You hit a nerve with this one, Veronika; and I am glad that you did.
Expeience is another word in English that has lost its essence, and has been diluted to where it has no life force, no vitality, and I would add, no real meaning. As a result of marketing, primarily in the United States, experience is bought, consumed and paid for. Something to strike off from your to-do or bucket list.
It is often packaged as doing something exciting but fleeting. Ephemeral. With the promise that it will long be remembered. (You can most certainly bore all your friends!) Examples that come to mind is swimming with the dolphins, taking a cruise to Alaska and eating freshly caught salmon, and camping out in the African Plains to witness the wildlife.
While these might all be lovely vacations, they have little to do with the experiences of a life well-lived. One can be well-lived without the need to travel far. Now, how about that for experience.
I know a chap who had a bad time at school because he was different, who later in life found a belief in the transmigration of souls, where a soul takes a new incarnation in order to learn what had failed in the previous life. A system of credits and penalties in a perpetuated school has never appealed to me, but a curious co-incidence happened this evening.
The co-incidence? Your post had my mind wandering. I took a quick look for 'transmigration' and Google's little machine friend turned up Pythagoras. This morning the post came with the paperback edition of 'When the Dog Speaks the Philosopher Listens. A guide to the greatness of Pythagoras and his curious Age' I have been waiting for this book for quite a while. It promises much, but I have taken a quick look in the index for 'transmigration'. Pythagoras is said to have said about the unfortunate beaten puppy, 'It is the soul of a man, a friend of mine. I recognised the voice when I heard him cry.' Which puts a different complexion on matters. Nigel McG goes on to examine the fine meaning in the translated words, and history. So we go on.
who knows? Perhaps we even live in different eras while crossing over in the same apparent timespace (which might explain the wildly different belief systems fellow humans can hold)
What an extraordinary experience for Pythagoras with his friend/ turned puppy. Does this show a truly open mind, or was it part of the ruling paradigm?
I perhaps should add that Pythagoras was approaching the person beating the dog. Nigel McGilchrist adds a comment that the original Greek word for 'pity' used by Xenophanes for describing the incident implies an active 'compassion' specifically directed at the dog.
Regarding belief, I suppose it common enough that 'experience' might not be literally 'fact', but true nevertheless for all that?
I agree about the seeming reality in 'time jumps' and even in their sharing.
Erudite and and deeply relevant to our understanding of the value of experience as a means for making sense of our world, with all of it's duality. Further, it lends itself to our appreciation of gradual increments and aggregation of marginal gains. In short, experience, knowledge and understanding is incremental and makes possible the exponential growth and development of our ability to exercise discernment, discrimination, foresight and prudence. This is what I understand as the evolution of consciousness through entropy reduction. Thank you Veronika 🙏
Thank you for this crystalline synopsis, Elliot!! 🙏 💕
"experience, knowledge and understanding is incremental and makes possible the exponential growth and development of our ability to exercise discernment, discrimination, foresight and prudence."
I must remember that.
The secret, I guess, lies in opening significant channels of communication between experience, knowledge and understanding (rather taking pre-conditioned interpretations for granted)
Exactly Veronika and this is something that you clearly do so very well 🙏Question everything in order to pierce that membrane of conditioned understanding; penetrate beyond the surface impression of things, such as words in this very instance, to the core of meaning and purpose. For in this process we are sharpening our intent to be masters of it, further informing our own essential being, and defining our inherent purpose as consciousness/ spirit.
Great post, with fascinating insights from the world of etymology, other languages, and more besides. It ties in well with your previous posting on the word 'understanding'. To "thoroughly go through" something ties in with staying the distance 'thereamong' for understanding - and both relate to relieving suffering in a genuine and long-lasting way
Oh, thank you for pointing out this parallel between 'understanding' (= dwelling thereamong, standing in the presence of) and 'experience' (= thoroughly going through and out)
Of course, the two are intimately connected. Experience, in this definition, is a way of 'understanding in motion' or 'remaining present while travelling through'. 🙏 💕
This life is duality and it’s up to the experiencer to deal with those experiences. If we put our focus on those traumas, negative experiences, suffering them many times, they prevail. No amount of positives will ever overcome them. If we choose we can examine those traumas until they have no bite. It’s unpleasant, not for the faint of heart but it’s effective. You can set the soul free and focus only on the positive once there is nothing left to the negative. Traumas must be deflated, excised and left as nothing more than experience, if one has the courage to stomp the life out of them. Chose love, beauty, peace and positivity if you are willing to pay the price. I chose love.
Thank you Sammie, for reading and responding. This is truly precious 💗🙏
I am glad you introduce your reflection with "this life is duality" followed by "it's up to the experiencer to deal with those experiences."
What follows on from there in your comment makes perfect sense in this context!
In addition to this I need to point out that while this life is duality, human Consciousness also lives in non-duality (because the universal source of Consciousness is wholeness). My writing comes from this understanding of experiencing ~ or I should say inching my way towards this understanding. I am not claiming to live 'in the state of non-duality' full time as it were (I'm not a Zen Buddhist, or anywhere close). But my mind an soul have an affinity with these principles. Deep inside I know them to be true. And they have helped me to transform traumatising experiences with loving attention (I didn't 'exise or deflate' trauma, or 'stomp the life out of them' because in my subjective experience such actions would feel rather aggressive).
However, I can confirm that I have many times had the opportunity to travel with my traumatised inner creatures through a complete metamorphosis, accompanied by nothing but compassion and love and wholehearted acceptance. As a result we both came out transformed. The trauma is effectively healed through love.
Veronica you are such a beautiful writer or so Great with words that you continue to show me better ways to express myself. Thank you for that as I lost much of this in my dis-ease time. Yes, I work daily or each moment to be non-dual. I am just a woman with no magical powers and I sometimes let my consciousness slip into duality but I try very hard. I impress myself sometimes with how effective I can be by living in the now.
I did use very aggressive words and I was very aggressive with myself in removing all emotion from my trauma and that’s what it took for me. I’m impressed you can do it gently or non-aggressively. However we are capable of removing that powerful negative energy.
I look forward to reading your posts as you always inspire me to respond and I learn something each time.
I’m not likely to ever be a writer but I’m inspired to learn and do positive things all the time. As long as I’m here I’ll be trying to find great inspiration which is delivered to my email each time you write.
I very much appreciate and respect your way and your journey, Sammie! I totally agree with what you say that we all have to do this work in our own way.
I don't know about doing it 'gently'... having also experienced very turbulent times and episodes. I would call them the 'wilderness years' I don't know whether there is any way of dealing with trauma gently, because trauma is anything but gentle.
What I am writing here comes across as gentle because I have been writing about it for 25 + years, trying to find a way of inner clarity and ability to express it in a non-threatening language and format.
It is true, I had a certain approach of non-resistance from the beginning, which is in my nature (my father was a pacifist, and I have inherited that streak from him)
But what I really want to say here is that, like you, I don't think there is 'one right way' of living through and transcending (or transforming) traumatic experiences. Trauma is a many-headed monster. Trauma is overwhelming. For everyone. That's what makes it traumatic.
As I always say, 'trauma is not a competition' (and neither is healing). It is a very personal journey. I am very grateful that you have chosen to join your journey with mine. That you are willing to accompany my writing journey here, even when it may not fully resonate...
My trauma journey has taught me in many ways to become the writer I am today. So I am grateful for that too! I believe we are living in an era where many people are called to live through and transform their trauma. I see my writing as a contribution to that collective metamorphosis.
As always, thank you for this deep and heart opening conversation, Sammie 💗🙏
There seem to be two approaches to dealing with negative experiences.
One is along the lines of what you say ... "If we choose we can examine those traumas until they have no bite." There is indeed a case to be made that if one can endure the journey of grief/pain by staying with negative experiences - and if one can endure to the end with an attitude of acceptance to the point of non-resistance, then the negative experience can integrate into our lives in a wholesome manner through transformation. Perhaps at this point we could say we have 'transcended' the negative experience.
The second approach is also as you say "Traumas must be deflated, excised and left as nothing more than experience, if one has the courage to stomp the life out of them." Personally, I'm not a fan of this approach because I have found it doesn't work. It just suppresses the symptoms -- and the pain/trauma goes even deeper underground, only to pop up again, usually in a more painful way.
I agree with your closing words, to choose "love, beauty, peace and positivity" as the base fundamental approach we have to start from, in order to deal with trauma.
Well said and I think it sounds much better the way you and Veronica express it. That didn’t work for me. I had to battle with my memories, battle with myself to re-live them until they no longer created emotional response for me. I’m a very stubborn person I think and I’ve usually done everything the hardest way. I had lived past them transcended them I would say but they still could cause me painful emotional responses if I thought about anything associated with certain things. So for me, it was the hard way. I so appreciate your response and I admire that you both were able to overcome or transcend your past experiences of trauma with such grace.
I am absolutely sure I’ve dealt with mine in my way. I’m not very graceful but very grateful and happy to be who I became.
Deeply resonant, Veronika. In my case, it's all in the writing I'm posting--not to self-promote and that rarely works anyway: What you've done here is in your own way described how the creative process renews and revitalizes as we search through, as I say in one of stories, "All the ways that life betrays the living."
Experience. I love this one Veronika. Thank you. Phenomenology and epistemology. Hermeneutics. The meaning of things. How do we create that meaning? So much meaning was created for us that might now be unconscious. Experience. I agree. I never sat well with the three positive to one negative because it all depends how you label them.
“Experience [from Latin experiri = to try, test › ex = out, thorough + per = through + ire = go] means literally to go through and out, or to thoroughly go through.”
Do we go through Experience or does Experience go through us? It’s not a destination.
If it is what happens “to us” , as opposed to “through us” that creates an unhealthy story?””To us” leans into being a victim. Helplessness? Through us embraces Salutogenesis. A sense of coherence. Does that foster resilience? When we look at the neuroscience of resilience we see that those individuals capable of ramping up the positive with habit, such as exercise, gratitude, mindfulness, and good food possibly let Experience go through them. They also have ways of managing the negative. Talking it out and seeking help. Not becoming a victim. Creating from stories. The interesting thing is they also have a component of transcendence in their lives. Entering into nature and prayer. Being part of something bigger than themselves. Maybe all of that translates to allowing some thing to go through us. The hermeneutics of experience. Epistemology? We can take two people with the same ACE scores (adverse childhood experiences) yet they can experience life totally different.
“The anthropocentric paradigm loves to reduce phenomena to formulæ”. This is so true.
The protagonist in our lives will always create meaning of experiences. Experiences may create meaning of us? Who tells the story? Do we tell our stories? Do they tell us?
To attend to an Experience vs to name it. To not possess it. To not let it possess us. Go through and go out, or to thoroughly go through. That may be the secret all along.
Thank you Jamie. I agree, there are many ways of managing / travelling through / processing / transcending experience, understanding and being transformed by it. To try to love and live every experience itself (paraphrasing Rilke) to approach experiences "like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything."
What Rilke writes here in reference to questions applies to experiences just the same. ACEs, for instance are full of unsolved questions. What if the point is to live into them and come through as the metaphorical butterfly version of ourselves? 🩵🙏 🦋
The mathematical equation put forth sounds like a good premise for an essay or storyline to be played out many times over to see which combination would "work" to feel satisfying. Experience is so subjective. I always marvel at how two people in the same situation can react so differently. It's great that you added your own spin, your own individual analysis as it reminds me of guru-type platitudes that don't take into account real suffering, but instead is meant to placate the "privilege masses". For example, 'this too shall pass' applied to eco refugees as opposed to someone having a bad day.
Thank you Lani! 🙏 💕 Since publishing this piece, and engaging with the commentaries, my head is swirling with the word 'experience'. So much more to explore here! But I'm very happy for others to pick up the baton as well...
You are mentioning something important here too about throwing all suffering into one pot. While suffering is subjective and personal, it is also relative. And the real trouble with trauma is that 'this shall never pass' until it is processed AND transformed (or transcended).
Hi Veronika, YAY 🙌🏻… thank you for bringing clarity to my aversion to the mainstream misnomers (in my case around grief), the want of boxing, categorising and quantifying everything, the ‘materialist mindset’ of should assumptions re positive and negative experiences actually having ‘nothing to do with numbers.’ I so love your equation example. HOORAY 🙌🏻😁 💚🙏 Perhaps this mainstream want to quantify everything links to the expectation that we need to fix our negative experiences, this sense of urgency to live associated conceptions of a happy life? Societal discomfort and consequent judgement means there is a bypass of sorts. As you know, l advocate that we are a soul observing our human experience, many lifetimes and thus carrying patterns learned and inherited. So, your exploration of experience being the ‘one word burdened with such a range of semantics’, took me back to revisiting the other chapters you mentioned in this post. Given our soul dwells in the frequency of unconditional love and is observing how its human aspect experiences this plane of comparison and contrast, what thought mainstream may privilege through quantifiable measures of emotional response to experience just doesn’t have any sway with me anymore. This is ongoing work of course, a collaboration of sorts, and takes courage, as you know. Thank you Veronika. 🙏💚
"the expectation that we need to fix our negative experiences" ~ yes! Which starts of course in childhood, when we are 'not allowed to have negative experiences' because it makes our elders feel uncomfortable (I'm not talking about NSEs where, as children, we need protection by our adults, of course. I'm talking about giving an honest and authentic response, saying how we feel, and being told “Shhh! You're not allowed to feel that!”)
The irony is that the 'happy life' evades us as long as we try to 'fix' the unhappy parts.
Having witnessed and accompanied negative experiences with compassion (in myself and others) for over 2.5 decades, and watched them transform spontaneously in the process, these journeys have blown my mind wide open (like yours too) I like how you describe this as a ‘work of collaboration’. Precisely! If we approach it with an intention of ‘fixing it’ (or worse) it doesn’t work (for obvious reasons) xx
Dear Veronica, 'Experience'... goodness, this feels terribly pertinent in todays world of constant commercial bombardments of must do's and must have's - the word in itself is almost uncontainable in an explanation even before I read your beautifully crafted offerings in German and Arabic and here where the philosopher Jean Gebser write's 'experience is a most essential resource to ensure a meaningful life.' I hesitate to agree - I feel it cannot be contained so simply for surely each of us will experience a moment in an entirely different way? If the experience for me is astonishing but not for another, is it still meaningful? Perhaps I am mistaken in my understanding?
There are days worth of reflection here - thank you. 🙏🏼💞
oh yeah! There you put your finger right into the sensitive spots of e.x.p.e.r.i.e.n.c.e!
Gebser wrote in German and used the word 'Erfahrung' which he defined as 'fahrend erkunden' (= to explore while driving/ riding (through)). In a talk, entitled 'über die Erfahrung' (= On Experience) he shares an experience in early childhood where he nearly drowned in a bathtub. For the toddler Jean, this experience was so traumatic that he refused to learn to swim until he was forced to do so. The thought of jumping into any body of water was too dreadful, triggering a state of panic.
Jean's parents will have experienced that moment in an entirely different way. Although no doubt also affected by the event, they tried to get him into the water at the advanced age of 8, 10, or 12 to learn to swim... without success.
Here's the thing with the word 'experience'. In English, this single word includes the external objective event of what happened, as well as the various subjective perceptions and impressions encountered by different people.
Are they still meaningful...? In my understanding, the meaning will differ from one person to another. Meaning is personal and subjective, no?
You have offered another delightful piece of writing, Veronika. Thank you .It’s laughable how researchers believe it’s absolutely necessary and possible to create a formula that is short, sweet, and technical to explain human behaviour. As you expertly point out, they can’t ignore the semantics of words. This is Obvious to you, and increasingly obvious to me as I read each of your Wordcasts' writings. I’d not even considered the multiple usages of the word ‘experience’. I wonder how many words have this range of both bright and dark sides. Oh, and how I love and strongly resonate with your statement that , “I am drawing from the wealth of resources and decades of research produced by my own Consciousness, engagement with daily living, and creative work.” Exactly!
You hit a nerve with this one, Veronika; and I am glad that you did.
Expeience is another word in English that has lost its essence, and has been diluted to where it has no life force, no vitality, and I would add, no real meaning. As a result of marketing, primarily in the United States, experience is bought, consumed and paid for. Something to strike off from your to-do or bucket list.
It is often packaged as doing something exciting but fleeting. Ephemeral. With the promise that it will long be remembered. (You can most certainly bore all your friends!) Examples that come to mind is swimming with the dolphins, taking a cruise to Alaska and eating freshly caught salmon, and camping out in the African Plains to witness the wildlife.
While these might all be lovely vacations, they have little to do with the experiences of a life well-lived. One can be well-lived without the need to travel far. Now, how about that for experience.
I know, Perry! It's a joke, right? Experiences on sale, on a budget, or bucket list...
Experience is what happens everyday to everyone of us, and is far more astounding and complex than most realise.
I'm glad this resonates. Thank you so much for popping in, Perry 🙏 💕
Gifted and guided, thank you.
I know a chap who had a bad time at school because he was different, who later in life found a belief in the transmigration of souls, where a soul takes a new incarnation in order to learn what had failed in the previous life. A system of credits and penalties in a perpetuated school has never appealed to me, but a curious co-incidence happened this evening.
The co-incidence? Your post had my mind wandering. I took a quick look for 'transmigration' and Google's little machine friend turned up Pythagoras. This morning the post came with the paperback edition of 'When the Dog Speaks the Philosopher Listens. A guide to the greatness of Pythagoras and his curious Age' I have been waiting for this book for quite a while. It promises much, but I have taken a quick look in the index for 'transmigration'. Pythagoras is said to have said about the unfortunate beaten puppy, 'It is the soul of a man, a friend of mine. I recognised the voice when I heard him cry.' Which puts a different complexion on matters. Nigel McG goes on to examine the fine meaning in the translated words, and history. So we go on.
who knows? Perhaps we even live in different eras while crossing over in the same apparent timespace (which might explain the wildly different belief systems fellow humans can hold)
What an extraordinary experience for Pythagoras with his friend/ turned puppy. Does this show a truly open mind, or was it part of the ruling paradigm?
Beliefs are truly curious acts of knowing...
I perhaps should add that Pythagoras was approaching the person beating the dog. Nigel McGilchrist adds a comment that the original Greek word for 'pity' used by Xenophanes for describing the incident implies an active 'compassion' specifically directed at the dog.
Regarding belief, I suppose it common enough that 'experience' might not be literally 'fact', but true nevertheless for all that?
I agree about the seeming reality in 'time jumps' and even in their sharing.
pity ~ the direct German translation 'Mitleid' also means 'compassion' (or literally 'to suffer with')
Yes, subjective experience is always true, for the experiencer 🙏
Erudite and and deeply relevant to our understanding of the value of experience as a means for making sense of our world, with all of it's duality. Further, it lends itself to our appreciation of gradual increments and aggregation of marginal gains. In short, experience, knowledge and understanding is incremental and makes possible the exponential growth and development of our ability to exercise discernment, discrimination, foresight and prudence. This is what I understand as the evolution of consciousness through entropy reduction. Thank you Veronika 🙏
Thank you for this crystalline synopsis, Elliot!! 🙏 💕
"experience, knowledge and understanding is incremental and makes possible the exponential growth and development of our ability to exercise discernment, discrimination, foresight and prudence."
I must remember that.
The secret, I guess, lies in opening significant channels of communication between experience, knowledge and understanding (rather taking pre-conditioned interpretations for granted)
Exactly Veronika and this is something that you clearly do so very well 🙏Question everything in order to pierce that membrane of conditioned understanding; penetrate beyond the surface impression of things, such as words in this very instance, to the core of meaning and purpose. For in this process we are sharpening our intent to be masters of it, further informing our own essential being, and defining our inherent purpose as consciousness/ spirit.
💗🙏
Great post, with fascinating insights from the world of etymology, other languages, and more besides. It ties in well with your previous posting on the word 'understanding'. To "thoroughly go through" something ties in with staying the distance 'thereamong' for understanding - and both relate to relieving suffering in a genuine and long-lasting way
Oh, thank you for pointing out this parallel between 'understanding' (= dwelling thereamong, standing in the presence of) and 'experience' (= thoroughly going through and out)
Of course, the two are intimately connected. Experience, in this definition, is a way of 'understanding in motion' or 'remaining present while travelling through'. 🙏 💕
Wonderful as always Veronica.
I love that word, Hunka. I’ll carry it with me.
This life is duality and it’s up to the experiencer to deal with those experiences. If we put our focus on those traumas, negative experiences, suffering them many times, they prevail. No amount of positives will ever overcome them. If we choose we can examine those traumas until they have no bite. It’s unpleasant, not for the faint of heart but it’s effective. You can set the soul free and focus only on the positive once there is nothing left to the negative. Traumas must be deflated, excised and left as nothing more than experience, if one has the courage to stomp the life out of them. Chose love, beauty, peace and positivity if you are willing to pay the price. I chose love.
Thank you Sammie, for reading and responding. This is truly precious 💗🙏
I am glad you introduce your reflection with "this life is duality" followed by "it's up to the experiencer to deal with those experiences."
What follows on from there in your comment makes perfect sense in this context!
In addition to this I need to point out that while this life is duality, human Consciousness also lives in non-duality (because the universal source of Consciousness is wholeness). My writing comes from this understanding of experiencing ~ or I should say inching my way towards this understanding. I am not claiming to live 'in the state of non-duality' full time as it were (I'm not a Zen Buddhist, or anywhere close). But my mind an soul have an affinity with these principles. Deep inside I know them to be true. And they have helped me to transform traumatising experiences with loving attention (I didn't 'exise or deflate' trauma, or 'stomp the life out of them' because in my subjective experience such actions would feel rather aggressive).
However, I can confirm that I have many times had the opportunity to travel with my traumatised inner creatures through a complete metamorphosis, accompanied by nothing but compassion and love and wholehearted acceptance. As a result we both came out transformed. The trauma is effectively healed through love.
Veronica you are such a beautiful writer or so Great with words that you continue to show me better ways to express myself. Thank you for that as I lost much of this in my dis-ease time. Yes, I work daily or each moment to be non-dual. I am just a woman with no magical powers and I sometimes let my consciousness slip into duality but I try very hard. I impress myself sometimes with how effective I can be by living in the now.
I did use very aggressive words and I was very aggressive with myself in removing all emotion from my trauma and that’s what it took for me. I’m impressed you can do it gently or non-aggressively. However we are capable of removing that powerful negative energy.
I look forward to reading your posts as you always inspire me to respond and I learn something each time.
I’m not likely to ever be a writer but I’m inspired to learn and do positive things all the time. As long as I’m here I’ll be trying to find great inspiration which is delivered to my email each time you write.
I very much appreciate and respect your way and your journey, Sammie! I totally agree with what you say that we all have to do this work in our own way.
I don't know about doing it 'gently'... having also experienced very turbulent times and episodes. I would call them the 'wilderness years' I don't know whether there is any way of dealing with trauma gently, because trauma is anything but gentle.
What I am writing here comes across as gentle because I have been writing about it for 25 + years, trying to find a way of inner clarity and ability to express it in a non-threatening language and format.
It is true, I had a certain approach of non-resistance from the beginning, which is in my nature (my father was a pacifist, and I have inherited that streak from him)
But what I really want to say here is that, like you, I don't think there is 'one right way' of living through and transcending (or transforming) traumatic experiences. Trauma is a many-headed monster. Trauma is overwhelming. For everyone. That's what makes it traumatic.
As I always say, 'trauma is not a competition' (and neither is healing). It is a very personal journey. I am very grateful that you have chosen to join your journey with mine. That you are willing to accompany my writing journey here, even when it may not fully resonate...
My trauma journey has taught me in many ways to become the writer I am today. So I am grateful for that too! I believe we are living in an era where many people are called to live through and transform their trauma. I see my writing as a contribution to that collective metamorphosis.
As always, thank you for this deep and heart opening conversation, Sammie 💗🙏
There seem to be two approaches to dealing with negative experiences.
One is along the lines of what you say ... "If we choose we can examine those traumas until they have no bite." There is indeed a case to be made that if one can endure the journey of grief/pain by staying with negative experiences - and if one can endure to the end with an attitude of acceptance to the point of non-resistance, then the negative experience can integrate into our lives in a wholesome manner through transformation. Perhaps at this point we could say we have 'transcended' the negative experience.
The second approach is also as you say "Traumas must be deflated, excised and left as nothing more than experience, if one has the courage to stomp the life out of them." Personally, I'm not a fan of this approach because I have found it doesn't work. It just suppresses the symptoms -- and the pain/trauma goes even deeper underground, only to pop up again, usually in a more painful way.
I agree with your closing words, to choose "love, beauty, peace and positivity" as the base fundamental approach we have to start from, in order to deal with trauma.
Well said and I think it sounds much better the way you and Veronica express it. That didn’t work for me. I had to battle with my memories, battle with myself to re-live them until they no longer created emotional response for me. I’m a very stubborn person I think and I’ve usually done everything the hardest way. I had lived past them transcended them I would say but they still could cause me painful emotional responses if I thought about anything associated with certain things. So for me, it was the hard way. I so appreciate your response and I admire that you both were able to overcome or transcend your past experiences of trauma with such grace.
I am absolutely sure I’ve dealt with mine in my way. I’m not very graceful but very grateful and happy to be who I became.
Deeply resonant, Veronika. In my case, it's all in the writing I'm posting--not to self-promote and that rarely works anyway: What you've done here is in your own way described how the creative process renews and revitalizes as we search through, as I say in one of stories, "All the ways that life betrays the living."
Thank you so much Mary 💗🙏
"All the ways that life betrays the living." what a great phrase! I love it.
I really loved your memoir and greatly admire your writing, as you know (I hope).
Unfortunately with the current novel I am struggling (as much as I would love to read it...)
Having a mystical experience rolls up time and the fearful experiences disappear in the light of it. Crazy sort of equation
Yes! 🙏 I guess that's the one I referred to as a 'one positive experience'... when aligned with my 'true' path
Experience. I love this one Veronika. Thank you. Phenomenology and epistemology. Hermeneutics. The meaning of things. How do we create that meaning? So much meaning was created for us that might now be unconscious. Experience. I agree. I never sat well with the three positive to one negative because it all depends how you label them.
“Experience [from Latin experiri = to try, test › ex = out, thorough + per = through + ire = go] means literally to go through and out, or to thoroughly go through.”
Do we go through Experience or does Experience go through us? It’s not a destination.
If it is what happens “to us” , as opposed to “through us” that creates an unhealthy story?””To us” leans into being a victim. Helplessness? Through us embraces Salutogenesis. A sense of coherence. Does that foster resilience? When we look at the neuroscience of resilience we see that those individuals capable of ramping up the positive with habit, such as exercise, gratitude, mindfulness, and good food possibly let Experience go through them. They also have ways of managing the negative. Talking it out and seeking help. Not becoming a victim. Creating from stories. The interesting thing is they also have a component of transcendence in their lives. Entering into nature and prayer. Being part of something bigger than themselves. Maybe all of that translates to allowing some thing to go through us. The hermeneutics of experience. Epistemology? We can take two people with the same ACE scores (adverse childhood experiences) yet they can experience life totally different.
“The anthropocentric paradigm loves to reduce phenomena to formulæ”. This is so true.
The protagonist in our lives will always create meaning of experiences. Experiences may create meaning of us? Who tells the story? Do we tell our stories? Do they tell us?
To attend to an Experience vs to name it. To not possess it. To not let it possess us. Go through and go out, or to thoroughly go through. That may be the secret all along.
Thank you Jamie. I agree, there are many ways of managing / travelling through / processing / transcending experience, understanding and being transformed by it. To try to love and live every experience itself (paraphrasing Rilke) to approach experiences "like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything."
What Rilke writes here in reference to questions applies to experiences just the same. ACEs, for instance are full of unsolved questions. What if the point is to live into them and come through as the metaphorical butterfly version of ourselves? 🩵🙏 🦋
Living into the questions! Nothing else I can add to that! Thanks for leading the way 🙏❤️
The mathematical equation put forth sounds like a good premise for an essay or storyline to be played out many times over to see which combination would "work" to feel satisfying. Experience is so subjective. I always marvel at how two people in the same situation can react so differently. It's great that you added your own spin, your own individual analysis as it reminds me of guru-type platitudes that don't take into account real suffering, but instead is meant to placate the "privilege masses". For example, 'this too shall pass' applied to eco refugees as opposed to someone having a bad day.
Thank you Lani! 🙏 💕 Since publishing this piece, and engaging with the commentaries, my head is swirling with the word 'experience'. So much more to explore here! But I'm very happy for others to pick up the baton as well...
You are mentioning something important here too about throwing all suffering into one pot. While suffering is subjective and personal, it is also relative. And the real trouble with trauma is that 'this shall never pass' until it is processed AND transformed (or transcended).
Hi Veronika, YAY 🙌🏻… thank you for bringing clarity to my aversion to the mainstream misnomers (in my case around grief), the want of boxing, categorising and quantifying everything, the ‘materialist mindset’ of should assumptions re positive and negative experiences actually having ‘nothing to do with numbers.’ I so love your equation example. HOORAY 🙌🏻😁 💚🙏 Perhaps this mainstream want to quantify everything links to the expectation that we need to fix our negative experiences, this sense of urgency to live associated conceptions of a happy life? Societal discomfort and consequent judgement means there is a bypass of sorts. As you know, l advocate that we are a soul observing our human experience, many lifetimes and thus carrying patterns learned and inherited. So, your exploration of experience being the ‘one word burdened with such a range of semantics’, took me back to revisiting the other chapters you mentioned in this post. Given our soul dwells in the frequency of unconditional love and is observing how its human aspect experiences this plane of comparison and contrast, what thought mainstream may privilege through quantifiable measures of emotional response to experience just doesn’t have any sway with me anymore. This is ongoing work of course, a collaboration of sorts, and takes courage, as you know. Thank you Veronika. 🙏💚
Wonderful! Thank you Simone!! 🩵🙏 🦋
"the expectation that we need to fix our negative experiences" ~ yes! Which starts of course in childhood, when we are 'not allowed to have negative experiences' because it makes our elders feel uncomfortable (I'm not talking about NSEs where, as children, we need protection by our adults, of course. I'm talking about giving an honest and authentic response, saying how we feel, and being told “Shhh! You're not allowed to feel that!”)
The irony is that the 'happy life' evades us as long as we try to 'fix' the unhappy parts.
Having witnessed and accompanied negative experiences with compassion (in myself and others) for over 2.5 decades, and watched them transform spontaneously in the process, these journeys have blown my mind wide open (like yours too) I like how you describe this as a ‘work of collaboration’. Precisely! If we approach it with an intention of ‘fixing it’ (or worse) it doesn’t work (for obvious reasons) xx
Yes, — the 'happy life' irony and tending with 'compassion' for self and others. Thank you.🙏💚
Dear Veronica, 'Experience'... goodness, this feels terribly pertinent in todays world of constant commercial bombardments of must do's and must have's - the word in itself is almost uncontainable in an explanation even before I read your beautifully crafted offerings in German and Arabic and here where the philosopher Jean Gebser write's 'experience is a most essential resource to ensure a meaningful life.' I hesitate to agree - I feel it cannot be contained so simply for surely each of us will experience a moment in an entirely different way? If the experience for me is astonishing but not for another, is it still meaningful? Perhaps I am mistaken in my understanding?
There are days worth of reflection here - thank you. 🙏🏼💞
oh yeah! There you put your finger right into the sensitive spots of e.x.p.e.r.i.e.n.c.e!
Gebser wrote in German and used the word 'Erfahrung' which he defined as 'fahrend erkunden' (= to explore while driving/ riding (through)). In a talk, entitled 'über die Erfahrung' (= On Experience) he shares an experience in early childhood where he nearly drowned in a bathtub. For the toddler Jean, this experience was so traumatic that he refused to learn to swim until he was forced to do so. The thought of jumping into any body of water was too dreadful, triggering a state of panic.
Jean's parents will have experienced that moment in an entirely different way. Although no doubt also affected by the event, they tried to get him into the water at the advanced age of 8, 10, or 12 to learn to swim... without success.
Here's the thing with the word 'experience'. In English, this single word includes the external objective event of what happened, as well as the various subjective perceptions and impressions encountered by different people.
Are they still meaningful...? In my understanding, the meaning will differ from one person to another. Meaning is personal and subjective, no?
stay warm 🔥🙏 💕
What a gorgeous collage-love letter to meaning!
Thank you so very much Alisa 🧡 🙏 means a lot
Book pages, tree leaves,
as experience exhibits.
Fragile, powerful.
You have offered another delightful piece of writing, Veronika. Thank you .It’s laughable how researchers believe it’s absolutely necessary and possible to create a formula that is short, sweet, and technical to explain human behaviour. As you expertly point out, they can’t ignore the semantics of words. This is Obvious to you, and increasingly obvious to me as I read each of your Wordcasts' writings. I’d not even considered the multiple usages of the word ‘experience’. I wonder how many words have this range of both bright and dark sides. Oh, and how I love and strongly resonate with your statement that , “I am drawing from the wealth of resources and decades of research produced by my own Consciousness, engagement with daily living, and creative work.” Exactly!
Thank you so much, Wendy, your lovely comment warms my heart 🔥🙏 💕
Yes, words are my friends. No need to argue when we simply listen to their stories... and they all have their story to tell 😉✨
" I wonder how many words have this range of both bright and dark sides." ~ many! xx