Wikipedia of Spiritual/Psychological Techniques - An Example

Dear Carrie, AKA:  “West Michigan Alien:” (p.s. this is an example of my sense of humor, please feel free to ignore it)

  Thanks for your nice email about the Spiritual Wikipedia.  However, let me first say a few words about Zen Body Being.  The section related to my particular technique starts around page 15 and goes through about page 55.   I believe the initial chapter is entitled “Creating Feeling” and how to do that is the important concept to learn.  This way if you are in a reading crunch, you can just read that section.  I can’t tell you the exact pages since I don’t have a copy with me, as I loan them to interested patients.  I add this as I noted you are a nurse, so you might have an opportunity to pass on some of this information to the patients you work with, if you think it works for you.  While the technique worked wonders for me, I think perhaps it was because I was ready for it.  I’d be very interested to see what you think about the book once you get a chance to read it.

  Your questions follow:

Do you see this as actually accessible through Wikipedia or just a Wiki-like addition to Integral Life?

  To be honest, I was just being sneaky when I posted this on Integral Life.  I was hoping the administrators for the site or some hungry smart younger person would be looking for things to add to IL to make it more of a draw for a wider audience, and so I hoped they would pick up on my suggestion and add it to the IL site.  However, I had one other person respond to my idea and he was someone who has worked for over 10 years with Ken Wilber and the other integral life people and he said this is not something they are interested in.  So, that idea is shot down.  Ah well.

Who is the audience?

I was hoping IL, but I’m also looking to set up my own site for use by my patients and perhaps expand it once it gets past a certain point and has shown itself to be useful.

Who gets to contribute?

If it were through IL, then anyone who was a member could contribute.  If I run it, I’ll probably just limit it to what I know and do, since I don’t yet have the time to be the editor.

Would there/should there be an editor? (The disclaimer brings up for me issues of safety and liability.)

There would have to be an editor to separate out the chaff and make sure liability issues were addressed adequately.  Thus, if I did it myself, I’d have to limit it to things I’m familiar with.

Would that be you?

I was hoping some fearless soul at IL with more experience in this area would jump on this great opportunity, hoping to make a name for themself.  Alas, probably not to be.

How/who to judge the validity of an entry?

Therein lies the rub and why I was hoping to have someone with vast experience set this up and edit it.  If I did it, I would thus have to limit it to areas with which I have experience.

I'd love to see this kind of format used to explain various meditation practices (such as tonglen, vipassana, etc.).

  Last night I ordered some books by B. Alan Wallace, a professor in California and a Buddhist monk who sometimes uses meditation for psychological conditions (treating obscessive compulsive disorders, etc.  I noted his book called “Genuine Happiness” might be something you might like since he examines several types of Buddhist meditation.  I got his book on the Taboo of Subjectivity, since Wilber recommended it, and happened to notice he has written a lot of other really fascinating books.

 It would also be great to see, for instance, the various treatments for fulcrum pathologies Ken Wilber has outlined in Integral Psychology in this format with clickable references to explore. There are probably myriad techniques that lie outside of the western and eastern traditions as well. I can imagine how powerful and helpful this type of reference would be as it develops and matures.

  I totally agree, but there doesn’t seem to be the IL interest in this sort of thing presently.  I suspect it is a financial/time/talent thing.  However, relating to treatments for pathologies, I think it is the F2 to F3 transition (emotion to mind) that is a frequent problem for many people.  Thus, I looked for some good books that addressed their treatment and found a couple that I thought especially helpful.  Dr. Eugene Gendlin originated “Focusing” and wrote several books on it.  However, I also found two other books that used focusing for more spiritual purposes.  The first is something like Bio-Spirituality and the second is by Elfie Hinterkopf who wrote a book on “Integrating Spirituality in Counseling”.  I think the last book is the best.

  Basically “Focusing” is about holding your attention on an inner “felt sense” (such as a vague sense of tightness or anxiety) and asking questions and observing how the felt sense changes and becomes clearer as you get closer to the inner issue.  If the process is successful, the unpleasant felt sense unwinds, goes away, and you get a feeling of release, peace, and/or relief.  The “felt sense” Gendlin describes is fairly close to what I reported feeling in my Wikipedia entry; I just worked with it differently.  However, I think that the focusing books support that the technique I described is similar to something that other people have used previously with good benefit, so perhaps it isn’t too idiosyncratic.  Wilber also says that focusing is a good technique to contact the shadow and I would agree.  However, again, when things come up using my technique, I just dissolve the residual emotion of anger or whatever is associated with it, but leave the memory otherwise intact.  Well, ok, maybe I also ask for forgiveness, give thanks, or whatever, to try and now associate a positive feeling with the memory, as I am plagued by remembering too many dumb things I did and regret when I was young, not to mention last week.

  I hope this is helpful.

Yours,

Mb

PS: if you have the time (and money), if I were you, I’d become a nurse practitioner.  Much better pay, more freedom and you could practice integral medicine more in depth.  Plus, as an outpatient NP, you get to deal with a lot of psychological and stress issues, which is where I try and teach my patients these inner skills.  Last: this is the only way we are going to meet the Boomer crush of aging patients.  This is especially true of rural areas like western Michigan.  But keep a look out for aliens if you go there. (Dang it, there goes that humor again...dissolve....dissolve...dissolve ).