I agree that resisting grief is a very bad idea. Resisting negative emotions strengthens them and prevent us from processing them. I feel that suffering is mainly about resisting emotions.
Pain alone doesn’t cause suffering. Suffering comes with resisting the pain.
A while ago a hypnotist told me that a feeling takes around 90 seconds to be processed if it doesn’t get restarted.
I think the loss of a loved one does take 1 to 2 orders of magnitude more time but, it’s still not that long provided one doesn’t resist the process.
After that point the feeling is dealt with and the whole body still needs time to integrate the change and come back to full power, but feeling don’t need much time if you feel them intensively instead of resisting them.
I could instead turn my mind to the pain, and look at it in exquisite detail. Where exactly do I feel it? Is it hot or cold? Is it throbbing or sharp or something else? What exactly is the most aversive aspect of it? This doesn’t stop the experience of pain, but it does stop most of my inclination to jump and yell and get mad at myself for dropping the object in the first place.
I do think that first order perception like that has value but I don’t think it’s enough.
Second-order effects or the relationship to the experience is also important.
Good guiding questions are: What is this experience doing with me? What changes for me through having this experience?
90 seconds [...] the loss of a loved one does take 1 to 2 orders of magnitude more time
So … “the loss of a loved one”, in your view, takes maybe as much as two and a half hours before “the feeling is dealt with”?
That seems far enough from most people’s experience (at least so far as I can judge most people’s experience) that I think it calls for a Wikipedia-style [citation needed].
So … “the loss of a loved one”, in your view, takes maybe as much as two and a half hours before “the feeling is dealt with”?
I qualified the time estimate by speaking about time spent fully attending to the feeling without avoiding it while being stable. The average person doesn’t want to feel sad when a loved one dies and does all sorts of different things to resist it.
David Burn’s The Feeling God Handbook is a resource for the general principle of the “acceptance paradox”.
I don’t have citations for the specific numbers.
I gave a time estimate is based on my own experience.
As a reference you might look at Brienne estimation that cured her crippling social anxiety in three minutes.
My claim is that the loss of a loved one takes roughly an order of magnitude more time than that.
I admit that without having a mental model in which Brienne’s three minute claim makes sense it will be difficult to follow the argument. On the other hand I do know that Valentine (who wrote the OP) has an understanding of hypnosis and is therefore more likely to be able to follow. That’s why I make this point in this thread.
Actually she does start by explicitly saying This post explains how I cured my social anxiety in three minutes. Of course again, as I said above you likely have no mental model in which that fits. When there’s no mental model where that’s a sensible thing to say, it’s natural to read a post like Brienne’s as saying something else.
Actually she does start by explicitly saying [...]
Yes, indeed she does. And it makes an effective headline, in the same sort of way as “10 Cute Kitten Pictures! What happened next in #7 will shock you and restore your faith in humanity!” does (but for a somewhat different audience).
As for your repeated attempts (I think we’re up to maybe five in the last few weeks) to pull the “of course your criticisms needn’t be taken seriously because you just don’t have the mental equipment to understand” move, see e.g. this.
I agree that resisting grief is a very bad idea. Resisting negative emotions strengthens them and prevent us from processing them. I feel that suffering is mainly about resisting emotions.
Pain alone doesn’t cause suffering. Suffering comes with resisting the pain.
A while ago a hypnotist told me that a feeling takes around 90 seconds to be processed if it doesn’t get restarted. I think the loss of a loved one does take 1 to 2 orders of magnitude more time but, it’s still not that long provided one doesn’t resist the process.
After that point the feeling is dealt with and the whole body still needs time to integrate the change and come back to full power, but feeling don’t need much time if you feel them intensively instead of resisting them.
I do think that first order perception like that has value but I don’t think it’s enough. Second-order effects or the relationship to the experience is also important.
Good guiding questions are:
What is this experience doing with me?What changes for me through having this experience?So … “the loss of a loved one”, in your view, takes maybe as much as two and a half hours before “the feeling is dealt with”?
That seems far enough from most people’s experience (at least so far as I can judge most people’s experience) that I think it calls for a Wikipedia-style [citation needed].
I qualified the time estimate by speaking about time spent fully attending to the feeling without avoiding it while being stable. The average person doesn’t want to feel sad when a loved one dies and does all sorts of different things to resist it.
David Burn’s The Feeling God Handbook is a resource for the general principle of the “acceptance paradox”. I don’t have citations for the specific numbers. I gave a time estimate is based on my own experience.
As a reference you might look at Brienne estimation that cured her crippling social anxiety in three minutes. My claim is that the loss of a loved one takes roughly an order of magnitude more time than that.
I admit that without having a mental model in which Brienne’s three minute claim makes sense it will be difficult to follow the argument. On the other hand I do know that Valentine (who wrote the OP) has an understanding of hypnosis and is therefore more likely to be able to follow. That’s why I make this point in this thread.
That isn’t what she describes. She describes a lengthy process of contemplation and self-modification, whose last step happened very quickly.
Actually she does start by explicitly saying
This post explains how I cured my social anxiety in three minutes. Of course again, as I said above you likely have no mental model in which that fits. When there’s no mental model where that’s a sensible thing to say, it’s natural to read a post like Brienne’s as saying something else.Yes, indeed she does. And it makes an effective headline, in the same sort of way as “10 Cute Kitten Pictures! What happened next in #7 will shock you and restore your faith in humanity!” does (but for a somewhat different audience).
As for your repeated attempts (I think we’re up to maybe five in the last few weeks) to pull the “of course your criticisms needn’t be taken seriously because you just don’t have the mental equipment to understand” move, see e.g. this.