Positive thinking in 2008
I rarely get tagged with “blog memes”, and rarely feel like doing them anyway. But the redoubtable Jim has tagged me with something that resonates strongly with my current state of mind, so I’ll play along.
The idea is to list seven things that you’re in favour of—with no tricksy use of inversion to slip negative wishes in. Just straight-forward, “I’m all for this” stuff.
Regular readers will know I’ve an ambivalent-at-best attitude to “positive thinking”. As Jim Leonard and Phil Laut say in their excellent book Rebirthing, “We are not advocates of ‘positive thinking’; we are advocates of appropriate thinking. ‘Positive thinking’ is not appropriate all the time and being too rigidly attached to it can be limiting or even dangerous.” Of course, this is just a re-framing; “appropriate thinking” means taking a step back to see the bigger picture, and applying “positive” or “negative” tactics according to an overall positive strategy.
I still think this calculated approach to life needs balancing against a compassionate awareness that we’re all human and are allowed to get lost, to fuck up. But in the end, being positive is all you can do. If you come up with instances where being positive isn’t appropriate, you’re thinking of “positive” in the wrong sense. This might sound vague, circular, or illogical; but it’s the only real approach to living life that years of chaotically sifting through the options has left me with.
When I was staying with a friend in the States a while ago I hit a real bummer of a depression. I ended up pouring out my incoherent negativity to my host, who had himself wrestled with depression. His response was a pointed, simple challenge that has stayed firmly with me: “What are you going to do?” It was firmly rhetorical, as in, “What can you do other than pull yourself together and get on with life as best you can?” Indeed.
So anyway, my current hit list:
- Breathwork. By which I mean any of the family of techniques among which you’ll find Rebirthing and Holotropic Breathwork. Like any powerful techniques, there are some bizarre ideas connected to them. But the core process is without doubt the most unambiguously effective process of personal change I’ve encountered.
- Dancing. Anyone capable of dancing should dance as much as possible. It’s one of life’s unqualified good things.
- Magic. Not every flavour and technique, of course—it’s a minefield. But dive in and tread carefully, and things will change in ways you can’t imagine. This shit works.
- The telephone. Hanging out in the flesh is the best of course, but our world is scattered. The phone still seems to have a more positive social impact for me than the net or any other technology.
- James Hillman. One of the most important thinkers of the late 20th century in my book. Humane, complex and fearless psychological insights.
- Candle-lit baths.
- Slowing down and just taking in the moment.
Tagging other bloggers is obligatory here… I wonder if Kirsty, Cat, Jolane and Brooke are feeling “up”?
Is done.
http://catvincent.insanejournal.com/444974.html?mode=reply
Cat Vincent - 17th January 2008 @ 1:08
Thanks for sharing your hit list - have to make one of my own!
On the topic of magic, the “minefield”, what flavour and technique do you recommend?
Hope this finds you up, breathing deeply och dancing wildly!
Joakim - 17th January 2008 @ 7:49
ps. Thanks for recommending Niggy Tardust - most of it is really, really nice.
Joakim - 17th January 2008 @ 7:50
Joakim, you always hit my expressions that I slightly regret! I guess I’m not saying any techniques or traditions are “better” than others… it’s just been a long process to find ones that work for me, and even then to get those working well. The minefield is really your own preconceptions, self-deceits, fantasies and doubts in interaction with whatever you’re experimenting with.
Still, saying all that’s a bit of a cop-out. What’s doing it for me is Santería-based work. I like its combination of heart-felt devotion and practical, real-world orientation. I’d love to recommend places to start with it, but the place I started is being introduced to it by someone I know. I’ve got a lot out of books, but even if a tradition isn’t “local” in the geographic sense, it seems right in the end for it to be local to your lived life…
Gyrus - 17th January 2008 @ 9:39
No need to regret that expression! Magic really is a minefield, and I´m still walking in it. There seems to be no way out… I wish I had friends here showing me where to go! But my current habitat seems to lack all kind of magicians - weird isn´t it?
“…local to your lived life…” - hm, I really like that expression. The relation between ones life and magical practice is important, unless you want to do magic to escape the former (which of course is very common, I´m as guilty as everyone else).
Right now Traditional Witchcraft seems to be the way I´m heading. Only the future will show if that path leads out of the minefield or - the horror, the horror! - deeper into it…
Best wishes from here!
Joakim - 17th January 2008 @ 10:18
Oh my… thanks Gyrus, this is great, but I’m already well past seven things. I’m either going to have to break the rules or narrow my list down. Breaking the rules would be the easier… and naughtier!… way to go, so I think that’s the clear winner.
I may have to add ‘breaking rules / being naughty (appropriately, of course)’ to my list now as well. :)
TheBrooke - 17th January 2008 @ 18:51
The telephone, so underrated! In these days of texts and email people just don’t do an unannounced no-particular-reason call that may go on for an hour or two. Indeed, nowadays it’d feel almost intrusive. Yet text media are so sterile, with such a limited range of nuance.
And then, there’s that amazing real-time response of the phone. All that firework display ooh-aahing over the invention of email, but imagine it had been the other way around; that we’d had phone lines for a century of email and only recently had someone invented voice calls. That would be waaaaay more exciting.
merrick - 18th January 2008 @ 1:55
A good start would be to make yourself aware that there is no such thing as “Traditional Witchcraft”… I’d seriously recommend reading Prof Ronald Hutton’s book “Triumph of the Moon”, a history of modern pagan witchcraft, which unpacks many of the myths of modern paganism and contemporary magic - with specific focus on the social construction of “witchcraft”, which is really no more “traditional” than the scouting movement. Hutton is a practising pagan himself, and his perspective is sympathetic towards the cultural role of magic and towards modern witchcraft as a positive magico-religious movement in its own right. If you feel any sort of call towards something that might be defined as “witchcraft”, then you owe it to yourself to get up to speed on the history and social context surrounding it.
Gypsy Lantern - 21st January 2008 @ 14:01
That last comment in reply to Joakim. I seemingly got the blockquote html wrong…
Gypsy Lantern - 21st January 2008 @ 14:02
Fixed!
Gyrus - 21st January 2008 @ 14:10
Gypsy Lantern: I happen to be an extremely critical person, esp. when it comes to magic (too much for my own good actually - I hardly believe that it works!). I only call it “traditional” because the people with that approach to magic calls it so. It would probably me more wise to just call it “witchcraft”. Thanks for your comment and advice. Is there any practical book on witchcraft that you would recommend?
Gyrus and Gypsy Lantern: I´ve heard some rumours that you´re planning to start a magical community - any news on that?
Joakim - 22nd January 2008 @ 18:10
…and so it seems “traditional witchcraft” leads deeper into the minefield - as I feared…
Luckily I have other ways to pull myself together:
Yoga
Boxing
Wandering aimlessly in the woods
Playing with my son for more than 15 minutes
Listening/dancing to to music
Having long, long talks to friends I rarely meet these days
Joakim - 22nd January 2008 @ 18:28
There are plans to start a new magical discussion space on the web. Still embryonic, and it’ll be in closed beta for a while to get it ready. But as they say, watch this space…
Gyrus - 22nd January 2008 @ 19:21
I promise to do that! ;)
Joakim - 23rd January 2008 @ 14:33
I’m glad you mentioned Jim Leonard. We are best friends. You migh tknow, book Rebirthing was later republished under the title Vivation - The Science of Enjoying All of Your Life. Son in the 25 years since the publication of Rebirthing, the process has EVOLVED way past what it was then. It is ever more deeply and profundly efficient at resolving all negative feelings, emotions, experiences than anything else out there. Jim is now retired from teaching, and has placed me as Director of the Association of Vivation Professionals, which at one time was Phil Laut’s job.
Anyway, I wanted to let you know I have a new home on the net:
http://www.blissful.co.nz/
Oh, and here’s my Vivation website:
http://www.vivation.us/
Cheers,
Paul
Paul Hughes - 12th February 2008 @ 8:52