that I could read people’s minds by reading the room, reading the situation, reading their mannerisms and facial expressions. I remember having this epiphany about age four.
I think it’s an ability many or most people have.
unfortunately some childhood trauma traumatized me and I lost this ability.
People who thrive in life and own companies and run businesses etc have that ability to “read people.” I wish I still had that ability.
fuck trauma.
Yup. Hypervigilance is like a super power that you can never ever turn off. Therapy and mindfulness help tons but it can get super tiring.
The problem with mindfulness training is that it’s very easy to make it feed into the hypervigilance thing.
I’m saying this as someone who has struggled with hypervigilance and who lived in a buddhist temple for 3 years as part of my 9 years of heavy zen training. I take mindfulness training very seriously.
Doing meditation the right way, actually wrestling with attachment and practicing letting go, hypervigilance isn’t fed. But that’s advanced meditation. In the earlier stages, it can very easily be done incorrectly, and in a way that feeds the hypervigilance.
For someone with hypervigilance, I recommend chanting, walking meditation, koan training, as additions to basic focused-awareness meditation, that help break the pattern of defensive-readiness that creates hypervigilance.
And neurofeedback training is AMAZING for this. Decreasing beta wave amplitude via neurofeedback is an excellent way to see the difference between hypervigilance and non-attached awareness.
You’re telling me if you watch any tv show on mute and no subtitles you couldn’t suss out the overall context or how people are feeling/interacting?
I call friendly bullshit ;) When you are a fly on the wall, do you feel the same way still? It takes a lot of bandwith to both socialize or scrutinize the physical cues and stuff, they are as talented and smart as fortune tellers aha
You’re telling me if you watch any tv show on mute and no subtitles you couldn’t suss out the overall context or how people are feeling/interacting?
Yup, My mind pretty much goes blank and I get depressed and I don’t understand the thrill or the point of human interaction. Same for social situations.
I mean since you brought up TV shows, I literally don’t watch TV and the first thing I thought of at your example was like some people watch reality shows like Jersey shore and real housewives, I’m a woman and I just don’t get any of that, not interested at all. just a bunch of pointless drivel, women with plastic surgery and all their drama and crying all the time, I have no idea what’s going on.
It takes a lot of bandwith to both socialize or scrutinize the physical cues and stuff
Exactly. I no longer have that bandwidth.
