The Separate Self and the Body-Mind
El yo separado y el cuerpo-mente
A question about the difference between the body-mind and the separate self, and how survival conditioning relates to each.
The Separate Self and the Body-Mind
A question about the difference between the body-mind and the separate self, and how survival conditioning relates to each.
I'd like to follow up on that a little bit. I'm a little confused. If a separate self experienced a lot of childhood conditioning, say in a trauma situation, where they developed the ability to almost subliminally pick up on other people's feelings as a survival mechanism, is that the separate self? And is that different from a sense of picking up on other people's emotions that comes from your true nature?
The part that's off is that you begin from a false assumption, because you're saying "if a separate self," but there is no separate self. Perhaps you're referring to a body-mind.
Yes.
So if a body-mind picks up or develops an ability to be sensitive through a trauma response, that's one kind of experience. And if a body-mind is experiencing it from true nature, that's another. You're trying to distinguish a trauma response from a more positive ability. Am I right?
I guess. Maybe I'm missing the boat here, but I look at the body-mind and the separate self as almost synonymous.
They're not.
Okay. I've got work to do.
And that's what we're here for.
What the body-mind actually is
The body-mind is just how we refer to the experience of body and mind. We can, for example, refer to a glass of water, which is not body-mind. Then it gets a bit tricky in how we define "mind." If we define mind as images and sounds of the imagination, as opposed to sensation, that's one way. You could also define sensation as mind, because it is experienced through mind. That's just semantics, but if we define sensation as not-mind and define images, sounds, and even imaginary sensations as mind, then the imaginary is mind, and the body is sensations and everything that is of the nature of the body.
Now, the separate self has, in a sense, nothing to do with that.
It's in the mind, isn't it?
The separate self as construct plus belief
The separate self is a combination of a complex image in the mind. When I say "image," I mean a complex, dynamic image, an object, a construct, combined with the belief that this construct is "I." You can still have the construct in the mind without the belief that it is "I." The separate self is specifically the construct plus the belief.
It's a very tricky thing because we overlay this image onto sensations. There could be a sensation in the body, in the head, in the chest, and then that sensation becomes the proof or the evidence for the image of "I" to be part of this reality. The separation becomes self-evident, because if the image overlays the body, and the body is different from what is not the body, then there is the evidence of the separate self. But that's just the trick of convincing ourselves that this is "I" and that separation is real.
So when a body-mind walks into a situation and observes circumstances, behaviors, whatever, that indicates that a person is a threat, and that recognition is almost subliminal, that is the body-mind picking that up?
Exactly. And the threat, the nature of the threat, is of the mind. It might be accurate. It might be a good assessment.
Usually is, in my case.
Well, maybe. For a lot of people, usually it's not, but sometimes it is. That's where we work through conditionings in order to improve that functioning. Improving that functioning is one thing, and the freedom of disidentifying is another. Those are what I refer to as growing up and waking up.
Why we cling to survival patterns
They're hard to let go of when you feel like they're a survival tool.
Yes, because it's the way of functioning we've developed in order to create a sense of safety, which ultimately means avoiding fear and pain. The nature of that pain is pain we experienced in the past that we were unable to fully process. This is what pretty much happens to all of us in childhood, because our mind isn't mature enough to process it.
Then there is the fear, which has to do with the sense of overwhelm when the intensity of emotion is too high and we feel we dissolve in it. That is experienced and projected as the end of "I," as death. So we live with energy invested in this mechanism of avoiding fear and pain to protect that sense of separation.
The relationship between pain, fear, and separation
That's why I often say (and I'm saying it too briefly) that if we are able to go into the experience of the pain and the fear, then our need to believe in separation starts to dissolve. It can happen in different orders. For some people, the belief in separation stops because they see completely through it, and then the rush of going into pain comes out because they no longer have the ability to control it. For others, it's the other way around sequentially. And for others, it's a bit of back and forth.
They're not separate things; they're very related. But the attachment to the belief in separation, while it can be described in many layers, is fundamentally a way in which we control the intensity of fear and pain. At the same time, it's a self-propagating thing. It reinforces and propagates the very fear and pain it tries to manage.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.