Success! I regenerated my sense of self and cured my Post-Traumatic Stress.
Conclusion to the Series on the Regeneration of the Self.
It turned out that True Connection, felt at such a strength that the term True Eros is justified, was the key to my regeneration of my sense of Self. I describe below the unforced meditation I undertook, a mental state into which I relaxed and which I allowed myself to experience. It lasted for six weeks. One morning, I woke up feeling like a stranger in my own life and indeed in my body; I was asking myself, who was I? Why was I in this bed, and in this life? The memories I had were as though they belonged to someone else, and I had none of my own.
It was very, very strange, and I panicked, assuming this to be some new terrible symptom. My therapist sent a soothing email and I relaxed. It did not take long to realise that the flashbacks and the emotional triggering were largely over, and the reason was crystal clear; those bad memories of events all belonged to someone else and all I could experience was empathy for that other person. The logic of my recovery from post-traumatic stress both astounded and delighted me.
Meanwhile, I could sense all the parts arranged around my new sense of Self, like the petals of a flower around its centre. Each Part contributed skills and life experience but could no longer take over.
One symbol which had come to me repeatedly was that of the water lily, the western look-alike for that common symbol of the soul, the lotus.
As a human with an embodied brain, I assume there must have been a biological process to achieve such a rewiring, and all I can think of, is that the visceral nature of the meditation led to an elevated internal production of hormones. I conjecture it was Oxytocin, the “love hormone” of social connection, specifically of in-group and maternal bonding, and sexual pleasure, amongst other functions [1]. For me, with no external in-group to bind to, perhaps it fostered the bonding of the internal in-group, the Parts making up my psyche. It might also have helped me that I am female and hence enjoy an enhanced response to Oxytocin.
How I came to consider a meditation on True Eros. I had spent six months being quite unwell, culminating in a severe earache of such intensity that I was on maximum co-codamol interspersed with maximum ibuprofen over a period of some weeks, waiting for an “emergency” appointment. I found that watching certain Chinese television dramas gave an analgesic effect much more than would be possible from mere distraction and at some point, I asked myself, why is it so?
I had always loved the Chinese classic, Journey to the West, also known as the Monkey King, and I tried distracting myself from pain with the several 60-or-more episode long adaptations of that tale. In moving on to other dramas involving Taoist and Buddhist magic with thrilling martial arts displays and then on to martial arts brothers-in-arms and other dramas, I discovered that what I found so compelling was my strangely profound engagement with the social and intimate connections portrayed, despite being set in exotic fantasy worlds with radically different mores and philosophical viewpoints to what I am used to, with not all Beings even being human.
In hindsight, I saw displayed that aspect of the True Eros relevant to myself; it was in a compelling attraction to, and a melting away of unnecessary barriers, in the presence of the true but hidden self of the beloved. The connection matures in the development of the intricate plot lines over many episodes, and unlike my experience of western dramas, I was not forever being dumped out of the desired trance state, by the director and scriptwriters’s misogyny and indulgence in voyeuristic sexual violence. I loved that women’s bodies and skills were treated with ordinary courtesy and respect [2].
I give a list of Chinese dramas which revolve around True Connection in the footnotes [3].
Caption: Sebrina Chen (Chen Yao) and Zhang Linghe starring in Maiden Holmes (Tencent Video, 2020. 32 episodes.).
What I did in the end. I had experienced True Eros in my main relationship, I could see it vicariously in various of the dramas I was watching, and I had written it into the love story at the heart of my novel, Aeolia and the Dragon King’s Daughter. In the dramas I found so compelling and in the love story I composed myself, it was True Eros which first connected hidden, forbidden, or even alien identities, and then melted barriers, bringing the protagonists into unexpected, seemingly impossible, true connection; to be clear, I was not crushing on the actors or the characters, but the nature of the relationships being portrayed.
Simply, I soaked my mind and heart in the emotions evoked from all these sources, and my body in the relevant hormones which were elicited, while going about my day, listening to music, soaking in the bath, or relaxing in the garden listening to birdsong. In the garden, I could imagine the lovers walking through the flowers. I rewatched and re-read those excerpts which I found the most evocative, the most heart compelling. While playing the piano, I could imagine the music being sent out, calling and connecting the lovers. And as ever, I could sit with Aeolia, feeling the endlessly deep comfort of her hand on my shoulder.
Afterwards. Since I achieved my accidental recovery using only natural processes, without drugs, gurus, higher powers and the like, I began looking for antecedents but, in the end, I found only the remarks of Marie-Louise von Franz [4]. She writes of the Self as a self-renewing system and speaks of the Self as like a plant with a rhizome root, able to regenerate from a piece of root lying in the muddy depths. This was exactly my experience; my symbol, the water lily, is such a plant. Meanwhile, remarks about Self by philosophers, Buddhists, psychologists and other psychoanalysts, all fell far short.
My new sense of Being felt solid from the beginning but it took some time to consolidate and integrate this new sense with the outside world. At some point, I thought, ‘I have found my holy grail’. Or rather, my personal grail. In pursuing this thought, I found another way, a more generic but still secular path, to psychic regeneration, and decided to write it up in novel form. Following up writing about my own experience in this substack with a perhaps more widely applicable method was important to me because the uncertainty and even mute disbelief of some friends was a theme.
That said, I have found written in many places, of connection being the cure to various societal ills. I have placed the substantial list I compiled in the footnotes [5]. Needless to say, it can be assumed that the qualities of the people being connected with play a strong role in the quality of the connection and that disconnection from false or bad actors is important.
Next week: A more generic path to psychic regeneration?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin
[2] While there is a positive glut of talented, likeable female characters in eastern dramas, this does not mean that all the women are well behaved or are treated well. Certainly, their character arcs involve overcoming flaws, as is true for major characters in quality dramas the world over. Unlike the too-many emotionally and philosophically shallow western-made dramas, with relationships like candy floss (or Hallmark Cards) and the endless indulgence in prurient scenes, that I no longer bother to watch, there is no male gaze objectifying or stereotyping women. Instead, there appears to be more of a female gaze, as described by Joey Soloway in a now famous Toronto International Film Festival lecture. In this lecture, in which Soloway calls for an end to rape scenes, the female gaze is described as a conscious effort to “see feelings”, to create empathy for the object of a gaze, and to allow the object of the gaze to dare to return the gaze.
The link for Soloway’s lecture is next. I found the lecturing style too random and even inconsequential at first and it took too long to get started. It does get better.
https://www.youtube.com/live/pnBvppooD9I?si=iqTdraJ6b8idjWGj
An excellent student presentation on the Female Gaze in Visual Art (all western art, as it happens) which I recommend highly is:
Both accessed 3 July 2024.
[3] I give below some YouTube links for the first episode of each given series for which English subtitles are available (and which you may need to activate) and I strongly suggest being a Premium subscriber to avoid ads. Several of these dramas are on Netflix as well as various Chinese streaming subscription sites (Youku, iQiyi …) or sites like www.viki.com. Plot information about these dramas can be found by searching the website mydramalist.com for the drama titles.
Maiden Holmes, starring Sebrina Chen (Chen Yao) and Zhang LingHe. Tencent Video, 2020. 32 episodes.
Accessed 2 July 2024. Maiden Holmes is a detective case drama set in a fictional historical time. All characters are human. Both leading roles have hidden identities, and consummation of the relationship is politically impossible.
A recent award-winning favourite is The Legend of Shen Li, starring Zhao Li Ying and Lin Geng Xin. Hunan TV/Mango TV/Tencent Video, 2024. 39 episodes.
Accessed 2 July 2024. You could not ask for a more kick-ass heroine, nor one with a more shocking secret identity. Nor a more profoundly conflicted male hero. All the main characters are immortals from two different immortal realms.
Two of the most famous martial arts world, brother-in-arms, fantasy dramas of recent years, with billions (yes, billions) of views and with all the main actors becoming household names, revolve around True Connection. They are:
The Untamed, starring Xiao Zhan and Wang Yi Bo. Tencent Video, 2019. 50 episodes.
And
Word of Honour, starring Zhang Ze Han and Gong Jun. Youku, 2021. 36 episodes.
Both accessed 2 July 2024.
[4] Marie-Louise von Franz, The Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motifs in Fairy Tales, Inner City Books, Toronto, 1980.
[5] In my reading about the ‘cure-all’ for mental health that is connection, not just membership but emotional, I compiled the following list:
1) Many people have discovered and then observed, that positive quality personal connections are a key component in:
a) recovery from trauma and post-traumatic stress,
b) immunity against post-traumatic stress, in the event of a single natural disaster or terrorist attack,
c) overcoming addiction, in which an addict is paired with a recovered addict,
d) good learning outcomes in students, brought on by increased engagement and completion of homework and assignments; connections with both teachers and fellow students are vital here,
e) successful measures to deal with difficult behaviours by children in schools and the community, as observed by many teachers and headmasters, social workers, foster parents, and police officers working the community, even where forming those connections is challenging.2) The successful therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) can be considered as building a connection between the two memory systems, implicit and explicit, thereby relieving a stressed implicit memory system.
3) Somatic therapies can be thought of as (re)building a two-way mind-body connection, relieving the physical body of unprocessed trauma.
4) Therapies based on the expressive arts, strengthen inner connections from the day-to-day self and the traumatised self to the imaginal self, the joyful self, and the insightful self.
5) Immunity to the Trickster. In the face of feeling adrift and alone, people sell their souls to join religious and spirituality groups, team up with inappropriate romantic partners and stick with abusive family systems. Clearly, disconnection to tricksters is important. But how to tell? See the table below.
6) Immunity to the consequences of, and recovery from, Childhood Emotional Neglect. Even in seemingly loving families, unwitting emotional neglect will directly cause the children’s, or the spouse’s, private misery due to emotional isolation and worse, emotional self-estrangement, the consequences of which can be profound.