Pharmaceuticals and the Spiritual Path

Hello Helen:

  Isn't it nice that the internet enable us to talk with someone across the pond as if they were next door?   Of course, I do miss hearing those wonderful English accents.  I also enjoyed reading some of your other blogs and your profile in order to get an idea of your background before I replied to your question about my "inner techniques".

  I am curious about your response to what I have to say about my "inner techniques", as communicating better about them is one of my present "projects".  Please see my blog about the Spiritual Technique Wikipedia.  In other words, I'm looking for ways to more generalize my suggestions and ideas, as I think presently they may just represent mostly my own psychological make up.  What I'm really aiming for is a way to allow more accurate communication about inner sensations, feeling, and skills in a way that removes as much of the religious hot buttons and cultural aspects as possible, and yet would still be valuable and helpful for the religious as well as the secular minded.

  That said, I will first describe my "inner technique" at a certain level of abstraction and then start giving you background until it hopefully starts making sense to you.  What I would like from you, if possible, is to tell me at what point what I'm telling you (hopefully) starts making inner sense to you, when you "get it", since this will depend upon where you and I are in the 4 quadrants, how well we can span that gap, how good a writer I am, and many other variables.  Since you're working on your doctorial thesis on AQAL, then hopefully this won't be too painful or confusing.

  My "inner technique" consists of "dissolving away" certain types of sensations.  As an example, if I have a conversation with someone and make a faux pas and feel guilty, I feel that guilt as an inner tension or sensation.  Part of my inner skill consists in being able to actually sense that guilt as a sensation, and more or less isolate it as such (more later).  I then have to make a decision to see if I'm willing to let that sensation go or not (this is a critical step, more later).  If I'm willing, I use my inner skill to dissolve or release that sensation.  That is my inner technique.

  Next, a few words about what it doesn't do for me.  It does not make me just forget the interaction or that I made a faux pas, nor does it suppress it.  For me, it just mostly takes the negative emotion away.  Thus, it enables me to look at what I did, analyze it and try and do better the next time, rather than avoid looking at what happened, since I feel guilty. It also allows me to free up my inner resources, my "inner computer RAM" as it were, so that when I interact with the next person, I'm not pre-occupied with my previous problem.  It generally allows me to just deal with it and then move on.  It's not 100% and not a panacea, but it's made my life a lot easier.

  Now, more than a few words on the "more later" statements above.  This inner skill developed out of basically a progressive relaxation technique that I had learned from Peter Ralston's book, "Zen Body Being".  Part of the book discusses "creating feeling" and feeling deeply into the body with the goal of being able to move quickly while staying completely relaxed, even while doing martial arts.  I was doing this partially because of learning his particular style of tai chi using "effortless power", but also because of chronic neck pain and muscle spasm.

  At any rate, I got fairly good at locating places of muscle spasm in my neck, brining my attention to them and then creating a feeling of relaxation in them and actually having them relax.  I initially learned what a feeling of relaxation felt like by bringing my attention to my hands and just trying to feel everything about them, the muscles, bones, tendons, etc while doing what I could to relax them.  Here's where I get into trouble with my explanation, since how do you describe to someone how to relax a muscle or what it feels like?  On the other hand, most people can volitionally relax muscles if they just spend a little time doing so, but some people have a lot of trouble.  For me, when my hands were relaxed, they felt like they were lightly buzzing or tingling.  Sometimes I would get a feeling that felt like a little sensation of flowing.  When people ask me how that feels, I have them progressively move their awareness in about 4-6 inch (10-15cm) increments from their shoulder down into their arm and into their hand, while trying to relax the area they are being aware of.  If they do it slowly, most people feel some sort of feeling of flow.  I suspect it really is a feeling of flow, as they are probably feeling the increased blood flow that occurs as the arm and hand relaxes.

  Well, I started this “creating feeling-relaxation” practice in January of 2007, practiced a few minutes several times a day, and by August 2007 was getting pretty good at it.  This relates to the first "more later" note, but at this time I was only dealing with dissolving physical tension.  At the same time, I was also practicing Peter Ralston's tai chi inner exercises and one of them was to shift my awareness from inside my body to the room surrounding my body and then to hold it there.  It sounded like a weird exercise, since my scientist mind told me I couldn't sense anything that way, but I did it anyway.  However, in doing it, it felt interesting and relaxing, so I made it part of my daily meditation routine.  I think it was this “sensing outside my body” practice that led me to the next step up in my inner technique.

  On August 25, 2007, I had an interaction with someone that really irritated me.  I started feeling tension building up, so I just automatically started sensing where it was and trying to dissolve it away.  Because I was stuck in feeling righteously indignant, I found I couldn't initially let it go, but then finally I got to the point where I said to myself:  "I'm just tired of dealing with this and I just want to get rid of it."  This appeared to be the key in that I was now willing to let it go and this step relates to my second "more later" note.  As soon as I made that inner decision, my awareness went to that spot, I created a feeling of relaxation in the area of the tension, and voila, it was gone.

  So, why was this event so important to me?  First, it was the first time I had used the inner technique, knowingly, on an emotional tension-sensation and not a physical one.  Second, after I had "poofed" it away, I said:  "Hey, I felt that tension as if it were outside of my face and about 6 inches to the left!"  I have learned not to try and analyze things like this too much as all I get is a metaphysical headache, since I know enough to explain it 5 or 6 ways, but no way to definitively say which one.  So, I just shrugged and said:  "Well, I guess this is probably just one of many ways the (or my) body-mind perceives and stores emotional sensations."

  Since then I have been pleasantly surprised to learn that I can use this inner technique to dissolve many other types of negative (and sometimes excessive positive) emotions.  It's not magic, since it still takes me 40-50 minutes of dissolving while walking my dog to get rid of big stuff and even then it may only bring it down to a dull roar.  However, it is enough to where I can function and not fume and bring my attention to the people I'm with, enjoy myself, and not withdraw and be pre-occupied.

  This was probably more than you wanted, but I had a good time writing it and I hope you find it helpful.  However, I realize that many inner techniques and skills may be idiosyncratic to a particular person and so not helpful to others.  Hence, my goal to collect and collate many inner techniques and skills from different types of people and put them into the Wikipedia I mentioned earlier.  That way perhaps people can look through them and find something that would be helpful to them.  However, I'm also aware that what is harmless to one person may cause problems in another, so suspect this Wikipedia won't be for general public consumption.  But who knows, maybe we will have different Wikipedias for different types of people, depending upon their meme, or whatever.

  If you have time, please let me know your thoughts on this or any AQAL related problems you're working on.  My job is feast or famine, so now I'm in a famine and have time to write, so did so.  Other times I might not be able to write for a week or so.  FYI.

Yours,

mb

Dear Sham:

  I'm shocked I did not reply earlier to your email, since it has so many great ideas embedded in it.  By the way, interesting flutist you have on your photo profile.  I'll bet he/she plays a lot of blues...  Just a little mythical joke, I think.  Please feel free to make fun of my dog's head under the cover photo, if you want.  I just put it up since I don't have any photos of myself worth showing yet, so unfortunately no symbolism there, I just through he looked cute.   

  Anyway, as you can see from my profile and blogs, I'm interested in cataloging various techniques that can be used to develop internal skills, such as fighting stress, depression, etc.  So, I completely agree with your assessment regarding psychiatry finally recognizing that many psychological illnesses are neurochemically based, as well as that it then does not empower the patient to do something other than just take a pill.

  Part of the problem, as I see it, is that first, insurance doesn't (usually) pay for meditation training or even most psychological counseling, etc.  Hell, many people don't even have insurance.  However, the second problem being that the people doing the counseling and meditation training need a certain level of internal development in many lines to be really effective.  Hence I'm glad to see the training for AQAL counseling developing.  Unfortunately that doesn't help the psychiatrists and while many are ok, there are a lot that leave much to be desired. Very flatland and other concerns.

  Third, is that most people would rather take a pill than do meditation every night.  Fourth, most/many people aren't capable of doing meditation every night and doing what is required during the meditation.

  That said, I see much of it as a cultural problem and I see Integral Life as a culture that would potentially support daily meditation, learning internal techniques, and learning about multi-pluralism and higher memes in school.  I feel badly for our kids having to go through 12 years of school and then most aren't able to do anything but menial tasks when they get out and psychologically aren't prepared for the stresses involved.

Assuming Dr. Mike's still in the Integral Community...

I'll come from the standpoint that I don't have the answers for this in myself and after 20+ years of dealing, coping, medicating depression.  What I'd like to put out there is that if my depression (or anyone else's particular chemical imbalance) is a genetic, then why did I not feel depressed before I was 15 years old?

My real question though Dr. Mike, is in your practice do you have a treatment plan that has as a goal to end the need for medication?  I ask assuming and thinking for many years that there mut be some type of restoration of chemical balance once some of the other core issues (shadow, physical, spiritual) are developed and brought into balance.

That's my hope at least.