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Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

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21–30 of 67 posts

Re: Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You say it drives your wife crazy, so it seems that being in this state doesn't actually help you resolve issues between you and your wife. It only numbs you to the conflict and puts the whole burden on your wife. I don't understand why you're saying this. The technique wasn't primarily to resolve issues with spouse; it was to fight panic attacks.

If the OP needs to zone-out to avoid a panic attack when talking with his wife, it sounds like they have some serious marital problems, and this is just a way of avoiding dealing with them.

> If the OP needs to zone-out to avoid a panic attack when talking with his wife

He didn't said that. His wife his just frustrated that he can do this, I'm pretty sure he never told us he did this to annoy his wife on purpose or escaping.

Re: Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

#22

I suffered from panic attacks in my youth. Mindfulness meditative practice enabled me to breathe in a such a way that I could stop the panic attack in its tracks. I further extended this breathing pattern to enter a state of deep calm on command. It drives my wife crazy, but if I so choose, I can completely zen out within 30 seconds and enter a state of total relaxation. In this state I may acknowledge her talking to…

This is textbook spiritual bypassing. You are misusing Buddhist teachings in order to run away from your life. Buddhism especially (but also related religions) is about facing the difficulty in your life as it is, not "blissing out for 30 minutes while you wife is talking to you"

I think you misread the comment and he doesn't do this to escape his wife. You should reflect on yourself to understand what mechanism makes you jump head on on a (illegitimate) patronizing opportunity.

Re: Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

#23
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It only numbs you to the conflict and puts the whole burden on your wife." Or it prevents the conflict from escalating. Panic and anger are connected, so if he found a way to be calm and stop the conversation, I guess this is way better than having the conflict in a mode of distress. So later, when both are calm, the issues can get resolved.

Persistent antagonists and provocateurs tend to become antagonised and provoked when their attempts to antagonise and provoke fail. That is a secondary consideration to preventing further antagonisation, provocation, and escallation of the situation itself . That said, there seems to be an underlying interpersonal conflict, and possibly incompatibility, here.

"That said, there seems to be an underlying interpersonal conflict, and possibly incompatibility, here."

Possible, but I would not judge so much, from the little that was shared. Op just shared what worked for him, to prevent panic attacks. And he shared that their are downsides as well, that frustrates his wife. The rest is speculation.

Re: Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

#24
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the OP needs to zone-out to avoid a panic attack when talking with his wife, it sounds like they have some serious marital problems, and this is just a way of avoiding dealing with them.

> If the OP needs to zone-out to avoid a panic attack when talking with his wife He didn't said that. His wife his just frustrated that he can do this, I'm pretty sure he never told us he did this to annoy his wife on purpose or escaping.

> In this state I may acknowledge her talking to me but have little or no memory of any conversations after.

He tunes out his wife

> if I so choose

Willfully

> It drives my wife crazy

And often enough that it’s an issue.

He hasn’t shown up again in this bizarre thread, heck he’s probably doing it right now!

Re: Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

#25

I suffered from panic attacks in my youth. Mindfulness meditative practice enabled me to breathe in a such a way that I could stop the panic attack in its tracks. I further extended this breathing pattern to enter a state of deep calm on command. It drives my wife crazy, but if I so choose, I can completely zen out within 30 seconds and enter a state of total relaxation. In this state I may acknowledge her talking to…

This is textbook spiritual bypassing. You are misusing Buddhist teachings in order to run away from your life. Buddhism especially (but also related religions) is about facing the difficulty in your life as it is, not "blissing out for 30 minutes while you wife is talking to you"

Do Buddhist teachings not talk about passing judgments? OP provided an anecdote which makes no claims about "running away from life".

Re: Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

#26
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the OP needs to zone-out to avoid a panic attack when talking with his wife He didn't said that. His wife his just frustrated that he can do this, I'm pretty sure he never told us he did this to annoy his wife on purpose or escaping.

> In this state I may acknowledge her talking to me but have little or no memory of any conversations after. He tunes out his wife > if I so choose Willfully > It drives my wife crazy And often enough that it’s an issue. He hasn’t shown up again in this bizarre thread, heck he’s probably doing it right now!

Don't build scenarios out of aligned facts :

> but if I so choose, I can completely zen out within 30 seconds and enter a state of total relaxation.

Sometime peoples just want to have own time and relaxing in their own preferred way

> In this state I may acknowledge her talking to me but have little or no memory of any conversations after.

It happened to his wife to come and start talking to him in this state, but him being able to acknowledge her without remembering the conversation causes her great frustration.

>> He hasn’t shown up again in this bizarre thread, heck he’s probably doing it right now!

Given the number of totally unjustified judgmental, misread based responses, no wonder one would shy out. Assuming that checking for answers it the sane behavior in the first place.

Re: Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Persistent antagonists and provocateurs tend to become antagonised and provoked when their attempts to antagonise and provoke fail. That is a secondary consideration to preventing further antagonisation, provocation, and escallation of the situation itself . That said, there seems to be an underlying interpersonal conflict, and possibly incompatibility, here.

"That said, there seems to be an underlying interpersonal conflict, and possibly incompatibility, here." Possible, but I would not judge so much, from the little that was shared. Op just shared what worked for him, to prevent panic attacks. And he shared that their are downsides as well, that frustrates his wife. The rest is speculation.

Which is why I wrote the more suggestive "seems to be" rather than the declarative "is". "Might be" could also have been used.

Much of that depends on what is read into "drives my wife crazy", which could range from mild or even humorous response to scales far more irrational and concerning. My own experience over multiple relationships and time is that small irritations have a profound tendency to grow, and that as people age they become more of who they are, psychologically, much as other patterns of aging etch the same lines ever deeper.

It's an experientially-informed observation and caution, not a diagnosis. But it's something I'd suggest putting some consideration to for anyone noticing similar trends in their own relationships. The most glaring warning sign is a loss of respect by one, both, or all parties within a relationship, familial, social, business, or otherwise.

Re: Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

#28
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In this state I may acknowledge her talking to me but have little or no memory of any conversations after. He tunes out his wife > if I so choose Willfully > It drives my wife crazy And often enough that it’s an issue. He hasn’t shown up again in this bizarre thread, heck he’s probably doing it right now!

Don't build scenarios out of aligned facts : > but if I so choose, I can completely zen out within 30 seconds and enter a state of total relaxation. Sometime peoples just want to have own time and relaxing in their own preferred way > In this state I may acknowledge her talking to me but have little or no memory of any conversations after. It happened to his wife to come and start talking to him in this state, but hi…

Well, OP could have framed his description a lot better since its easy even for native speakers to come up with conclusion he acts like an a-hole towards his wife and avoids conflicts. This is internet, folks don't re-read some anonymous comments 5 times to grok what was actually meant.

Good for him if he managed to get serious crippling condition under control, that's a hard feat deserving respect.

Not a fan of self-illusion claims about talking to god, that's not even how major religions are made from scratch (communication with God in my view is 2-way process, and no judaism/christian/muslim god ever talks back, but I get that it was probably not meant literally), but that's just an agnostic's nitpick when seeing righteous religious folks who claim weird stuff in my view.

Re: Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

#29
This is an especially interesting read given that Huxley described his own apparent aphantasia - lack of mental visual imagery - in "The Doors of Perception":

    I am and, for as long as I can remember, I have always been a poor visualizer. Words, even the pregnant words of poets, do not evoke pictures in my mind. No hypnagogic visions greet me on the verge of sleep. When I recall something, the memory does not present itself to me as a vividly seen event or object. By an effort of the will, I can evoke a not very vivid image of what happened yesterday afternoon, of how the Lungarno used to look before the bridges were destroyed, or the Bayswater Road when the only buses were green and tiny and drawn by aged horses at three and a half miles an hour. But such images have little substance and absolutely no autonomous life of their own. They stand to real, perceived objects in the same relation as Homer's ghosts stood to the men of flesh and blood, who came to visit them in the shades. Only when I have a high temperature do my mental images come to independent life. To those in whom the faculty of visualization is strong my inner world must seem curiously drab, limited, and uninteresting.

Re: Aldous Huxley's Deep Reflection

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That said, there seems to be an underlying interpersonal conflict, and possibly incompatibility, here." Possible, but I would not judge so much, from the little that was shared. Op just shared what worked for him, to prevent panic attacks. And he shared that their are downsides as well, that frustrates his wife. The rest is speculation.

Which is why I wrote the more suggestive "seems to be" rather than the declarative "is". "Might be" could also have been used. Much of that depends on what is read into "drives my wife crazy", which could range from mild or even humorous response to scales far more irrational and concerning. My own experience over multiple relationships and time is that small irritations have a profound tendency to grow, and that as…

I noted your "seems to". I just wanted to point out, that it could be seen as overstepping a line, to suggest that the whole marriage is possibly incompatible, because of that little shared info. I mean, of course it does not sound ideal. But I would not dare to judge the whole relationship because of it.
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