Tag Archives: Emotions

Black Hearts Attacked

The fallout of police violence is killing black women like Erica Garner

By Christen A. Smith – The Conversation

“The sting of the premature death of 27-year-old Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, is still fresh.

On Christmas Eve, Erica Garner suffered a massive heart attack which caused extensive brain damage. She died on Dec. 30. This latest loss emphasizes something we have known: Black women are dying from the trauma of police violence and this issue must be grappled with before more die.

When I heard the news of Erica Garner’s heart attack, a wave of familiar shock and pain ran through me. I immediately recognized the correlation between her heart attack and her father’s death because I had seen it before.

As an anthropologist who studies the impact of police violence on black communities in Brazil and the United States, I was familiar with many stories like Erica’s. My research examines the ways that police violence kills black women slowly through trauma, pain and loss.

Some may find this idea startling. Let me explain.

Trauma, pain and loss

In the wake of the deaths of black people at the hands of the state – from the police to the prison system – the living are often weighted with a sadness that is too heavy to bear, and in the weeks and months following the initial death of a loved one, they become sick and many die prematurely.

(…)

Self-holding hacks

Below is a guidelines for a simple yet powerful exercise, if you give it a chance. The simultaneous placing of hands on – and thus connecting of- important centers (brain, heart, stomach..) can have an effect on the nervous system and help balance emotions on a daily basis. Importantly, it can open a “path back home” to a calm composed state in case of a crisis/panic. Like all exercises designed to help in times of emergency, it is best to practice in relatively more peaceful times, so as to be familiar with it.

Note you can also use these placing of hands to help soothe a friend, if they are OK with your touch in that moment.

>>>> Printable 2 steps self-holding exercises

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source: The Art of Healing Trauma, Heidi Hanson, citing Peter Levine.

The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture

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Following up on so many discussions about justice and healing is this painful and violent world, in relation with two workshops on consent in hacker culture (THF 2016, Montreal), this article is a deep proposition to care for emotions , nurture ourself and each other and develop emotional  intelligence in order to heal from rape culture. Lacking skills about consent is something that touch all of us, but even more those who were educated in a culture where emotions are not welcome, not valued or not understood. Emotional intelligence can be developed, along with communication skills and we all need it, so much. Nora Samaran wrote this text about a year ago, and I keep looking at it, as a way forward, as a healing path.

The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture

 

JOY (Victor Serge)

Russian revolutionary Victor Serge on JOY in his book MEN in PRISON

“The only healthy reaction of the organism against the incessant, multiple, insidious, and harassing pressure of madness is joy. We all have great powers of vitality. We are filled with such deep love of life that sometimes it takes only the slightest outside impulse to make the flame of joy suddenly rise up in us. And we are elevated above ourselves, the present, despair, prison.”

 

SENG: Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted

“SENG’s mission is to empower families and communities to guide gifted and talented individuals to reach their goals: intellectually, physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.

SENG envisions a world where gifted, talented and creative individuals are supported to build gratifying, meaningful lives and contribute to the well-being of others. To this end, SENG reaches out to diverse communities that share our mission across the nation and the globe. ”

Check the Resource Library !!

 

Pyjama Letter

“Dear Vasco,

In response to your question, “What is worth doing and what is worth having?”, I would like to say simply this. It is worth doing nothing and having a rest; in spite of all the difficulty it lay cause you must rest Vasco – otherwise you will become RESTLESS!

I believe the world is sick with exhaustion and dying of restlessness. While it is true that periods of weariness help the spirit to grow, the prolonged ongoing state of fatigue to which our world seems to be rapidly adapting is ultimately soul destroying as well as earth destroying. the ecology of evil flourishes and love cannot take root in this situation. Tiredness is one of our strongest, most noble and instructive feelings. It is an important aspect of our CONSCIENCE and must be heeded or else we will not survive.

When you are tired you must HAVE that feeling and you must act upon it sensibly – you MUST rest like the trees and the animals do. Yet tiredness has become a matter of shame ! This is a dangerous development. Tiredness has become the most suppressed feeling in the world. Everywhere we see people overcoming their exhaustion and pushing on with intensity-cultivating the great mass mania which all around is making life so hard and ugly-so cruel and meaningless-so utterly graceless- and being congratulated for overcoming it and pushing it deep down inside themselves as it it were a virtue to do this. And of course Vasco, you know what happens when such strong and natural feelings are denied – they turn into the most powerful and bitter poisons with dreadful consequences. We live in a world of these consequences and then wonder why we are so unhappy.

So I gently urge you, Vasco, do as we do in Curly Flat – learn to curl up and rest – feel your noble tiredness – learn about it and make a generous place for it in your life and enjoyment will surely follow. I repeat: it’s worth doing nothing and having a rest.

Yours sleepily,

Mr. Curly xxx

by Michael Leunig

On Compassion fatigue

Here is a nice (and somewhat soothing) article on a subject that is maybe not discussed enough among caregivers, or not discussed with the right approach ? The author calls it “Compassion fatigue”. Exhaustion from caring. It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional or not. Caring. Sometimes a very special kind of fatigue sets in, hard to describe. Sleep doesn’t even seem to heal it sometimes. The author notes that, contrary to what most people think and ask all the time, “protecting” oneself from the emotions of the person we’re helping, or setting boundaries between them and you not only doesn’t make sense, it is impossible, and absurd to even want to try, like a dead end. So how then, to recuperate ? What self-care for caregivers ?

>> Compassion and Compassion fatigue: balancing your emotions in the treatment room, Tracy Walton, Massage today

Suicide as Escape from Self (Baumeister, 1990)

Suicide as Escape from Self, is a theory developed by psychologist R. Baumeister, exposed in the 90’s journal article accessible here.

Article abstract :

“Suicide is analyzed in terms of motivations to escape from aversive self-awareness. The causal chain begins with events that fall severely short of standards and expectations. These failures are attributed internally, which makes self-awareness painful. Awareness of the self’s inadequacies generates negative affect, and the individual therefore desires to escape from self-awareness and the associated affect. The person tries to achieve a state of cognitive deconstruction (constricted temporal focus, concrete thinking, immediate or proximal goals, cognitive rigidity, and rejection of meaning), which helps prevent meaningful self-awareness and emotion. The deconstructed state brings irrationality and disinhibition, making drastic measures seem acceptable. Suicide can be seen as an ultimate step in the effort to escape from self and world”

 

Jesse Bering in Scientific American, sums up and comments on Baumeister’s theory: “According to Baumeister, there are six primary steps in the escape theory, culminating in a probable suicide when all criteria are met.”

They are :

1. Falling short of standards

2. Attributions to Self

3. High Self-awareness

4. Negative affect

5. Cognitive deconstruction

6. Desinhibition

 

Live and help live

Thoughts on suicide and the importance of taking care of each other, here in REMEMBERING AARON BY TAKING CARE OF EACH OTHER, by Clay Shirky –

Extract:

“The warning signs are well known. Persistent withdrawal. Mood swings. Previous attempts or family history. Talking about it. Self-erasure. The American Association of Suicidology has a good overview. There’s no perfect checklist, but we are better at knowing the signs in general than we are at acting on them in specific cases. Ask yourself “Whose suicide would sadden but not surprise me?”

The useful responses are well-known too. Reach out. Ask. Listen. Take casual mentions of suicide seriously. Be persistent about checking on someone. Don’t try to cure or fix anyone; that’s out of your league. Just tell them you care, and point them to professional resources. Wikipedia has a list of English-language suicide prevention hotlines. Help Guide has a good overview of what we know about prevention generally, and how to help the potentially suicidal.

We need to remember Aaron by supporting free culture, and by limiting prosecutorial abuse. But we also need to remember Aaron by taking care of each other. Our community is unusually welcoming of people disproportionately at risk, but we are also unusually capable of working together without always building close social ties. Github is great for distributing participation, but it is lousy for seeing how everyone is doing.

We need to remember Aaron by thinking of those among us at risk of dying as he did. Most of them won’t be martyrs — most of them will be people like Ilya and Will — but their deaths will be just as awful. And, as with every cause Aaron stood for, we know how to take on this problem. What we need is the will to act.”

Massage pendant les règles douloureuses

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Chaleur, chaleur… Douceur, douceur…
Bienveillance-amour, sécurité…

Assurez vous de travailler dans une pièce chaude, n’hésitez pas à utiliser des sources de chaleur d’appoint (bouillotte) pour poser sur les zones que vous n’êtes pas directement en train de travailler, et des couvertures, qui renforceront le cocon. Il s’agit de relâcher la crispation musculaire-morale dans tout le corps, de faciliter la circulation sanguine, de fluidifier les pensées agglomérées.

Quand vous travaillez sur l’avant du corps, placez des coussins sous les genoux pour minimiser la courbure (et donc les tensions) lombaires. Quand vous travaillez sur le dos, vous pouvez mettre un petit coussin sous les hanches pour libérer un peu le ventre. Ne commencez plutôt pas par masser le ventre: Créez le lien, réconfortez d’abord, mettez en sécurité, en massant le dos au début.

Choisissez une huile nutritive, et plutôt neutre, assurez vous en tout cas que les senteurs lui conviennent, ne la perturbent ou ne l’entêtent pas. De manière générale, attention à ce qui pourrait choquer les sens (lumière, sons, etc.). 

Comme chez la femme enceinte, n’employez pas de techniques d’acupressions profondes, douloureuses, ou qui pourrait provoquer le sursaut. Il y a bien des points d’acupuncture importants à masser pour soulager les troubles menstruels, mais selon moi ils sont plutôt à travailler avant dans le cycle (de préférence sur mesure au diagnostique individuel de chacune), pour les prévenir. 
Apaisez, nourrissez, réconfortez, enveloppez, réchauffez, par la patience, le temps, et les paumes pleines. Ne zappez pas d’une zone à l’autre, c’est destabilisant. Souvenez vous que pour la femme réglée, tout tend à être amplifié. Offrez lui égalité et constance. Restez, prenez votre temps, au bon niveau de contact: vraiment présent, mais pas profond. Travaillez en cercles, généreux, amples et plus petits, en alternant les sens des aiguilles d’une montre, voire en privilégiant le sens des aiguilles d’une montre. La femme réglée perd du sang, donc de l’energie, tous ces conseils servent à s’assurer que le massage ne va pas la “vider” d’avantage. 

Ouvrez les zones qui se sont resserrées sur elles-mêmes (lombaires, abdomen, épigastre) en “poussant” (voire techniques chinoises ci dessous) à paumes pleines vers l’extérieur. Ouvrez des directions pour que l’énergie se (re)distribue. 

Pensez à la tête, au cuir chevelu, que vous pouvez peignez avec vos doigts, longtemps, comme une maman infatigable, du front à l’arrière du crâne, et surtout du front vers les deux tempes et toute la partie au dessus des oreilles (canal de la Vésicule Biliaire, pour les intimes). Posez vos mains chaudes en coupe sur le dessus du crâne, restez, transmettez de l’amour du ciel, faites fondre le gel, les soucis éternels, les pleurs comprimés sous la voûte, ouvrez la respiration par le crâne, et à défaut de le sentir, visualisez le. 

Reliez tête et ventre en massant la ligne médiane avant du corps, lieu du canal extraordinaire Ren Mai, a.k.a mer du Yin, ou le Vaisseau Conception. 

Ne permettez pas d’intrusion dans votre espace temps et ne l’abandonnez sous aucun prétexte, pour répondre au téléphone ou autre. C’est déjà déplacé en temps normal, pour une femme douloureuse, c’est un deal-breaker.
 
Si elle se présente accueillez sa parole (sacrée) mais ne vous mêlez pas d’avoir un avis, qui plus est psy: c’est rarement votre place + vous risquez de l’embrouiller dans ce moment déjà potentiellement sombre et hormonalement brumeux. Mon avis: Rien de tel qu’un moment de paix sur terre permis par la respectueuse réserve du praticien quand tout le monde dehors y va de son petit avis. 

Principales techniques chinoises reçues et indiquées ici selon moi:

Génerales (tous niveaux)
 
ZHANG MO FA – Technique de pétrir en cercles avec paumes (dos, abdomen, côtes)
ZHANG PING TUI FA – Technique simple de pousser avec paume (dos, lombaires, ligne mediane avant du corps i.e. canal Ren Mai)
MU ZHI PING TUI FA – Technique simple de pousser avec le pouce (ligne mediane avant du corps, canal Ren Mai) 
FEN TUI FA – Technique de pousser en séparant (abdomen, lombaires, epigastre, cage thoracique)

Locales (niveaux plus avancés = attention ne s’improvise pas trop, pratiquez et recevez le d’abord…)

ZHI TUI FA – Technique de pousser tout droit  au pouce (entre nombril et pubis, le long de Ren Mai)
ZHI AN FA – Technique de pression au doigt, ici légère (points Ren Mai du sternum) 
ZHANG CA FA – Technique de friction avec les paumes (côtes)
ZHENG FA – Technique de vibration avec la paume (attention niveau très avancé, contre-indiqué pour le/la praticien.ne si il/elle est faible ou fatiguée), sur l’abdomen, pour l’utérus, le dantian de la femme. 

Holly Herndon’s NSA break up song

Holly Herndon’s HOME, a love/break up song “for prying eyes” and corrupt confidants/devices. Data rain of NSA symbols in music video by Metahaven.

Holly Herndon says:

For my debut album Movement, I communicated an intimacy with my laptop. It is my instrument, memory, and window to most people that I love. It is my Home.

The ongoing NSA revelations have fundamentally changed this relationship. I entrusted so much in my device. To learn this intimacy had been compromised felt like a grand betrayal. Is everything done privately on my laptop to be considered a public performance?

Metahaven says:

The NSA spying on our network may have been tacitly known from reports going back as far as 2002, but the aesthetics of this surveillance were not so known. Code names, acronyms, icons and graphics from a shadow world designed to never be publicly exposed.

For “Home,” we created a data rain of these NSA symbols.

 

“Calibration of feeling”

Julian Assange on emotions as body states, cultivation of character, passion, and purpose. From the archive of his Interesting Question, IQ.org.

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Tue 12 Dec 2006 : Calibration of feeling

Words have no power to change except when there’s a fork in the road with equally attractive paths.

In your position, I’d take a deep book, a backpack of food and a tent and go walking for three months along the.au or .nz coast. You need to recalibrate your emotions through recalibrating your body. Emotions are body states. The mind can not be strong without strength in its relation to the body. ‘Whatever’ is then quickly answered; wake with the sun, take the next step, eat the next bite and behold people and chairs become a delight. It’s hard for you to see this now, since future visions are colored with present emotional responses. But these emotional responses are just another part of your flesh, built from the integration of your neurons and body. It’s material, stuff, like muscle, constructed from last weeks potatoes and environmental stimulus. You can strengthen your will through overcoming physical hardship.

The natural environment provides man with ready motivational gradients, but civilization has filled them in. Hyper-civilized influences, such as computing, artificial lights, drugs, films, instant food supply, telephones and reading decalibrate by disconnecting behavior and reward and failing to provide the sense data that our biological mental and physical structures have evolved to require.

There’s little difference between a mouse exploring a new maze or a scientist realizing the greatest intellectual act of the age. Both are motivated by the same primitive brain regions that control feelings.

‘The point’ comes when feelings demand it. It can only be rationalized from the axioms of primitive emotion. If these axioms are weak due to decalibration by civilization, ‘the point’ eludes us. If they are strong, we pursue our goals with passion and vigor.

Sat 16 Jun 2007 : Everyone and no one wants to save the world

When the world extended to one’s surrounding hills and mountains and over them was only legend, saving the world was approchable and a natural activity to all of independent character.

You do not need to justify the possession of these noble instincts. Such attributes are normally distributed. You have a constellation of these attributes and that makes you who you are. Recognise that the substantial ones are invariant.

You must satisfy your invariant instincts or you will be at odds with your own character. It is only when we are not at odds with our basic makeup that we can find life meaningful.

To exercise your instinct for saving the world, requires saving what you perceive to be the world.

Being modern, educated and wordly, the world you perceive is immense and this is disempowering compared to the valley world of your ancestors where your feelings were forged and where saving 10 people saved 10% of the “world”‘s population.

Here lays the difficulty in actualising your character. Your perception is of a world so vast that that you can not envisage your actions making a meaningful difference.

People try to fool themselves and others into believing that one can “think globally and act locally’, however to anyone with a sense of proportion (not most people, btw) thinking globaly makes acting locally seem to be a marginal activity. It’s not setting the world to rights.

To meaningfully interact with the world, you have to either constrain your perception of what it is back to valley proportions by eschewing all global information (most of us here have engaged on just the opposite course which is what has provoked this discussion), losing your sense of perspective, or start seriously engaging with the modern perception of the world.

That latter path can be hard to find, because it is only satisfied by creating ideas or inventions that have a global impact. Perhaps I have found one, and there’s others out there, but for most people of your character a combination of eschewing knowledge of those parts of the world they can’t change, and robust engagement with the parts they can is probably optimal.

Do not be concerned about when one is to do good, who defines good, etc. Act in the way you do because to do otherwise would to be at odds would to be at odds with yourself. Being on a path true to your character carries with it a state of flow, where the thoughts about your next step come upon waking, unbidden, but welcome.

I support similarly minded people, not because they are moral agents, but because they have common cause with my own feelings and dreams.

Tue 18 Jul 2006 : Laughter

Laughter is fear and relief. Fear is all around. Every step is conditioned by the fear of falling. It is the relief from primitive anxiety and alarm responses that give rise to laughter. The release of the breath that wasn’t needed. That sudden surprise rendered harmless by higher perception. Wonder, when accompanied by the expression of laughter is the unknown and fearful transformed. A transformation by subconscious brain functions typically of sub second duration. A transformation that takes the unknown and therefore possibly lethal and yields up the unknown and harmless to observe. Something to be explored, understood and remembered by wide eyed curiosity. Those eyes wide to suck in the world and a memory hungry for its details. A psychological and physiological stance that makes the unknown known. A state of maximal observational learning. 

  

First Aid For Emotional Trauma (Icarus Project Info sheet)

Read / Download / Share FIRST AID FOR EMOTIONAL TRAUMA, An Icarus Project Information sheet.

Excerpt: 

Feeling Body Sensations: Key to Trauma First Aid    

Trauma cuts us off from our bodies. When we are in overwhelming danger, we dissociate or ‘leave our bodies’ as a protective measure. Later this protective mechanism becomes stuck and counterproductive. The key to healing trauma is to return to our bodies, by feeling our physical sensations and making our bodies safe and alive again.

Ask, “How do you know that you are sad? Is there tightness in your chest or throat? How do you know you are afraid? Is there a cold feeling, or a sinking feeling in your stomach? Feel it fully. How large is the feeling? Is it changing? What do you feel next?” Listen without interruption and give plenty of time to feel and respond. Grounding and resourcing yourself will also help the other person.

Keeping eyes open usually is best for focusing on body sensations.

If the person can’t feel their body at all, ask, “Can you feel your feet on the ground? Your pelvis sitting on the chair?” Grasp their hand or shoulder and say “Can you feel my hand?” Always ask before touching. If lying down, ask them to sit up. Ask to walk around slowly and feel their legs and feet. Or gently hold & press their feet to the ground.

The Effects Of Negative Emotions On Our Health

by JOE MARTINO

Humans experience an array of emotions, anything from happiness, to sadness to extreme joy and depression. Each one of these emotions creates a different feeling within the body. After all, our body releases different chemicals when we experience various things that make us happy and each chemical works to create a different environment within the body. For example if your brain releases serotonin, dopamine or oxytocin, you will feel good and happy. Convexly, if your body releases cortisol while you are stressed, you will have an entirely different feeling associated more with the body kicking into survival mode.

What about when we are thinking negative thoughts all the time? Or how about when we are thinking positive thoughts? What about when we are not emotionally charged to neither positive nor negative? Let’s explore how these affect our body and life.

Read more at : http://www.realfarmacy.com/the-effects-of-negative-emotions-on-our-health/