What irrational woo-woo things are you into?

[horsewoman]

Globulis... I know there is no scientific evidence that they work and it seems ridiculous that they should work, but they do. I use them only for minor things, obviously, and feel slightly stupid every time. But they do help, even if it is only a placebo effect.

Another thing that seems rather pseudo scientific is brain entrainment / binaural beats. I did a six month long brain entrainment meditation programm that absolutely changed my life.
Binaural beats have been a godsend for my migraines. Listening to binaural tracks makes the attacks almost bearable, and I feel so much better the day after. So I don't care if it is new age hippie shit or real science.

[ertyu]

Law of Attraction.

It has many names in case that one turns you off.

Or you can call it confirmation bias. Or positive psychology. Whatever, it pulled me from depression and catapulted me to great achievements.

Do you mind writing about how did the law of attraction work for you? Depressed schmuck here, looking for any help he can get, but you're right, i'm of the type that's suspicious and a little turned off by "the law of attraction." Curious about your perspective and what your journey was.

Also a fan of sigils (as is all of Corporate America).

What are those? First time I hear of them, the corporate america part makes me even more curious.

[ertyu]

I now have big yoga words for most of this, but I don't think they are needed to have the experience. I'd also note that while in my personal case, coming down from an aggressive energy was the need, that's unique to the individual. Some people may need to find aggression. Part of the teacher's role is reading an individual and offering the space that meets them.

Thanks, this helped and made a lot of sense. It's amazing 6 months of consistent practice was as little as you needed to start seeing an effect. Awesome.

What you wrote also made me think about what energy I need to discover and where I might need to be met. Something that jumped out to me was that the yoga class was a positive experience for you in the beginning which helped stick with it. Also, that it worked with where you found yourself, not against it. Well, where I seem to find myself right now is, there is this energy in me that says, "you must do more more more it's never enough you must suffer and do more until you're destroyed."

Tried to see where it comes from and couldn't get a sense. It doesn't feel like it comes from me - which is probably why I am not suicidal even though I am depressed. It feels like it comes from outside, an imperative I must obey, but it doesn't feel connected to any particular person or experience. Just this sense that I must force muself, that I must work harder and more and it's never enough. Now, in my case, that makes it hard to even get a practice off the ground. There's also a very self-protective part of me which tries to keep at bay the imperative that i must work and force myself through resistance and keep at it until I am destroyed. I don't get any pleasure out of this destruction but the energy does; it feels like my destruction is something i deserve and something that would please it greatly.

The tl;dr of this is, I guess, that I cannot get a yoga practice (or an exercise habit, or a dieting habit) going because all these feel like footholds for that energy. I am not struggling against it, more like, there is a grounded energy in me that wants me to keep existing. Again, none of these feel personal - that they originate from me, or that I "hate myself" as the phrase goes, the destructive energy just has the feel of, it would revel in the the sense of power as it pushes me down. So, that's where I am and that's where a class would have to "meet" me. It occurs to me that giving in to the energy - "well, alright, let's destroy you, then" and working harder and more towards that destruction might get me out the other end, too. I guess I am not strong enough to let go into my own obliteration - my resistance to work, exercise, and life in general I guess feels like it's about that, about preventing my own suffering and obliteration - though there definitely is a masochistic pleasure of giving in to the destructive revelry of that force. Thoughts?

[ertyu]

I don't care if it is new age hippie shit or real science.

Hm I think you're right. I started this post with such a distinction in mind but it ultimately doesn't matter. What matters is, is it useful.

What six month long program did you do?

[Jean]

Réincarnation as well. I'm pretty convinced that i am and have been bound forever to this Galaxy.
Trees communicating with us in some ways, through chemicals and ultrasounds maybe. I even suspect them of actively meddling with our mood depending if they want us around or not, and maybe even heal us if they have the right chemical at hand.
I also suspect mixed race people to bé usually very hard to reincarnate into. That's quite woo

[FBeyer]

...Meditation: not woo. Change in brain patterns has been measured. Mindfulness-based psychotherapies have been developed. Chanting: imo also not woo. Sound waves are mechanical. So chanting is kinda like internal organ massage + mindfulness in one.

This.

Chanting actually affects the vagus nerve, which is the connection between your gut and your brain. It's the reason we have a 'gut feeling' at all.
Singing out loud (choirs, stadiums, in the shower...), laughing, breathing into your belly rather than your chest, controlled breathing, sighing loudly (relaxation, sex, overwhelm...), and chanting all affect the vagus nerve in a mechanical manner. It's all part of the machinery that keeps your body calm.

Some yogis think the Aummmm chant is connected to the universe's vibration, in reality you're tickling one of the most extended nerves in your body while you do it.

It feels amazing! You can use it actively to calm your limbic system down in a manner of seconds if you do it right.

Not woo!

[Scott 2]

What you wrote also made me think about what energy I need to discover and where I might need to be met.

The yoga framework I've found helpful for energy analysis is the gunas:

https://yogainternational.com/article/v ... tal-forces

My favored framework for rebalancing is the koshas:

https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/you-are-here

I personally prefer the interwoven tapestry metaphor over the Russian nesting doll one. I think the koshas are better worked with concurrently, not linearly. A tapestry better represents this.


IMO putting the parts together for your life, requires a journey of self reflection. Even the best trained teacher is only a facilitator - another student sharing lessons from their own path, maybe offering some guidance to the way.

I personally am far from that expert, so I hesitate to offer more than the tools that have worked for me.


I will say - if you are dealing with depression, it's likely a heavily contemplative practice is not right at this time. Dwelling in a very misaligned energetic space is not constructive. My personal observation has been people working depression (or anxiety) do better emphasizing physical practices, often with group participation.

Edited to add - a practice does not have to be yoga poses on a yoga mat. My wife and I took a meditation class from a former Buddhist leader. He "retired" into a high level position in the Theosophical society. He was 100% ok with her petting the cat as a form of meditation. Structured practices are only a starting point, an idea.

[ertyu]

Makes sense. I'll check out the websites you suggested and reconsider. Thank you Scott, your thoughtful responses to this are much appreciated.

[HalfCent]

Sigils are a magic thing. You create a beautiful symbol out of the letters of a secret phrase or goal, then burn it, forget about it, masturbate to it, whatever -- and then let it go. It's like casting a spell. Your desire often comes to pass. The Corporate America thing is a joke but seems to be true in that our world today is populated by brand logos that are essentially sigils, for which we all have instant associations. Magic is an English nature-worship-type system of rituals and beliefs. I discovered this they way I find many things: Scouring the internet for my dopamine hit of new information.

https://thetravelingwitch.com/blog/2016 ... ing-sigils (just randomly pulled this up now)

LoA has roots in Transcendentalism and New Thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_at ... w_Thought)

It's a grab bag of Eastern philosophies, though it also contains a lot of what was perspicaciously described about yoga above (that post inspires me to get back into yoga). But the powerful bit is the cognitive reframing.

What helped me was the concept of imagining my way out of depression. You can't think your way out. Thinking got you INTO the hole. You have to IMAGINE a whole new reality, and FEEL it as if it were already real. You do this in tiny ways, feeling better in micro-instants. You're building mental muscle. In my world I was dealing with financial scarcity, parenting, an impossible profession and an addict. I couldn't change any of those things. I still deal with them. But I have greatly reduced the self-hatred that had me only focusing on the negative. And by external societally approved markers of success, I did manage some achievements/improvements as a result.

I'm not a follower type (at least not OFF the internet) so my process involved finding a LoA guru and listening endlessly.

Sadghuru is great -- might not call him LoA, more mindfulness. It's all on a spectrum. LoA tends to be more focused on getting what you want, American-style, while mindfulness (Eckhart Tolle) is more focused on watching your mind (sitting on a park bench, European-style) and letting go of the judgement when it actively tortures you.

Getting older has also helped. Evidence implies that late 30s-early 40s is a time of more depression. This too shall pass.

You write eloquently about your sadistic thoughts. What a blessing you are not suicidal. I finally let go of that specific form of mental torture and it's been a couple years since I've had a suicidal thought. I still have random thoughts of self-harm or disturbing things -- sometimes when in a moment of bliss. Thanks, brain! I also had a long period (years) of therapy that I found very helpful, though the therapist did not have a useful reframing of my disturbing thoughts and implied they were slightly mentally ill. Years later, I found LoA and that helped more than the therapy! On the good side, she did not recommend medication and that cemented my belief that most medication for depression is placebo. (*My belief*, keyboard warriors)

But being depressed doesn't have to be something you fight alone. Getting help is not easy, finding the right person or group isn't either. Taking action is critical, and that is exactly what you are doing here. The mystic elements have the power to pull you onto a better plane of existence. Indeed, you write about your depression as a malevolent external force. It's possible that force is parental programming from the very first part of your life. (I got excited about that theory, read a book on it, chucked it.)

LoA says, "What if that external force were BENEVOLENT? Well, it is. Everything you desire has already happened. You simply need to align yourself energetically to it."

[HalfCent]

Totally agree with Scott 2 about physical vs contemplative. Physical in tiny ways helps get away from this ego mind that in our current information-dense society maladaptively wants to control everything. The body WANTS to heal, and like a seed contains all the instructions. Like a gardener we give it soil, sunlight and water so that it can flourish without our excessive planning and ruminating.

[HalfCent]

Also profoundly agree with Jean about trees. That strange nervous feeling when you are in a dark forest? It's coming from the fact that you are venturing inside a living community of connected beings. I intend to read more about tree behavior.

[ertyu]

Thanks @HalfCent, what you wrote was really helpful. And nope, not suicidal. I also don't think I hate myself. The opinion of myself I hold at my core is that I mean well and I'm not a person who actively tries to screw others over for his benefit. I am also loyal to those I'm close to and I am driven and open to help e.g. by being a listener. I am quite miserable but not for those reasons. I guess I hadn't appreciated it enough.

[Jean]

@halfcent
Funny, my suspicion comes from the exact opposite feeling, entering some part of a forest, and feeling incredibly welcome, really as if the trees wanted you to live there, it could be an attempt from them to mittigate an over abundance of boars or deer, I don't know, but this kind of experience gives a great feeling of belonging. Strangely, i felt what you descibed for the first time this year while in michigan. For all the objective factors, michigan is perfect, but I had a terrible feeling in some of its forest. In addition, while in the army, absolutly all the conscript whose most ancestor reproduced after living in africa expressed very unconfortable feeling while we had to stay in forests. All these observations could have different explanations, but i really like the delusion of having a special relationships with trees.
Also because sitting in my forest for an hour already cured migraines that usually lasts for at least 24hours, but it could totaly come from many other things.
@reepicheep
Donar and Wotan are distant cousins of mine, but I haven't seen them in ages.

[HalfCent]

x

[enigmaT120]

I thought I already said this. But.

Song circles. I like those. Only been to two so far.

[George the original one]

I can read animal behavior. Salmon/trout, dogs, and sometimes cats. And my human sexual connections, the "love at first sight".

[HalfCent]

With apologies to those who believe -- am I the only one who finds the Meyer's Briggs framework to be woo-woo?

[Sclass]

Simulated reality.

[George the original one]

With apologies to those who believe -- am I the only one who finds the Meyer's Briggs framework to be woo-woo?

I think of MB as a descriptive lens rather than absolutes, like having a half dozen words for different kinds of rain rather than merely measuring them by cumulative rainfall rates.

[chenda]

Alan Watts gives a very good argument in favour of the rationality of reincarnation:

https://youtu.be/L3MA0n4jEXk