Clare 's Podcast
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Would really appreciate your thoughts on The Polyvagal Theory, titration,/pendulation and the value of having someone’s presence as you ‘feel the feelings’ When I first came to your work, I was often not able to simply sit in the feeling of deeper suffering, whereas with learning to stabilise my body-mind through the breath, I find my capacity to sit in the suffering seems to have increased. My understanding is that the body is not able to heal when it is in fight/flight so being able to settle to a more parasympathetic state with the intention to revisit the suffering from that place has been helpful for me, however it sounds to me like you are saying it is better to just sit in the suffering no matter what, and not to use any substances or techniques to ease your way into it. Is that correct or am I misinterpreting you?
Can you please speak about feeling emotions and sensations in the body. Ive heard you talk about the need to feel difficult sensations fully but for me this sometimes seems to solidify the sense of self, the idea that there is a me who is deliberately choosing to feel this thing which is separate to me. Could you perhaps talk through whats happening when you allow a sensation to unfold? I realize this can be hard - maybe impossible - to put into words though.
What about exercise and healthy eating? My body functions well when I eat well. It feels less sluggish, less bloated, it digests food better and I feel energised. However, it has physical injury. When I don’t exercise and strengthen my muscles, the pain is significant. I have also noticed that as a result of these 2 things my body looks different to the periods I don’t. If I am honest, part of the reason I like the exercise is to maintain this body shape, because I like it. Which I think is part of the identified self, is that right? However, when I stop exercising for a while the injury pain always motivates me back to it. I have often questioned myself this “double benefit” and not really come up with an answer other than that I’m not loving myself if I want to change my body. But I am also strengthening it because it becomes pain free? Now, with your teachings there could be some help! Is Looking into the reason I want a particular shaped body where I should start? Should I stop admiring my body? What is the relationship with a fit and healthy body all about? Thank you!
When you talk about stress as a subjective experience it sounds to me like victim blaming, spiritual bypass and the risk of keeping people dangerously stuck. How can we be in this conversation and acknowledge that many situations are intolerable for people?
Someone I love said something to me that felt cruel. I noticed that long after the heartfelt, sincere apologies were offered and received, there was still the icky ache in my stomach that I’m very, very familiar with. Despite the forgiving, I noticed that there was still a holding onto it. As if it were money to be added to a savings account, I noticed with an “Ah-ha!” And an “Oh-oh!” And an “Oh Sh*t!” that part of me was kind of treasuring this hurt and adding it to the “I’m a victim” pile of memories and storied hurts. It feels so icky, and so familiar. Safe. Known. But so painful. This pile has been established and added to throughout my whole life. I remember feeling this ache as a small child. So this time the hurt was added to the pile with new information. It is seen. Compassion rushes in. And a marveling that the body/mind has created this as a painfully necessary way to secure the identity. And that part of the identity is “victim.” I suppose there must be villain moments. I hope not too many. I know in the incident the other day there was a projection onto the person’s hurtful remark as “villain.” All seen through this body-mind’s lens. My question. Does the body/mind eventually give up this black/white view or does it continue, but as seen for the story it is? Is this the healing you talk of? __ __
I don’t know if this is ok or not to ask you directly? Reading Sane. Page 46. Can you please clarify re “Forgetting this, the self believes itself to be a real entity that must be secured and defended. It looks out on a world that is full of danger. It forgets that it is looking in a mirror”. I was working through an example of this - so thinking of a colleague at work who I feel threatened by/feel in danger around/get fight/flight response around because I think she is harsh and belligerent. Does this mean that harsh and belligerent thinking is arising in ‘me’ but it’s too threatening to the identity /idea of me who always has to be a ‘nice’ person/or always kind person to be liked, so I project it out onto Julie who is then actually just a mirror to the harsh and belligerent thinking in ‘me’? Or am I just getting completely tied up in knots here?
You often observe that we are "doing so well" or "really good with this" as we are in the midst of articulating when there is stage 2 happening. Meaning we are noticing the child in place, the identification pattern, the stories, etc Can you share, from observing so many people over the years, what is it about this stage you find "good" or indicating maturity somehow?
I am wondering if you ever question your inner yes/no after that fact that it seemed so clear. For example when you decided to separate from your husband, was it a one and done decision or did you ever second guess yourself? Perhaps that would be a clue that it was not a inner yes/no if there was some doubt after the fact or as humans do we just do that?
May I give a suggestion for a future video? Could you speak about how to deal with narcissists based on the nondual understanding? I struggle massively with this due to my childhood trauma. Thanks
Need a bit of clarification around feelings/sensations. Is the only real value of them only as feedback information to the system? To observe them and feel them when they arise? I see a tendency to (especially with the ones where resistance is still very strong) to bite into them, dissect them, search what caused them, etc. But listening to the last webinars on the WELL course doing this is totally in vain. Feels like my mind jumps in the middle of it and wants to get rid of it which makes all together even worse and prevents the body from just noticing and feeling it.
I have a question about physical symptoms that continue while doing this exploration. My struggle area happens to be health fears but the question could apply to any area that seems to cause stress, anxiety, panic attacks, etc. Although I logically know that health fears are a bit of insanity since they revolve around a complete unknown, clearly something still looks real and believable because the scary thoughts and uncomfortable physical symptoms continue to arise. (For weeks before any upcoming appointment, *danger* *danger* thoughts arise as part of my childhood conditioning. They ramp up as the appointment gets closer, during it, and after it if I have to wait for results.) It makes sense that peace is the ability to have it all, and in the midst of any emotion and experience, to continually put attention on what doesn’t change. But what about the toll the physical symptoms take on the body, especially if it’s been a lifetime of them? It seems like the belief that they could be continually harming the body stands in the way of peace - it’s what causes fear and resistance now, more than the sensations themselves and the stories about the appointments and results.
No do-er and do the thing - how do they fit together: listener question
You remind us that because we see everything through the lens of our own conditioning then how people appear to us isnt objectively true. This is part of why inquiring about how someone else is a mirror of our own behaviors is so powerful. You also remind us to look for information/truth in what people say to/about us. Is that because the things they say are still screened through our conditioning? Or is it because relative truth delivered from apparently someone else is still valuable?
In response to your podcast on CBD oil as spiritual bypassing. 24 April. I love the episode by the way. I love so many of them, thank you. Is there an importance of understanding the cause of the child’s playout, or is being really present to and digging into the emotion, into what is being hidden and the experienced enough? E.g do we need to trace back to the specific trauma that occurred to know where the trigger comes from? Is acknowledging it as childhood trauma without knowing or investigating the actual source, the trauma itself spiritual bypass? ❤️
Vigilance and indifference: listeners question
I almost think I understand what you are saying here, but then I give myself a head-ache when I think about it for too long! Would it be correct to say that we are accountable for the thoughts/behaviours/actions of our body-mind but not to blame for them? This is how I have been thinking about this recently and it seems to allow me to take a real honest close up look at my life without beating my self up and falling into a self-blame or victim mentality. Thank you for any thoughts you have on this,
I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU SAY CLARE, AND WHEN YOU SPEAK IT FEELS SO FREEING, BUT I HAVE QUESTIONS BECAUSE OF WHAT I HAVE KNOWN. I HAVE PREVIOUSLY UNDERSTOOD THAT THOUGHT CREATES OUR FEELINGS, ACTIONS AND EXPERIENCES. IF EVERYTHING IS A CREATION OF THOUGHT OR A PERCEIVED SELF IDENTITY, IN ORDER TO HAVE A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE, I HAVE UNDERSTOOD TO NEED TO HAVE POSITIVE THOUGHT. IF OUR ATTEMPT TO CREATE POSITIVE THOUGHT COMES FROM A SEPARATION OF SELF, AND THAT THE THOUGHTS ARE NOT OURS, WHAT ROLE DOES POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS, AND MANIFESTATION PLAY? ARE THEY FUTILE? WHEN I FEEL IN A PLACE OF LOVE AND I CAN GENERATE A FEELING OF LOVE, I FEEL GOOD. THE WORLD FEELS GOOD, AND MY EXPERIENCE FEELS GOOD. SHOULD I BE FALSELY GENERATING FEELINGS OF LOVE? EVEN IF I GO INTO MY OWN HEART TO DO IT? SOMETIMES, I GO INTO MY HEART AND TALK TO MY HEART AND FEEL MY HEART, THIS FEELS LIKE I AM CONNECTING WITH THE REAL ME. WHAT IS THIS? In my questioning “what is the point?” Over the years, if we are just existing on earth to eat drink sleep and work, what is the point, I am sent back to something my aunt told me when I was a child. I meant nothing to me until recently. She said life is about love. It’s all she said, or all I remember, if she elaborated. I interpret that now as love for another, love for self, love for nature and seeing love, beauty and good in all and everything. Is that what it’s about?
Today i am having “fuck you @Clare “ moment and not even having the courtesy to say white witch do she won’t get tagged. Honestly, you have one minute of feeling nice and there she is with the first well module, bringing in the misery. Reporting happy moments, she won’t have any of it. And now even journalling on things you’re grateful for is now not allowed. It’s like that friend you (used to, I’m not friends with any of them now) that no matter what you say puts a downer on it/pisses on your fire. Or I can go study human design that shows how the mind/body is made and the god-portals to explore what we really are but minus all the misery and suffering. Feeling so angry I have to continue with this stupid, miserable navel-gazing course, suffering-hunting all the time. Fuck you Clare Dimond. 😡 The rest of you are alright. Ok will listen agsin but was something about ‘your symptoms will probably get worse’ and it was more the podcast from yesterday. Nothing in particular, just feeling in a good mood then you just not allowing that for even one moment, putting a downer on that good mood, denying it, saying that’s not true or reality. Saying instead we want freedom. I thought ‘fuck this, fuck freedom, just leave me one to be happy. I’ll take that over freedom. I’m done.
What brings the shift from being lost in the experience to being able to observe it?
It seems like we need to develop an identified Separate sense of Self before we can ‘unidentify’ it. Is that true or is the way to bypass that step? Do you talk to your children about this understanding and If so, what does that look like?
First of all, I am so happy with your courses and podcasts. I learned so much! And with your openness and honesty and vulnerability and down to earth spirituality I could not thing of a better teacher for me! I am writing to you because I am not sure of one concurrent issue in my thought patterns and that is „not having a partner and wanting one“ I see a pattern of thinking about it, making it „my big life problem“ but not doing anything (which means not being on a dating platform or meeting anybody). I am very happy in my life, I am independent, have a handful of close, life-long friends, never feel bored or lonely and plenty of things to do all the time (reading, enjoying nature, enjoying just being etc). But still there is this nagging thought something is wrong with me because I do not have a partner... The point which I do not get: Is it spiritual bypassing (thinking I do not need one), is it not facing my childhood issues (in not going on dating sites, „just" pretending that I enjoy my independence), is it completely suited for me not being in a longterm stable partnership and just the ego which desperately seeks a bone to keep? What is it? Which I can see as well is the ego wrapping its thoughts around one thing , because there is not much else left for it to keep itself alive… Which I can se is comfortable to fill my head with, and listen to relationship podcasts and follow dating advices, it’s like a good old friend who is always there and keeps me entertained… (but then again, is this spiritual-bypassing and not facing whatever I have to face?)
Thank you for a brilliant How does it fit together webinar. I really loved it. The question came up about what to say to introduce this conversation to a client who doesnt already have any knowledge of it, and your response was for the teacher/coach to go within to see where the issue that the client has come with is a reflection of them/their experience. Can you please say more about this, and how this may inform the conversation.
Few days ago I was part of a work meeting and during that meeting I noticed how my emotions were roller coasting from totally being pissed off by the other participants to enormous self pity. A day later my period arrived a bit earlier this month and I contributed all of this emotional spinning to this fact. My question is if emotional experiences of these hormonal changes are in any connection with reality? Do they magnify some conditioning that needs to be enquiry? Or is body-mind just hijacked by these changes and updating Aha this is happening is enough?
I cant decide if the feelings I am feeling are sadness at the loss of my marriage or doubt as to whether I have made the right decision. We have let go of a lot of the past and come to a place of love & understanding. We have been in counselling for nearly a year & a half which has helped. We are separated but live together but we just cant seem to come back together & connect, it feels like we have come too far down the road & the gap is too wide between us now even though we have a mutual love and respect for each other. I guess I am just scared , I am going to regret the decision in years to come .....
