I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been travelling here and there, going to various places in the city of Sydney, loaded up with a general-purpose shoulder-bag, an iPhone, an Eee; and my backpack with clothes and sundries. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been days since I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been home, in the mountains west of here. All the morning, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been taking care of my \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpresence,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and in particular I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been practicing tracking how the self-image works, at Jack\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suggestion. During the process I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been asking a question that is not unfamiliar to me: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Does the self-image have some healthy use?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been hard to see the self-representations which are associated with \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfixations,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 but I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t signed off on investigations into a positive function.<\/p>\n
Then, I finish my business here and, at last, I get on a country train bound for my home, a few hours away. As I seat myself, I suddenly realise that I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have my backpack. I quickly jump off the train. So, now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve disembarked and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on the platform, and I notice some sorrow, a little panic, some grief, and a little self-criticism. I think of one or two personal things in the backpack that I would prefer not to lose.<\/p>\n
However, I notice my mind\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s condition, and I note the operation of my self-image in my reactivity. I soften my belly, come to my breath, and immediately a luminous presence arises in me. Very cooling. My whole organism settles. And this space (apart from giving me much more choice as to my next move) showed me something about the functioning of self-image in me.<\/p>\n
It went like this: I took my memory back to places I had been in the last hour. Some of those memories revealed a bodily-felt memory of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcphysical lightness.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 That is, with the visual memories came a bodily-felt memory of: entering a certain shop; of going down a flight of stairs; of crossing the rainy, city street; of interacting with the bank teller; of sitting for a few minutes on a connecting suburban train. In each case, my body here and now, told me that I was unburdened \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcback there then\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n
This wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a self-image \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but it gave me the basis for a self-image that I could then logically use (aided by visual memory) to imagine my movements in the last hour, and to track where the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcburden\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of the backpack was last experienced, and where the last visual memory of the pack was imprinted, and where the bodily feel \u00c2\u00a0of putting it down was last experienced.<\/p>\n
Using the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcself-image\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 I had the logical place where it was probably last with me. I quickly caught another suburban train back there, and sure enough, I was able to reclaim it from the cafe where I had left it.<\/p>\n
Voila! \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I had, in this, an instance that answered my earlier TSK question. In this process I used \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcself-image,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rather vice-versa. Rather than being at its beck and call (which is the case when it is narcissistically organised), I was able to problem-solve using the self-image. This leads me to think that self-image is a product and tool of logical thinking, one that has become out of control and elaborated unnecessarily, under the influence of identification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been travelling here and there, going to various places in the city of Sydney, loaded up with a general-purpose shoulder-bag, an iPhone, an Eee; and my backpack with clothes and sundries. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been days since I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been home, in … Continue reading