janusjuno

[janusjuno]

How To Cure Yourself Of Depersonalization (A Definitive Guide)... or maybe not?

Depersonalization is one of the most distressing of all psychological disorders and is a fairly common occurrence in the general population. Learn how to "cure" yourself of depersonalization here: or, maybe you don't really want to...?

The Brain as Illusion and Emotional Generator

I would first like to point out that the word 'brain' is an illusion in itself, as it is not a physical entity but rather a mental representation of one's inner workings. The brain does not generate any illusions at all, because by definition an illusion is something which deceives or misleads.

It is the mind which generates illusions, and for this reason, it is the mind that creates emotions. It follows from this that all emotions are generated by the self alone.

In fact, it is the mind which creates any form of sensory input. For example, sight and sound are not real entities but rather illusions generated by the mind itself. The brain detects various forms of energy in its environment, but these do not become light or sound until they reach the mind.

This leads us to the conclusion that all illusions are generated by the mind, and since the mind is a product of existence itself, it follows that all illusions are in fact real.

Let us consider the example of a human brain, which is defined as an entity that generates illusions. The brain takes in information from its environment and processes this data according to its programming until it has generated a sensory representation of reality.

This sensory representation is then transmitted to the mind, which in turn translates this data into a format comprehensible by humans. We see as we do because our minds have encoded how light and color translate into vision.

What's The Real Cause Of Depersonalization?

Depersonalization disorder (DPD) is an alteration in the perception or experience of one's self. In particular, it refers to the feeling that external reality is unreal, and seems "dream-like" or like a movie. It can be viewed as a dissociative disorder that is likely brought on by the severe stress of trauma (PTSD: post-traumatic stress disorder) or a history of trauma (cPTSD: in particular: neglect or emotional abuse) in childhood. Medications, substance use/drugs (such as cannabis/marijuana; mdma; ketamine; or hallucinogens), seizure disorders (such as temporal lobe epilepsy) can all cause symptoms of depersonalization as well.

In my opinion, the general societal norms of society do have a role to play in causing depersonalization disorder. The constant pressure to be someone you are not and perform tasks that you detest takes a toll on your psyche over time.

For example, let's take the case of a person working at an office job. Here, there might not be very many mental processes at play. He is required to do monotonous tasks and he has little control over his work environment. Feelings of detachment and dissociation begin to arise. Furthermore, he feels that there are no opportunities for growth in career or salary.

He is at the beck and call of his boss, who has little regard for him. This individual then comes home feeling unfulfilled, having spent most of his energy simply to make a living.

At home, he is expected to do more chores and be a father. He feels that the demands of society are too great for him. His job consumes him, his boss controls his life, and his family takes away what little energy remains.

Eventually, he begins to feel that the people in his life are not real. In fact, the world around him is just an illusion. He becomes an outside observer looking in on himself as an automaton.

What Is Depersonalization?

Depersonalization is a feeling of being disconnected from yourself and the world, like you are an observer looking at your own body but not actually in it. This produces distress and affects the quality of one's life.

Depersonalization can be a symptom of other mental disorders, such as dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder), depression and anxiety.

Depersonalization can also be a symptom of schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder and drug use.

It has also been shown that depersonalization can occur as a result of traumatic experiences, such as physical or sexual abuse.

Depersonalization is not a mental disorder on its own, but it can be part of several mental disorders (I.e., derealization disorder, etc.)

Depersonalization can be caused by brain injuries, especially to the frontal lobes and hippocampus.

Relationship between Anxiety and Depersonalization

I have noted that anxiety is a signal indicating an incompatibility between the current situation and your goals, integrity, or high level plans. When anxiety occurs in situations where it doesn't belong (like when you see a bear on your way to work), this indicates that there is something wrong with these 'goals', which may be flexible long-term plans such as career aspirations. So one of my hypothesis is that depersonalization can result from having incoherent aspirations.

But what is an aspiration? It's a high level goal, and as such it's usually something that you can't directly pursue. You have to make many choices in order to achieve your aspirations over a long period of time. If these choices are incompatible with the goals of your environment at any given moment (i.e., there is conflict between you and your surroundings), then anxiety occurs.

Depersonalization is a cognitive distortion, and as such it is always correlated with certain core beliefs. It's not just anxiety that causes depersonalization, but also the interpretation of anxiety (which is known to be associated with dysfunctional attitudes). So another hypothesis I have is that an incoherent set of aspirations can cause both anxiety and dysfunctional interpretations of this emotion.

But how does this happen? One of the roles of anxiety is to signal that something needs your attention, and then you can check what it is. But sometimes people have an aim or a plan for their lives which isn't compatible with reality. For example, someone who wants to live in New York City has some logical inconsistencies - they will need money in order to live there, but where do they get the money if they're living in NYC?

These inconsistencies are cognitive distortions, because they involve some kind of self-deception. You don't know why you want to live in New York City (somehow it's magical), and so you have a faulty plan for what your life should be like. But since your goal is high level ('living in NYC'), there are many intermediate goals that need to be accomplished before you can achieve this ultimate one. This means that at each step along the way, we must make rational decisions about how to progress towards our overall goal.

For example, you need a job in order to live in NYC. So you may decide to go for an interview at some company. But then the anxiety arises: 'Will I get this job? What if they don't hire me?' This is normal and natural - it's not just that your aspirations are unrealistic, but also that there is uncertainty about whether or not these choices will lead to success.

Depersonalization as a gateway to a new experience of reality

Should I get psychotherapy from a psychologist or a psychiatrist? Perhaps, but...

In my opinion, depersonalization can be seen as a gateway to a new experience of reality in the search for meaning and authenticity. It doesn't have to be anxiety ladened experience, replete with panic attacks or panic disorder. It is an important step in the process of existential discovery. I believe that life becomes meaningless when we forget who we are, where we come from and what our purpose is. This occurs all too often nowadays with people experiencing their lives as completely disconnected from themselves and each other.

I believe that there are two main aspects of depersonalization: the existential and the biological. The first is about coming to terms with who you are and what your values are, whereas the second is about overcoming our animal needs in order to exist in a higher state of consciousness.

The first aspect of depersonalization is deeply existential and spiritual. It involves experiencing the world as it is, rather than through our own biased perceptions. It's kind of like extreme reality testing. Only when we are able to experience this new perspective on reality can we begin to understand ourselves and who we really are.

The second aspect of depersonalization is biological and involves overcoming our animal needs. We are social animals that have evolved to survive as individuals, but in the modern world we live together in masses with little space for privacy or personal reflection.

This is the result of technological progress and globalization, which we believe to be a good thing. However, it has led to an increased sense of meaninglessness in our lives as social animals who are used to belonging together.

This is the main cause of depersonalization, which I believe to be an important step towards a higher sense of consciousness.

Conclusion

The ability to depersonalize, or experience a numbness to consciousness perceptual experience, is an essential survival mechanism. That glass wall, "veil," or fog that so many with DP talk about, causes us not to get too attached to anything in life, and therefore it prevents a lot of unhappiness.

Depersonalization is a survival mechanism of the mind.

Learning to live with DP, to allow it to be part of our mind, while not being stunned by it into panic or a sense of being overwhelmed is where therapy can lead one; if, you feel this is the right path for you.

www.janusjuno.com

[janusjuno]

Betterhelp is a poor substitute for REAL therapy

Betterhelp has been on the online therapy scene for some time. Being a competitor  (albeit enormous), I wanted to I’d check them out. They are insanely cheap. And, this confuses me. How could they offer REAL therapy at these prices? I signed up and they assigned me a counsellor in a flash.

Within a day, I knew this counsellor was bad. She asked me to detail my “issues”. I did. Then, she emailed me a form letter. Instead of replying to my issues, she  pasted some ideas on anxiety. I thought: “No. That can’t be. Maybe it’s the first conversation.” I dismissed the form letter and asked her to reply to my issues directly. Another form letter arrived. Shocked by her boilerplate responses, I asked for a new counsellor.

My next counsellor wanted a huge form filled out before she talked to me. I refused—wanting to see how she’d handle that. She balked and became defensive. She relented and agreed to have an online session. A jaded, sour woman appeared on my screen. My shackles sprang forth. She began to tell me about herself. I learned how experience she was and how she’s seen everything. My issues were small compared to what she’s seen. Then, she told me a story: "Let me tell you about my other client." Inappropriate! And the subject matter was terrible. It was a traumatic story of a client murdering her family. (Really good to hear for a client posing with anxiety.) Finally, she said: “I guess this has been all about me. What do you have?” Shocked, I relayed my standard story. She interrupted and said: We have years of work ahead of us. Are you ready for that?

Send in counsellor number 3. I chose a middle-aged male this time. I wanted to get face-to-face. Instead, as our session started he informed me that it would be via text. Ok—strange... Let’s try that. As I relayed my story, he asserted wild ideas on my emotions. I told him he was wrong and he jumped to another assertion. I told him firmly he was wrong again. Without a clue, he guessed again! He kept relating my issues to current movies. “That reminds me of (insert movie title)... have you seen that?” 

How did they find these counsellors? I couldn’t go on. I had witnessed enough. The level of skill that these three counsellors displayed was obvious. And, there was no accounting either. If you didn’t like a counsellor, they gave you the option to terminate. You could open a new relationship and dump the counsellor. This means their counsellors learned nothing. I am sure, they were used to fly-by-night clients.

These services are cheap, but you are not even getting what you paid for! Its a huge problem. Betterhelp saturates the market. This low talent, low cost “counselling” has no relation to real therapy. Clients receive a cheap form of “chatting”. This is not real therapy: it is simply a cheap knock off that degrades the value of therapy and scams the general populace.

[janusjuno]

Why is DP (depersonalization) under-diagnosed?

Simeon (2004) found that under-diagnosis may stem from the fact that patients are reluctant to talk about their DP symptoms because other people, including therapists, might think they are really crazy (i.e., “mad”) or simply just have a hard time articulating exactly what they are experiencing. As well, Edwards and Angus (1972), found that assessment interviews by professionals failed clients with DP because the questions they asked were not relevant to the diagnosis.

In my professional university training for my Masters program (which included a PhD diagnostic component), DP was not even covered—even though 1% of the population suffers from it. In fact, when I brought this up and did a presentation on it, none of the therapists (who were PhD candidates and working with the public) or the professors knew to what I was referring.

This is why finding a therapist who understands and specializes DP is critical to working with it successfully. Many, many therapists misdiagnosis DP as anxiety, depression or some other variant of the two. Many of my clients have been battling DP for years before they see me and have no idea that they were. 

Tidal Grace (MA Honours, Counselling Psych., RCC) is an online psychotherapist specializing in spiritualism, depersonalization and identity states. See www.janusjuno.com for more details.

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Is CBT (Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy) effective for treating Depersonalization?

Frankly? No.

As a therapist whose treated many cases of DP over the years, I have to be blunt: CBT is NOT effective in treating DP; however, it has its uses as an adjunct and a resource. 

Let me explain how CBT-oriented therapists and researchers imagine DP...

To a CBT-based therapist, DP may result from “catastrophic misinterpretations of normally occurring and fleeting depersonalization symptoms”—that is, you might think you are going mad or some brain damage has occurred due to using drugs. The initial symptom then become NOT the problem—it is the interpretation that creates more anxiety and helplessness, which then feeds a loop: anxiety > more DP > more anxiety > more DP > etc. etc.

Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) then reasons that simply working on misinterpretations of cognitive events will clear everything up for the client. While logical, especially for personality types that value logic over emotions, CBT researchers and therapists forget that sometimes humans are not so reasonable. Me, and my clients, are never totally logical. In fact, if simple logic rules drove our behaviours, we’d have no problems at all. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), we have emotional systems running all the time. These systems cannot be simply divorced from reasonings as logic-oriented scientists and CBT therapists would like. Our minds and emotions are intermingled with the logical systems; therefore, telling someone to think differently about DP (and its symptoms) simply does not work. In fact, if clients cannot just “think differently,” they might certainly get frustrated and disappointed with themselves (“I must be a bad client!”)

DP is insidiously deep in its origins. 

In all of my clients, DP has existed far before any initiating event. Although a causal element like a one time drug use may have led to its discovery, the drug use did not “cause” DP. It is simply a chain of events that allowed the person to become aware of their own DP behaviours that have existed far before the primary drug use.

Note: once I work with clients through the bulk of the DP work, CBT can be useful in the final stages as a knowledge resource and handy guide to what is going on for clients.

DP takes time to work with in therapy. DP therapy work is deep and sustained. DP therapy work needs to deal with emotional and/or spiritual issues deep in the psyche to resolve—otherwise there will be no change and relief of suffering. There is no quick fix to DP but there can be rapid shifts in understanding and insight within therapy that can lead to substantial improvements in quality of life. 

Hope is there but one has to work for it. 

I tell my clients: “DP didn’t just start. You’ve been brewing it up for your whole life. A couple of hours to deconstruct years of deep neural programming is not going to significantly help you. Prepare for a longer haul and you’ll reap the benefits.”

Tidal Grace (MA Honours, Counselling Psych., RCC) is an online psychotherapist specializing in spiritualism, depersonalization and identity states. See www.janusjuno.com for more details.

[janusjuno]

The Importance of Forgiveness in Curing Depersonalization

Clients suffering from depersonalization ask me how I will work with them therapeutically. I tell them that the root of my work is the process of forgiveness, for in healing, there can be nothing else.

Clients are always unforgiven: that is, either they assign blame to others or to themselves. In assigning blame, no matter in which way it is directed (either inwardly or outwardly), this becomes an act of aggression; and, even if it is not acted upon but just stays a thought, this aggression becomes the source of their suffering because they know they were not acting in a loving manner in that moment. Blame that travels outwards stays stuck as guilt in the person doing the blaming. Blame that travels inwards is even worse as not only the person feels attacked but they are also the attacker.

All depersonalized clients want to hang on to this guilt. Why? Because their egos see it as a way to protect themselves. However, the spirit of the client does not need this protection! It is perfectly whole; it is capable and responsible without any guilt. The guilt and the ego that we have learned though tells us differently. It says: “You really should keep this guilt. It’s really good for you. If you don’t feel guilty about what a terrible person you are, God knows what you are capable of doing!” Of course, it never says this to us directly. Instead, the whispers of the ego are usually more subtle. It might say: “You should feel bad about what you did in the past. It’s good for society. It’s good for you. It keeps you in line and you’ll feel better if you do.”

When it comes to blaming others, the ego is even nastier: “You are SO right to blame them for your life. They really weren’t there for you. THAT is why you are so angry! They made you angry and so it is totally wise to make sure they suffer now under your guilt so they never do such a horrible thing again.”

The Ego’s lie: “I’m doing this for you!”

Notice, that in both cases, the grim refusal of the ego to give up guilt and blame, is couched in a loving protection and alert defense of you. Which is amazing because you don’t need the ego’s protection. Not letting any love come into you is really the goal of the ego and it rejoices every day that it keeps blame, guilt and anger alive in you. This nasty song the ego sings to us questions everything; to posit that forgiveness is the key to relieving depersonalization is the last thing it would like you to hear. Depersonalization starts to heal when clients start to hear their own dirges—this is the first step to recovery. However, the question of the validity of the ego’s incessant and guilt-producing voice must come from the client themselves.

The lie of the ego, which is busy assigning blame and hatred to everything, is a *mortal* threat. Believe it in wholly and it will have you focus on death as the only way out of such a terrible world. That said, the lie usually starts quickly and softly, whispering just barely within our awareness. These fleeting moments are important though: this is when the ego seeps in and does the damage—not only to you psychologically, but to your world in your actions that results from you believing in the lie that it is pushing.

How therapy helps DP via awareness

As a therapist, I help clients notice those moments of ego attack so that we may correct them together. I concentrate clients on these moments in order that they may “change the tune” of the song they are hearing from condemnation to love. The problem with depersonalization is that it is arises from the confrontation of the ego structure with a newly aware spirit which has finally woken up from the daze that it has been in. With new depersonalization clients, who have generally been asleep until their depersonalization has begun, the friction between the old song and the possibilities of something new is so stark and anxiety-producing that that person usually collapses into a “brain fog” or relentless rumination about existence and self to stop the process of waking up from occurring. The ego is happy with this because it gets to exist through this process even stronger. Notice the familiar strains of depersonalization: “Who am I?” “Who am I really?” “Do I exist?” All of these questions are meant to further strengthen the ego.

Depersonalization clients do not really want to hear, see or experience the universe for what it is. My task as a therapist is to make the universe less threatening and to allow new forms and love to emerge. When depersonalization clients see their new world suddenly, they often become fearful and then start to hide behind the broken shards of the former self in order to protect what they formerly called sanity. The ego forms multiple defenses against reality and sanity and hopes to lure the depersonalized client back to unreality and insanity.

Make no mistake though: the ego has one purpose (and this creates insanity—including depersonalization). **It wants to justify attack and keep unforgiveness unrecognized for what it is.** In therapy, we see how intolerable this is and without the protection of the ego it disintegrates. As it disintegrates, the ego attacks with even more spite, hoping to hold on with all the vigor it can muster. It increases anger and attack, even blaming the therapist and the therapeutic process itself. Its survival is at stake and it will drag the depersonalized client down with it as it claws to its own unreality. Again and again, I must tell my clients there is nothing wrong with them; but, the ego refuses ceaselessly to submit to this because this reality would mean that it is finished and it would dissolve.

The Illusion of Depersonalization

Unforgiveness can take many forms and depersonalization is just one of the them. Depersonalization is an illusion like all of the other mental illnesses. However, even though it is illusory, it still produces pernicious suffering and this is what as a therapist I must contend with, in my efforts to dispel it. As I work with depersonalization, I have noticed that it can start to produce new illusions as we work: depression and despair, anger and rage, fear and anxiety. All of these illusions can then be more easily dealt with using the same techniques as above. Note: intellectually knowing how this all works is never enough. It is only through a deep, experiential recognition, usually with the aid of a therapist or deep spiritual work, that these thorns on the soul can be evicted.

Therefore, realization is my goal in dealing with depersonalization in my therapy sessions. I have to find where in the client they have not forgiven themselves. We have to look at it clearly, open these self-wounds for re-evaluation and forgive it. If this is not done, the client will continue to experience depersonalization and many other illusions. My clients are the screens of their own illusions and projections of sin—this makes them the only ones who can let them all go. If they only let a few things go, then they can only expect a partial recovery.

Once “cured” the cure disappears

I love working with my clients for this fact: clients bring forgiveness to themselves and through our work together help to release the sins that were never there to begin with. Depersonalization can be “cured”, as it is only an illusion to begin with. Since nothing was wrong, nothing needed to be cured, but this can only be seen after the process of therapy is complete.

Tidal Grace (MA Honours, Counselling Psych., RCC) is an online psychotherapist specializing in spiritualism, depersonalization and identity states. See www.janusjuno.com for more details.

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Spiritualism helps DP sufferers; Ego-ic structures and denial of the spirit in favour of rationality encourage DP

In his post entitled "Is Depersonalization Disorder a Form of Enlightenment?", Shaun O'Connor denounces any links to spiritualism: "Depersonalization disorder is caused by trauma, panic attacks and drug use — people get it every day and recover from it every day, and it’s becoming more and more common. We need to raise common-sense awareness of this crippling condition, and not ascribe to it a spiritual credence that it simply doesn’t warrant." 

Spiritualism is a key component to resolving DP

Do not be persuaded that relief of DP symptoms is Mr. Connor's only goal here; that is, he wishes to denounce spiritualism (in favor of rationality and "common-sense") when treating DP and is asking DP sufferers to forego any spiritual inclinations, beliefs or thoughts. This contempt for spiritualism leaves DP sufferers to ruminate about themselves from only “rational" vantage points—which is exactly where the ego would like them to reside. Therefore, this denial of spirituality only worsens DP, for the ego would have us believe that their is no spiritual dimension, leading it to yet another victory. Fully enabled the ego continues into endless refrains of "Who are you?" and "Who is the real self?" in an effort to confuse reality further, ensure its own survival and create even more DP symptoms. It is my opinion, from many clinical cases, that investigating one’s spiritual perspective is a key component to any of the successes that I have had when working with my clients who suffer with DP.

Tidal Grace (MA Honours, Counselling Psych., RCC) is an online psychotherapist specializing in spiritualism, depersonalization and identity states through drama, creative process, and gestalt therapy. See www.janusjuno.com for more details.

[janusjuno]

Finding “Happiness” at the Cost of an Authentic Life

Are you enrolling in classes, gulping down affirmations and quotes, and getting rid of negative people? Are you trying to put yourself in a positive energy bubble that exclude ALL negative energy? This endless chase for only happiness is often unattainable and unsustainable with a lot of erratic moods in between. 

Happiness is sometimes more about letting go than doing more and is correlated with seeing life as pleasant, spending more time with friends, and being in good health. Lurking beneath much unhappiness, however, is often a deep dissatisfaction from knowing that one is not living the life one wants. The truth is that no matter how hard you work at increasing your level of happiness you will always be limited by your unacknowledged unhappiness. 

Do this Unhappiness Inventory:

What am I doing regularly that reduces my happiness?

What thoughts, actions or behaviors lead to feeling unhappy?

Where in my life am I feeling unhappy?

How does remaining unhappy serve me?

Some possible answers to the above questions...

Stop wanting more (aka. Hedonic Happiness) Fixed by: 1) settling or being satisfied with what you have; 2) making sure whatever you reach for adds meaning to your life.

Stop disappointing—by stopping expectations Fixed by: 1) getting rid of unrealistic expectations about others and ourselves; 2) accepting and understanding of other’s limitations and abilities.

Stop waiting + whining Fixed by: Doing something instead of thinking about it—no matter how small.

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The End of “Self-Help”?

I do not buy the current “self-help” mantras. That is, if they actually worked, I would not have a business. The majority are fixed on results rather than process. All of them, however, are fixed on un-relating: to becoming a Self in the most narcissistic way possible. Others are seen as impediments to life itself. Why else is it called “self”-help? Instead of connecting people to the world, these methods divide to conquer—leaving people out of touch, formless and grasping at only themselves, like hermits who are surrounded by strange trees that were formerly known as people.

This is where I differ in my approach. It is in connection and contact where we find ourselves—not in peering at our guts, our souls and our epigrams where we find meaning.

“I want to actualize myself!” Actualization is code for: “I am not what I want to be. I want more. If I actualize myself, then I will be more than what I am right now. Better yet, I’ll be better than everyone else because none of them is actualized—and this will make me feel better about myself.” I don’t buy this higher state: striving from the divine of actualization is anti-human. Instead of helping people, it removes them from their social fabric. It’s an egotistical and spiritual lust towards a fruitless search for meaning. 

“Realize full potential!”  More bull that means: “I am not enough.”—the crap most people are hanging onto to construct themselves today. I posit that if you get hit by a car after our session, THAT is your full potential! And if we have to find your potential, then it means it is hidden: and that I don’t believe. It’s right here before us—we just have to get you to look at it without turning away. Self help systems are not deep or connected enough to really get to the core of a person, the moment or life: they are blatant attempts at increasing narcissism and divisiveness while thinning people’s connections to each other developed by corporate interests.

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“Drama Therapy” is an ill-conceived name

Then name “drama therapy” is poorly chosen. It positions individual clients in a powered-down position as “client” or “patient,” disrespecting the individual through its “therapeutic” label. Now, one could argue that psychotherapy is similar in its disrespect for clients; and for that, I would agree (however, in psychotherapy, clients share responsibility for this up-down positioning; that is “I’m the client. You are the therapist. Teach me something.”

In drama, we have the idea that individual actors will shed images and take on new characters with an eye towards artistic freedom. This is wholly contrary to the idea of therapy itself. Therapy, based on a scientific-based, medical model, suggests illness or problems, and even though I use the word “therapy” within my psychotherapeutic practice, I cannot condone the use of this word in that way as I believe that clients are simply in process. “Drama Therapy” then becomes an oxymoron. It suggests movement in character space but not out of the therapeutic realm completely. Therapy solidifies the individual’s sense of their responsibility and identity as “client” or “patient” and the results are typical and limited to a flawed or sick identity. 

I propose “therapy that uses dramatic processes” rather than highlighting “drama” as the number one-positioned identity of this process work.

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“What’s my purpose?” you ask.

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Tim Minchin give an amazing graduation speech - this is a must watch (make sure your hear what he says)...

Posted by Ken Rutkowski on Sunday, 7 September 2014

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Selflessness with a self is not selflessness.  One cannot be selfless. Selflessness is not selflessness.

[janusjuno]

Splits between the self and the world creates unhappiness

“In fact the whole antithesis between self and the rest of the world, which is implied in the doctrine of self-denial, disappears as soon as we have any genuine interest in persons or things outside ourselves. Through such interests a man comes to feel himself part of the stream of life, not a hard separate entity like a billiard-ball, which can have no relation with other such entities except that of collocation. All unhappiness depends upon some kind of disintegration or lack or integration; there is disintegration within the self through lack of co-ordination between the conscious and the unconscious mind; there is lack of integration between the self and society where the two are not knit together by the force of objective interests and affections. The happy man is the man who does not suffer from either of these failures of unity, whose personality is neither divided against itself nor pitted against the world. Such a man feels himself a citizen of the universe, enjoying freely the spectacle that it offers and the joys that it affords, untroubled by the thought of death because he feels himself not really separate from those who will come after him. It is in such profound instinctive union with the stream of life that the greatest joy is to be found.” — Bertrand Russell

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Domains you find yourself in and their relationship to passion

“Experiencing a domain requires engaging with people in ways that go beneath the surface of a casual conversation and help us to see the domain through different lenses. We will need to form relationships that transcend short encounters and begin to build shared understanding of the domain. Relationships involve connecting on a personal level and passion helps to form a common bond. [....] passion inherently drives us to connect with others who share our passion and who can help us to improve our performance.  The passion of an explorer provides a capacity for empathy that can be very powerful in forging deep and lasting bonds. Passion also draws out the stories from all participants that are the first and often the most powerful way to express the new knowledge emerging on the fertile edges of any domain.”

- John Hagel

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If we are not passionately engaged in a particular domain, it is unlikely that we will invest the effort and energy required to achieve mastery and distinctiveness.

Malcolm Gladwell

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If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

Ben Franklin

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Part of therapy is having a body. Clients who will not exercise, will not have a body soon... then how are we going to work?”

Tidal Grace

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Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.

Freud