define healthy and unhealthy

[Blaze]

*go*

[Gilly]

feels good vs feels bad
accepting vs denying/repressing
promotes successful lifestyle vs. detrimental to stability

[Brilliand]

Responding to the current situation in a way that makes it worse by the person's own measure.

Note that this is not necessarily what they will express - I'm referring more to basic human desires, and how much the person enjoys the situation.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Since nobody *fully* understands the mind and how it works, unhealthy and healthy can only be safely defined by physical health and nothing more.

Until somebody figures it all out and has a breakthrough (and trust me you'll know cause it will be incredible and society will be transformed blah blah blah super uber famous), and not just some red herring based on an ideal world that doesn't exist yet or something, or a mere play on emotions. (Most spiritual transcendence takes place on a level beyond emotion and so has nothing to do with manipulating one's emotions)

Since psyche is so intricate and complex, and you could spend a lifetime just studying ONE aspect and still not get very far, then I'm not sure if our current species has the capacity or tools for such a thing. It's like self-awareness about having self-awareness times quadzillion.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

I'd like to add that looking inward is probably the only way to begin answering your profound question, although that becomes increasingly uncomfortable. It's actually easier to just..... externalize yourself in an outside, secular social support structure and be well you know, normal and like everybody else and play by the rules to have an easy life for yourself.

I'm not even sure that you comprehend the magnitude of what you are asking. Seriously. Although it does intrigue me.

So if you are up to the task, prepare to be a social pariah, I mean a real one - prepare to be hated, probably discriminated against. Police might raid your home. You'd intimidate a lot of people, and thus have them turn against you. Even when you actually have the right answer about the mysteries of life and the mind, and you will lift society up, it realistically most likely won't happen in this lifetime. Just like we often don't fully appreciate a true artist until he's long gone. And liberalism, empowerment, gay love and magic etc. works very slowly whereas authority, control, power works very fast. So people almost always go with the latter.

Your question can only be safely answered on a message board, idealized and white washed into pretty sounding words but the truth is, the truth is hasn't been found yet and if it was found, then you'd just crack the code completely and All Hell Will Break Loose, which I can safely guess that's what you REALLY want in all actuality, otherwise you wouldn't be wasting your time on a message board like all of us, you would be out there shaking it up and being caught in a system.

So really dude. Start off smaller. Learn the basics of meditation first or something. You're being too hard on yourself. ;p

[crazedrat]

life & death are as distinct as healthy / unhealthy

[strrrng]

Being unhealthy is assuming mutual exclusivity between healthy and unhealthy, and pursuing the former as superior to the latter, with expectations based around it, and denials to compensate for failed attempts.

[Creepy-Diana]

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[Jarno]

True self / False self

[Jarno]

Self-aware and accepting, vs. not self-aware or denying.

People have a tendency to make excuses. It's a way of protecting themselves from having to see what they're really like. And they will find someone to agree with them, aiding their delusion whether a positive one, or a negative one. You just get more deeply buried in it when you do that.

Any time you're non-genuine it's unhealthy; when you're hiding, lying, being fake, denying, trying to cover something up, choosing to believe something you know isn't true. Also, when you've buried yourself so deep that you're no longer even aware of how you're behaving, that too is unhealthy.

Also, wanted to add that there are those who actually want people to lose contact with themselves. It makes people a lot easier to control. Ask not what your country can do for you. . . is an example of gently encouraging people to disassociate from themselves, while cults and other groups would be an example of heavy pressure to disassociate.

Yeah.

[Minde]

That's a good question, Blaze. Sometimes people throw those words around a lot, but what do they really mean?

I might say:
Healthy = living in accordance with reality/truth
Unhealthy = living/acting in conflict with reality/truth

That's really simplified, of course.

[leckysupport]

Self-aware and accepting, vs. not self-aware or denying.

I remember some political speech that compared being a mother with being the secretary of state or something similar. They were compared as if both activities took the same amount of effort and skill; thus making out mothers are just as 'good' as secretaries of state. A lot of mothers agreed with this comparison as they saw what they did as important and difficult, but of course it isn't as important and difficult as being a secretary of state.

I think this attitude of over stating the importance of what they do and who they are makes them more dedicated mothers (and annoying people). I also find this over stating self-importance is common in a lot of academic disciplines and professions.

Anyway these people are not self-aware and they are definitely denying the truth, and they're probably healthy.

Also, wanted to add that there are those who actually want people to lose contact with themselves. It makes people a lot easier to control. Ask not what your country can do for you. . . is an example of gently encouraging people to disassociate from themselves, while cults and other groups would be an example of heavy pressure to disassociate.

So... people in the military or a religious group are unhealthy?

[Jarno]

...religious group are unhealthy?

yes

[Minde]

I remember some political speech that compared being a mother with being the secretary of state or something similar. They were compared as if both activities took the same amount of effort and skill; thus making out mothers are just as 'good' as secretaries of state. A lot of mothers agreed with this comparison as they saw what they did as important and difficult, but of course it isn't as important and difficult as being a secretary of state.

I think this attitude of over stating the importance of what they do and who they are makes them more dedicated mothers (and annoying people). I also find this over stating self-importance is common in a lot of academic disciplines and professions.

Anyway these people are not self-aware and they are definitely denying the truth, and they're probably healthy.

There are different levels of healthiness. Like someone could be close to death, and someone else could have a slight cough. Neither are perfectly healthy; both have something wrong with them. But one is a whole lot less healthy than the other.

Also, as per your example, "importance" is some what relative. To a baby, a mother is hugely important, while the secretary of state is not so much. To an adult, the secretary of state might have more influence than his mother. So, I'm not sure you can say those people are denying the truth.

But, for the sake of your argument, if they were, that would be unhealthy of them to do so. They might otherwise be healthy, so it might be like the equivalent of a cough.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

There's a certain redemption in sickness, so Nick made a good point not to think of things always in terms of pure healthy or unhealthy.

Pain destroys the ego. You can do it on your own, but it also happens when pain is inflicted upon you and you allow yourself to feel it.

People have a tendency to make excuses. It's a way of protecting themselves from having to see what they're really like. And they will find someone to agree with them, aiding their delusion whether a positive one, or a negative one. You just get more deeply buried in it when you do that.

I think you are talking about the conflict between who you think you are in your head, and how other people view you. Both are very fake to me, as people are going to have perceptions and analyizations of you that are just as biased and half-truthed as when you view yourself. My Delta psychologist tried to tell me that how others saw me was more important than how I viewed myself, although he was just engrossing one shadow over another. So what is actually accurate is most likely beyond psyco-analization and mind-thought, you have to size up the person in a variety of situations and how they also respond to others. Certain spiritual leaders have tried to get over this 'mind mask' we hold on others but it is very hard since even if our perceptions and concepts about that person are wrong (or not useful to how that person is in the current state), they are too loyal and reliable.

It's like the old saying goes. People only remember how you made them feel.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

An interesting experiment of this is when I was at Starr and the group leader wrote a progress report each month about us, and how they personally viewed us. In the program I went through about 4 group leaders and they all saw vastly different things in me.

So people see you as how they want to see you, based on their own shit -- and it isn't any more accurate than how you feel you are inside yourself. It's just as shadowy and deathy and half-truthy, akin to the first evil talking to you.

If you can picture your true self (which is so all-encompassing and shit so your mind can't grasp it, it literally covers up the whole world as well as other higher dimensions and virtually has no limit), I always tell people to envision yourself pleasantly drifting through any environment or circumstance you can imagine, just let it all happen in front of you, all the voices, all the judgements people hold about you, judgements you hold about yourself and others and you just let it all kind of fly by and realize that you are the person that is creating the parade/drama and watching the thoughts, you're not the parade itself or any of the other stuff people are projecting either. This is kind of umm a stepping stone to true meditation.

Whenever I do this exercise I begin to realize who has always really cared about me and who I had an unhealthy ego-centric relationship with (as while meditating the ego-centric people evaporate like the illusions they were and the 'true self' people naturally connect with you) All very organic, natural. No effort. Just raw insight.


There is no book or word or concept for this, because it is not fragmented. You have to experience it yourself. And really the beautiful thing is that it doesn't really destroy your individuality or uniqueness.

[Creepy-Diana]

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[xkj220]

Sometimes, you have to go down first so you can go up (you know, like on some street crossings). And when you are upside down, you might see things in a different light.

[FDG]

It's really complicated, because there are many facets of personality, and I think you could have an unhealthy relationship towards a certain part of life while being rather balanced in another one. As a least possible standard, I might think about "not harming other people with your behavior". Yet this entails the possibility of being stagnant etc., which some people consider unhealthy. So perhaps something healthy would be: "not harming other people with your behavior and trying to make your life/personality better". Even better might be: "not harming others, and trying to promote both your and their well-being".

[07490]

This is probably the most demonstrative article I've ever read about Enneagram's association with the level of healthiness.

Enneagram Levels of Development

[Marie84]

I'm finding the differing views on this issue fascinating

[Blaze]

thanks, friends. :-)