The Mind As An Instrument of Torture

[Call Me Whatever]

I'm not sure if what I've experienced for the last ~32 hours is ego backlash, but it certainly hasn't been pleasant.

A cascade of neurotic thought patterns, inner critical voices, and internal conflicts was triggered yesterday at work, by a subtle confrontation with a manger looking for a means to control me. He's discovered he can't do it directly through intimidation, e.g., "Don't tell ME you're not going to this or that" (I've only told him "no" for requests outside my job description), so he's resorted to the effort by different means via essentially cutting me off from an incentive structure employees have access to. He made it extremely difficult for me to "max" this incentive out, as I have been doing.

In any event, my mind has been raging with thoughts, feelings, and emotions of violence (not that I'd act on them), even though I understand intellectually yesterday's event has no meaning or significance. I don't even plan to stay at this job. 

The previous morning I had a wonderful meditative experience, where, for the first time in meditation, I experienced extreme spiritual comfortableness, peacefulness, and lovingness. It was amazing. Also, in the last few weeks I've read Shunaymurti's book and "Transcending The Levels of Consciousness", both of which I can only describe as profound, especially the latter. 

Why have I experienced this sudden regression in my cognition? Is this the ego saying, 'Not without a fight you sonovabitch!"?  Mon Dieu. 

Guys, I can't stress the intensity of this negativity enough. It's been really bad, but to be clear, not debilitating (I called out of work today, but I had an excellent workout and I've been able to read, eat, et cetera). 

I want to understand what's going on spiritually and psychologically. 

If anyone can use this limited information and provide insights I'd be greatly appreciative. 

[commie]

You can dress this up as some kind of spiritual/ego thing but it sounds much like the kind of insanity people go thorough all the time, only you seem to be handling it unusually well (so far).

Besides escalating the confrontation or picking a fight outside of work (perhaps with a defenseless person), you could have spent hours regaling whoever would listen with sexist or racist comments about that manager or simply numbed yourself with drugs or some compulsive activity. Maybe you did something similar with your workout actually, only in a healthy way. Congrats! It also seems you're looking at this as a learning opportunity, which is again on the mark.

[Call Me Whatever]

@commie

Excellent reframe.

Thank you. 

[mandyjw]

26 minutes ago, Call Me Whatever said:

 

Why have I experienced this sudden regression in my cognition? Is this the ego saying, 'Not without a fight you sonovabitch!"?  Mon Dieu. 

Guys, I can't stress the intensity of this negativity enough. It's been really bad, but to be clear, not debilitating (I called out of work today, but I had an excellent workout and I've been able to read, eat, et cetera). 

I want to understand what's going on spiritually and psychologically. 

The mind constantly wants to check in and ask "how are we doing". It's worse than kids in the back of the car on a long trip repeating "are we there yet?".  

Just watch and notice your mind when it tries to check in on itself like that. 

[Nahm]

@Call Me Whatever

A food analogy comes to mind. If someone eats poorly for years, and for a month eats really clean...then eats poorly for a day, the experience feels downright ill, though it never bothered them at all before. I’ve also heard of people having trip hangovers, where the returning of thought patterns seems more intense and undesirable, for having experienced there true nature. You might have something along those lines going on. Sounds like you’re handling it well. Imo the key is continuing to let the thoughts go, which lets emotions out, which seems to play a key role in such a ‘rollercoaster’ leveling out into peace & love. 

[Call Me Whatever]

Guys,

Thank you. Your responses really helped take the charge out of this negativity. It's nice to get different perspectives that remove me from my own experience, especially since I have no one IRL yet to talk to about these types of things. 

[VeganAwake]

3 hours ago, Call Me Whatever said:

I'm not sure if what I've experienced for the last ~32 hours is ego backlash, but it certainly hasn't been pleasant.

A cascade of neurotic thought patterns, inner critical voices, and internal conflicts was triggered yesterday at work, by a subtle confrontation with a manger looking for a means to control me. He's discovered he can't do it directly through intimidation, e.g., "Don't tell ME you're not going to this or that" (I've only told him "no" for requests outside my job description), so he's resorted to the effort by different means via essentially cutting me off from an incentive structure employees have access to. He made it extremely difficult for me to "max" this incentive out, as I have been doing.

In any event, my mind has been raging with thoughts, feelings, and emotions of violence (not that I'd act on them), even though I understand intellectually yesterday's event has no meaning or significance. I don't even plan to stay at this job. 

The previous morning I had a wonderful meditative experience, where, for the first time in meditation, I experienced extreme spiritual comfortableness, peacefulness, and lovingness. It was amazing. Also, in the last few weeks I've read Shunaymurti's book and "Transcending The Levels of Consciousness", both of which I can only describe as profound, especially the latter. 

Why have I experienced this sudden regression in my cognition? Is this the ego saying, 'Not without a fight you sonovabitch!"?  Mon Dieu. 

Guys, I can't stress the intensity of this negativity enough. It's been really bad, but to be clear, not debilitating (I called out of work today, but I had an excellent workout and I've been able to read, eat, et cetera). 

I want to understand what's going on spiritually and psychologically. 

If anyone can use this limited information and provide insights I'd be greatly appreciative. 

It does sound like ego backlash which usually means you're making progress so it's not a bad thing. The more you see how the mind works the better you can understand it.

Did or do you happen to have very controlling parents or family members... this can make the backlash more intense...

Basically anytime you're trying to make a radical change in life you will experience backlash or resistance...

Your story sounds very familiar and I went through a lot of the same type of experiences...

Totally normal ❤