Male vs Female Brains

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Male vs Female Brains

Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Men More Forgetful Than Women

Perhaps the lack of activity in the male brain would better predispose men to a Buddha-state, but it also leads to the sort of mental deficiencies associated with dementia. Although quieting the mind is an important step to philosophical maturity, becoming mentally inert is not conducive to genius. Here is yet another reason to choose The Middle Way.
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Tomas
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Tomas »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Men More Forgetful Than Women

Perhaps the lack of activity in the male brain would better predispose men to a Buddha-state, but it also leads to the sort of mental deficiencies associated with dementia. Although quieting the mind is an important step to philosophical maturity, becoming mentally inert is not conducive to genius. Here is yet another reason to choose The Middle Way.
Last edited by Tomas on Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Relo
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Relo »

Why would you bring something like this up again Elizabeth? Hasn't it been discussed in add ons to numerously other threads that have been posted, or are you basically asking anyone of an opinion on the article you posted?
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Trevor Salyzyn
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Trevor Salyzyn »

Given the substance of the article, I'm surprised the title wasn't "women more emotional than men." Or, alternatively, "males more likely to develop crippling mental disorder later in life." Such titles might actually reflect the material.

There was surprisingly little about men being more forgetful than women -- as in, there was nothing at all about men being more forgetful than women.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Recently there has been some more research into the nature of depression in the light of stress (mental suffering) as major cause and the radical differences in gender as it comes to the chemicals involved.

The underlying hypothesis that initially fueled the research was that depression occurs when the brains cannot cope with stress when occurring over prolonged periods. Clinically depressed people would end up with too much 'stress hormone' and not enough urocortine which would reduce stress.

At the Radboud University in Holland they researched several brains of suicide victims which were positively diagnosed as being severely depressed right before their death. In total they had eleven to study. Seven male brains and four female ones. The surprise was that the chemical distributions found were not as expected at all.

The male brains didn't have any lowered level of urocortine but a nine times higher level. With females it was equal to the test groups. The males also had three times less BDNF (protein associated with nerve growth and maintenance). The female brains has five times more BDNF than brains outside the test group.

Original research published in : Neuroscience, 2008 Apr 9

So this result implies a major gender difference when it comes to mall-adaptation to stress factors and could lead to gender specific anti-depressives. What this means to the different experiences of depression or a different reaction to it on a more psychological basis is not known yet.

Another article though:
When the scans were completed, neuroscientists consistently found differences between the men's stressed-out brains and the women's. Men responded with increased blood flow to the right prefrontal cortex, responsible for "fight or flight." Women had increased blood flow to the limbic system, which is also associated with a more nurturing and friendly response.
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Faust
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Faust »

Women had increased blood flow to the limbic system, which is also associated with a more nurturing and friendly response.
what???
Amor fati
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Trevor Salyzyn
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Trevor Salyzyn »

Faust, both responses suggest interesting tactics. When stressed by mathematical operations, women look to befriend the numbers, whereas men get ready to fight.
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David Quinn
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by David Quinn »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Men More Forgetful Than Women

Perhaps the lack of activity in the male brain would better predispose men to a Buddha-state, but it also leads to the sort of mental deficiencies associated with dementia. Although quieting the mind is an important step to philosophical maturity, becoming mentally inert is not conducive to genius. Here is yet another reason to choose The Middle Way.
It points more to the focused nature of men's thinking. As the article states:
“‘Is there really a difference between a man’s and a woman’s brain?’ Gathering my composure, I said ‘Huge differences, and we can prove it.’ Here I pointed to a set of brain scans that we did of a couple at my clinic. ‘Typically the woman’s brain is very active. Thinking, thinking, thinking, especially in the emotional part of the brain. The man’s brain, by comparison, is relatively quiet. A woman’s brain is always working and a man’s brain needs stimulation.’ Meredith Vieira chimed in, ‘Seems like little is happening in the male brain.’”
The constant activity inside the woman's brain basically consists of worrying and forming countless stategies for dealing with people. That sort of activity is largely absent in the male brain.

Note the petty belittling of the male there at the end - a standard practice which continues to pervade modern society. The inferiority complex that women have always had with respect to men is alive and well, it seems.


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tek0
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by tek0 »

Probably a repeat but then again all timeless classics are.


http://www.menarebetterthanwomen.com


For anyone who might get the burning irritating sensation cause by a certain overly woman hating individual I can assure you I am far from that fro wielding person.
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Faust
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Faust »

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:Faust, both responses suggest interesting tactics. When stressed by mathematical operations, women look to befriend the numbers, whereas men get ready to fight.
quoted for truth
Amor fati
brokenhead
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by brokenhead »

DQ wrote:The constant activity inside the woman's brain basically consists of worrying and forming countless stategies for dealing with people. That sort of activity is largely absent in the male brain.

Note the petty belittling of the male there at the end - a standard practice which continues to pervade modern society. The inferiority complex that women have always had with respect to men is alive and well, it seems
While I eschew your tendency towards misogyny, I think it only fair to also speak up when I find myself agreeing with you.

When I was an undergrad I tutored in math and physics for pocket money, and as a grad student I was a TA in physics. I found that the biggest problem female students had was that they thought too much. It was evident from the type and amount of questions they would bring to my office hours. Much of physics, when it can be reduced to mathematical statements, is relatively simple. The female student had difficulty grasping this and would often make a concept more complicated than necessary, then spend energy trying to convince herself that even though the material was too hard, she was smart enough to understand it. In other words, she would make the process about her and her abilitities, rather than about the material. I found myself saying - all the while trying to maintain my composure - "Stop thinking so much and just ltry to listen to what I am telling you." Which eventually became simply "Because I said so, that's why." Which approach, by the way, seemed to work just fine. The students voted me favorite TA, and the female students who applied themselves did well.

IOW, that busy brain scan shows quantity, not quality, of mental activity.

As to that standard practice of modern society of belittling the male, it makes me want to toss my lunch. It is as ubiquitous as it is gratuitous. Neither gender should be belittled. Why that is so fucking hard to grasp is beyond me.
Last edited by brokenhead on Wed Apr 23, 2008 3:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Relo
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Relo »

brokenhead wrote:
DQ wrote: As to that standard practice of modern society of belittling the male, it makes me want to toss my lunch. It is as ubiquitous as it is gratuitous. Neither gender should be belittled. Why that is so fucking hard to grasp is beyond me.
Well an estimation to why this is so could be lead on from the past as when women were discriminated and weren't allowed to vote and partake normally in society compared to how they function within society recently. A thought to why the belittling of the male could be so simple as to say a sort of "revenge factor" of what it was like for them back in the past. We can look at it as a balance of emotions that were build up and sent through the generation of children to adults and enacting those thoughts/emotions that the descriminated women had when it all began. Simply put, it can possibly be seen as channeling through generations.

It is easy to see male belittling in my school, yet most of the males in my grade are naturally 2 years behind the natural maturity of females to say, so they don't mind the belittling of them as long as they get what they want out of it, seen generally with a majority of males in society to this day.

I have even set up a maturity male role within myself as a test that I did for observation of how females would naturally react. I tested this whenever I came in conversation/contact of a dominant female who was a primary role model to the others in my grade. When she acted attracted to me and showed bodily signs of interest and verbal language, it was spread to the other girls around from they're general observation, and without taking much thought about it, they reacted the same.

As anyone can understand the occasional "crush" it can be seen in somewhat that way, but much more commitment which was enacted. As of now they seemed to place me back in the natural average male teen as looked upon others basically of who I would socialize with and they often viewed me socializing with more immature males in my grade which degrades they're value of what they saw maturity in me, which seems slightly ignorant since they don't totally know me for who I am.

So as of now until I make the big spark to renew my original maturity I set out formally, they consider me plain and immature by speak of 2 years. Even after these dominant females test me of my maturity in such ways of simple child protection conversed to control of body emotions such as catching and throwing a ball to simple possible belittling talk of them asking me to go get something for them, these and other actions can be simply ranged with how the human psyche works as of saying, for raising a family.

I have to get going for now, I'll type more later.
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by brokenhead »

I have even set up a maturity male role within myself as a test that I did for observation of how females would naturally react. I tested this whenever I came in conversation/contact of a dominant female who was a primary role model to the others in my grade. When she acted attracted to me and showed bodily signs of interest and verbal language, it was spread to the other girls around from they're general observation, and without taking much thought about it, they reacted the same.

As anyone can understand the occasional "crush" it can be seen in somewhat that way, but much more commitment which was enacted. As of now they seemed to place me back in the natural average male teen as looked upon others basically of who I would socialize with and they often viewed me socializing with more immature males in my grade which degrades they're value of what they saw maturity in me, which seems slightly ignorant since they don't totally know me for who I am.
Cool test! Try it again!
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David Quinn
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by David Quinn »

brokenhead wrote:
DQ wrote:The constant activity inside the woman's brain basically consists of worrying and forming countless stategies for dealing with people. That sort of activity is largely absent in the male brain.

Note the petty belittling of the male there at the end - a standard practice which continues to pervade modern society. The inferiority complex that women have always had with respect to men is alive and well, it seems
While I eschew your tendency towards misogyny, I think it only fair to also speak up when I find myself agreeing with you.

I must claim my innocence here and state that in no shape or form am I a misogynist.

When I was an undergrad I tutored in math and physics for pocket money, and as a grad student I was a TA in physics. I found that the biggest problem female students had was that they thought too much. It was evident from the type and amount of questions they would bring to my office hours. Much of physics, when it can be reduced to mathematical statements, is relatively simple. The female student had difficulty grasping this and would often make a concept more complicated than necessary, then spend energy trying to convince herself that even though the material was too hard, she was smart enough to understand it. In other words, she would make the process about her and her abilitities, rather than about the material. I found myself saying - all the while trying to maintain my composure - "Stop thinking so much and just ltry to isten to what I am telling you." Which eventually became simply "Because I said so, that's why." Which approach, by the way, seemed to work just fine. The students voted me favorite TA, and the female students who applied themselves did well.
That's a good story. It reveals a lot about the female mind.

It is a good illustration of why women love being dominated by men. Not only does it reduce the chaos in their own minds, but it resolves them of any responsibility for their actions. When a woman has expectations of responsibility placed on her shoulders, the chaos and worry kick into over-drive and everything becomes a personal battle for them. A dominant man can take all that away from her.

Incidentally, “abilitities” – a fine word that. :)

As to that standard practice of modern society of belittling the male, it makes me want to toss my lunch. It is as ubiquitous as it is gratuitous. Neither gender should be belittled. Why that is so fucking hard to grasp is beyond me.
What's interesting to me is that when women are belittled - which happens so rarely these days as to be non-existent, at least within educated circles - there is invariably a great uproar and mob-lynchings are formed. Yet when men are belittled, which as you say is ubiquitous in all strata of society, it doesn't excite any comment at all. It is regarded as par for the course.

This tells me that despite all the changes wrought by feminism over the past few decades, nothing has essentially changed in the deeper aspect of things. Women are still placed on a pedestal and molly-coddled as ever. Men are still expected to remain chivalrous, in this instance by keeping silent and blocking out the unflattering truths about womankind.

And yet somehow, we expect women to progress and evolve under these conditions.

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Elizabeth Isabelle
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

brokenhead wrote:Much of physics, when it can be reduced to mathematical statements, is relatively simple. The female student had difficulty grasping this and would often make a concept more complicated than necessary
Finally, someone got part of the gist of what I was pointing out about the article without trying to turn it into an insult about females.
David Quinn wrote:Note the petty belittling of the male there at the end - a standard practice which continues to pervade modern society. The inferiority complex that women have always had with respect to men is alive and well, it seems.
brokenhead wrote:As to that standard practice of modern society of belittling the male, it makes me want to toss my lunch. It is as ubiquitous as it is gratuitous.
What seems wrong to me about this forum is that guys can complain about being belittled for being male and get supported for that opinion, but when anyone complains about belittling of females, that poster gets bullied.
brokenhead wrote:Neither gender should be belittled.
*tempted to put that quote in bold and size 24 font*
David Quinn wrote:What's interesting to me is that when women are belittled - which happens so rarely these days as to be non-existent, at least within educated circles
Perhaps that is the case in Australia, but not in America, and not in most other parts of the world.
David Quinn wrote:Incidentally, “abilitities” – a fine word that. :)
*drums fingers*
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by sue hindmarsh »

Elizabeth wrote:
brokenhead: As to that standard practice of modern society of belittling the male, it makes me want to toss my lunch. It is as ubiquitous as it is gratuitous.
What seems wrong to me about this forum is that guys can complain about being belittled for being male and get supported for that opinion, but when anyone complains about belittling of females, that poster gets bullied.
I don’t agree. Compared to the rest of society, GF is most consistent in their intolerance of any belittling of either females, or males. Here neither is pigeoned-holed according to normal stereotypical definitions; instead both are given equal opportunity to express their minds. Only occasionally on GF are there posts that share with much of society the mindless love of belittling both males and females, but they are easily spotted and condemned.
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“Females are more kind, generous, loving, friendly, imaginative, intelligent, and sensitive than men are”, and at the same time, “Females are more unkind, ungenerous, unloving, unfriendly, unimaginative, unintelligent, and insensitive than men are.”
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And because GF doesn’t accept this nonsense, it stands as an oasis for those who are not completely lost to it.
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Peter L »

Elizabeth,
Here is yet another reason to choose The Middle Way.
What's The Middle Way?

Let me guess - balance between the masculine/feminine mind. Isn't that something the average female/male strive towards?
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by brokenhead »

Incidentally, “abilitities” – a fine word that. :)
Yes, it's short for "able little titties."

All my posts wind up getting edited because I refuse to use a spell-checker. My spelling is great. It's just that my keyboard skills leave something to be desired. I swear I preview every single post and I still miss some typos. I must be dyslexic.
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by PJ818 »

"I am the entire human race compacted together. I have found that there is no ingredient of the race which I do not possess in either a small way or a large way." Mark Twain

"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." Mark Twain


I went looking for a section in his letters where he observes that it is impossible for anyone to have an original thought, and came across the above quotes.

Mark Twain, for me, had uncanny insights into the nature of mankind, and I got to pondering the second quote.

My initial 'slap' that got me onto the Path was someone saying, "The Blame Game stops here." It isn't my mother's/father's fault, teachers, religion, boss, friend, ex-husband, my gender, the other gender, the country, etc, etc, etc.

It was simply a premise I had to accept. Do, then understand.

It's one thing to point out inconsistencies/behaviors/tendencies of one sex or the other - I can learn about myself in that way, if I'm willing. However, I found it to be a truth that blaming solves nothing. As long as my focus is on the other side of the street, I'm not looking at my side. And that's the only place where change can happen. "To accept the people/places/things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can (Me). And the wisdom to know the difference."

Some things, for me, were harder than hell to get onto my side of the street. #1 was my mother. The animosity I felt towards her defied every effort. I simply was *nothing* like her. I dedicated my life to being nothing like her. And being as much like my father as possible.

I was told that this was normal and to just keep working on reactions that came into my day from other sources. Eventually, I'd untangle enough of the strings and one day it would happen. About six months ago, my mother *finally* showed up on my side of the street. My outsides looked different - but my insides were the same. Everything she did to compensate for her core of shame, I just picked different 'covers'. So, I couldn't 'see' - until I could. There was also a need to 'shock' her with shameful behavior. Sex outside of marriage, going braless, hanging out with drug addicts even though I didn't use, etc. Something in me trying to expose the pious mother image?

Turned out there was no need to 'forgive' my mother. In coming to understand me, I understood why she did the things she did. How her rage leaked out in passive-aggressive ways. How she covered by being socially 'correct'/church going, etc. And how denial can be so strong that a mac truck can't get through.

There's a line in the movie, "The American President" that struck me as the job of Ego....
"He is interested in two things and two things only ... making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it...."

While I've learned that blaming isn't the answer, from experience of doing it that way and then finding the way out, I really couldn't find an 'in' to the blanket blaming of women in reference to emotions of women and thinking of men.

Mark Twain's quote seems to provide the link. Men's thinking is their escape from emotions and the core of shame Ego so generously provides. "Pillars of the community" thinkers caught in scandalous behavior or intent. To be a truly powerful philosophical thinker, however, one would have to have come to terms with their ego nature at some point.

The magnet of men for women is the search for the buried parts of themselves - the emotional side. The subconscious desire to become 'whole'. "My other half." Women seek relief from the chaos of emotions in seeking a decisive, logical male.

The first part of that paragraph appears logical, but not the other part. I question whether the women's ulterior motive isn't to pull a man down to her level. Jealousy and envy. Their shame is closer to the surface and like a heat-seeking missle, they can see the way to make a male aware of the shame he hides from beneath the vain exterior. Or trap them with duty, obligation, children, finances so that they never find the seedier side of themselves because the female has no desire to admit that side of herself.

The last part would explain why a man with a woman who is 'without fault' will go looking for the woman who is more base. The double life of affairs that allows for the 'hidden' to come to the surface. One for 'show' and another for 'real'.

Looking at it, it now appears it works both ways. A male finds a 'staid and proper' woman to be a challenge - there is a desire to 'bring her down' from her own pedestal to show her how base she really is. If their own shame of ego is closer to the surface, they have little difficulty detecting what lies beneath an 'upstanding' woman.

Both sides either seek to denigrate the other - or collude to keep up their own masks (until someone pisses someone off, then the charade comes to an end.)

There's something that has come to mind that I haven't found confirmation for - yet. That all of us, male and female, marry/have relationships with our mothers/initial caregivers. Whether the choices are obvious traits or 'dressed up' so that they aren't found until later.

Ego is a feminine trait. A woman marries the 'feminine' in the male. She marries his mother. A female must 'become male' by having an X converted to a Y, spiritually speaking.

Trying to correlate this with my experience, I was a solid INTP by Myers Briggs. My one and only marriage at 36 (4 yrs) was to an EFTJ (done for kicks after marriage). It surprised me because, at the time of marrying, I thought I was marrying someone like me.

One morning I awoke from a 'dreamless' sleep with a thought lodged in my head, "OMG, I married my mother!" (My intention was to marry the qualities of my father.) I didn't remember dreaming of a connection, but I did recall something my husband said the evening before while I was making dinner and he was casually watching. I cracked an egg wrong or something minor. He said, "I knew if I watched you long enough you'd make a mistake." I laughed until the tears rolled down my cheeks. He looked at me as if to say, "I thought it was funny, too, but not *that* funny." I didn't really know why I was laughing - it just struck me funny. The next morning, however, I made the connection. What he said was the EXACT way that I felt my whole life around my mother. The ever critical, ever watchful, ever hawking mother. Her need to escape shame propelled her to shame others, to belittle, to criticize - to feel 'better than', to feel competent, to feel 'okay'. After that connection was made, I began to notice many things. I felt like a pin cusion and couldn't turn off the needles - 'all in fun' - anymore. I once thought my husband quite funny and didn't previously mind the barbs at my expense. That ended. I was sleeping with the enemy.

There was a time that boggled my mind when I was 38. I was at my mother's and put a pan on the stove to boil water to make iced tea. My mother was sitting at the kitchen table working a crossword puzzle. She got up, dumped the water out of the pan, got down another pan and simply stated, "You're using the wrong pan." The wrong pan to boil water??? There was simply nothing too insignificant for her to seize an opportunity to criticize.

How am I like her? The perfectionist tendency. I couldn't care less if someone leaves the cap off the toothpaste. But get me in a job where I'm working with someone without my "high standards" and I make their lives miserable. And their bucking developing my high standards makes me miserable. I didn't spend my life predominantly in solo jobs because I was born that way. "You weren't born a loner - you became one." This thought came from the 3rd Pool a year or so after I knew the Spirit was within. It went against everything I believed - everything I'd been told as a child ("You're just like your father!")

Working solo was the only way to turn off the critic in my head. Well, not turn off, but could pacify. When working with others, I was truly scared to death that someone would find fault in something I did. That they'd find a lapse in my 'high standards'. And when it happened, I would be angry inside. Angry that I'd made a stupid mistake. Angry that they couldn't see all the things I'd done right and 'better than'. And, of course, I'd be quick to point out 10 things they had done wrong and I hadn't said anything about. Defensive. And self-honesty said, "Shame" was what triggered the anger. I 'stock-piled' for just such occasions. The need to be perfect at something so I could distance myself from the underlying shame. I had to be a perfectionist, to do things extra good - just to feel marginally justified in being allowed to live.

There was another major 'wash'. I sent an email chastising someone about their pride over doing a lousy job on someone's house in their business line of work. I knew I was on their side of the street but couldn't see a way around it. It was a person who actively did inner work and I knew when he thought about it, he'd 'get it'. But first, he would be angry. I expected his initial response. But at the very end of the email he wrote, "Yer an icky, slimy thing."

Well, the emtions that flooded through me took my breath away. It was a horrendous experience. All I could do was say, "Hang on. It'll pass. You'll see." After a couple of minutes, the feelings subsided. I was left saying, "What was THAT?" Those five little words had hit the core of me. It was how I'd felt since my earliest recollection of being a child. That I was nothing, insignificant, not worth a bother. A mistake. Someone to use, pick on, reject. It was an incredible moment of growth once the clarity started coming through. It explained so many things. A lifetime of struggle to stay afloat. The never-ending need to escape feeling 'less than' by fighting to be 'better than'.

My escape into alcoholism at 40 was giving up the fight. I kept up appearances on the outside, but I was essentially 'done'. It takes an awful lot of energy to keep up the defenses of ego to not know itself as it truly is. Thus far, I think it is rage that fuels the life force of Ego. And the hell of it is Ego craving desperately not to be known as it really is - and also wanting to be known as it really is. Rage is Ego hating itself. Murder is hating someone else because Ego can't accept that it hates itself. Suicide is the rage turned inward - the 'I' identified with Ego's self-loathing.

Is rigorous self-honesty fun? Hardly. But once on the other side of a barrier to truth, the incredible freedom felt, the detachment from Ego on that issue, gives me the courage to keep going. There's a part of me that wonders what the 'life force' will be like that replaces the one of Ego once complete detachment takes place. I wonder if I'll someday know what it means in the Bible about a "hand in place of a hand; a foot in place of a foot." Have to wait and see.

Well, here it is. What someone said about not jumping in and allowing comment about their thinking struck a cord with me. If I'm not willing to put my logic to the test, then I could be tangled up in Ego and not know it. There is nothing about the Path that I've found works for me that doesn't require the input of others either by providing mirrors or input that my thinking maybe has gotten hijacked.

"What I say is what I most need to hear." The reason this is true, from my experience, is that I see other things once thoughts leave the ego cave and come back in 'fresh' when I re-read after sending. I can't see it objectively until then.

I know some of it sounds like I'm writing 'fact'. I just write the way if falls out. Everything is subject to growth; deeper understanding or a course change.

pj
brokenhead
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by brokenhead »

Thanks for sharing.
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by brokenhead »

In my first AA meeting, a woman poured her heart out about just everything for ten full minutes. When she was done, I started to offer some heartfelt words of compassion. I suddenly felt a palpable chill in the room. I began to backtrack and mumble my way into the silence in which I should have remained to start with. It was my first meeting. I had broached the unwritten AA etiquette. How the hell was I supposed to know you weren't supposed to comfort someone who is in distress, that people went there to dump their problems whatever they may be, and call it "sharing"? You're supposed to just sit there and say "Thanks for sharing."
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Kevin Solway »

brokenhead wrote:You're supposed to just sit there and say "Thanks for sharing."
That reminds me of the last time I went to Church about fifteen years ago. On the spur of the moment on a Sunday morning I wandering into a Church to see what was going on. I was sitting down for a while, when all of a sudden everyone else stood up and I was the only one sitting. So I slowly stood up. By the time I stood up, everyone else had sat down again. So I sat down again, whereupon everyone else stood up again.
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PJ818
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Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by PJ818 »

brokenhead wrote:In my first AA meeting, a woman poured her heart out about just everything for ten full minutes. When she was done, I started to offer some heartfelt words of compassion. I suddenly felt a palpable chill in the room. I began to backtrack and mumble my way into the silence in which I should have remained to start with. It was my first meeting. I had broached the unwritten AA etiquette. How the hell was I supposed to know you weren't supposed to comfort someone who is in distress, that people went there to dump their problems whatever they may be, and call it "sharing"? You're supposed to just sit there and say "Thanks for sharing."

Not where I learned to 'peel'. Well, not exactly that way. I haven't gone to many f2f meetings and the ones I've gone to lack depth - the 'bounce factor' - as in using the experience of others as mirrors into the depths of oneself. It's like you say - I call it sterile. But 'sympathy' is not the answer in online or f2f, from my experience, with spiritual growth.

Online, if someone's share pulls me to reveal something of myself, I get to grow by taking the opportunity to look at it out of my head. If someone shares something I've found the answer to for me, then I also share as experience, strength & hope that there is a way out. What I try never to do (and am 99% successful doing today) is to share when I've had no experience with the situation the person is expressing - that makes it opinion and they are 99% worthless. I'm not talking of discussing concepts gleaned from experiences, just the experiences themselves - everyone has them, they just look different on the outside. The insides are the same.

There is nothing written in the previous post that I 'react' to. It is healed. If someone else reacts to something I share, that reaction is for them to peel - or not. I offer experiences to indicate the basis for the work I say I do and which provide the link between the connections I make in the broader framework of the universal problem of Ego.

Alcohol was never my 'problem'. It was a symptom of the underlying spiritual malady that I tried to blot out. To me, that is the cause behind every addiction whether the addiction is sanctioned by society or not. I can even see where 'empty nest syndrome' could be caused by using children to fill the existential loneliness and when they fly off, back comes the void. Same with workaholics who retire. 'Hitting bottom' is when one's "solution" to the problem of spiritual dis-ease no longer is available or stops working.

From my observations, most folks stop with peeling the addiction itself. Practicing these principles in all of my affairs is dismissed. They never figure out the steps of how 'alcohol' got peeled, so how to apply it to other things? It was never about alcohol, per se. I just had to stop using that 'solution' in order to become teachable to a better Solution - that of curing the spiritual malady.

However, Brokenhead, this is not an AA format and I have no expectations of how anyone responds to what I share on that Spiritual Path I've chosen. I don't adhere to the 'suggestions for sharing' because of ritual. I adhere to the ones that I've discovered work for deeper reasons - and I attempt to use them wherever I'm writing. My choice, not an expectation for anyone else.

So, this ain't AA. Respond however you like. :-)

The following quotes are some I've found to be true, from experience.
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"Whether on the Soul level or in the human realm, emotions are essential parts of our beingness. Rejected, they become heavy, dark aspects of ourselves that we live in fear of. We put great energy into trying to fool ourselves and others into believing that we don’t have those unacceptable feelings. The fascinating thing about running away from our fears is that when we finally are confronted by whatever it is that we’ve protected ourselves against, the thing itself is never as bad as our fears had us believe. Many people feel amazed, and even a little foolish, at how much time, effort, and energy they put into hiding a feeling, only to discover that when re-integrated, it made them feel whole. The fear of being annihilated by an emotion is the fear of feeling alive. Isn’t it funny what we do to avoid it and yet pursue it anyway?"

Only that which is made conscious can be "let go."

"To transcend yourself, be yourself." Ð Robert Augustus Masters, Darkness Shining Wild, p. 179

"We can't get rid of thought, getting rid of thought is not what is called for. It's becoming an observer of one's thought, master of one's thought, and pointing one's thought in a larger direction than self-defense and ego-survival that is really the key to spiritual attainment."
brokenhead
Posts: 2271
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 8:51 am
Location: Boise

Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by brokenhead »

Kevin Solway wrote:
brokenhead wrote:You're supposed to just sit there and say "Thanks for sharing."
That reminds me of the last time I went to Church about fifteen years ago. On the spur of the moment on a Sunday morning I wandering into a Church to see what was going on. I was sitting down for a while, when all of a sudden everyone else stood up and I was the only one sitting. So I slowly stood up. By the time I stood up, everyone else had sat down again. So I sat down again, whereupon everyone else stood up again.
That's funny, Kevin. Standing, sitting, kneeling. Not surprising it was your last visit, I guess. We good Catholic boys were trained by nuns with clickers when to sit, stand and kneel. Wonderful. Then comes Sunday and the Mass and without the goddamn clicks, I was lost. So all the time, I just did what you did, I had to watch what the other people were doing. Even worse, when I hear a clicking sound today, I get this vague urge to genuflect.
Relo
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Male vs Female Brains

Post by Relo »

Yes PJ, and sharing these thoughts and experiences makes life worth living.
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