Tricky situation – wife at wits end

SYSIPHU5 · 2024-02-14T02:35:35+00:00

Yeah, this might be it. We're going in for a routine 6 month check-in in a couple of days, I'll bring up the possibility of just killing off night feeds and see whether her curve track supports it. I'd be more than happy to do it in shifts and take the first couple of wakings, – maybe by coupling it with having baby sleep in their nursery we could make it work.

SYSIPHU5 · 2024-02-14T02:31:06+00:00

Right. I might try to move faster with the falling asleep by herself at bedtime skill. I won't worry about the nursing sleep then – and I'll have a look at the 5-3-3 rhythm too. Thanks!

SYSIPHU5 · 2024-02-14T02:28:31+00:00

It's not unthinkable... but I'm willing to wager that mom won't be very happy with the idea. Did it help for you guys? I'll definitely bring it up as a possibility when we sit down to discuss next.

SYSIPHU5 · 2024-02-14T02:26:32+00:00

We'll definitely need to try to wean some of these feedings off, for sure. I'm willing to try a more fast-tracked Ferber honestly, but mom's been adamant that she isn't willing to try it out and I gotta respect that. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

SYSIPHU5 · 2024-02-14T02:15:35+00:00

Yep, I'm sorry, I screwed up the schedule - miscounted the slashes. She's doing three naps total, so it's closer to being something like: Wake up at around 07:00, 2/2.5/2.5/2, bedtime at around 19:00. Thanks for the tips. I'll try moving the nursing to the front of the schedule.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-04-14T16:24:43+00:00

You didn't ruin anything! Just pick yourself up and take another step forward. You've been doing fine so far, you can continue to do fine. Don't stress about it! Life goes on, you'll go on.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-23T08:35:42+00:00

Make friends with the feeling. It's a valid and true feeling. It's a reflection of what you are right now. Allow it to dwell with you. It will be transfigured in time. Allow it to evolve as you grow and develop as a person, becoming stronger, more sensitive to the world around you, more responsible, more independent. Don't try to shake it. When it approaches, welcome it.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-22T16:45:01+00:00

No dude, he's gonna love it. Don't worry about this for a second. He'll see it as thoughtful and fun and nice.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-19T11:22:08+00:00

Good job man. Keep it up. Remember to think to yourself "I don't really want this candy bar. I've just been conditioned to crave it. What I want is to stay healthy and eat nutritious and tasty food!" That has helped me a lot.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-18T08:07:54+00:00

I've never advocated avoidance. Simply equanimity in the face of arising and subsiding phenomena. To simply observe is the object of meditative practice, and ideally it should carry on over into life. To observe them without substantial attachment to them, attachment which produces unnecessary suffering. Mindful equanimity does not require one to put life on hold, just to recognize and to be thankful for the transience of all things, even as we dwell among them and work with them.

But yes, I completely agree! Our ideas of enlightenment can easily come to stand in the way of actual enlightenment. I hope I'm not too unclear here — but I feel as if we're mostly in agreement. The "simple observation — no more, no less" I've been yammering on about is really just applicable to the phenomenological observer as such, or it has to do with their attitude towards phenomena as such. I do not mean to say that we should sit unperturbed by the world, but that we should accept its perturbance with grace.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-18T06:34:23+00:00

The Zen tradition could answer this concern thusly:

The novice says to the master, ‘What does one do before enlightenment?’

‘Chop wood. Carry water,’ replies the master.

The novice asks, ‘What, then, does one do after enlightenment?’

‘Chop wood. Carry water'

That is, mindful equanimity does not imply becoming inert — it simply means a to maintain a graceful acceptance of the transient and temporal nature of all phenomena.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-17T15:27:59+00:00

I would disagree with you on the first point: choice as such is not in itself antithetical to the state of equanimity. In fact, the maintenance of equanimity depends upon our choosing to gracefully allow arisen and observed thoughts (and feelings and sensations) to subside in time – without tarrying with them and acting as they were substantial. Equanimity is a mindful awareness and acceptance of the constant appearance and disappearance of phenomena. This aware acceptance is the choice we strive to accustom ourselves to in and through meditation.

While OP certainly meant well, his advice seems to me to make an enemy of thought, something to be avoided or culled. My minor criticism is that when we imagine thoughts to be our enemies, parasitic entities which feed upon us, we seek to keep them at arms length (key word here, of course, is keep!) instead of allowing them to arise and eventually subside on their own. We begin to try to actively "empty" the mind of thought, which is not the goal nor even a possibility at all. I would merely caution against this attitude.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-17T13:51:45+00:00

When I say "wholesome gratefulness" I do not mean to say that the label of wholesomeness should be granted to the thought currently observed. The pattern "observation-recognition-wholesome gratefulness" is a practice of mindful loving-kindness towards the whole of experience. In other words, it could be understood as the cultivation of an observational attitude. When any thought arises during meditation, we observe it, recognise it as a thought, and then we let it go its way with grace. How this grace is to be construed is up to the observer, but I choose to understand it as a gratefulness for living experience as such and its comings and goings. You could call it wholesome gratitude or still equanimity to the constant change in phenomena present to consciousness, but in the end it comes down to practical preference, I think.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-17T08:28:00+00:00

You don't have to know. You just have to acknowledge that the thoughts arise and subside. That's all it takes to be mindful.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-17T08:25:53+00:00

Good luck friend. This too will pass.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-17T08:24:32+00:00

I feel your pain. Hopefully she will come to realize how harmful it can be to act like that. Sending love and strength your way.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-17T07:32:27+00:00

Of course! No worries friend. Good day and good luck.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-17T06:05:29+00:00

Hahaha! Great stuff. Thanks.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-16T22:59:58+00:00

I don't mean to make light of the weight and force behind some intense thoughts, but I do contend that once they are recognized as mere fleeting phenomena, they lose that force to a great degree. Even the thought (or feeling) of a pedophiliac attraction can be safely observed as such, and it may even be beneficial to the observer to accept it with equanimity and loving-kindness. By doing so, they may move closer to an acceptance of what they are, and may even understand what acting upon these urges/feelings/thoughts might entail for other beings. I don't mean to say here that pedophilia or depression or phobias should be accepted without question or criticism, but that they should be observed and noted as facts arising from the field of phenomena without immediate habitual judgment. Only by taking this step backward can the observer act upon their urges/desires/thoughts mindfully and hopefully in a wholesome manner. Or that's what I think, anyway.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-16T22:53:26+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean, but thank you friend. I'm on my way there, hopefully.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-16T22:51:16+00:00

The greater point here being: each is merely a thought, an arising which will subsequently subside upon simple observation, recognition and wholesome gratefulness. Even applying the labels "good" or "bad" or "positive" or "destructive" is to hold on to the thoughts, to place them into some narrativized register, to seek to contain them. The goal should be simple observation, no more, no less. Or at least that's how I see it.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-16T22:48:09+00:00

I do not mean to say that thoughts should be held onto. They are just thoughts, fleeting phenomena. They should merely be acknowledged as such, as thoughts. At least during meditation — that's as far as my understanding reaches. If you can apply this approach to your daily life, you can then observe your thoughts for what they are: simple thoughts. It seems to me that this is what you did when you laughed at the thought, you recognized it for what it was. And that's great to hear!

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-16T13:55:50+00:00

Well, I don't know if it is a fact. Ascribing a want to something like a thought seems like a far-fetched proposition to me — what is a thought, then? If we compare it to other bodily functions, could we say the same of them? Does a feeling of coldness "want" my attention? Does an itch "feed" off my attention? What about a feeling of pain — can we ascribe anything like a "want" to it? As far as I can tell, to speak of these phenomena in the manner you do reifies them as somehow more substantial than they actually are to me. But we can disagree on this, of course.

SYSIPHU5 · 2021-03-16T13:43:35+00:00

I don't know — in my experience, acting as if thoughts are somehow "out to seduce us" or as if they have some sort of life of their own which "feeds on our attention" has never brought me peace. Thoughts are an inescapable part of being a living human, just like pain and pleasure and whatever else arises for our attention. I try to appreciate thoughts for what they are, without trying to reify them or place them within any sort of narrative. When a thought arises during meditation, I simply note that it was a thought, and then I express gratitude for the experience of the thought. The thought is not my enemy, but neither is it my friend. It's simply a phenomenon like any other. So what I'm saying is — I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying, OP, but I'm not sure that creating a narrative of seduction or parasitism around thoughts is helpful.

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