The Autistic Yogi Reflects on Psychological Centration...

Psychological Centration

“In psychology, centration is the tendency to focus on one salient aspect of a situation and neglect other, possibly relevant aspects. Introduced by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget through his cognitive-developmental stage theory, centration is a behaviour often demonstrated in the preoperational stage” Wikipedia

The aspect of centration in our adult lives from the basic citizen up to the highest levels of government is very real. While mostly harmless it can be extremely harmful and makes many many people make decisions based on a faulty premise.

The place that some of the most harmful centration is caused is in the doctor's office, including psychiatrists and psychologists. The problem can differ from practitioner to practitioner, usually depending on years of practice and experience and acknowledgment of personal centration and the degree to openness to new ideas that may make better sense than previously held ideas.

The experienced practitioner that has not acknowledged their own centration is likely to base opinions about their clients on memory of other clients and take things out of context concerning those clients and what previous professionals have written into the clients file, if the practitioner believes that they are extremely capable of discerning the psychological aspects and reasons for experience and action of their clients they are very likely to base their opinion on one salient aspect of that client's life, which is absolutely not helpful and can lead to dangerous arrangements for the clients mental and physical well being and to further entrench that professional in their personal centration.

The new practitioner that has not had much experience in practice and has not looked specifically at their personal centration is likely to commit centration on the aspect of either the books they learned their practice from or from their mentors.

Our senses limit us in how much information we can take in at any given moment. Trying to understand another human being and from what motivation they act is limited by purely inward senses and aspects. Namely memory and we attempt to couple that with what we are hearing and seeing about the particular individual in front of the practitioner.

Through 25+ years of being a client in the mental health system, it is my consistent experience that practitioners are given to judging books by the cover and neither have the willingness nor desire to actually read the contents from within. This is not across the board but is to a very high degree the mentality that permeates our highest professionals. Rare is the person who in practice attempts to see the whole picture before casting judgment and giving a sentence of how to deal with that judgment.

Centration seems to compel us humans to mistrust one another to a high degree. Centration is the leading cause to all forms of segregation, be it racism, ableism, sexism, xenophobia, etc.

Centration is the leading cause to individuals being so easily swayed by propaganda.  When someone holds a belief, especially in the area of what their government ought to be doing for them or their community at large it is really easy to produce a small portion of information that they would believe to be true because of the centration they have on a given topic, this is the way of propaganda and the easiest way to set people at odds.

Centration is the easiest way to cause cognitive dissonance. And it is a human desire to get away from what caused cognitive dissonance so its easier to conform to psychological centration.

Change of direction of my blog

It's been a year since I posted. And some aspects of my life have changed drastically and some have stayed the same.

None the less I want to change the direction of my blog so that its not just about the journey of yoga practice that I am on, rather to make it a charting of my different thoughts. Especially the ones that I have come back to over and over.

1. Welfare or Universal living wages and why its likely the best course of action for our human progression and best for the economy as a whole.
2. Psychology in practice from the point of view of a client/consumer of the psychological resources in my community, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
3. Mythology and the religiosity of humans. How narrative has influenced core thoughts of human nature through time.
4. Propaganda and the Social Media network. How easy it is to influence the masses through the new form of communication.
5. Autistic Narrow interests through my lens and experience: Story Telling, Chainmaille armor and jewelry, Yoga, Human movement, Rope, Sexuality. 
6. Suicide
7. This list will expand.
   

I hope to do more contributions to this blog throughout this next while to get out my thoughts that I have developed over a lifetime and continue to do so before it's too late. 

The Autistic Yogi Reflects on Dealing with Stress

Stress and attempting to learn better how to manage it so it doesn't become chronic and a health risk.

1. Simplify & Prioritize. Be real. Take stock of my to-do list and see what is absolutely necessary and prioritize it. What can be removed? Try to half the to do list to get over extremely stressful moments.  Be flexible and allow for removal of to-do list components, write it in pencil and not pen. Do the most urgent things first (urgent being its a matter of life and death, something you have signed up for is not that urgent). Categorize your list to help simplify and feel like there are not so many obstacles to tackling a huge list. Sometimes we have to lower our standards, perfectionism doesn't exist because no one is perfect at anything. The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
2. Community. Collaboration and cooperation. Safety network. Asking for help. Don't try and tackle everything as a lone wolf, appropriately allow people to ease your stress and burden, none of us are comic book super heroes. We all have our limitations and we should know our own and allow others to have theirs.  People, especially those that support us with their love have a tendency to want to help as long as they are not shouldering your burden alone. Remember to share laughter with these people as it can and will alleviate some of the affects of chronic stress and help us to get out of its terrible aftermath.  Avoid overtly negative people. Choosing your friends wisely can be difficult but necessary. Negative outlooks are a choice, we have to make the choice to not dwell on things, and we have to make the choice of whom we surround ourselves with. Taking a course in effective communication or conflict resolution can be very helpful.
3. Physical exercise & Rest. Appropriate amounts of exercise truly stimulate our beings and we should take this seriously. We are designed to move and to do in our being state. Our brain and nervous system rely on it. Find an activity that is physical that is enjoyable and within your means so that the joy component of it stays true. Be sure to also rest! Not just getting a good dose of sleep, but practice taking breaks at intervals from any task that you are consumed in doing. This will allow our nervous system to calm down and refocus. Be sure to get a full nights rest, if your sleep is being disrupted learn some techniques that help you to disengage from the stimulus that disrupts you. Know what truly recharges you and make those as your interval recharge moments.
4. Boundaries. Establish locations to do your activities so that you can focus and do your designated activity. Remember to prioritize your list and do what are the most pertinent things, having boundaries is going to allow you to focus your attention on what is at hand. Learn to say no. If you have a tendency to try and please everyone, this will be an invaluable skill to get. Don't let your list get out of hand because you want to help and consider everyone that comes across your path.
5. Diet. - Be sure that you aren't always reaching for all the calorie rich foods filled with sugars and empty calories that only give a moment recharge but a deep crash afterwards. Practice a wholesome diet lifestyle. Make sure your getting a full profile of micro and macro nutrients.  If your always on the go, consider products like soylent or spacenutrients and the other products that are like that. Exercise the liquid diets with caution as it's something relatively new to the diet field, but in many cases it is healthier than what people are reaching for that are hectic and busy.

The Autistic Yogi Reflects on Agnotology in Yoga.

Agnotology is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, especially regarding the perpetration of misleading interpretations or poorly done science.  Culture, in my opinion, is regarding the personal data that an individual experiences as they observe and witness their family and peers over time.  Some people seam to be more inclined to follow the belief pattern of their family, where as others have a tendency towards the belief patterns of their friends, while others seperate themselves from any external belief and only believen themselves. There are probably other ways to describe these and more.

Yoga in the west, or at least in the limited experience I have had in training with hundreds of teachers, both current and upcoming teachers, has its own culturally induced ignorances and practitioners whom have molded yoga into their own standard. 

Overall it seams that the very base of yoga is either known as a method to stretch, or as an 'evil' on the planet. The 'evil' seams to be the agnotology perpetrated by either catholics or protestants in the areas that I am from. The people who seam to see yoga as a stretch tend to be raised secular.  I have encountered numerous whom neither see it as a method to stretch or a religion/belief structure, but a rounded method of ethical behaviour, movement, breathing exercises, sensory training (learn to observe and take in stimulus in a calm and relaxed manner, concentration and meditation techniques.

I personally am more inclined to see yoga as a state that is achieved through practicing. This state is most simply described by the words, awake & aware.

The biggest perpetration of cultural ignorance in yoga is the historical knowledge of the practice. A few good men and woman have devoted a lot of time to discovering the truth to the historical facts of what the actual yoga practice was.  Yoga has certainly evolved though and in the modern west it has become a thing all together its own, nearly seperate from its historics. The majority of western practitioners are learning a yoga that has very little to do with the original methods, but rather the evolved idea of moving through sequences of postures to invigorate the body. Most will encounter a ton of bullshit spouted by people in general, and they will encounter a ton of good wisdom. 

Its wonderful that there is a ton of supporting science and methods that do validate older practices and modern observations. Its obvious that our body systems have been relatively the same over the last thousands of years. The way that we have integrated knowledge has changed dramatically. We once spoke in a narrative that was mystical and we saught as a species to uncover the secrets of the universe. This produced science and a methodology of aquiring data so that we could truly understand the workings of the universe.

Become versed in how to recognize wrong knowlege, so that we do not become swayed one way or the other, stand by your convictions, but don't love them so much that you cannot change as you absorb knowledge that makes better sense then the previous knowlege you held.

Look up the balloney detection kit if your really interested in discernment.