🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (44 tweets)
@myceliummage Okay so what I've gathered so far, I would describe the whole framework/philosophy/approach as similar to a synesthesia for emotion-language. So when you write or speak a phrase, the words and relationships between words have shape, texture, and movement. If you were to draw out
@myceliummage these shapes, it would start to make patterns and perhaps even become like a sort of pattern language. Certain types of speech, certain words, have a particular texture to them. The best example of this is when someone is speaking in a passive aggressive or manipulative way, you
@myceliummage tend to get far more interesting shapes/texture/patterns/arrows going all over the place, compared to a relatively direct sentence. By looking more carefully at the sources of chaotic patterning (edges, arrows, knots, etc), you can actually come to *see* and *uncover* emotions
@myceliummage One big philosophical stance is to align your words to the emotions underlying them, to create a "smooth" texture. For example if you say "I'm fine" but your face is screwed up in pain, then the overall phrase has a weird texture to it because the emotion doesn't match the word.
@myceliummage People don't always talk in smooth phrases because it can be reallyyyy vulnerable to admit your own immediate emotional experience, and so you put all these confusing layers of patterning on top. Eg, "I don't know what *you* want to do, but I'm going to go to the park."
@myceliummage There are these 3 symbols: {ϕ}{0}{1} In session 1 we explored {1} Negation. I wrote a piece of writing, and we went through and found all the instances of negation (not, but, un-, etc) in it. Then he had me go and rewrite the sentences without the negation, and through this
1) A radiant smile that warms you and doesn’t go away like in real life but continues on, like a generous ray of sunshine visiting your bedroom for a lazy afternoon. 2) On earth, a radiant smile may warm you for a moment before leaving you a little hollow and blue. Here, it continues on, like a generous ray of sunshine visiting your bedroom for a lazy afternoon.
@myceliummage There's a weird up down motion happening in the first sentence around "doesn't go away like in real life but..." ?? And when I investigated it, I found that there was a lot of sadness hiding in that crease. I hadn't acknowledged/honored the sadness I felt after a smile leaves.
@myceliummage Through this kind of activity I quickly felt the therapeutic side of speech coaching coming on— I was uncovering a lot of emotions I hadn't honored yet. It feels kind of similar to IFS in that way, but from the frame of language. Instead of talking to parts I was finding
@myceliummage In session 2 we explored Projection {φ}. I wrote a piece on death and my intimate relationship to it. I also have tweeted a fair amount about death, see quoted thread. I kind of thought I had processed most of it and come out with a life philosophy https://t.co/T4bvkTDiyf
@myceliummage This time we went through and looked at instances of projection— you, your, etc. We also looked at past tense and future tense words. There was an interesting and obvious inflection point in my essay when I went from describing my experiences with death in the first person to
@myceliummage second person. I went from talking about my experience with death to "you start to realize...". When we dug into this I realized that there was a lot of distancing and dissociating happening here??? I was moving away from speaking from my body, my immediate felt experience, into
@myceliummage more of an armchair grandpa waving his hand being like "yeah you know, the lessons you learn". And the *coolest* part is that when we dug even further, I again uncovered emotions that I don't think I have honored/fully felt/grieved until that day.
@myceliummage I hadn't actually allowed myself to feel the fear and terror of those moments where I touched death. This is wild. I hadn't even uncovered that in IFS?? or I hadn't thought to look there. It was kind of hilarious, in my writing I even said something like
@myceliummage "I didn't reflect on that at all" (1st incident). The 2nd near death incident I thought I had fully gone over many times and processed, but I actually skipped the part where I allow myself to fully feel the fear & loneliness & confusion & anger of that split second.
@myceliummage Okay the *wildest* part is that I have sort of based a significant portion of my life philosophy around the presence of death as this black backdrop against which our lives burn brightly???? https://t.co/BNYjOAJvAS
@myceliummage And so I unearthed all the disappointment and fear and disillusionment that came from facing death, and I felt a lot of emotional release from writing down my true, most immediate first person experience, then reading it out loud. Reading it out loud felt like acknowledging it.
@myceliummage That's all I've done so far, only 2 sessions, but I've noticed I feel a bit of distance / breathing room from the my former philosophy of "death is here all the time, our lives are more alive for it". I feel less urgency around https://t.co/dWvhCsleBl
anyways, I feel like this awareness of death is quite good for me. It makes me go for things, be a little hedonistic, and not wallow too much. I celebrate a sunny day & buy myself ice cream, I laugh at my melodramas, and if I want to change something in life I don’t wait too long
@myceliummage being alive— like I've taken a step back from constant death gleam. (Death gleam is what I call it when you're aware everyone around you including you is going to die so colors are more vibrant and you feel more alive for it)
@myceliummage I will say that I think mage has a strong intuitive grasp of how to navigate this kind of thing? He is an excellent teacher, space-holder, and just seems to be very oriented in this sub-verbal realm of body sensations and emotional bubbles. Excited to see what comes next :)
@myceliummage oh also a really cool key concept I picked up is the idea that speech should be like qi gong, or like an organic pattern language, or taoism— similar to how our movements should arise naturally in alignment with the flow of the universe, our speech should arise naturally from
@myceliummage Another interesting technique is, when I got lost and couldn't find the emotion, he would have me recite the sentence, and I could track the emotional depth/feltness of the sentence by feeling where the words resonated in my body.
@myceliummage fantastic thread, this guy gets it. and solid word of caution at the end about the potentially othering effects https://t.co/ksfgiPWSBi
@myceliummage btw here is his coaching page https://t.co/dcqeyVZaxP
@myceliummage also here is collab film based on all this https://t.co/YxmkaSpD9l
@myceliummage great further testimonial and expanded ideas!!! https://t.co/zuJ53QBGkH
@myceliummage someone needs to like this rn also what a wild like:bookmark ratio https://t.co/HGUTDwxzGc
@myceliummage perfect 👌🏼 https://t.co/6YXmgg5xsS
Was my voice coming from my head vs my throat vs my stomach, etc. Then I highlighted where my voice came from deep in my stomach/gut and explored it imaginally/somatically, there was like a crustiness and an entire landscape...
@christineist @myceliummage Underlining this! I've started to consider that every time I switch into speaking in second person I've probably unknowingly activated a facet and started speaking from the facet instead of from wholeness
hmm this is fascinating! I know you've developed classes of words, @myceliummage. I wonder if the taxonomies of IFS an other therapeutic psych, being fundamentally emotion- and talking-based, might be in interesting lens? protector words = staying in connection + obscuring core emotion firefighter words = breaking connection + obscuring cor emotion etc?