[Type 4] How healthy are you?

[FemMecha]

[MENTION=10714]Qlip[/MENTION]
I find this difficult to answer because those descriptions never feel compartmentalized within me. I feel the positive qualities when I have created something, am alone in nature, or found a way to connect or bring happiness into the world. During those same periods of time I've felt complete isolation and intense psychological pain. It is difficult to imagine one state that is completely separate from the others. I wouldn't know how to only feel bliss without comprehension of tragedy. There can be fleeting moments of pure bliss or pain, but it is all intertwined in a complex web.

Edit: Some other posters like [MENTION=23222]senza tema[/MENTION] [MENTION=17945]Nixie[/MENTION] have said something that resonates with me. How do you measure health? The ability to feel pain, and not constantly deflect with denial and defenses, is the source of much of my creativity and kindness. I am not a person functioning perfectly, but based on what I've experienced, I'm very healthy and strong. Someone who has a physical degenerative disease can be defined as "unhealthy", and the psychological, degenerative equivalent could also be called "unhealthy". But, what about a person who was injured, lost a leg and the use of one hand, but has healed and adapted. Is that person "sick"? There can be a psychological equivalent of that sort of harm. You can be damaged and recovered with scars and consequences.

 

[anastasiaromanova]

Unhealthy when I was a teenager. I think those that say there is no such thing as a healthy four are trying to keep the definition of four to be unhealthy. Healthy fours overcome self-absorption, so unhealthy fours won't relate to them at all.

Health level is independent of type. Completely. If that's a common way of thinking on this board it needs to be eradicated. These boards should be for transcending fiixation, not for furthering it.

That said, it may be a bit harder for Fours to get motivated to climb up the levels because their fixation orients them toward the pursuit and expression of the full experience of pain as a form of self-validation. And this in turn is romanticized by the culture to some extent, especially if they're in the arts. This may be somewhat less problematic for sp-first 4s, speaking very generally. Be that as it may, once Fours do get moving, they may ascend much more rapidly because they REALLY want self-knowledge and are willing to go DEEP in. A Four with a strong objective reality sense at One who is incorporating the higher aspects of E2--generous, non-manipulative, care for others--and is willing to reveal his or her own story in truth and depth to shed light on the way out of suffering for other sis a truly amazing and inspiring being.

Don Riso was an sp Four.

 

[Duffy]

[MENTION=10714]Qlip[/MENTION]
I find this difficult to answer because those descriptions never feel compartmentalized within me. I feel the positive qualities when I have created something, am alone in nature, or found a way to connect or bring happiness into the world. During those same periods of time I've felt complete isolation and intense psychological pain. It is difficult to imagine one state that is completely separate from the others. I wouldn't know how to only feel bliss without comprehension of tragedy. There can be fleeting moments of pure bliss or pain, but it is all intertwined in a complex web.

Edit: Some other posters like [MENTION=23222]senza tema[/MENTION] [MENTION=17945]Nixie[/MENTION] have said something that resonates with me. How do you measure health? The ability to feel pain, and not constantly deflect with denial and defenses, is the source of much of my creativity and kindness. I am not a person functioning perfectly, but based on what I've experienced, I'm very healthy and strong. Someone who has a physical degenerative disease can be defined as "unhealthy", and the psychological, degenerative equivalent could also be called "unhealthy". But, what about a person who was injured, lost a leg and the use of one hand, but has healed and adapted. Is that person "sick"? There can be a psychological equivalent of that sort of harm. You can be damaged and recovered with scars and consequences.

I see a lot of positive reframing in your posts.

 

[magpie]

It might be more helpful for you to try on for size that your center of gravity is at L5 and your range routinely extends up to 3 and down to 7 depending on the contexts in your life. Then you would find something concrete and realistic things to work with to climb back up.

Don Rios's health levels in the top third describe states beyond what is ordinarily considered full psychological health. What most conventional psychological systems consider full health corresponds in Riso's system to L4. It's extremely rare for someone to have their center of gravity above L4 without having spent years of 'work' on one's development with specific guidance.

I'm not trying to knock anyone but this isn't an opinion. It's a fact. That's how Don conceptualized his system.

Also overwhelmingly people tend to overestimate their health level, upwards not downwards. And also also it's impossible to go from a center of gravity at L3 to a center of gravity of L7 without a very major life trauma. And even then, having had the center of gravity at l3, the person would most likely have the tools to recover, which would probably involve seeking the proper guidance to help them to do so.

fwiw I'm very clearly an L6 authoritarian rebel Six now. My center of gravity has never been higher than that and during much of my life has been at unhealthy levels. But I'm expecting to ground my center at L5 soon. However it will require a lot of work. After all, that's just one level below what in most systems is considered completely healthy...and I'm not that close to that.

And neither are most people. Far, far fewer are at L3.

Did I ask you for advice? Do you know what's going on in my life right now? Both answers to that question are no. I'm sorry you're jealous that I was happy, expressive, honest, and willing to be vulnerable. That's honestly the only thing I can conclude from this strange post.

Edit: I'm also sorry you think people can't change.

 

[anastasiaromanova]

Did I ask you for advice? Do you know what's going on in my life right now? Both answers to that question are no. I'm sorry you're jealous that I was happy, expressive, honest, and willing to be vulnerable. That's honestly the only thing I can conclude from this strange post.

Edit: I'm also sorry you think people can't change.

Again, the way Don Riso conceived the system, the upper levels of health are beyond what is construed as completely psychologically healthy in most systems. People aren't at one level only at any period in their life. The levels are fluid. What they have is a center of gravity with a range, which is usually two levels above and two levels below. In order to have the center of gravity at Level 3, in the top tier, above the L3/L4 shock point, a person must have done what he calls 'spiritual work' with guidance for a long time. Only a very small percentage of the population ever have their center of gravity above L4.

Again, it is impossible to go down not only four levels, but two tiers, from healthy to Unhealthy, passing two shock points (L3/L4 and L6/L7), unless there is a major life trauma. Major life traumas include things like the sudden death of a spouse or a child; being in an accident and getting third degree burns all over your body; being tortured in a concentration camp; living in a refugee camp after your village has been bombed.

Being fired from a job, having a failed romance, being betrayed by a friend, leaving a particular environment such as a school aren't major life traumas. Being diagnosed with cancer is a major life trauma. When people talk about a really drastic downward slide in the levels as you did, they invariably either say they had a major life trauma (or words to that effect), or they say, I was on the Titanic and my whole family died and only I survived. You didn't say that. You said you left school. Unless you left school because of a major life trauma, your center of gravity was never at L3.

So did you have a major life trauma? Doesn't matter what it was. No need to divulge. Did something like being one of the firemen who survived the World Trade Center attacks happen to you? If it did, then I apologize for my assumptions. But you should remember in the future when you talk about your fall from healthy through average to unhealthy on the levels to at least mention you had a major life trauma. Because if you understand the levels, you also understand that it's not a good thing to convey the impression that you can go down two entire tiers just because you leave school. The whole point of being above the L3/L4 shock point is that a person's sense of self is not contextually dependent.

Also, I never said a person couldn't change. I said they had to do work with guidance to get to the upper third of the levels; or as we say in 'shop talk' to go above the L3/L4 shock point.

Anyway, I apologize for misconstruing. So what psycho-spiritual discipline did you study and under whose guidance to get your center of gravity to L3? What tools did you get through your studies to help you out of the bottom levels and have you started implementing them? Surely you've contacted your teacher. What did s/he recommend?

 

[magpie]

Again, the way Don Riso conceived the system, the upper levels of health are beyond what is construed as completely psychologically healthy in most systems. People aren't at one level only at any period in their life. The levels are fluid. What they have is a center of gravity with a range, which is usually two levels above and two levels below. In order to have the center of gravity at Level 3, in the top tier, above the L3/L4 shock point, a person must have done what he calls 'spiritual work' with guidance for a long time. Only a very small percentage of the population ever have their center of gravity above L4.

Again, it is impossible to go down not only four levels, but two tiers, from healthy to Unhealthy, passing two shock points (L3/L4 and L6/L7), unless there is a major life trauma. Major life traumas include things like the sudden death of a spouse or a child; being in an accident and getting third degree burns all over your body; being tortured in a concentration camp; living in a refugee camp after your village has been bombed.

Being fired from a job, having a failed romance, being betrayed by a friend, leaving a particular environment such as a school aren't major life traumas. Being diagnosed with cancer is a major life trauma. When people talk about a really drastic downward slide in the levels as you did, they invariably either say they had a major life trauma (or words to that effect), or they say, I was on the Titanic and my whole family died and only I survived. You didn't say that. You said you left school. Unless you left school because of a major life trauma, your center of gravity was never at L3.

So did you have a major life trauma? Doesn't matter what it was. No need to divulge. Did something like being one of the firemen who survived the World Trade Center attacks happen to you? If it did, then I apologize for my assumptions. But you should remember in the future when you talk about your fall from healthy through average to unhealthy on the levels to at least mention you had a major life trauma. Because if you understand the levels, you also understand that it's not a good thing to convey the impression that you can go down two entire tiers just because you leave school. The whole point of being above the L3/L4 shock point is that a person's sense of self is not contextually dependent.

Also, I never said a person couldn't change. I said they had to do work with guidance to get to the upper third of the levels; or as we say in 'shop talk' to go above the L3/L4 shock point.

Anyway, I apologize for misconstruing. So what psycho-spiritual discipline did you study and under whose guidance to get your center of gravity to L3? What tools did you get through your studies to help you out of the bottom levels and have you started implementing them? Surely you've contacted your teacher. What did s/he recommend?

You have no right to know whether I've experienced a traumatic event. You have no right to tell me what is or isn't a traumatic event. If I said I went from 3 to 7 then I did and I don't have to explain anything to you, a complete stranger on the internet, because you feel I need to prove myself.I also never said my "center of gravity" was at level 3. That was your assumption entirely. And if there's no reason to divulge what my major life trauma was, then there's no reason to divulge if I even had one at all, especially if you are going to judge and police whether or not it "counts". This should be the end of this discussion.

 

[anastasiaromanova]

This should be the end of this discussion.

Oh god, if only that were true. Unfortunately leaving it this way doesn't sit well with me. But if I don't take a step back from it, there is no chance whatsoever at this point that you'll hear a single word I say. So that's what I'm going to do. I'll post a reply in a couple of days. And then hopefully it really will be time for this to be over, from my perspective.

 

[magpie]

Oh god, if only that were true. Unfortunately leaving it this way doesn't sit well with me. But if I don't take a step back from it, there is no chance whatsoever at this point that you'll hear a single word I say. So that's what I'm going to do. I'll post a reply in a couple of days. And then hopefully it really will be time for this to be over, from my perspective.

I'm glad only your perspective matters to you. Please don't bother to reply in a couple of days. But thanks again for being the authority on me and refusing to stop until it sits well with you.

 

[anastasiaromanova]

Well I was going to clarify something more or less along those lines, in a ps--that that wasn't what I meant, and that I needed to go back and read carefully what happened here from the beginning to try to see what you were seeing from your perspective. I thought of saying I didn't mean to imply you were defective but that my communication was defective. But I thought it wouldn't have really helped, that there was really nothing I could say right now that would, unless I stepped back and got a different angle on the whole thing, so I didn't.

Be that as it may, I'm going to do what I said I would and reply in a couple of days and you don't have to read it but somebody probably will and may get something out of it. Just as you've gotten the understanding that you never were at Level 3, you never were healthy according to Don Riso's health levels, even though you don't want to admit that you got that out of it from the "stranger on the Internet" whose only motivation could be that they're "jealous" of you.

I'll finish in a couple of days. Feel free to ignore me.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Average and I am getting better each day. Especially since the only thing I am trully investing energy is repairing my life and my environment so that I can have more plesant life.
Healing and repairing mean a lot to me. (Sp dom)

 

[Lark]

I've been in the top three levels all my life.

 

[Galena]

I think I have escaped level 6 as a home base as I've been claims more agency over the kinds of people I give my time and care to. But that center isn't too meaningful so long as my bandwidth for ups and downs continues to be as easily stretched as it is.

What holds me back is being unsure about how much a person can change. It's hard to remember what my lowest looked like and not wonder if all I'm doing well right now isn't just a temporaey fluke. Impostor syndrome. It's because life has become easy. Routine is not revelatory.

Tests of the integrity of what you've really got tend to be circumstantial and often not desirable. If there is a way to challenge one's strength of character that one can and would want to enter into by choice, such an experience would be worthwhile for me at the place I'm at.

 

[Lark]

I thought this thread was going to be a discussion of physical health as opposed to mental health, I actually think that physical health is the poor cousin in a lot of ways in contemporary society to mental health and that if people took much better care of themselves physically, had a high degree of fitness etc. then a lot of other things, principally mental health, would all fall into place.

Perhaps I'm just fortunate and that I've had a lot of advantages others havent and read and internalised a lot of good philosophy.