daniel J. : "Would you consider expanding on this please?  I don't understand what you
mean by the half smile being an embodied symbol of Self-as-Context, or what
the purpose of that would be."


Hi Daniel and all.

Maybe a personal exemple helps:

I recently felt suddenly and deeply betrayed by somebody whom I believed I could trust above anybody else.
This manifests in the body as pain in the heart, tensing against the pain in the shoulders, chest, diapragm and genitals.
And an image of a knife being stabbed in the heart.
And a fusion wih words like "cruel", "sadist", "why?" and "I'll make him pay for this".
Very difficult to be with all that without fusion/ avoidance (distraction).

I put the situation to the side for a moment, walk around, breathe etc.
I take the time for getting the sense of a half-smile at the outside of my eyes and my mouth.
I sense this as a symbol for benevolent openness towards whatever manifests itself.

(OK, in fact the SAC is here sensing of the face, and later on I fuse with this face-as-benevolent openness; this is the part that wasn't clear previously).

While centering myself "as this Buddha-like face", I re-evoke the image of the stabbing and hear a voice in my throat saying: "cruel", etc. and I observe what happens in my body.
This time around it is much easier to stay with it all, the tendency to contract against the stabbing, the pain underneath, the grief, the rage.

A memory returns of me and my dad, when I was five.
I see and hear the boy shocked, wounded, shattered, furious but knowing he can't express his rage.
Still with the "buddha-face", I open my arms towards the boy, my heart bleeding for him, and then heart glowing to him.
He comes in my arms, and pounds his fist against my chest.
I welcome the thumping on his fists, relieved that he can let out his impotent fury, and that he trusts me.
He collapses in sobbing.
He rests in my arms, his head resting against my heart.
I caress his cheek.
Expansive, warm fulness.

There's a knowing that one day I will need to embrace both the father and the sun, as they cycle through their suffering, for this situation finding completion.
But I'm not there yet.
And that's OK.

There's a beginning of a gratefulness toward the person this session started off with, for allowing me to contact this deeper wound, that was there since ages, unhealed.
But this gratitude is fragile, yet, and not something to hold on to.

--

Does that clarify my previous post?

Crossing my fingers that I'm not utterly off-track,

Maarten




-------- Message d'origine--------
De: Daniel J. Moran [mailto:daniel.moran@...]
Date: lun. 06/07/2009 16:12
À: Maarten Aalberse; acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy@yahoogroups.com
Objet : RE: [acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy] Nobility of suffering, anhedonia and Buddha's smile

Maarten wrote:



And a more global point: I have the impression that the half smile, that I
have practiced off an on ever since I first "met" Tich Nhat Hahn, can be a
good embodied symbol for SAC.



Would you consider expanding on this please?  I don't understand what you
mean by the half smile being an embodied symbol of Self-as-Context, or what
the purpose of that would be.



D.J.

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From: acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Maarten
Aalberse
Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 4:53 AM
To: marcokleen; acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy] Nobility of suffering, anhedonia
and Buddha's smile










In another epoch, meaning that age before Enschede, we had a discussion
about persons who glorify suffering and I think we made some connections
with anorexia.

The other day I read and practiced, from Tara Brach's great "Radical
Acceptance", the "Embracing Life with a (half) smile", and I wondered
whether such a practice wouldn't be a good and gentle exposure for those who
are (out of fusion with rebellion/ fusion with self-devaluation?) attached
to suffering?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

A detail: I find it important that Tara begins the practice with imagining a
half-smile at the side of the eyes. As Ekman has shown: the difference
between a genuine smile and a "false smile' is that in the latter the eyes
are not involved, there's not the slight wrinkle at the corner of the eyes.
And practicing the half-smile with "the mouth only" might, for some people,
reinforce a tendency towards "smiling as avoidance".

And a more global point: I have the impression that the half smile, that I
have practiced off an on ever since I first "met" Tich Nhat Hahn, can be a
good embodied symbol for SAC.

Does that make sense, or am I off track?

Apart from that: I'm so much appreciating Tara's book; full of inspiring
therapy stories and life-stories, as well as excellent suggestions for
meditation.

And I appreciate the ACT accent on defusion and values work; my guess is
that if Tara had included those in her therapeutic work, progress at times
would have been more smoothely facilitated.

Best to all,
Maarten