How to treat Misophonia?

[MrDmitriiV]

 Around my teenage years I developed hatred for sounds associated with lower-consciosness individuals. Loud chewing noises specifically, since it reminds me so much of my devilish (Stage Red) dad. 

 While self-dev work overall helps, this specific hatred is a tricky beast. Each time I hear that sound, my mind responds with strong resistance. Therefore enforcing this pattern to iron stubbornness each time. 

 At my work for example, is this guy next to me who spends the entire day chewing his fucked up finger (has some skin disease) and opening and closing his mouth loudly every 15sec. All the while I'm trying to write... 

 There are more sounds which may distract me, but that specific behavior triggers me the most. Even though on a consciousness level I'm well aware it's foolish to react with resistance to the flow of life. 

 If the flow is a sewer of devilish shit, go with it. (Resisting it will make it worse lol)

 Are there any direct ways of healing this specific unconscious reaction? The most powerful ways to treat these unconscious/automatic reactions of resistance?

 

[Dan502]

Please forgive the simplicity of my response, I'm sure other forum-users can give better answers but if you can assign a new meaning to the sound, it may help. Perhaps try and become more conscious of what you've been doing unconsciously.

Switching desks also seemed like an obvious response just because of the situation although I'm sure you'd thought of it already and it probably wouldn't change your reaction to the sounds.

Edited January 16, 2020 by Dan502

[Leo Gura]

@MrDmitriiV Well, when all tricks fail, confront the devil head-on with mindfulness.

By this I mean, just sit there and mindfully suffer the sound until you surrender.

Sedona Method should also work well. See my Letting Go video. In the end you're gonna have to let it go one way or another.

[MAYA EL]

@Leo Gura I believe that is called giving up and giving in? And is all you have done is just relabeled it and called it mindfulness and it appears to me that you think it's a good thing?

Am I right in my assumption that you see it as good? If so why do you believe it to be ?

[Bill W]

@Leo Gura

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@MrDmitriiV Well, when all tricks fail, confront the devil head-on with mindfulness.

By this I mean, just sit there and mindfully suffer the sound until you surrender.

Sedona Method should also work well. See my Letting Go video. In the end you're gonna have to let it go one way or another.

@Leo Gura    Leo, I know you could well say respond with "watch my video" or "read the Sedona method". Actually, I will watch your video on this, but... one thing I love about the David R Hawkins approach to Letting Go is identifying the pay-offs for the thoughts, attitudes, stances, emotions, behaviours, and letting the pay off's go first, and surrendering these. 

Do you recall if the Sedona method or even your video on letting go, has such emphasis on identifying the "hidden" or not so hidden pay-off's, as I think this is a crucial element of it all. 

[Forestluv]

@MrDmitriiV The mind can give attention, meaning and emotional response to stimuli. There are certain sounds that my mind pays attention to, gives it meaning and triggers a stress response.

One thing that has helped me is to stop engaging in stories that this is super important and a threat to my wellness. If the mind thinks this is important to is bad for my wellness, it will dedicate more attention to it. For me, it's not so much the sound as my response to it. If someone next to me is chewing and I don't notice it I'm good. As well, if I notice the person chewing and it doesn't bother me - I'm also good. It's not so much about the chewing, it's my response to it. My mind can get immersed in a narrative like "This jackass chewing is so rude. I want to make him stop". That puts all the attention and energy on wanting to make an external stimuli stop and I can't make progress on changing my emotional response to the stimuli.

I've had hyper-sensitivity to certain sounds - one of which would send me into a panic. I even went through EMDR therapy, which helped. I've read that others have found TRT helpful, yet I haven't tried that. 

[MrDmitriiV]

@Serotoninluv Few years back I too used to build intricate narratives around the noises I hate. Noticing how people who suffer more (lower-consciosness folk) are prone to make this kind of noises. Exceptions aside ofc. 

 But now I'm at a level where there's zero negative talk about it. In fact I'm consciousness how that guy chewing is just being in love with his mental patterns.

 It's just a fully automated reaction, like that Russian dog salivating when the lightbulb's on experiment. Enforced by years of negative talk.

Guess it'll take me couple more years to untwist all these negative mental knots from teenage years. Slow burn it.

Never heard about emdr, will certainly research it!

@Leo Gura I'll look into the Sedona Method thanks.

Guess I was looking for some breathru instant change like Tony Robbins bragged about. The way he treated people's fear of something in minutes. I tried his methods years ago and didn't do much though. I bet that with some tweaking this kind of change might be possible on a constant. 

 

 

[Forestluv]

For me, even calling others "low conscious" can contribute to my problem. And it's not just a mental narrative. There is subconscious meaning in the mind and emotional stamps. Things like the limbic system that don't have a rational component. For me, the most important thing was to change my response to the stimuli. For my most sensitive sound, it no longer drives me into "fight or flight". About 30% of the time I don't even notice it. About 40% of the time, I notice it but it doesn't bother me, there is not emotional response. It's just background noise, similar to the feeling of my pants. I usually don't notice it and it doesn't bother me. About 30% of the time, the sound is annoying yet not extremely annoying. 

Yet my condition is tinnitus, not misophonia. They might have different treatment approaches. 

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, MAYA EL said:

@Leo Gura I believe that is called giving up and giving in? And is all you have done is just relabeled it and called it mindfulness and it appears to me that you think it's a good thing?

Am I right in my assumption that you see it as good? If so why do you believe it to be ?

There cannot be liberation without surrender.

The ego-mind wants control, so it views surrender as "bad", which is precisely backwards.

3 hours ago, Bill W said:

 

@Leo Gura    Leo, I know you could well say respond with "watch my video" or "read the Sedona method". Actually, I will watch your video on this, but... one thing I love about the David R Hawkins approach to Letting Go is identifying the pay-offs for the thoughts, attitudes, stances, emotions, behaviours, and letting the pay off's go first, and surrendering these. 

Do you recall if the Sedona method or even your video on letting go, has such emphasis on identifying the "hidden" or not so hidden pay-off's, as I think this is a crucial element of it all. 

Sure, that can be useful to identify.

[MAYA EL]

@Leo Gura but how do you know this is the demonstrable truth and not just your opinion? The reason I say that is because a person's opinion is fallible and without an external anchoring point for the reasonings one has for the particular metaphysical/epistemology/ beliefs 

Because I do not see you your Viewpoint echoed in life I do see it echoed as a disadvantage IE the abuser in a relationship or the lion eating the gazelle for the person being strangled by a boa constrictor in the Amazon

But I do not see it it how you describe it IE the gazelle stops running and just before the lion takes it down the gazelle transcends the situation and like a hologram disappears in the clouds never to be eaten again

[Leo Gura]

34 minutes ago, MAYA EL said:

@Leo Gura but how do you know this is the demonstrable truth and not just your opinion? The reason I say that is because a person's opinion is fallible and without an external anchoring point for the reasonings one has for the particular metaphysical/epistemology/ beliefs 

Because I do not see you your Viewpoint echoed in life I do see it echoed as a disadvantage IE the abuser in a relationship or the lion eating the gazelle for the person being strangled by a boa constrictor in the Amazon

But I do not see it it how you describe it IE the gazelle stops running and just before the lion takes it down the gazelle transcends the situation and like a hologram disappears in the clouds never to be eaten again

When death comes for you, your only option will be surrender. Then you'll understand the wisdom in it.

Manipulation and survival (what you're describing with your examples above) are always limited and will at some point hit a dead end. At that point the only thing left is surrender.

Sure, go ahead and run from the lion if you can. But once the lion has you by the throat, you should surrender.

The whole spiritual path is about learning the wisdom of surrender. Which is why most ego don't like to do it. They are too busy surviving and manipulating the world, hoping they can keep it up forever. But it never lasts. You cannot manipulate forever. That is devilry.

[remember]

8 hours ago, MAYA EL said:

@Leo Gura but how do you know this is the demonstrable truth and not just your opinion? The reason I say that is because a person's opinion is fallible and without an external anchoring point for the reasonings one has for the particular metaphysical/epistemology/ beliefs 

Because I do not see you your Viewpoint echoed in life I do see it echoed as a disadvantage IE the abuser in a relationship or the lion eating the gazelle for the person being strangled by a boa constrictor in the Amazon

But I do not see it it how you describe it IE the gazelle stops running and just before the lion takes it down the gazelle transcends the situation and like a hologram disappears in the clouds never to be eaten again

no, that’s not the picture - the gazelle does not need the lion to be a gazelle the lion does not need the gazelle to be a lion. who hounts whom is only happening in your imagination.

[MAYA EL]

On 1/16/2020 at 11:36 PM, Leo Gura said:

When death comes for you, your only option will be surrender. Then you'll understand the wisdom in it.

Manipulation and survival (what you're describing with your examples above) are always limited and will at some point hit a dead end. At that point the only thing left is surrender.

Sure, go ahead and run from the lion if you can. But once the lion has you by the throat, you should surrender.

The whole spiritual path is about learning the wisdom of surrender. Which is why most ego don't like to do it. They are too busy surviving and manipulating the world, hoping they can keep it up forever. But it never lasts. You cannot manipulate forever. That is devilry.

The spiritual path is not about learning surrender it also is not about pure love or any other idea like that because the spiritual path is different for each person rather that be different by alot or a little but regardless of the level of differentiation it is still a path/ Journey /tech and so requires some level of attention/ effort/ desire/ will power/ tech in order to do it

Now maybe on your Journey you had to surrender about something in order to understand it but that doesn't mean that it in any way applies to others .

And you in no way answered my question as to how you know that it's not just your perspective and opinion 

I gave you examples to show the need to have a reference point that's demonstrable and  also observable in life that shows how it's not just your opinion and is all you did was try to strawman my comment .

I have had guns pulled on me I have been in real fights where losing means you may die and I have even died for a few minutes one time and I've seen men that thought they were ready to die and knew where they were going turn into weeping babies when confronted with real death so this is why your analogy of the gazelle getting caught is once again  not  anchored off of a demonstrable truth  and shows ignorance. 

 

Now I don't know much about your past but i can tell you've never directly had your life threatened before and you especially haven't had it taken (obviously ).

[MAYA EL]

19 hours ago, remember said:

no, that’s not the picture - the gazelle does not need the lion to be a gazelle the lion does not need the gazelle to be a lion. who hounts whom is only happening in your imagination.

I didn't ask you so please let the person I specifically asked answer for themselves .

And I dont play that game your trying on me because it gets no one nowhere. 

Also you are wrong because regardless of my opinion or imagination the lion will still be hinting the gazelle and my opinion and imagination has no effect on that. 

[remember]

@MAYA EL ah ok i thought this was a forum, i also didn’t ask you about what you think the gazelle does with the lion. so sorry it affects you.

there is no game i‘m playing you wouldn’t play yourself.

Edited January 18, 2020 by remember

[MAYA EL]

@remember you replied to a question that was directed towards Leo hence why there was a tag that said Leo .

And me correcting your extremely inaccurate concept of the animal kingdom that you directed to be by replying with a direct quote is not the same as replying to a question for a person whose name you don't have. 

I may have been a little more open to it had you actually added to the discussion and not just the word salad you brought to the table. 

[remember]

yes but you know if it’s only directed to one person you could just start a private chat, by the way, this is not directed to anyone and who says i was referring to the animal kingdom, may their ghosts forgive me. 

chill

by the way word salad only tastes good to people with developed taste buds.

Edited January 18, 2020 by remember

[Jonac]

@MrDmitriiV are there other sounds that may trigger negative responses while in house?  For example you named the guy in work making noises with their mouth. Is happening this in other places, what other sounds trigger this response? 

[MrDmitriiV]

@Keyhole I suggest using silicone earplugs + headphones, works best. But it is cumbersome though, have to clean the earplugs and disinfect both them and ears. So I only use it at home.

 I ordered a pair of noise isolating (better and cheaper then canceling ones) earbuds (Etymonic mk5), will see how they work. It’s important to go with either noise isolating or canceling, as to not crank up the volume too much.

 

[tsuki]

On 15.01.2020 at 9:50 PM, MrDmitriiV said:

Loud chewing noises specifically, since it reminds me so much of my devilish (Stage Red) dad. 

Maybe, instead of focusing on fixing the sound itself, you could focus on your relationship with your father?
I may sound cliche, but maybe you haven't healed your childhood wounds yet and that's what the mind is telling you?