Negative Psychology
Episodes
89 episodes
We aren't the boss of our own thinking
Thinking runs us rather than vice versa. Adyashanti compares the state of being in which we are 'identified with our own thinking' with being in a make-believe car on a fairground ride - "This situation is like being on a fairgr...
Not stirring the pot [2]
Trying to 'fix our own thinking' is an infinite regress - there's no end to it and the spiral of control just keeps getting tighter and tighter...
Not stirring the pot [1]
The 'cybernetic disaster' is where our coping strategy exacerbates the problem that we were trying to cope with, which necessitates doubling down on the strategy (because we can't see that what we're doing is making everything worse no...
Getting out of your own way
The 'Negative Path' - simply put - comes down to 'the art of getting out of your own way'...
Thinking is Always Gray
In Goethe's Faust, Mephistopheles (aka 'the Devil') famously says - "All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green."
Being 'stuck'...
No strategy can ever help us become free from anxiety (or any other neurotic condition). We can't fight our way to freedom, we can never get so good at manipulation as to no longer NEED to manipulate (or control). The ego-concept is big on stri...
Shaitan The Whisperer
The age-old 'war' between the Principle of Light and the Principle of Darkness (between Ahura Mazda on the one side and Ahriman on the other) may be seen as a metaphor for the war between consciousness and rational thought (which seeks to 'pull...
Pretending Mode [2]
Instead of talking about 'pretending' [see Pretending Mode 1] we could talk in terms of bluffing - we bluff our way through life and we do so without facing the fact that this is what we're doing. If we 'faced the fact' then tha...
Paradoxicality in mental health (1)
An example of paradoxicality in mental health is found in 2 Corinthians 12:10 - "...for when i am weak, then I am strong."
Autonomy [1]
If I can't drop my agenda then I am a slave to it - I have no autonomy in this situation at all. We see this backwards however - we see autonomy in terms of being able to push through our agendas, in terms of being able to
Fitting into society [1]
The basic 'ignominious thing' that happens to us as we adapt to society is that we take up the identities or roles that are provided for us and then - after this successful act of adaptation - we forget that this isn't who we really are....
Control versus Connection
Where power prevails then there is no love, and vice versa, says Jung, and the same can of course be said for connection. It's the same thing. Our culture is all about control, all about the use of power, and what this means is that th...
Living above ourselves
We almost always 'live above ourselves', trying to anticipate what we can't anticipate, guessing what we can't guess, assuming what we can't assume. We exist in this thing called 'adult mode', in other words. The more we do this the more proble...
The Punishment Never Stops
Once we move into alignment with the collective mind then all the jibes and digs cease and instead we get to feel that we belong, that we are accepted and approved of and all of that. If - for wha...
Negative Capability
Psychological work does not involve 'forcing ourselves to be a particular way'. That isn't psychological work - that's simply fear. Whenever we find that we are either trying to suppress or promote some particular state of mind ...
Soul Sickness
We know fair bit about physical sickness these days, but frighteningly little (if anything at all) about Jung refers to as 'sickness of the soul'. We don't acknowledge that there is such a thing. This doesn't mean that we won't 'learn about it ...
Mental Health versus Control
We conflate 'mental health' and 'control' (or 'regulation') such that - as far as we're concerned - the more control we have the better off we will be, mental health-wise. This is clearly not the case - the more we try to control or re...
Western Mindfulness [1]
Western mindfulness is 'mindfulness with an agenda', the problem here being that when mindfulness has an agenda then it isn't mindfulness. It's not mindfulness but control.
Advantage Seeking [1]
No one ever improved their mental health - as we like to say - by 'seeking the advantage'. when we seek the advantage then this isn't to our advantage. 'Nothing fails like success', says Alan Watts....
