u/betlamed

A former colleague of mine had "mucksmäuschenstill" tattooed on her arm. I asked her why, she said it was the most beautiful word in the German language.

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Followup question: Does Finnish have any words that don't sound gorgeous?

I guess it might be a confusing title. Here are two examples:

English "mobile phone" is usually translated to German as "Handy". And English "lip-syncing" is often translated as "Playback". So we use other English words, in this case rather odd ones.

I find it fascinating and amusing.

What are other examples - maybe in different languages?

I am fascinated by the fact that I can hold a specific pattern only for a very short amount of time. It is pretty much like meditation in that regard. And of course, there are close similarities - but it is not QUITE the same thing.

(I mean, holding it wihout any interruption. Even one breath outside the pattern counts as a stop.)

Obviously, we have natural breathing patterns, and we keep falling back into our normal breathing as soon as our attention drifts. It's only natural, I guess. Keeping a non-natural breathing pattern takes effort. There must be some physiological cause, and it must have to do with the attention span and the body's natural instincts.

Let me be clear that this is not a contest. If you can keep doing box breathing for 10 minutes, you won't win any aeroplanes.

I would just like to know if you experience the same thing, and if you feel like you got better at holding one sequence for a longer time. Have you found any trick that helps you go longer?

All that said, I think I average somewhere between 1 and 2 minutes.

(or maybe BAD shadow work)

Every healing modality can be abused or used wrongly. Everything that has effects, can have negative effects if used in a poor way.

That goes for shadow work as well.

It seems to me that a lot of what passes as shadow work is really a kind of fixation on drilling into dark emotions in a somewhat self-sadistic-masochistic way. A bit as if confrontation at all costs is automatically a good thing. Almost as if exposure became the goal, rather than integration.

I think people sometimes re-traumatize themselves because they lack the skills to deal with the emotions they wake up when they look into their shadow aspects. Because they force themselves to go deep as deep as possible, as fast as possible, and they lose sight of their self-empathy.

Also, there clearly are grifters and charlatans that use established labels to sell their snake-oil and make some buck.

So what are the pitfalls? What gets mislabeled as shadow work, but is really something else entirely? What, in contrast, are the signs of actual, good shadow work?

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Edit after reading and reflection:

I think one big issue is that people mistake intensity for healing - a bit like how a placebo "injection" ostensibly works better than a placebo pill. "It hurts, therefore it works", seems to be the thinking. We are used to the idea that a cure must be painful, therefore pain indicates healing.

(or maybe BAD shadow work)

Every healing modality can be abused or used wrongly. Everything that has effects, can have negative effects if used in a poor way.

That goes for shadow work as well.

It seems to me that a lot of what passes as shadow work is really a kind of fixation on drilling into dark emotions in a somewhat self-sadistic-masochistic way. A bit as if confrontation at all costs is automatically a good thing. Almost as if exposure became the goal, rather than integration.

I think people sometimes re-traumatize themselves because they lack the skills to deal with the emotions they wake up when they look into their shadow aspects. Because they force themselves to go deep as deep as possible, as fast as possible, and they lose sight of their self-empathy.

Also, there clearly are grifters and charlatans that use established labels to sell their snake-oil and make some buck.

So what are the pitfalls? What gets mislabeled as shadow work, but is really something else entirely? What, in contrast, are the signs of actual, good shadow work?

---

Edit after reading and reflection:

Thanks for your replies!

I think one big issue is that people mistake intensity for healing - a bit like how a placebo "injection" ostensibly works better than a placebo pill. "It hurts, therefore it works", seems to be the thinking. We are used to the idea that a cure must be painful, therefore pain indicates healing.

The Heidelberg incompleteness Principle states that numerical precision is inherently incomplete due to the lack of cohesion of the underlying quantum states caused by the neurological disruption of frequency emission.

What are the consequences on the macro level?

There are (at least) two very different reasons why people practice meditation:

For religious reasons - like enlightenment.

To help with personal development.

Of course, those can complement each other. And your experience might be wildly different from mine. (I am well aware that I am painting with a broad brush here. Subtle differences abound.) Still, I think it makes sense to tease those two apart, at least, because it allows you to align your actions to your goals.

If you practice meditation to gain enlightenment, then vipassana or zen meditation, "pure mindfulness meditation", or "just sitting" might be the right thing to do: If the goal is to see things as they truly are, and monkey mind / heavy feelings distract you and keep you in a state of helpless confusion, then pure mindful focus is a way to get closer to your goal. Silence the racing thoughts, see things more clearly. Sure!

If, on the other hand, you want to improve your performance, change your emotions, work on your inner processes, then some other techniques might be more helpful, more to the point, or even necessary. Sitting and sitting and sitting might just not be enough, might take ages, might not be quite aligned with your goals. Meditation is not necessarily the panacea, the one answer to all questions - not if you're not into the religious framework, anyway.

It will likely still be helpful, but it's not necessarily the one true way.

Personally, I tried a lot of different kinds of mental discipline, I try to continuously evolve my practice. I try to keep an open mind when it comes to the religious aspects, but I don't necessarily believe in them. I find that accepting whatever is, right here, right now, is a good baseline practice, especially acceptance of my thoughts and feelings. But I also need something "stronger" when things are overwhelming and too painful, and I like to experiment with my inner world. Sometimes, those oh-so-serious practices are fun to mess around with! From that perspective, welcoming acceptance is another tool in the box.

As someone who dabbles in neotantra, obviously I do a lot of breathwork. Sometimes I look it up on youtube, and then I find some videos of a semi-naked dude (or a very much fully clothed woman), who demonstrates half an hour of breathing. Always accompanied by sitara music.

What I don't get is, there is only so much variation to your breathing: It's fast or it's slow, or you can go gradually in either direction. It's deep or it's shallow. You can hold your breath at the top or bottom points or somewhere in between, maybe a few times. You can breathe through your mouth or your nose. Close one nostril. Breathe in this way, out that way. You can focus on your nose, your belly, or just the breath in general.

That's about it.

It's basically variations of five or six variables. That's a lot of subtly different variations. Some of them will feel invigorating, some will make you sleepy, some will possibly create spiritual insights.

But I didn't really need any guidance on them. I can try one out in the morning, one in the evening, see what it does. Change one or two variables. Find it out for myself.

Maybe it's just me, but I prefer doing my own little experiments to find out how stuff works. Well, and I always disliked guided meditations. I feel like they contradict the idea of meditation. For me it's something that I do, that takes place wholly inside myself, it's none of anybody else's business.

Okay, if you add visualisation, manual stimulation, there is a bit more to it. If you add yoga poses or workout moves, that definitely warrants some teaching. Or if you do it as a part of a larger religious ceremony.

But the breathwork in and of itself seems pretty obvious to me. So... Why do people watch those videos?

As someone who dabbles in neotantra, obviously I do a lot of breathwork. Sometimes I look it up on youtube, and then I find some videos of a semi-naked dude (or a very much fully clothed woman), who demonstrates half an hour of breathing. Always accompanied by sitara music.

What I don't get is, there is only so much variation to your breathing: It's fast or it's slow, or you can go gradually in either direction. It's deep or it's shallow. You can hold your breath at the top or bottom points or somewhere in between, maybe a few times. You can breathe through your mouth or your nose. Close one nostril. Breathe in this way, out that way. You can focus on your nose, your belly, or just the breath in general.

That's about it.

It's basically variations of five or six variables. That's a lot of subtly different variations. Some of them will feel invigorating, some will make you sleepy, some will possibly create spiritual insights.

But I didn't really need any guidance on them. I can try one out in the morning, one in the evening, see what it does. Change one or two variables. Find it out for myself.

Maybe it's just me, but I prefer doing my own little experiments to find out how stuff works. Well, and I always disliked guided meditations. I feel like they contradict the idea of meditation. For me it's something that I do, that takes place wholly inside myself, it's none of anybody else's business.

Okay, if you add visualisation, manual stimulation, there is a bit more to it. If you add yoga poses or workout moves, that definitely warrants some teaching. Or if you do it as a part of a larger religious ceremony.

But the breathwork in and of itself seems pretty obvious to me. So... Why do people watch those videos?