get into this situation, you are playing a game of self-deception. The symbol was supposed to be a tool for us, but at this point it became our master. It convinces us that what we think is right, that the idea in our minds is reality itself, and guides us to live with ourselves and those around us according to this idea.
Don't look at the above are all negative ideas, even if the positive ideas, if you go too deep into the drama, it is not a good thing. I am a morally noble person, I am a good and conscientious mother, I am a person with high self-esteem, I am an independent person, I am a rational person...
Isn't it quite positive? Do you know how tired it is to maintain such a persona all the time? How hypocritical does one have to become to do this? The damn thing is that once you get into the drama too deeply, you lose your psychological flexibility. That is what Confucius said, words must be believed, deeds must be fruitful, and the people are like villains! Such a persona is very rigid, which is very unfavorable to our handling of the practical problem of change and inaction. Once the human design collapses, the parties are also prone to extremes.
The real problem with excessive cognitive fusion is that we cannot think and examine our own behavior, but can only passively accept the domination of symbolic ideas. Typical representative figure, Lu Xun's Xianglin sister-in-law.
Look at empirical avoidance.
It refers to trying to avoid, get rid of, suppress, or escape from unwanted "personal experiences." Personal experience is the symbol used in intimate situations, including out-of-the-box thoughts, bad feelings, painful memories, terrifying imagery, and crazy desires.
Empirical avoidance can be said to be human nature. Quite simply, those things are not good, and some of them are not even accepted by society. What to do? Nature is forcibly eliminated, suppressed, controlled, and shaken off, and if it is really not possible, it is necessary to flee.
The human brain is built to solve problems. The essence of problem solving is to get rid of what you don't want. This tends to work well in the real world. A wolf is outside your door, and the way to drive it away is nothing more than throwing stones, shooting, or closing the door. However, this kind of thinking often does not work when dealing with the problem of the psychological world.
For example, boredom, loneliness, anxiety, guilt, anger and sadness, etc., in the short term, such as gambling, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes can help people temporarily escape or get rid of these bad experiences, but in the long run, it will lead to greater pain and suffering.
The most typical example here should be [anxiety disorder]. Anxiety itself is not a rare thing, and anyone will experience it regularly. The essence of anxiety disorder is not anxiety, but anxiety about anxiety itself. That is, the situation caused by excessive avoidance of anxiety. As a result, the life of the person concerned is occupied by trying to control and get rid of anxiety. Although the book is at the end, it cannot be stopped at all.
Unfortunately, the more we try to avoid anxiety, the more anxious we become about it. It's a vicious circle. Behind every hard attempt is a deliberate lifting and reinforcement of anxiety. This is why in the previous article I have repeatedly emphasized that fully accepting emotions and living in the moment is not to help you eliminate and control emotions, even if your emotions are reduced, do not take it seriously, acceptance is acceptance, not control, nor dissolution. Don't mess around and mess around. The more you expect this, the more inevitable disappointment becomes. [See also: Psychological Self-Help |.] Come, let's talk about negative emotions together - "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone" Fanwai 09"
There's a classic white bear experiment in psychology, try to keep thinking about a white bear in your head for three minutes. See, can you hold out for three minutes? Sorry, almost impossible. The more you have this obsession, the more you can't let go of the white bear. The symbol itself is the clue that you associate with the "white bear", and you firmly hold the line of "don't want the white bear" while not thinking about the "white bear", is this not a joke in itself?
Anxiety disorders are also a wonderful game for us to play ourselves. Numerous studies have shown that strong empirical avoidance is closely related to anxiety disorders, excessive anxiety, depression, poor work performance, severe substance abuse, decreased quality of life, high-risk sexual behavior, borderline personality disorder, more severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and so on.
As we mentioned in the previous article, the human psychology and the real world do not follow the same set of gameplay and logic. The achievements and experiences we have gained in reality using symbolic tools cannot be directly applied to our own hearts. The starting point is wrong, and the back is really a thousand miles away.
Cognitive fusion and empirical avoidance are often carried out at the same time, such as a person who is injured in a relationship, on the one hand, will think that he will not love again (cognitive fusion), on the other hand, they try alcohol, drugs, cigarettes in order to escape the pain of emotional failure, and dangerous behavior to try to avoid painful feelings (empirical avoidance).
Whether it is cognitive fusion or empirical avoidance, it will directly lead to our inability to live in the present moment, disconnected from the real experience of the real world. The result is a constant descent into a symbolized past and future: we stay in painful memories and think over and over again about why things are the way they are; or try to escape painful feelings and keep falling into a vicious circle; or we fantasize about the future and worry too much about what didn't happen— am I bad? Will no one love it? Will you end up alone?
With such a process, we succeed in missing out perfectly with life here and now.
A wonderful world of symbols, like a labyrinth, is really dazzling, and I don't know what time it is. The deeper you get into it, the harder it is to know yourself and see reality. And a person who does not know himself, it is naturally difficult to adjust his behavior in a suitable way and push his life forward.
Many people who are deeply involved in emotional whirlpools and emotional difficulties will enter such a maze. Fortunately, in time, everyone can come out. Psychological illness will develop if it is particularly severe. People who just come out may not know how they came out, and they will most likely fall into it again and again in other ways in the future.
It should be noted that cognitive fusion and empirical avoidance are not bad in themselves. Anyone will do that. The real problem is that we are psychologically rigid. The psychological rigidity caused by language symbols is the root cause of most of our psychological problems and emotional distress. This can deprive us of real mental flexibility, so that we can only get in and not out.
Mindfulness: This moment is a flower
Life is full of pitfalls. Symbols are such powerful and handy tools, a lifelong learning thing that we have learned from childhood to adulthood, a delicate and wonderful world, and even let us sink into the mud, revealing her vicious and terrifying side.
This is the message I have been trying to convey to you in combing through the conceptual history of sex, love, and marriage, hoping that you will see the power of ideas (symbols) themselves. Especially in today's era, all kinds of symbols use the mass media to take precise and effective influence on us with all-pervasive means, which is overwhelming. Secretly tell you, I am even jealous of Gu Ailing, comparing her to myself. It's really idle. [See: Media is Sex |.] The Invaded Private Life – "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone About 39"]
In addition, I promised you earlier that I could take you to the real world and the spiritual world easily without being trapped by it. At the very least, let's see if we have the opportunity to regain our spiritual freedom and freedom of action, and what is called "mental flexibility"?
How to do it?
The previous text actually gave the answer. That is mindfulness.
Mindfulness is to focus with a flexible, open, and curious mind. Let's expand on this definition:
First, mindfulness is a process of awareness, which is not thinking, it only provides awareness. Awareness means that you keep your consciousness (attention) in your present experience, rather than you "trapped" in the symbolic world (thoughts).
Second, mindfulness involves a unique attitude: openness and curiosity. Mindfulness is not thinking, thinking judges, evaluates, contrasts, and picks. Mindfulness, only perception, and is open to observation without any comments. Even if you are experiencing all kinds of difficulties and pains in the moment, you can still observe yourself with an open mind and understand it with curiosity, rather than judging, escaping or suppressing.
Finally, mindfulness involves the awareness of flexibility, which is a conscious ability to supervise. You can think of it as a camera mounted on your body, and this camera can adjust the angle at any time, and you can focus on your breathing, or any part of your body, or even your feelings and emotions.
Try it now, take a deep breath, and then focus on the present moment, on every word you're reading. If the attention runs out (wandering), take a deep breath and bring it back to the present moment. Be careful to be flexible, open, and curious, rather than judging and thinking. Of course, this is a kung fu that needs to be practiced constantly.
It is through "mindfulness" that we awaken ourselves to the present moment, to ourselves, to the environment, and at the same time to appreciate every wonderful moment in life. Eating is eating, sleeping is sleeping, doing homework is doing homework. Calm and joyful.
Through continuous mindfulness practice, we improve our self-awareness and understand how we feel, how we think, and how we react. This is also the beginning of our beginning to pay attention to ourselves and take care of ourselves. At that time, "I am angry" becomes "I see myself angry about something"; "I am miserable", it becomes, "I am now surrounded by painful emotions, which makes me feel some discomfort in my chest and my breathing is not smooth"; "I am a failure", it becomes, "I have a thought about [I am a failure] in my head now"... You see, through mindfulness awareness, our understanding of ourselves is more comprehensive, more detailed, deeper, and more objective. Nature is not easily seduced and controlled by the symbolic world. Only in this way can we become the masters of the symbols, to control the symbols for my use and be trapped by them.
It is also through mindfulness that we separate ourselves from our emotions, from our thoughts. In this way, we can freely move between the symbolic world and the real world. Cognition can merge, as long as I know I'm merging. Again, as long as I want to, I can dissociate. I can still avoid emotions, but I know what I'm avoiding, and I can avoid them as long as I want to.
With such awareness, your world will become very different. At the very least, you have the power to choose freely. You can continue to fall into pain, you can hope to be drunk and not wake up. But as long as you are willing, reality and the key to the door at this moment, I put it in your hand and can open this door at any time.
Mindfulness is like the role of a ferryman, transporting us from the symbolic world to the present, the real world, to fully experience and feel. With the help of it, you will truly appreciate what it means to be a flower at the moment. This is going to be a wonderful process that you need to explore and explore slowly on your own. If you're still a little skeptical, a little incredulous, or need to explore more, I recommend you to watch The Happiness Trap, written by Luce Harris of Australia. The title may seem like chicken soup for the soul, but it's actually a professional popular book about ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Its core technology is mindfulness. And there are a lot of exercises in the book, which can meet the learning and use of the general reader.
At this point, what should be said and what should not be said is basically finished. The sudden thought of a particularly appropriate sentence can be used as an ending:
The rose fragrance of yesteryear is gone, and what we have is an empty name.
Fragrance is reality, empty names are symbols. Through symbols, we recreate a world, just as nature built a mirage with light. We have spent our entire lives building our symbolic world, and hopefully today we can reflect on and observe our long-standing behavior.
Finally, I hope that in these two worlds, you can go in and out. Don't favor one over the other, and come and go as you please. At that point, all you have is what I call mental flexibility. Harness symbols, not alienate them. It can be salty or sweet, painful or happy. This requires cultivation, but fortunately we know the direction of cultivation.
Let's stop here today!
Ps: Believe me, everything I said is wrong.
Past Articles:
0. "Breaking the | Life is Concrete – "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone About 44"
1. "Media is Sex| The Invaded Private Life – "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone About 39"
2. "When You Wake Up from a Dream| Psychological trauma when you grow up - "Maybe you should find someone to talk to 13"
3. "Real World VS Symbol World | Self-awareness of a schizophrenic patient
4. "Troubles | Why I Grew Up - "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone" Fan wai 08
5. "Growing up, is it slaughter or empowerment?" ——" Maybe You Should Talk to Someone" Fan Wai 07
6. "Kitsch | If You Love Me - "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone" Fan Wai 06
7. Boundaries | The Bondage of Maternal Love - "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone" Fanwai 05
8, "Talk about | Why what I said is wrong - "Maybe you should find someone to talk to" Fanwai 01
9. The Power of Ideas | Sex, Love, and Marriage's Past and Present Lives – "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone 45(End)"
![Don't love a man who makes you cheap.[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)