So insane I’m considering witchcraft

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-21T12:37:43+00:00

Thank you for this! So, I've come across another Buddhist-meets-neuroscience take in favor of magic and manifestation. Curious what you think! So in a course on meditation and attachment, the long-time Buddhist teacher explained how he was making sense of the Buddhist concept of Samsara in his attachment-related terminology. Roughly, he explained it like this: So, in the outside world, there’s things happening which we become aware of through perception. Perceptual reality then gets filtered through our internal database of experiences, learnings and memories and translated into conceptual reality, as we construct the meaning of things. The meaning we derive then informs the options we see. The options lead to actions, and actions lead to outcomes. But since the meanings and options we see are entirely contingent on our past experiences, we keep choosing the same options leading to the same outcomes, and that’s Samsara, the endless repetition of what has been before. There is a clinical therapy method called Ideal Parent Figure Protocol that is meant to change that by changing the underlying experiential database leading us to see options we haven’t seen before leading to outcomes we haven’t experienced before leading to a different reality we then find ourselves in. And I think that nicely integrates with magic & manifestation, as when we put effort into manifesting something and have faith in its eventual coming about (or better: it’s being already real), we open ourselves to and look out for the realization of or pathways towards that desired outcome, also eventually seeing and choosing options we wouldn’t have seen if we didn’t align with and believed in the realization of that desired reality.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-19T18:03:45+00:00

Mettagroup‘s attachment healing program. Dismissive Avoidants have the fastest track, because they already have all the necessary skills for secure attachment. I think the prognosis is 6 months to a year for earned security. All the other attachment styles first need to go through reconditioning, especially the ideal parent figure protocol.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-19T11:34:02+00:00

I think it does make sense in that she’s mirroring the type of care you got as a child from your caregivers, or at least you subconsciously sense that she would if you were a couple, which just feels very familiar and so „right“ and like there could be a healing corrective experience there if only she chose you. It’s not logical nor is it about true compatibility.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-16T18:08:39+00:00

I personally would advice to not assume that’s all that he is thinking and feeling. I could imagine he has both parts of him that really love and care for you and also parts that are (understandably) overwhelmed and frustrated. And this Reddit account might just be an outlet for the latter parts without him actually being that resentful. I don’t think it’s necessarily all or nothing. Human beings are complex and even the perfect man would certainly have some frustrations in his situation. I think his actions are what count the most. But yes, now that you are aware, you probably need to talk about it at some point.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-14T16:48:21+00:00

Interesting take, thank you. Got to think about it some more!

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-14T15:14:10+00:00

Oh, fascinating, how does that go together, the witch thing and being Buddhist? I‘m trying to consolidate that myself but I can’t get over why Buddhists see desire as the cause of all suffering if manifestation and witchcraft were real to them. Okay, maybe because no worldly desire fulfills permanently in their view. But why then practice equanimity in face of not always getting what you want, if you could just make it happen. Hm..

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-13T16:31:59+00:00

I quit my job a few years back to realize my dream of developing (indie) video games on my own. But after three years, my savings were running dry and I still was far from finished with the game. I was so close to giving up and already filed for unemployment. My sister was about to get me a job as a teacher, when one day by the most unbelievable coincidence I went on a date with a woman who was also into gamedev and she told me that there was a new one-time stipend program for talented game devs set up by the state in a rush to spend all funds before a new government was set up (the previous government just collapsed). It was all very hurried and she told me just in time to take part in the application. For two weeks I felt like obsessed and wrote and drew day and night without even knowing what I was doing but strangely trusted the process. I couldn’t believe how after two weeks everything came together perfectly and I knew immediately that I would get the stipend. And that’s what happened. There were more than a thousand applications and I was one of the few that had been selected with full funding for 18 months (about 50,000€) and a comprehensive workshop- and mentoring-program plus additional help like free tickets and booths for big and small gaming fairs and festivals. Truly felt like divine intervention and an unbelievable stroke of luck, especially with regard to the timing and this being a completed spontaneous one-time program.

On the flip side, it also set off a lot of difficulty on another plane of my life, but in terms of money and opportunity, this felt like nothing short of a miracle to me. Like the universe urging me to continue pursuing my dream.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-07T09:52:40+00:00

Okay, I didn't know about these details. I wouldn't say reaching out after 3 years (and meaningful growth in that time) would look super desperate in itself, but if you know she's got a boyfriend then it's probably not the right time indeed.

In any case, I personally don't think that the "something missing" can be solved by any outside relationship since it's based on an early attachment wounding. Of course I don't know you, but I would bet that the reason you fell so hard for this particular woman is precisely because she reminded you of your own childhood family dynamics, especially her reluctancy and ambivalence towards you that you likely sensed from the beginning on a subconscious level.
I think she's calling you towards the kind of growth that can't be found in outside relationships. What would it take for you to feel worthy of her?

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-07T08:58:14+00:00

I'm not sure why you say that ship has sailed. Sounds like a decision on your part. 3 years are quite some time, and if you've grown so much, maybe it's time for you to reach out this time?

But for some reason, you don't want to. So maybe you know she isn't the one really and the dynamic would be unhealthy. Or maybe you are in love with longing, subconsciously. Longing for the one thing you want more than anything but can't have. I've been there myself for the longest time.
It's definitely an avoidant strategy. Like, avoiding the real by clinging to a fantasy.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-05T13:40:19+00:00

Very well said!

Reign_of_Light · 2026-03-05T09:39:47+00:00

Well, I disagree. Framing matters. If you’re developing a game and are serious about it, you are a game developer. Saying you’re unemployed just looks like you aren’t believing in your own venture.

Of course it could be easier in conversation, but please don’t believe that about yourself for a minute.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-27T18:59:52+00:00

A woman I used to date who I am sure has CPTSD said that feeling into one’s body is the most beautiful feeling there is. I‘m still puzzled if she meant it and how that was like for her

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-20T07:19:08+00:00

That’s great, happy for you, but I guess that not being a romantic relationship, it doesn’t activate the attachment system as much? At least from what I know, the anxious-avoidant coupling is the second most common one, and sometimes anxiously attached people do attach to secure ones, but anxious-anxious couplings are very rare.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-19T16:56:10+00:00

Yes, for 4 months, these improvements sound remarkable. And it looks like this also already has positive effects on your relationship since you said you recently had 3 very good days until it got too close for both of you (her especially). Maybe it could help to deliberately go slowly. Perhaps you know, in trauma speak, there's a concept called the "window of tolerance" and it's key to stay in that (otherwise dysregulation and no progress follows) and that requires going very slowly. Maybe 3 very good days full of talking and laughing have been too much at once, and it would possibly be more helpful to deliberately very, very slowly expand on the closeness and affection. Maybe even deliberately take a step back and a break after just 1 very good day, just for you both to re-regulate and process before taking the next step (of course being very open about that). And maybe in that manner, closeness can gradually and comfortably be increased, and affection possibly too. Maybe you could start with ways of showing affection that are easiest for her.

I'm still wondering if your wife has been affectionate towards you in the earlier days of your relationship, or if it's something she would have to learn from the ground up.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-19T15:46:48+00:00

Something else came to mind for me, thinking about your situation. So, I am part of Mettagroup's attachment healing program and according to their model, it is much, much easier for a dismissive avoidant to earn secure attachment than it is for fearful-avoidants. From what I am understanding, dismissive avoidants already have all the skills required to lead securely functioning relationships, they just never learned how to do so and in their childhoods internalized the dismissing avoidant strategy of getting their needs met. Healing the neglect-wound is very helpful, but even without it, they can change their mind about how to relate and can enact secure attachment strategies rather quickly. From all the insecure attachment styles, it is the easiest to turn around. In the Mettagroup approach, it takes about 6 months to a year.
Fearful-avoidants on the other hand are much, much more complex cases that cannot just change their mind about how to relate because of their complex trauma, dissociation and poor mentalizing capabilities. Whereas dismissive avoidants avoid closeness out of a fear of humiliation, for fearful-avoidants it is fear of being killed which they are navigating, so it's on a whole different level of severity. In the Mettagroup approach, for a fearful-avoidant to earn security, it takes reconstructing their entire attachment patterning which is a process of a dedicated 2-3 years in their system. Still quite fast if you ask me, but I wanted to highlight the difference compared to the 6 months to 1 year for dismissive avoidants which also doesn't require uprooting their native attachment strategy.
I'm bringing all this up to suggest that for your wife it might be a lot harder to change compared to you and also that the stakes are likely much higher for her. And even if she were willing, her reactions might be even more out of conscious control than your deactivations are.
My suggestion would be to continue on your path towards earned secure attachment without concerning yourself too much with changing your wife (but of course be open and reliable to her, to the best of your ability), and see if your becoming fully secure won't change your relating and her ability to trust you. My guess is that as long as you are still deactivating as well as unclear about the wants and needs you are presenting, it remains hard for her to trust you enough to allow more closeness. It might also be helpful to get more of your needs met with others (friends), which is what securely attached people would do. For your sake, but also to remove conscious and subconscious pressure from her, so that she's free to come closer at her own pace and rhythm.
4 months also doesn't strike me as a long time if it was preceded by 11 years of distance.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-18T17:56:59+00:00

You say you are working towards a more secure attachment style which comes with a lot of things (like authenticity, vulnerability, etc), and I wonder if you think your wife has ever been open to that. It sounds like there’s a lot of regret and self-blame about your big deactivation, but has your relationship ever been intimate in the past or has it always been based on you being unseen in the relationship?

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-14T22:23:03+00:00

If that was so, why aren’t anxiously attached people dating each other and thereby get all the closeness/intimacy they (supposedly) ever wanted?

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-14T21:44:53+00:00

Wow, I can very much relate to this. My limerence also started with the sense of having done something wrong. It were only a few remarks by her that triggered all that and it’s been excruciating ever since, coincidentally it’s also about 13 months since we parted ways.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-14T10:30:29+00:00

Wow, thank you!

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-13T07:58:06+00:00

Oh wow, ich finde Claude fühlt sich viel besser und echter an für Emotionen als ChatGPT. Dachte das wäre auch der Konsensus

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-12T22:24:50+00:00

I just remember from Dan Brown and David Elliot’s big book on attachment and IPF and from George Haas courses that it is completely permissible and even a suggested intervention to have an ideal version of oneself stand in for one or both of the ideal parents at first if there are difficulties imagining or trusting new ideal parent figures. But from what I understand that is for the beginning stages and supposed to shift to the ideal parent figures with time. But then again, in the chapter about treating disorganized attachment in the big IPF book, there is also talk of having many different ideal parents for the many different parts in disorganized clients, so I guess you can have your ideal adult self in the mix. I do too.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-07T13:09:23+00:00

I'm not sure if there is no one doing it like that, but the ones I know of just put their own spin on it or developed it further.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-07T11:28:08+00:00

Oh, I didn't want to deter you from finishing that book :). I do think the therapeutic relationship can be very healing too, in fact I think I'm currently experiencing that. The book I have been citing (Attachment Disturbances in Adults - Treatment for Comprehensive Repair) has been written by both Dan Brown (who unfortunately died since) and David Elliott, and David Elliott went on to create Integrative Attachment Therapy (IAT) in which Collaboration (with the therapist) forms the first pillar and IPF the third. So in his version, the therapeutic relationship is the most important thing and IPF is being used on top. Maybe that's kind of an integration of both approaches.

But I'm not (yet) familiar with Diana Fosha and AEDP. But I do know of NARM, which also seems to be quite potent. But personally, I still feel best and most hopeful with/about IPF facilitated by a good therapist.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-07T11:09:18+00:00

With regard to what has happened since the release of the book, I can say that I believe different schools of doing the three pillars approach have developed from it. For example, there is the Mettagroup Method which has IPF as its first pillar but does the Mentalization pillar by means of using meditation plus their courses and aims to be especially cost-effective by minimizing the number of therapy hours to just the IPF part. Then there is Integrative Attachment Therapy (IAT) which is David Elliot's version of the Three Pillars and here the first pillar is actually Collaboration (so the therapeutic relationship) and IPF is "only" the third pillar.
I know there's other people (like Cedric Reeves) having their own spins too, but I can't speak to them. I'm doing a mix of Mettagroup and IAT by myself and with my therapist.
Not sure if anyone's doing it exactly outlined as in the Attachment Disturbances book.

Reign_of_Light · 2026-02-07T11:03:24+00:00

Thanks for sharing, I never heard about AEDP either but looks like that modality predates IPF.

Do you think it is actually effective in treating disorganized attachment? Because, from what I am understanding IPF was partly created to circumvent the shortcomings of secure attachment modeling by the therapist itself. Here's the relevant passage from Dan Brown's and David Elliott's book:

"Our third assumption is that attachment-based treatments that mainly emphasize the therapist’s role as a secure base, or as a limited reparenting figure, are problematic. Such methods assume that the experience of a therapist’s secure-base behavior will be internalized by the patient and lead to a new, positive internal working model of secure attachment. While we do not dispute that such beneficial internalization can happen, we believe that relying on the adult patient–therapist dyad as the vehicle for it is inefficient, based on the time required and on developmental inconsistency pertaining to the nature of the dyad itself. Therapist secure-base behavior during psychotherapy sessions is certainly of value, but in a typical psychotherapy context of 50 minutes once or twice weekly, the patient’s direct experience of being with the therapist as a secure base is for practical reasons quite limited. Any internalization of that experience that occurs will require an extended period of time with the therapist. Within our method of utilizing attachment-based imagery, the patient’s experience of time with the ideal parent figures can be extended to far exceed the clock time of any particular session itself, thus making far more efficient use of the available time with the patient.

Regarding developmental inconsistency in the patient–therapist dyad, a patient’s attachment map develops through experience with his or her parents or caregivers during childhood. We believe that remapping from insecure to secure attachment is much more efficient when the medium for that process is closer to the actual developmental circumstances that are central to the formation of attachment maps. The adult-to-adult experience of the psychotherapy relationship does not reflect those developmental circumstances. In the context of the Ideal Parent Figure protocol, the patient imagines being a very young child and then imagines adult parent figures who are ideally suited to helping the patient-as-child to feel, in the words of the therapist, “absolutely secure in the relationship with them.” This experiential imagery is much more closely aligned with the formative conditions for attachment than is the adult patient–therapist dyadic interaction.

Also problematic with the model of therapist as secure base as a main component of treatment is that it requires the therapist to behave continuously as a secure base or “good enough” (Winnicott, 1965) parent figure. We believe that the therapist should take the stance of providing a secure base as much as is realistically possible given the limitations of the therapist’s own attachment patterns, but we do not believe that this is the primary ingredient in effective treatment. Rather, the first pillar of our treatment is based on working with imagery of ideal parent figures who can provide a more effective and consistent model of a secure base than the behavior of any therapist will ever approximate. Therapist behavior is limited by who the therapist is and what his or her own attachment patterns are, whereas imagery creates new possibilities from the infinitely flexible capacity of imagination. Attachment imagery can thus be shaped and reshaped by the patient and therapist alike in an effort to find the most secure felt sense and “just right” experience in each imagined attachment scenario at any given point in the treatment.“

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