BS: Moments of insanity

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 03:09 PM

You can observe any disturbing feeling as it arises...and then...

1. You can let it hijack you, in which case it amplifies, and you get more disturbed.
2. You can focus on it obsessively, in which case it amplifies, and you get more disturbed.
3. You can indulge in it, in which case it amplifies, and you get more disturbed.

Those are all things people commonly do when they deal with negative feelings in a dysfunctional manner. They won't let go.

Apply it, for instance, to the many bad feelings Israelis and Palestinians have now about things that have happened between them...see what happens when they get hijacked by the feelings? Further very bad things happen.

Here's the other thing you can do, however, when you observe a disturbing feeling arising in you...if you wish to be in control of your own mind:

4. Just quietly observe the feeling as it arises. Don't act upon it, but observe. Don't identify with it, just observe it. Don't lend it any additional strength or indulge in it, just observe it.   Let it pass.

If you don't encourage a disturbing feeling, if you don't ally yourself with it, it passes quite quickly.

Since most people are addicted to their favorite bad feelings, they become caught up in amplifying and repeating them over and over again. That's when it becomes an emotional dysfunction. That's what produces unending feuds and arguments between people.

You have to be the one who is in control of your own peace of mind, rather than the bad feelings that arise from time to time being in control of you.

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 02:43 PM

"You can overrule your emotions, but you can't choose them. If I bugged you, I bugged you - no decision on your part. You can decide to ignore it, but not to not feel it. It is the reactions to the emotions that are chosen, not the emotions." Mrrzy

See, Mrrzy, I disagree roundly. If you bug me, I may feel bugged - but my next thought can diffuse and dissipate the 'buggedness'.

I work part time as a 'lunch lady' at two schools; I have only one co-worker.

As it happens, my co-worker chews gum and snaps it (she doesn't blow bubbles, thanks be) while we are preparing lunch. As it happens gum chewing in close quarters is a 'bug' issue for me.

I cogitated awhile until I was calm about it and then said, "You know, one of the health department's rules is no gum chewing. Their idea, I guess, is that a wad could end up in food."

Now, in actuality, I don't know that the health department has such a rule but it seems logical to me, and evidently it did to my co-worker also.

When we start to serve now her gum has disappeared. I no longer steam about it; talking about it removed the heat for me.

I'm now awaiting my moment to tell her that I don't think that gum belongs in a kitchen, at all. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 02:14 PM

Well, I think you can choose them, Mrzzy...but most people don't realize that and they have never even considered it once in their lives...thus they are 100% at the mercy of their automatic emotional responses to various triggers.

The only thing that inhibits them in acting out their reactions on the outside is their fear of what may happen if they do...that is, they may feel like murdering their friend or lover or screaming obscenities at a traffic cop, but they realize that the outer act has repercussions they wouldn't want to deal with! So they restrain the outer act, but they suffer fully the turmoil of inner emotions regardless, and that is very hard on their system. Holding in these negative emotions eventually damages the health in various ways, and it leads to all kinds of troublesome behaviour...while bursting out with the negative emotions (venting) can damage other people's health and state of mind. Either way is not helpful.

I've known people who are addicted to anger. To hatred. To feelings of vengeance. To feelings of betrayal. To accusation. To arguing. To grudges. Etc. I've been addicted to things like that from time to time...but not all the time, I hope.

Yes, they do it because on some level they enjoy it...and they feel justified, and they enjoy feeling justified. On another level, though, it causes them (and others) pain. It's not productive, it's a form of emotional illness and dysfunction.

I think it is a choice, but if the one doing the choosing doesn't realize that he is choosing, then he won't be conscious of it being a choice at all. He will feel that it's "just happening", and that he is, in effect, the victim of an external agent of some kind. That's what people normally do.

I think it is no exaggeration to say that most people's lives are unhappy most of the time, due to their own thinking. They experience chronic dissatisfaction, chronic frustration. They live lives of, as one writer put it, "quiet desperation".

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 01:54 PM

You can overrule your emotions, but you can't choose them. If I bugged you, I bugged you - no decision on your part. You can decide to ignore it, but not to not feel it. It is the reactions to the emotions that are chosen, not the emotions.

That said, I do know someone who seems to cherish being angry, but I don't believe that he's CHOOSING it. His anger is simply enjoyed once it happens, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 01:52 PM

To experience genuine communication IS happiness, I find, Ebbie. The failure to successfully communicate with another, however, can be an unhappy experience. I find it quite disturbing when I cannot communicate effectively with someone else. It happens either because they or I are not really listening...or it happens because we simply don't understand one another's terms.

You're quite right that every day you are unhappy, you add to the unhappiness of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 01:43 PM

I,like, so totally agree with Little Hawk. *grin*

Happiness, the state of being happy, has little to do with day to day life. As A. Lincoln said, I have found that most people are about as happy as they decide to be.

It is true that if my child were ill or my dog had disappeared or the country faced annihilation, those days would be less happy for me. Probably because of the increased intensity of the focus on the emergency.

However, as LH implies, I have tried both happy and UNhappy and believe me, happy is better. Happy is a state of mind, one can even be depressed for a day and still agree that one is happy.

I figure that every day I am happy I add to the happiness of the world; every day I am UNhappy I add to its misery.

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 01:37 PM

I could decide right now to be happy, Mrzzy, as happy as can be. But I have decided instead not to be. I have decided to let what you just said above bug me and disturb my mind some. I am therefore my own worst enemy and I am suffering on account of something that doesn't really matter at all. It is sort of funny, in a way...

You see, I'm observing my mind at work. I'm watching it doing its little thing. My mind, like most people's minds, is a very disturbed little entity indeed, addicted to its usual emotional dramas, and it doesn't want to shut up or be at peace for even one instant. It's chattering right now, even as I type.

It thinks it's in charge here. And it is, if I let it be.

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 01:29 PM

I won't deny that it's easier for people to be happy in some situations than in others, Mickey. ;-)

However, my point was that most people seem to decide not to be happy a great deal of the time. It becomes their normal mode of existence. That's their choice. I have spent great long swaths of my life in an overall unhappy condition...despite the fact that I had enough money, enough food, a place to live, and things were basically okay in most respects. To feel unhappy despite all that was my choice. And I know it. I bet I've been more unhappy than happy for, oh, at least half of the days of my life up till the present moment, maybe more than half. Very little of that had to do with the actual outer circumstances, it almost all had to do with my inner perception of the outer circumstances, my expectations, and my reaction to my inner perception. I have a PHD in how to be unhappy.

Since I'm so good at it, I also tend to notice when other people do it. ;-) I am keenly aware of the problem, and it's not external in most cases. It's internal.

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 01:24 PM

Right, sure, people can decide to have certain emotions. Now, believing *that*'s really nuts.

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Mickey191
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 12:46 PM

LH, One can decide to be happy, but reality has a way of intruding. The landlord is still rapping on he door for the rent.

I had a neighbor who replied "Nobody home" when he came around for the rent. I guess she was trying to be happy. Or was she just screwy?

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 12:37 PM

You demonstrated, Ebbie, that consciousness is king, attitude is everything, and you are in charge of your experience of reality. You decided to shift from your usual perspective to another one entirely. That's a powerful thing to do, but people seldom do it.

People can decide to be happy.   How many do?

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Mickey191
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 11:59 AM

I bought an old Mistsubishi & tossed away $2500. It died one week later & 3 mechanics could not tell me the cause of its demise!

Does that qualify as insane or stupid? BOTH?

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 02:32 PM

Dancing in the rain - not insane. Continuing after it turns to hail - nuts!

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 01:04 PM

This brings back an "experience" I once had.

It was a bitterly cold day and a strong wind was blowing.

I parked my car and started down the block and across the street to my destination, huddling against the cold.

Then - it was like a brainstorm - I got an idea and opened my coat and slowed to a walk . I breathed deeply and felt the crisp air enter my lungs and seemingly permeate my whole being. My hair lifted and fluttered in the wind.

I sauntered into the store absolutely comfortable.

I don't actually know what happened; it was kind of like a reptile accommodating to outside temperature.

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 10:19 AM

This coat my royal gown
A stolen hand-me-down
No need to scrape and bow
We can be heroes now
For more than just one day
Here's how
Look both ways when crossing roads
Don't wear slippers 'til you're old
Never do what you are told
Never do what you are told

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 10:06 AM

" I walk barefoot in the first snow...."

I guess my jumping naked into a deep snowdrift* after a 22" snow might count .... that was in 1979.

Later that day, I saw 6 guys in the park across the street playing football in the knee-deep snow...but THEY were dressed.



*(no...I didn't stay in it long.)

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Mr Happy
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:36 AM

Hmmmmmmmmnnnnnn..............has there been a sudden heatwave up your way?

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: SINSULL
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:35 AM

It has been my experience that most moments of "insanity" are nothing more than a sane letting off of steam. I walk barefoot in the first snow every year and often just strut around in the stuff mid-winter barefoot. Why? It feels good.

Subject: RE: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Wesley S
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:15 AM

It sounds more like a moment of sanity to me......

Subject: BS: Moments of insanity
From: Phot
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 08:44 AM

Due to a series of events beyond my control, I found myself at home today, so I took Fiona to work in her car, dropped her off and headed back home.

Sitting at traffic lights in the middle of Guilford the madness decended.

A press of a button later I was in a VW Golf Cabrio with the roof down, in Febuary, with no jumper, or coat. It was great! I arrived home with a huge grin, having had a great wind in the hair, drive just for the hell of it.

When was the last time you had a moment of insanity?

Wassail!! Chris