Intro
Welcome. I hope members are enjoying module 1 of the course. Module 2 will also be presented here before being migrated to another platform. Once out for a week, deleted from here permanently and migrated elsewhere with the rest of the course work. I expect no. 2 will be out next week. Remember to continue the work daily. You have to to make it work.
This week I want to present my view of emotional and sensation regulation, and how I believe it fits in - in a true view of this work as I see it. And its implications for us an individuals, and as a group of typically errant, spasticated-chimp wanderers.
The second article presented is a typical day of practice for me. How I put it all together, as requested by a sometimes-reader. Hope that’s helpful for some of you.
A Right View of Primordial Circuits & Process
One of the most debilitating elements of online discourse is the deep influence Aristotelian either/or logic and its impact on semantics and reactive tendency. ‘Aristotle suggests that all propositions must either affirm or deny something. Every proposition must be either an affirmation or a negation; it cannot be both’. This of course, is complete tosh swank. First pointed out as being so in detail by the underrated semanticist Alfred Korzybski. A useful tool, I’ll grant you, but no way to live. I can confirm that once seen as such in self and others, it's difficult to unsee it’s generally debilitating impact.
It is debilitating because it's only a tool. A cheap Chinese spanner that we try to use as a surgeon's instrument. A clumsy device that nonetheless reaches so deep as to render and sort through vast swathes of experience without our knowing, shaping conflicts and confusions that ail us.
Like many "undergirding metaphysical beliefs" such a structure acts as a kind of unseen operating software. In fact, it’s quite physical also. It’s in the brain. It’s a regulator. A sorting tool. Unseen neural nets. A vital part of ancient mammalian neural/emotional adaptive feedback loops that paint experience.
The central part of the actual work facing this species as I see it, the work proper - which religions and the psychology of the day only hint at (unfortunately - psychology now determinedly moving down the other path of re-enforcing a deadened human type) is the breakdown and building back up of such metaphysical beliefs and assumptions about self and the world that are no longer useful.
Beliefs are always lies. They naturally imply lack of evidence. They’re really just an simian assertions backed up by muddy concepts, vague feelings and monkey chirps.
As a function of either/or, it has become fashionable lately to downplay the importance of the so-called ancient behavioural circuits I always refer to here.
To favour the opposite: a purely conceptual linguistic approach to life. Again such a view misses the point. Still, through edumuhcation they continue to attenuate the reaction centres and create a new man. Western Civ. has been trying this for a while. So far, other than riding on the back of geniuses, amongst the hoi polloi and even the exceptional, it’s amounted to nothing.
On the other hand, both as the thing being reacted to and a reaction of either or itself, we face another species of reaction to this predominant orthodoxy of facing the world; a movement towards the emphasis and primacy of feelings and emotions. And their validity.
I’m sympathetic to this given how unpleasant it is living with crippling autism.
Many people today like to 'work with emotions" or use so-called "somatic practices to heal", which usually involves invoking fee fees, real or more often completely imagined or wrongfully invoked.
Feeling them…letting them happen with little other work other than maybe a "spirit-penguin in an ice cave" type visualisation where you talk to yourself about how you’re actually ok. You may not be of course.
Feelings for the sake of feelings, ignoring the analytic and conceptual element of our experience.
Related to this is the downstream predilection towards framing all experiences as that of trauma. Something you’re not doubt aware that I find immensely distasteful.
In this world, emotions or sensations and mollusc-like exhibitive turn-the-other-cheek squishiness become the point of everything there is.
Rather than a signifier of ecology or adaptive feedback about where we are as individuals. Feelz sit steadfast and unwavering upon the rather silly throne of the modern spiritual belief of trauma-framing. A frame of trauma becomes both an indulgence, an addiction and a tyrant. Given that all sorts of perceived injustices to our inherent narcissism (a childish survival mechanism we tend to not grow out of) are usually what we see as “trauma”.
In this respect, trauma-centrism leads to a narcissism on steroids, ending up an unforgiving weapon of vengeance someone wields against their own potential and the potential of the world at large.
How much further away from the point of the work could you get?
It betrays ignorance of the power of language and concept. At once, rejecting analysis it in favour of a pointless indulgence in fee fees; but also utilising it to power-up destructive trauma-reinforcing patterns. In the end, the worst, lowest traits of us as humans end up being given primacy above all that is good and superior. The ability to profess and simply shake something off. To act. How often do you hear this view castigated by therapists? In truth, this is how the body has developed to process traumatic experiences. To shake them off. And learn.
In such circles, the idea that playing a linguistic game of framing everything as "trauma" may indeed lead to more trauma, hasn't yet been totally understood (I’m generalising here).
In a simplified way, you're telling yourself, "No way, girlfriend, don't bother shaking it off and dealing with it critically and actively, we need to hang on to this and process all data through this conceptual orientation. To smother our unsuspecting partners and parents with it - because that feels so good and your feelings are…valid".
Nevertheless, this doesn't mean, as the either/or frame would suggest, that we must reject or eliminate any work with these wrongly called "lower" feeling/emotion circuits and their outbursts, emanations or feedbacks. Or real trauma. We simply need the correct view, and also a correct view of trauma as something that can relatively easily overcome…by not framing things in such a way.
A passionately dispassionate view.
Primitive Brah
I use the term primitive here at chateau le islands of transcendence often and mostly incorrectly. Or in an incomplete and misleading way. From a particular standpoint, such ancient mammalian neural and autonomic circuitries are very sophisticated, and rather than being "down there" or “lower”, they are probably more correctly seen as all around us all the time - and their influence really knows no bounds. Holistically, they are us and we are them in so far as we can be anything at all.
For sure, they are very ancient compared to us. But it's for this reason that they must be acknowledged and handled with the greatest of respect. Because these supposedly unimportant, old or dumb systems have an enormous hand in shaping the fabric of our experience.
Entire societies, ones with great potential, are being destroyed from a cretinous mishandling of these powerful forces. And, by extension, our mastery and enjoyment of our individual lives are diminished in the same way. Potential is squandered.
Some suggest just doing away with them and focusing on autistic bookf@g methods. Others suggest being periodically angry or having childish, narcissistic outbursts regularly as a masculine way to handle arousal - like a bipolar permanently online samurai. Simply add a Gigachad meme next to it and have all your friends tell you how cool you are, king. Because oppositeness is like the essence of powerfulness and stuff or something.
The more “feminine” approach, as elaborated above, is to abide in sensations and try to promote only good ones. The ultimate endpoint of this, as my Scottish co-host would tell you, is that you end up on the side of the road in your underpants, begging for alms. But at least you feel good.
You often see self-proclaimed yogini’s (I do anyway) promoting herselfs as a "nice hedonist" who likes sex and referring to her vagina because she's worked with her sexual trauma. But have you ever noticed how such people are always incredibly uptight? Incapable of hedonism? It's worth thinking about why. I personally have rarely met people as on edge as these kinds. Always looking for the next injustice. Tauter than a badgers arse in all the wrong places.
All of these ways of handling things as they are wrong, of course - or at least sub-optimal if you want to be kind. Because they're not dealing with what reactivity really is in its totality. What the processual system really is. What it does. These ways of dealing with the problems of instinct are debilitating and letting your emotions and pursuit of sensations rule you to ridiculous ends.
The true goal of the new transition man should be to understand and harness these powerful forces - and to ride them as your own personal Bucephalus.
This element of Alexander's story becomes very interesting when thought of from this perspective….
The frame all the various shades of the strategic offerings above stem from a relatively immature place and wrongful assumption - that we're complete beings and that we're valid simply as we are. There may be a place for this kind of sentiment, but it's not all there is.
This has always amused me about the ultra-masculinists who feel their way is a rejection of the insipid feminine trauma approach - but in truth, they are eerily similar.
So, as processual beings in flux, what is a more profitable way to view these ancient systems?
A Breakdown of How it Works…
Bodily sensations or feelings are a kind of interactive Garmin that we use to navigate through life's processual, complicated interactions - from a functional point of view.
Sensations/Feelings are also evaluators of external ecologies. Evaluators that monitor the various “markets” around us and offer feedback on what's out there of actual value - or not. Is it worth imbibing? holding on to? Or should we not bother and remain neutral. Or throw it far away? Run away?
They are the first primordial stage in a straightforward yet immensely complex and sophisticated survival adaptation.
Some may remember my series on Zen when I did a deep dive into sensory reactivity and what meditation does to attenuate this, over time. You can check that out if you want a deeper understanding of this ancient functionalism and how it related to our conscious experience.
Emotions and sensations are a kind of "first-rank" reactivity adaption from an experiential and functional point of view.
They serve as the initial type of reactivity. The first step in a complex neuro-chemical and bio-physical chain. They send us down the road to regulation, or avoidance of potentially problematic environmental elements. Or conversely, attraction to things that sustain or enhance our survival chances.
This is not a simple binary function however. Since there are multiple functional levels and shades of reactivity, hierarchies of importance, priority and automation that this ‘level of the system’ maintains.
How does reactivity work with the initial feeling/sensation? What occurs when data from the environment is interpreted as such a response type?
The sensory data from our environment stimulates peculiar neural firing patterns, then registered in the primitive brain regions that trigger initial reaction responses. This "pattern recognition" triggers a preparation or initial response, occurring before the reaction comes into conscious awareness.
Neural patterns are another exciting subject and go well beyond this article. In short, scientists have seen that they form (obviously) from our unique and inherited genetics and our experiential interaction with the environment over time. In some way Darwin was right - we as individuals and animals are the products of genes interacting with environment over time.
Think of it like this - seeing as a youngster a sabre-toothed tiger maul your father, Fred, as he was about to enjoy a succulent mammoth rib BBQ meal...All the complex emotional and fear responses, sense data like the smell of the mammoth rib or the colours. The environment or season - the "gestalt" - and the peculiar neural clustering that would form as a result. Maybe you’ll hate mammoth ribs?
The primitive responses at this level are nonconscious and begin to trigger preset clusters (think metaphysical beliefs and emotional reactions as above) of defensive (or other) psychophysical postures.
In turn, the muscles, viscera, fluids, membranes - the autonomic nervous system in general are primed to activity in unison.
This unitary gestalt reaction is sensed subjectively as a kinaesthetic response. You may recall my words last week on Gestalt. This is an excellent example of Gestalt. The interconnectedness with yourself, your primitive genetic predilections, seeing your father Fred get mauled, and your experience now with another sabre-toothed tiger act in unison as a kind of energetic vital Gestalt. The interconnected and dynamic understanding of reality.
Of course, not all experiences must be negative or merely for some Darwinian survival value.
As we can see, while many including myself often refer to these systems as primitive, they are not. In truth, vast swathes of sensory probabilities are non-consciously computed, based on billions of years of interconnected, dynamic and processual species interaction with ecology.
Distracted Reactivity
It is my belief, that right now, this species is at an inflection point.
One of my biggest lessons from the book "The Distracted Mind" was how incapable our executive centres (i.e. higher or more recently evolved cortexes) are in exerting control over the "primitive systems" we're speaking of here.
And how, in a hyper-stimulatory, information-rich modern environment, when coupled with bizarre ideologies and neural plasticity - strange chance clusters learned in childhood compounded over generations of neurosis and decadence - clusters that are totally out of line with what we are at our true human foundation - begin to have real consequences. Sometimes existential ones.
Thus, I maintain my case that the true transition man - leading to something better - will need to exert wilful control primarily over himself starting with what we’re discussing here. Without this, there is no hope.
Books, gym work, philosophy and not even culture can assuredly manage these forces. Maybe over a life they can, but they don’t do the job quickly enough. Maybe on chance individuals they can - but those with potential will never het a chance without some kind of technology.
The main governing factor in this rather wretched species, as it is right now, can be easily surmised simply to be the animal's inability to control itself - leading to all manner of absurd paths and flights of fancy. Completely being lived by biology.
So, here is a summary of what you need to remember about the primitive centres:
Sensations and feelings guide the adaptive response neural patterns towards a sensory evaluation of the environment - i.e. attraction, aversion, or neutrality.
Emotions occur as an assessment of the appropriateness of the adaptive response. Good emotions arise when the adaptive response is deemed favourable. Negative emotions the opposite. Negative emotions indicate something is amiss and need to be reassessed regarding our adaptive responses.
Language or concept structures offer a way to reinforce, reevaluate or recalibrate these response mechanisms.
So, rather than taking our emotions or feelings as gospel truth - and rather than taking them too seriously or indulging in them as one simple trick- we need to take a step back and see them for what they are.
This is the actual first move in true self-overcoming.
The Case of the Face…
There is a reason a woman with a "resting bitch face" is very often a massive bitch. The body, as you know, is a processual whole. There's no barrier between these parts. Take the following study, one I just quickly pulled from my files:
"…Results revealed an interaction between emotional state and initial facial expression such that happy participants perceived happy expressions to be present on an increasingly neutral face for a longer time than sad expressions. Sad participants saw sad expressions to be present on an increasingly neutral face for a longer time than happy expressions. In addition to their theoretical significance for our understanding of the perception of emotional expression, these findings have practical importance for individuals who rely on accurate perception of emotional expressions. Psychotherapists, attorneys, teachers, salespersons, and numerous other professionals will want to account….for the effects of their own emotions on their accurate reading of others' emotions.”
And;
“…Finally, the present results may have potential implications for the clinical studies that investigate the effect of Botox in the treatment of depression (e.g., Finzi and Rosenthal 2014; Magid et al. 2014; Wollmer et al. 2012, 2014). If, as we found in the present study, facial feedback primarily attenuates present emotions, and further, if constant frowning contributes to the depressed state, then this frowning may act to specifically attenuate positive emotions. The paralysis of frown muscles with Botox could then block this attenuation, which may result in a general recovery of positive emotions, and consequently this effect could be one basis for the documented improvements of the patients. Future research could study how Botox affects the day-to-day emotional life of depressed patients in order to find out in which situations the improvements are experienced most frequently…”
So tell the miso soup to get botox after all?
There are hundreds of studies implying the same thing, that facial manipulation can radically alter emotional response states. This is because a considerable part of the brain is associated with the regulation of the face - for obvious reasons.
In truth, we can reshape responses in all sorts of similar ways. We can retrain vascular, emotional, and muscular responses, work with our guiding beliefs about ourselves, and create distance between ourselves and our sensation-emotions to see them in their total context - another means of mastery.
In this way, we begin to ride these things as something that enhances us - not something we're victims of.
The new course and this blog, in general, are primarily aimed at a kind of efficient ability of conscious re-orientation and training this system's fundamental pillars.
What can you expect from this?
People I've worked with have experienced dramatic improvement in sleep, blood pressure, cheerfulness, alertness and resilience to general stress. The evidence I've collected suggests that the human isn't necessarily meant to be uptight, highly emotional and reactive creature as most of us are most of the time - it can be when needed, but it shouldn't usually be. Nor should it be inactive, on the side of the road or in a cave in underpants begging for food - not long term anyway.
It shows that the human is meant to be balanced. And when the human is balanced, they’re at their best.
In truth, you don't need much more than that. Many obsessions, including obsessions with esoteric secrets, diets, politics you cannot shape, and a compulsive attraction to religions or philosophies as a means to find that answer that will make it all better. Tend to fall away as you master conscious control of these robust systems.
Then you're free to get on with what you really will-to-do.
My Strug...My Schedule
How I put it all together…
I had a friend recently have the audacity to suggest I give an example of how I put all the work I present here together.
At first, I was shocked. Shocked and appalled. He bluntly admitted not having read the confused muddle of a novel's worth of subskank essays. And had the temerity to ask me how I do it, despite my having elaborated ok it.
After my contempt-circuitry responses had calmed down and on surveying just how much writing there is, I've decided to put something like this together. A weekly schedule of how I put all this work together.
I've also noticed how lousy subscam is for indexing all the paid member material. I'm thinking about how to improve this so it is easily accessible. Perhaps this week at some point, I will compile it all into a single post, and as it grows, I will make additions and edit accordingly. So the practical methods are readily indexed.
A typical day for me looks like this. Each exercise will have an indicative schedule next to it.
MORNING:
Reichian Facial stretches, gagging (everyday)
Hot yoga/surfing/skipping/walking (every day) - surfing takes precedence for me as a degenerate Atlanticist - I'll not do anything else if it's on.
Breathwork mp3 work (paid subs will know the reference, finishing with breathing training like samurai breathing or pranayama - every day)
Zazen at home - up to 20 minutes (every day at least once),
Special focus type meditation in direct continuation included for 5-10 minutes or so (or with breath work - afterwards (details included for paid members next week)
Note:
Waking up at 5:30 am - all of this takes an hour throughout the morning, from waking to about 9am when I start work. If you have children, you could compress as needed or do something every other day.
I'm not sure how to handle a nagging wife or husband who tries to get in the way of this. Unfortunately, it is a feature of life and sometimes there are no solutions.
…Other than to suggest, you could consider getting rid of her.
If you start with this path, you will probably notice that all sorts of people will unconsciously and reactively try to get in the way of your self-development. (Think: primitive feedback mechanisms above and how you think this works…)
Don't be surprised if they/thems primitive fear circuits cut in and resent you as you become something else. Don't hold it against them because they're unaware of what they're doing though. (FREE WILL MANG IS REAL MANG - AIMIRITE!)
Keep in mind I've largely failed at that particular modality of existence, so don't take my word for it. In terms of cutting her loose - something I do pretty well at.
DAYTIME
Breathwork "tuneup" mp3s (every day - provided next week)
Bodywork session/self-experimentation at some point during the day/early afternoon (3 times per week)
I do some other form of bodywork I'm learning - Like posture work, as much as possible.
Note: About an hour and a half throughout the day for this. Sometimes, I drop one or the other depending on the day and time available.
AFTERNOON/NIGHT
Long beach walk/Muay Thai + particular sequence breath exercise (most days if I can fit it in - coming soon)
Zazen (every day - I try for 2 sessions)
Some theory work/research (for substack of clients, etc.)
Notes: About 2 hours, much less without the long beach walk. You could combine this with gym, movement work, or Muay Thai, as I sometimes do.
WEEKLY OR MONTHLY
Sometimes, I do prolonged sessions for special energetic or tantric work every fortnight.
Every month, I give myself 3 days off, and I do nothing (significant)
Cognitive work must be included here, which is hugely important and goes beyond this. It may consist of research, various special self-assessments, testing metaphysical beliefs…The body is not enough, and the data it’s given you - that leads to self-overcoming.
Reading - I only allow myself 20 pages a day absolute maximum, unless it's research or writing for the blog. (I prefer not having my mind polluted with the thoughts of others as I'm already assailed for work, etc).
Note: There may be a thing you’ve never done before that you want to dedicate more time to. I do Zazen little because I have done it lots, and can maintain mindfulness fairly well through the day. Likewise, if you’re just starting, maybe you give up some things to focus on the thing you’re learning….
Social media is, even worse, a true blight; I only use it to stay in contact with people - I have literally zero interest in the thoughtings of others these days. Almost all humans can't think and are highly contaminated and unstable, even those on "your side" - their thoughts being more outbursts of the same processes we've discussed above. You will notice this in yourself as you progress, and it will become more and more evident in others. It will render them as incomprehensible neurotics, and not worth your time compared tho self-mastery.
Final Words
This is not gospel, and what I find works for me; sometimes, I might change things up to include something like Kevin's work or something else that interests me.
It is critical not to be too rigid or do too much. It's also vital to include fitness work, like movement, which needs to be included here.
It is essential not to become rigid about it. Leave time for having fun, being with friends, and living a good life. That's the whole point. Living an excellent life, channelling and transmuting the ubiquitous, loathsome, negative, narcisistic pettiness of the human being into something grand that you determine as being worthwhile. It should be enhancing practice, not making you more of a fundamentalist onethingist than you are now.
This is a simple outline. If life requires it, I budget what I do. However, before you say, "I don't have time", you should take notice next time you use Instagram or Twitter and think again about this view.
Use at your own risk!
Podcast will be out Tuesday night.
Until next time,
~Peculiar Cluster of Primitive Reaction Processes
"After my contempt-circuitry responses had calmed down[...]"
LOL