Re: [BardonPraxis] Exercises in Mental Discipline of the Emotions

["Rawn Clark" <rawnclark@...>]

Dear Eric,

>> I have trouble distinguishing between detachement and repression.
Especially when it comes to emotional tones. What is the difference
between resist involvement, refuse to participate and repression? <<

Repression is when you deny the *existence* of an emotion that you are
nonetheless experiencing. Repression is done out of fear and denial.
What I suggest here however, does not *deny* the emotion that is
experienced. Instead, it honors the emotion and then shifts the
awareness to a position of detachment for the purpose of truly coming to
know the essence of the emotion. Please note that in my previous post,
I carefully distinguished between the *experience* of an emotion and the
*expression* of emotion. It's the immediate participation in the
experience of the emotion that one detaches from and examines the
mechanism of.

With repression, you deny the emotion itself and separate yourself from
it without ever coming to understand it. In this sense it still
controls you just as much as if you had let it sweep you away. But if
you do as I've suggested then you come to understand the emotions that
arise within you. This enables you to *express* them *consciously and
intentionally*, with the full awareness of what caused them to arise and
what aspects of yourself are manifest through them.

>> On this line of work, What is one supposed to do with emotionals
difficulties rising througth self-crafing work? (seems to be reactions,
a sense of "I"ness an old-self who resist change) <<

Well, examine them, learn from them and transform them. Here is an
example where emotional discipline is essential -- without it, these
emotional reactions will delay your progress, but with it, these
emotional reactions can move you forward even more rapidly because they
hold within themselves the key to your advancement. Internal resistance
actually points the way to where we *must* tread.

My best to you,
:) Rawn Clark
18 Dec 2003
rawnclark@...
rawn@...
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