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Hello,
I’ve noticed recently that when studying for school or in class sometimes if we’ve been actively doing a lot i’ve started to feel stressed and even very uncomfortable and sick feeling. It happened to me again today as i was studying before a quiz. Since it was bothersome i took a break and the discomfort faded but did not go away completely. when i started to study again i discovered that it was because i was thinking with my gut and trying to do these strenuous studies with my gut-brain. it doesn’t feel very good when it happens, like it really does not feel good.has anyone else felt like this? is it like trying to use one organ for another organ’s functions? is it like gut-brain intellectual exercize? like i said, it doesnt feel right. what happened next was that energy got sent up from my gut brain through the central channel and heart to my head (i then experienced some third eye activation and energy expansion from head). something similar happened later but it didn’t feel right to stop at the heart, it seemed that would have created energy congestion there.
so what do y’all do? do you switch between your brains? how do you do it without closing out or offending any of them. i.e. i don’t want to have my gut-brian inactivated when i need to go to the head, and i also don’t want to offend my head brain by wanting to go to my gut brain and vice-versa. i guess what could be said now is to ‘stay heart-centered’, but i don’t feel that would really answer my question on the level i’m asking it (brain-level, not dan-tien level).
i don’t know. what’s your personal experience with this?
thanks
ryanHello
I not recognize this, but it is an interesting question! Probably not undesrtood on many other forums than this! Look forward to hear what the others have to say about this.
S D
Hi Ryan,
When I read through your first paragraph and didn’t consider your
interpretation in the subsequent ones, the description of
your symptoms and situation suggest to me that you are
having an anxiety attack. Let me explain and first focus
on what you initially said:>>>I’ve noticed recently that when studying for school
>>>or in class sometimes if we’ve been actively doing
>>>a lot i’ve started to feel stressed and even very
>>>uncomfortable and sick feeling. It happened to me
>>>again today as i was studying before a quiz. Since
>>>it was bothersome i took a break and the discomfort
>>>faded but did not go away completely.When a person does a lot of mental work–such as studying–
a lot of energy goes up into the head to accommodate the
processing. After awhile, the head can start to feel
“overloaded”. This can happen, sooner rather than later,
if a lot of thoughts about the future start to arise such
as “There’s too much to learn; how will I learn all this;
how will I learn all this by such and such a date; given
how much there is to learn, the upcoming quiz must be hard–
oh, how will I do well; the quiz is going to be a nightmare;
I feel controlled by needing to do non-stop studying or
I’m going to have a miserable outcome; etc.”There can be a million of these sort of thoughts. Oftentimes,
they can arise subconsciously–i.e. you don’t even realize
you are having them–because you are so preoccupied with the
busy-ness. They can be a side-effect/reaction of the brain
to being overloaded, or it can be latent worry. The problem
is that when your mind starts thinking these things, then
because it’s already overloaded, it now becomes even more
overloaded–which generates even more of these thoughts.
It creates a feedback loop, getting worse and worse.The net result is that your brain goes into overload, half
of it with negative subconscious futuristic thoughts. When
this happens, all of your energy is directed up toward your head.When this happens, qi in the lower part of your body stops moving.
Your diaphragm tightens up, your breathing becomes shallow, and
your muscles tense up. The lower gut-brain or enteric brain
doesn’t have higher-order reasoning skills like the head brain;
it’s more basal, more survivalistic. It notices that you are
no longer sending qi down to its home through relaxed abdominal
breathing, and it starts to panic. It starts to feel unwell
and sick–i.e. sick feeling in gut. Since it knows something
isn’t right, it thinks that your survival is at risk. It goes
into survival mode. It triggers your adrenals to release
adrenaline, which makes your heart beat faster, makes your breathing
more rapid–which is already shallow and up in your chest to begin
with. These strange symptoms cause your head brain to create
even more worrisome thoughts, and it spirals out of control.
This is an anxiety attack.Now in your case, it may not have gotten so bad that you’ve
gone into a state of sheer panic, i.e. “fight-or-flight”, but
the mechanism is the same I think, just to a lesser degree.The attention on the lower dantien and “thinking” by the
enteric brain isn’t (in my opinion) that you are
using it for the studying so much as it is trying to vocalize
its displeasure that it is no longer getting the qi it was
before. It’s as if it is trying to say, “look, I don’t feel
well; you’re sending too much qi to the head; I’m not getting
the deep abdominal breathing I’m used to; I don’t like it;
bring your attention down to me”.The rushing feeling of energy to the head, is the result of
the overloaded head-brain realizing that you’ve taken away some
of your attention from it, or in its greediness wanting more
attention. So it “steals” your consciousness away from the
“complaining” enteric brain.At this point, I could continue on and start discussing
some strategies I’ve found to be effective for stopping
and preventing anxiety attacks, but maybe for now I’ll
just stop here and see if any of what I’ve written
resonates with you.Be well,
StevenWith all of you in one spot. I am curious why are you in school? Is it money? Are you doing this to pay for your real passions? Are you studying what you really are into or is it just a job and your just playing the game or working the system?
With all of you in one spot. I am curious why are you in school? Is it money? Are you doing this to pay for your real passions? Are you studying what you really are into or is it just a job and your just playing the game or working the system?
>>>I am curious why are you in school?
I often ask myself the same question. 🙂
My original reason was that my main passion in life
was mathematics and I wanted to be able write mathematics
books about topics interesting to me, to teach at the college
level, and to pursue the study of really advanced material.
I figured going for a PhD in math would be the right choice,
as I’d progress toward my goals and with a PhD, I’d hopefully
get a tenured teaching position (i.e. stable, in that you are hired for
more than just year-to-year contracts as in MS degrees).Currently, I’ve already met my goals. I have the skills to
write math books and pursue advanced topics. I have taught
for MANY years (and have somewhat gotten my taste for
teaching math out of my system, as math students in general
hate the subject and pour their hatred on you). Moreover,
I have in the past few years developed quite an interest
in spiritual methods–in particular, the Healing Tao, and not
so much interest in living the stressful lifestyle or graduating
to get a job in academia where you are expected to continue
your workaholic lifestyle. Thus, I have a strong urge to quit.However, with only about 2 years left until completion and with
looming student loan debt, I don’t. In short, I don’t quit
because I don’t what I would do or how I would pay back my debt
if I did.In my opinion, the extreme stress of the college lifestyle isn’t
necessarily fun, and in my mind, not worth the trouble unless
you REALLY REALLY want something specific to arise from it.Steven
Hello
For me. Hmmm? I have been wandering around for many years doing alot of different stuff, but always coming back to study. I have a greate interest in mathematics to and like it much. Out of curiousity for what comes next in the different fields in mathematics and also physics I just wanted to continue studying. I¨m not either know if it is worth the cost or not. I have been teaching on a lover level in surveying for the last years and even though I is well paid, for a teacher, and even though I realy enjoy it, to be a teacher and I like my collegues and have a socially a nice life there, something inside of me want to go further and deeper into the subject, otherwise it gets boring. I guess it comes from a want and need to develope myself further in what I’m interested in. I am not particulaly interested in surveying even though teaching it and have been working with it, I’m more interested in science and math, so my thoughts for the moment is to continue and perhaps take a phd.
You also asked if it where out of money. Not realy, but in later years I have been thinking of using my knowledge after a phd also for making money, not realy to continue in the accademics after it, but you never know.
The last weeks or so I have been changing my mind more and more and want to try to take a licentiate degree and perhaps a PhD also. I realy like to continue with the work in my master thesis, I have some ideas of improvements in the theory that I like to see if it works, but don’t know if I have the time to do it during the master thesis. I also like the theoty stuff in my subject and is wery curious on how it works and know more to be able to see the whole picture. But since I have been wery ill ans still is struggling to get my energy back I have not been shore if this was the right thing to do especially since I already have a job that works for me and give me some money alot more anyway then for the PhD studies. What I think for the moment is that if it gets to hard I take a breake and teach instead, there seems to be alot of possibilities for it and I have good connections in the field. If I do it continue with the licentiate I hope I can do it on half time at the beginning. Then I hope I have time and energy left for my yoga and socialising also.
For me the most important reason for studying is the inner urge to develope myself, which is much more important to me than money. But in the past I have been thinking so a bit to much and being wery poor from time to time, reading books on interested fields instead of getting money, was one of the reason I think for the stressful life that gave the illness into my life, also hard studying with litle money was one of the reasons. Today I think more about getting money also but doing it with things I like to do, which still is more important than the money itself.
Well if I continue my studying you will see how it worked out. If I not made it is probably beacase of my illness or that I not wanted it as much as I thought. The important thing is that I can’t afford to let it have impact on my health, then it is much better to quite and find other things to do, I think.
I don’t know if it was an answer on your qurious questions? But is was what comes into my mind when trying to answer them 🙂
Quite interesting to notice there are some similarities with Steven. And I want to tell you to continue, for the reasons of the buty in the mathematics that I am shore you feel from time to time, but have you forgotten about it in the stress of getting your exame? This buty is the thing that make me be interested in the subject and it is what I am missing when not being into it, doing other works and realy realy miss it, and feel that the other work take so much of my time so I can’t spend it seeing this buty. Are there not for you also other possibilities for work after you have your degree than just teaching? Perhaps you should use your knowledge for other things if you feel that doesn’t give you what you perhaps where hoping for. What is the subject you are studying, or field, I have forgotten if you already have told me, and are not shore if I can understund what it is either.
S D
Hi SD,
I’m sort of not enjoying the teaching.
Well, that’s only partly true. I enjoy teaching
and love it, but I don’t enjoy teaching the people I teach.
I mainly teach very low level math classes to students who
hate math and are only taking the course because they have
to take it as some requirement. They pour their hatred on
you and they close their minds so much that they have trouble
learning. You tire yourself out trying to change negativity
and hatred. They soften somewhat, but then at the end of the
semester when the course is over, they all forget what they
learned as fast as possible because they never wanted to learn
it to begin with. Then you start a new semester with a new
group of the same type of people. If the students were actually
interested in the subject it would be another story, but run
into 99% of the world’s population and they usually will tell
you how much they don’t like it or how bad they are at it.As far as my own personal studies go,
I actually love the math, and enjoying studying it.
I just wish I didn’t have to do so MUCH of it.Analogy:
Say your favorite food is ice cream–and you’d rather
eat ice cream than anything else–you still don’t
want to eat NOTHING BUT ice cream continuously at a
rate dictated by somebody else.That’s my issue.
For most of the people that work in the subject, that’s
all they do. That’s their life. Every minute of their
life is devoted to it. I look at my advisor, and I see
that she is even busier now (as a prof with a PhD), than
I am! That’s what I fail to see the importance in. In the
past few years, I feel I’ve discovered a serious flaw
in the workaholic mindset, and that it’s not the right way.
I want to savor life, not be so occupied that I don’t notice it.
That’s the big problem with academic-type jobs. You can
never stop working. When you go home, you still have work
to do–papers to grade, material to study, research to do, etc.
It’s sort of unending.So my interest in math has not decreased one drop.
My interest in being a workaholic however has. That’s the problem.S
“seriousness is not a virtue”
My feeling is that people will start to do things for the enjoyment instead of fear or anger, or greed, when more start cultivating. If you realize you can eat infinity chi then you realize your eating for enjoyment not fear or any other negative reactive reason. My hope is that this crash will destroy most of the horrible institutions we now have such as our bloated “education” system. You have to ask your self are people that much smarter/wiser with all our million dollar collages or have we created very cunning parrots that know how to work a system, and enjoy there over priced summer camps.
Originally In Europe allot of Alchemist hid in Collages/universities. Teach the dummies by day work on the real fun stuff by night.
Hello
In sweden most of the education system are for free! That creates alot possitive feelings for them. For me at least 🙂 Still of course much in the education system are not good. It is an institution that have not changes much during a wery long time. It is an institution that discriminate the population in that seense that those who not fit can afford it or not comes from the right social group will not take any degrees in it. Then they often have to work for wery litle money where they say that if you not have any education you can’t ern so much.
On the ohter hand what is it that you have to learn. In many cases on college level and lover and also at univerity level you have to remember alot of rubish to be able to graduate or have good degrees. Many times this things aren’t the ones that realy develope you in any sense. On the other hand with good teachers that realy love to teach you have the possibility to get alot of inspiration into fields of education that you otherwise should have missed.
I think we live in a western society that ower emphasize formal education in favot for many other things. Perhaps also oweremphisize logical thinking and structure and a positivistic world wieu. But the humans have many other wais of understunding the world. Perhaps also the educational system is like a machine that teach people to be good working people and wery effective.
What I lack from may wery many years in the educational system.
How to learn how to learn. There are many new and old ways to learn that should be teached for the pupils. Nearly every subject also have surtain keys that make it much simpler to learn them.
More deep knowledge for understunding the world. Perhaps philosophy should be more emphasised but are not at least not in my country.
Important should be to learn more about the economical system. What does the wold banc do. Why does it start project for multinational companies were the farmers on a large scale farms the same crop, so that they get low paid money. How many people are wery wery rich. How much companies does they own. Why are nearly every country in debt and ho owns the money. How does the market work. Whay I am after is that even though reading economics micro macro and about how companies work and how the economy works in each country. Some terms in economy are in the education system. But the most important issues seems to be lacking. At least what I have seen. So it is wery easy to be annoyed ower that the economy in the wourld seem to have alot other aspects in it that are far more important that the ones learned.
Why not qigong and othter similar subjects
Why not learn more about how to be a nice person.
Perhaps I am totaly naive and I am not shore about what I am after in this thread. I feel that there are alot that I miss. Beacase I think there are alot that is inadequate in the educational system. Perhaps beacas one of its biggest role is realy to discriminate and not to educate.
Still I must say it have given me much good to to be ín such systems. That is beacase even though knowing about the many bad things I have nearly always had such a positive attitude to it that I have been able to use it in wery positive ways.
S D
S D
Hmm, that may have been the case. The order you dsescribed things didn’t really feel like how it happened to me. Like how you said that energy goes up into the head first, but my head felt very clear until later when energy went up there. I also don’t usually fret too much about tests and studying and stuff, so I wouldn’t expect those patterns to be there. However, I don’t usually do sufficient homework or studying for that class, so when i did do it, it might have seemed overwhelming and those hidden (or new) subconscious thought patterns might have aroused.
I think that my questions still remain:
“so what do y’all do? do you switch between your brains? how do you do it without closing out or offending any of them. i.e. i don’t want to have my gut-brian inactivated when i need to go to the head, and i also don’t want to offend my head brain by wanting to go to my gut brain and vice-versa. i guess what could be said now is to ‘stay heart-centered’, but i don’t feel that would really answer my question on the level i’m asking it (brain-level, not dan-tien level). ”michael emphasizes a lot about getting out of the head, and that the brain only acts as a relay station(roughly quoting from qf 1 and 2 material). that kind of suggests that the brain isn’t really significant, but i don’t really accept that for several reasons. one, the brain has awesome powers and capabilities. also, from what i understand, the brain is very important in the higher formulas. so i think it’s kind of rude to be like “im going to ignore the brain now and basically insult it, then embrace it again in higher formulas”. michael has spoken of an integrated body-mind instead of a head on top of a body mind, but not really emphasized. i think some split (analogous to soul-body split) could happen if the head and brain arent embraced enough from the begining. yes, we smile to the brain in the inner smile, but a lot of rhetoric doesn’t embrace it in the same way. i don’t know, maybe i just misinterpreted a lot.
i feel that several of my posts on this board recently have seemed abrasive. maybe i think i know more than i do, but at the same time don’t want to reject or not post them, i guess i still feel they’re important, even if written in an abrasive attitude.
peace
Ryan>>>Hmm, that may have been the case.
>>>The order you dsescribed things didn’t really
>>>feel like how it happened to me. Like how you
>>>said that energy goes up into the head first,
>>>but my head felt very clear until later when
>>>energy went up there. I also don’t usually fret
>>>too much about tests and studying and stuff, so
>>>I wouldn’t expect those patterns to be there.
>>>However, I don’t usually do sufficient homework
>>>or studying for that class, so when i did do it,
>>>it might have seemed overwhelming and those hidden
>>>(or new) subconscious thought patterns might have aroused.The order isn’t necessarily too important, just the mechanism.
When you do a lot of mental activity, energy goes to the head
just by virtue of activating the thinking mind. When you
study intensely upon having not studied a lot previously,
the overwhelming aspect can trigger the anxiety mechanism
and trigger an overloaded brain. This is actually a
lack of integration issue that is explained more below.>>>I think that my questions still remain:
>>>”so what do y’all do? do you switch between your brains?
>>>how do you do it without closing out or offending any of them. [etc.]You want to shift away from thinking that the mind
is in “this part” of the body or “that part”. You want to
cultivate a body-mind awareness where everything is
integrated as one functioning unit rather than separate
isolated components. When doing focused meditation, it is
useful to examine specific areas for ease in concentration,
focus, and intention; however ultimately you want to integrate
the whole body-mind into one unit. Thus everything becomes
one integrated team. That’s why I sort of didn’t answer your
question directly. You don’t want to create a split where
the different parts of your body are acting as independent
agents, each of which you feel you must satisfy. Instead
you want to unify all parts into one cohesive whole that
is operating from one core “you”. Then nothing is separated
or isolated; you just have one integrated body-mind. The
symptom of noticing an ignored part or an isolated part is
really just a symptom of lack of integration.>>>michael emphasizes a lot about getting out of the head,
>>>and that the brain only acts as a relay station(roughly
>>>quoting from qf 1 and 2 material). that kind of suggests
>>>that the brain isn’t really significant, but i don’t
>>>really accept that for several reasons. one, the brain
>>>has awesome powers and capabilities. also, from what i
>>>understand, the brain is very important in the higher
>>>formulas. so i think it’s kind of rude to be like
>>>”im going to ignore the brain now and basically insult it,
>>>then embrace it again in higher formulas”. michael has
>>>spoken of an integrated body-mind instead of a head on
>>>top of a body mind, but not really emphasized. i think
>>>some split (analogous to soul-body split) could happen
>>if the head and brain arent embraced enough from the
>>>begining. yes, we smile to the brain in the inner smile,
>>>but a lot of rhetoric doesn’t embrace it in the same way.
>>>i don’t know, maybe i just misinterpreted a lot.I think you may have misunderstood Michael’s intention.
It’s not the intention to ignore or devalue the brain.
It’s just as important as anything else in the body.
It’s just *not more* important. That’s the problem.
Our overly logical and rational culture has put FAR
too much importance on it, and made the mistake of
equating the brain with the location of the mind.
It’s not. Your whole body is your mind. The brain
should not be viewed as the all-important entity that
is more important than the body or body-mind. It should
not be viewed as acting in isolation from the rest of the
body. The reason for the “apparent” lack of emphasis–or
deemphasis–on the brain isn’t so much that it isn’t
important, it’s that we are already entering the arena with
too much emphasis on it to begin with. Thus our primary focus needs to
be on the other parts of the body to help normalize an
imbalance. In other words, we don’t need to focus on
the brain and give it special attention, because
the brain has it already! Michael’s comments are not meant
to devalue the brain, as such; they are meant to help as a guide
to take our attention away from it as an isolated source. Shifting
attention away from it, is not ignoring it–it’s more like when you
take a misbehaving child and send the child and its tantrums to its room and
ignore it–you aren’t “really” ignoring the child or not showing
it love, but instead you are acting to break a dysfunctional pattern of
selfish behavior. Remember that ultimately the goal is to have one complete integrated body-mind, not “this part” of the body and “that part”, but
it takes work to break the selfish isolationist attitude of the brain.>>>i feel that several of my posts on this board recently
>>>have seemed abrasive. maybe i think i know more than i do,
>>>but at the same time don’t want to reject or not post them,
>>>i guess i still feel they’re important, even if written in
>>>an abrasive attitude.Don’t worry about it. It’s all part of the growth process.
Smiles,
StevenThe problem currently is that there are way too many
people in college that really shouldn’t be there.
Too many kids when they graduate high school go on to
college because they “think” that that’s what they are
supposed to do or what they need to do, without ever
thinking about what it is they want to do with their life.
They end up literally hating being there, hating their
lives, and thinking they have to do “this crap” in order
to have a happy life.Some college myths:
1. You need to go to college to get a high paying job.
False.
There are plenty of ways (and better ways) to make
money without college. If a person wants to be
rich, they should be an entrepreneur. That’s the way
to money. Bill Gates dropped out of college.
J.K. Rowling was a welfare mom. College is not the
ticket to wealth. I know people graduating with
4-year Mechanical Engineering degrees not able to
find work because the Auto industry is in the tubes,
so college is not a ticket to wealth. Heck, you if
you are money-driven with little interest for college,
you can even work fast-food and by being work-driven,
advance rapidly to management since turn-over there is
so high [Before college, I worked Burger King for 3 months.
At the end of the 3 months before leaving for college, I
was the most experienced standard employee there and I
was told that I soon was going to be promoted to
manager trainee]2. You need to go to college to get a good job.
False.
What does “good” mean? If this means high-paying, this
is an illusion as above. If good means “what you are
happy doing”, then false again–unless you have a strong
desire to study some particular body of knowledge. A person
should find something they are happy doing, not adopt an
attitude of “I’ll put myself through years of misery now,
so that I can be happy later.” Who’s to say that you’ll
be happy later? There are no guarantees of anything.
There are plenty of people I know with degrees and no jobs,
but other people with no degrees and have jobs they are
happy with. Even a janitor can be happy, as it provides
a lot of time for quiet introspection. A person should
do what makes them happy, not go to college because they
think they have to to be able to function in society.Of course, a lot of the desire for having a lot of money
(for most people) is so that they can be consumers and buy
a lot of crap. Cultivate happiness within, and the desire
for that junk diminishes. Too many people go to college
because of an unspoken desire to fill the hole they feel
inside themselves, and unfortunately college is not good
at filling that hole as its true function is something
entirely different.S
Hi S
Ok, I see your situation. It’s absolutely an issue in my life also. But not the teaching, so far I have had interested students. Not all of them have been wery good, but still a bit interested anyway.
About workaholism. That is realy bad for your energies. (short answer 🙂 ) I am reather tired right now and am going to bed.
This discussion migth come up again betweean us!
S D
The key I find is in the Eight branches, if you make Alchemy the core all the the other fields become more balanced, harmonized, and generally more fulfilling. If you look at the history and symbolism of most collages you will find that they where and have become even more expensive poor replacements for Alchemical education(mainly greek). I am not sure if it is wise or not, we will have to see, but I just went straight for the Alchemical education. I am just glad the general population does not value an alchemical education thus I can afford it.:) Buy low sell high.
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