The process of finding inner freedom boils down to allowing the dissolution of all the emotional, and mental, momentum created by “resistance-based” thinking, or what I would call the “momentum of resistance”. The end of the momentum of resistance is the beginning of the foundation of openness, which is the requisite for inner freedom. However, the truth is that most of our thoughts are bound to have an element of resistance, for example, a good feeling thought is in resistance to a bad feeling thought, or a light-natured thought is in resistance to a dark-natured thought. You can notice how most of your thinking is along the lines of comparison, detest/dislike, uncertainty (about the future or about yourself), and desire for betterment, and all of this is what can be termed “resistance-based” thinking where you are in resistance with “what is” present in your current reality. It’s not possible to just have “wholeness-based” thoughts, in fact “resistance-based” thoughts are vital to the experience of growth and the expression of something new – for example, the desire for improvement automatically requires you to think in terms of resistance towards “what is”. The only problem is when there is a build-up of the momentum of resistance, when you are unconsciously holding on to the resistance, thus being over-identified with it.
The bottom-line is that it’s the momentum of accumulated resistance which is the problem. Resistance accumulates when you are “unduly” identified with resistance-based thinking, thus lacking an openness in your being. Consider a white-board on which you place a small black dot, now if you bring your eyes closer to the black dot it will seem to get bigger (and if you keep your eyes just 1 cm away from the black dot, the black dot is all you can see) – this is what “undue identification” feels like. When you move your eyes away from the black dot you start seeing more and more of the white board, and at the distance of a couple of meters away from the board you can see how small the black dot is – this is what it means to have the foundation of openness as a background to resistance-based thinking, it allows you to see the black dot in perspective with the space of the white board. When you live from a place of “undue identification” the resistance keeps building simply because the resistance is all that you are focused on.
Resistance-based thoughts are not the problem
The problem is not with having resistance-based thoughts, the problem is with “undue identification”. Stop trying to make your thinking totally “wholeness-based”, it’s just not possible – in fact, this very “trying” can becomes a cause for more resistance. Just to give you a perspective of what wholeness-based thinking implies, consider the thought of adding two simple numbers (for example, 2+2), this thought should ideally create no resistance in you, and you can simply see this thought as being “neutral” – this is an example of a wholeness-based thought. Now consider the thought of multiplying two numbers (say, 485 multiplied by 98, without a calculator, in your mind), in most case this thought can create resistance for many reasons – you may hate maths (detest), you may think about how much more interesting it is to watch a movie than to be calculating numbers in your head (comparison), you may feel anxious about getting a wrong answer (uncertainty) or you may start thinking about how weak your mental multiplication skills are and feel a desire to improve it (desiring improvement/growth). These are all examples of resistance-based thinking and given the situation they are “natural” and not a problem by themselves. Now consider that you spend the entire day focusing on hating maths (rooted in detest), or say you spend the entire day focusing on your weakness regarding mental multiplication, this is what it means to be rooted in “undue identification”, which is what creates a momentum/accumulation of resistance in you. So, basically, the resistance-based thought by itself just creates a momentary resistance and is “natural”, but your “undue identification” leads to an accumulation of this resistance which causes a momentum to build up.
Resistance-based thinking can’t be avoided in life, and, as I mentioned earlier, it’s actually a vital requirement for the experience of living. What’s required is to develop the space of openness where you can work with resistance-based thinking without becoming unduly identified with it. Resistance-based thoughts are not a problem if you are not rooted in undue identification, in that case these thoughts are simply a means to experience creativity, improvement, productivity, entertainment and perception (you will notice that in most cases, a perception requires a comparison or contrast). There is a section of the self-improvement genre of teaching which is obsessed with “positive thinking”, and then there is a section of spiritual genre of teaching which is obsessed with whole-based thinking (like thinking about oneness, unconditional love, living in the present etc) – though there is a place for these teachings depending on the individual’s journey, based of his/her level of awareness, one eventually needs to become aware of the under-current of suppression towards resistance-based thinking inherent in such a teaching, and realize that this suppression actually leads to more imbalance.
Developing the foundation of openness in your being
When you have a foundation of openness, in your being, the type of thinking (whole-based or resistance-based) doesn’t matter because you are no longer over-identified with anything. This foundation of openness is required to have the capacity for wisdom-based thinking, where you are not influenced either by the emotional pull, or the mental pull, rather your actions come from a place of objective wisdom (or reality-based wisdom). So, instead of worrying about your thoughts, what’s required is that you develop an openness in your being first. Once you have the foundation of openness you can work with any form of thinking, and thus with any situation.
You will have to look at developing the foundation of openness as a phase, or process, by itself. Like any process it takes time and it requires understanding. This openness happens at two levels
1. The openness in your attitude as a being
2. The release of past momentum
Just because you’ve developed an attitude of openness doesn’t mean that your past accumulated momentum will get released overnight. An attitude of openness can be developed if one is willing to understand the purpose of this attitude, however the release of the past accumulation (created in the attitude of undue identification) does take time to get released, and it happens in layers. When you are in the midst of this process, of releasing the past momentum, it can feel frustrating because you can’t know when the release will get done with fully – it’s like being in the middle of sand storm, you never know when it’s going to end but it does eventually run out. However, it’s also true that once you’ve allowed some form of a release (say 40-50%) you start connecting more with your inner space (or space of being) which directly allows for better guidance, positive synchronicities and wisdom to start operating in your life, which accentuates your progress towards faster release and alignment.
I talk about this attitude of openness, in detail, in the below posts
Reaching a place of total allowing – This post details the journey towards reaching the place of total openness in your being, starting from a place of low awareness, developing stronger awareness, working on letting go of identification and finally reaching a space of inner freedom in terms of being totally open to anything that arises within as thought or emotion.
FAQ on the state of allowing – This post answers some common questions regarding the “how to” of the state of allowing.
The attitude required for inner freedom – In this post I talk about the essential attitude required for total allowing which involves the willingness to stand without holding on to any understanding, assurance, or belief, as a crutch
The phase of release is a temporary phase that one needs to go through in order to let go of all the past accumulated momentum, however it can be challenging just like any detox process in that there is an outpouring of all the suppressed, or imbalanced, emotional energy, that comes up for a release. One can feel confused if one does not understand what’s really going on. I talk about the dynamics involved in the release of past momentum in the below posts
The brain, the heart, and the law of attraction – In this post I give a perspective on the biological/physiological aspects involved between the heart and the brain in how they can mutually keep refueling/amplifying the past momentum causing the state of obsessive thinking.
Releasing mind momentum is the key – Here I talk about some aspects of the journey towards releasing past momentum, especially the uncertainty, the requirement of patience and the withdrawal symptoms (withdrawal from past momentum).
Eliminating Anxiety – One of the biggest challenges towards releasing past momentum is to deal with the brain’s aspect of reinforcing neural pathways by generating brain-waves that match the past patterns. In this post I talk about a product called Brainev, that uses a specialized brainwave entrainment technology, which I find to be highly effective in training the brain towards a balanced state by using simulated brain-waves.
The above are just a few key posts regarding this topic of developing the foundation of openness, there are several other posts which discuss aspects of this journey towards inner freedom.
Having deep realizations, and gaining reality-based understandings, are like an invitation towards developing the foundation of openness. If you try to hang on to these “realizations”, as a crutch, you are already defeating the inherent purpose of the realization which was to develop “openness”. I come across several mails where people talk about how they had a moment of amazing realization, where they felt free and aligned, and how they “lost” it in sometime – the truth is that you don’t lose a realization, it’s just that the past momentum comes back, which makes you feel that you are not living from the understanding that you had in that moment of realization. These moments of realization can be beautiful, but one also needs to understand that there is still the past momentum to let go of; it’s just that these realizations give you a better perspective on life/reality, and are thusly an invitation towards releasing the past momentum created from deluded perspectives and undue identification.
The foundation of openness is not an end-point
The foundation of openness is not an end-all or some final destination to reach – there is no such end-point in life; the very nature of life is eternal movement. The delusion of reaching some end-point is one of the most anti-reality based thinking and is the core reason for a sense of a “let down” or a sense of wanting to hold on to something. The foundation of openness is the base for an evolved way of living where your thinking is wisdom-based rather than based on some past momentum, where your motivations are driven from a place of inner freedom rather than from a place of being powerless (being pulled around by your emotional/mental momentum), where you are receptive to observing/understanding reality in an objective manner since you are no longer afraid of letting go of delusional thinking and connecting with reality in its aspects of light and dark nature, where you can start understanding your “physical mind” (brain/heart/body) thus work towards living an expression that’s aligned with your unique physical attributes and experiencing what your current physicality affords.
So, as you can see, your journey, as a being, doesn’t end by connecting with your foundation of openness/wholeness, rather it just starts off a new level of living. It’s not about becoming “unconditional”, rather it’s about having a foundation of unconditional openness and using it to work the conditional aspects of your mind/thinking. Your thinking will always have conditional elements in it, but one needs the space of openness to bring a wisdom, and balance, to the conditional thinking. For example, just because you are rooted in the foundation of openness, or inner freedom, doesn’t mean that you will feel unconditional love towards everything/everyone; if your neighbor’s teenage kid rocks his blaring metal music just when you are heading to sleep you will naturally dislike the disturbance and would take it up with your neighbor in a manner that’s suitable. From the foundation of openness you can work from your resistance-based thinking while being aligned with circumstantial wisdom, and also, you won’t be rooted in the resistance-based thinking, lost to the momentum of resentment, anger or frustration. The openness not only allows for wisdom, but also ensures that you have a sense of inner stability with respect to any situation that you encounter, nothing grips you in a vice like hold.
Your mind will always work from a place of having conditional thinking or resistance-based thinking, that’s how “preferences” are born, and preferences are what bring forth diverse expressions that allow for the life-energy, that we are, to experience itself in various ways. Trying to be “totally” unconditional in your thinking is not only a futile endeavor but also unnatural in that it’s not aligned with the nature of growth that’s inherent to you as life-energy or the dark-nature aspect. If you look at being unconditional as the “light nature” and being conditional as the “dark nature”, a true balance will involve using the foundation of being unconditional to work with the conditional, thus bringing an integration of the light and dark nature (or yin/yang). It’s not one or the other, it’s one and the other, in unison, in balance.
Thank You for that Post, Sen.
Beautiful Article, once again..! 🙂
First of all, sorry if my english skills aren’t very good, I’m brazillian.
Right now I’m going through a very bizarre period in my life, and would be thankful for any insights or clarifications that help me sort my own mess.
To be completely honest, I dont feel a call towards conscious living. I’m not sure I’ve never reached the state of allowing, and I dont know if I even “want” to do so. I read about all these people who feel a call in “their very being” of whatever, something that reasonates very deep with them, states of bliss, being in touch with their being and getting glimpses of the state of wholeness, etc. I have never had any of those. I’m not even sure I have what one would call an “awakened” being.
It’s been about a year since I’ve found this blog, and a lot of things have definitely changed in my life. My awareness have grown to levels I didn’t imagined possible, and I possess a clear understanding of all my mind patterns. Every technique I developed in my unconscious state to cover up my own insecurities, all my fake personas, my deluded perceptions and motivations, all were brought to my knowing by awareness. It isn’t necessary to say that this brought all the problems of having a high awareness. Complete lack of any motivation and loss of old interests are some of these.
Even better, all of this is happening while I still live with my parents, for I am still relatively young (I’m 17). The “responsibilities” and pressures of adult life are starting to knock on my door every day, and I dont have any will to answer their calling, simply because everything now feels so “boring” and lacking any real purpose. I’m doing college just because my parents want me to do so. If I even try to do my college works, I’m met with a horrible sensation of resistance, of doing something that really isn’t aligned with who I am (and I dont know who I am).
Sometimes there is a nagging sense of something missing, something that I have been feeling for a long time now. It’s very frustrating, I feel like there is something right under my nose that is the solution to my problems, and I simply fail to figure it out. Some months ago, things were more simple. I read Sen articles and they gave me hope, they lit a spark in my dark and anxious mind I had at the time. I understand that it is because I still had a very unconscious mind, and used the teachings here as yet another technique that gave me something to work with and maintain myself occupied and deluded for some months. Now everything just feels convoluted and anything I do is just me trying to fool myself (no techniques work, no affirmations work and no understanding is capable of giving me any security).
Not even your posts reasonate with my anymore. I used to have a lot of great and “ahá” moments reading them, and now I feel nothing, and they just seem “uninteresting”.
Ellk,
“To be completely honest, I dont feel a call towards conscious living. I’m not sure I’ve never reached the state of allowing, and I dont know if I even “want” to do so.”
You say you don’t feel a calling, but from what you stated in the rest of your post it sounds to me that you have already began that process towards conscious living. I know what you mean when you say that Sen’s post do not resonate with you anymore and they have lost interest in you. I too felt the same way when I first stumbled upon his blog several months back. My advise to you is that you allow your feelings and uncertainties to come about without putting so much attachment to them. It’s normal to feel like you don’t know where you’re going, especially since you’ve realized that you’ve been living your life unconsciously for so long. Any human being is going to have that restless stage when such a drastic change in your way of conscious living takes place. It’s best to not take in so much of your frustrations and identify with them, it is just your mind that is disoriented with this new form of thinking and it’s first instinct is to go back to it’s old habits when things don’t seem the way that they used to be.
“(no techniques work, no affirmations work and no understanding is capable of giving me any security).”
The point Sen makes throughout his blog on several of his posts is that you shouldn’t rely or feel you need to rely on things such as techniques, affirmations, and even understandings to feel secure. If you think and feel that you need some sort of technique to feel like your taking the right direction in life, than it isn’t much different than living unconsciously and what it’s doing is dragging you back to your brains old habits of thinking. The best way to go about it is to allow all these feelings and thoughts to arise in you and not identify with them. It will feel disorienting and you may feel very restless but it’s just a form of detoxification that your body is going through. If you feel like you’re just fooling yourself you must let this arise in you as well without identification. The negative feeling it brings about is from the past momentum of your brains form of thinking that you had been using your entire life. It’s vital that you allow even all the uncertainties to come about in you. It’s all just part of the process. Eventually the momentum will subside and your convoluted thinking will gradually seem more clear. Just keep allowing everything that comes about inside you no matter how it makes you feel, remember even the negative feelings and thoughts need to arise. This process isn’t about always having that “aha” moment and coming to an ultimate understanding about what this process of wholeness is about. It’s very personal and different for every human being. Those understandings aren’t meant to be held on to, they’ll be there when you need them but don’t rely on a certain understanding as basis for moving forward with the process. Life is endless, so there is no ultimate understanding to your life, it’s a continuous growing process that every human being goes through whether it be the physical form you are now or another. Being open to all that arises is the foundation to experiencing physicality that will achieve a wholeness in your being. It’s only up to you whether you are willing to take on this journey. There is no wrong choice and if it’s not something that resonates with you now, that’s okay. Perhaps in the near or distant future you will feel a calling for it again. Just allow an openness in your being.
EV
Ellk, one thing that does come across from your words is that you are seeking a “high”, the high that felt during the “aha” moments that you had while reading and growing in awareness. The sense that something is missing is coming from your delusion of seeking a high, and the high is now missing. You are yet to internalize the understanding that life involves a balance of light and dark, you are simply looking for the light nature alone of the “high state”. Everything becomes uninteresting at some point, there is only so much understanding and insight that you can gain, after which all that’s needed is to internalize and move on towards other aspects – there can’t be infinite “aha” moments in any field of understanding. You may possibly find some insight in the recent post – Being Objective
Hi, Sen,
I started to use Brainev based on your recommendation. Have to say, that the first month’s record was quite a helpful to calm mind, but the second level “Lucid Echoes” works somehow weird on me. Not the very first times, but after every time I listen it, it builds up (or calls up?) a mixed wave of irritation and anxiety, I always felt worse afterwards I listened it than before… Is it normal in the process of “detoxication”? Could it be that “Lucid Echoes” works in this way? Or maybe it’s not aprropriate for everyone? How do I know – is it just my mind’s fears or my intuition which says not to listen the “Lucid Echoes” and try the third level instead?
I have another question for you, Sen. How do you look at the perspective of existence of outside forces which negatively influences our mind/body? For example, beings like astral parasites (people with extrasensory ability says they sees them in forms of jelly-fish in man’s aura), you have never wrote about this. I mean, you write that it’s just OUR mind which do tricks on us, but what if it’s partly inspired by such external energetic forces? It’s quite usually that I feel worse exactly after a night sleep, in mornings, why it happens so? I think, it could probably be because the astral parasites can better connect with my mind and suck my energy when I’m in light sleep (dream) mode…
Thanks
IK, it’s supposed to work that way, Brainev is designed to unearth the resistances/negativity in the brain, it’s not designed to simply create a “feel good” state. The level-1 mp3 is mostly just to create the foundation of relaxed awareness, whereas level-2 to level-6 focus on unearthing resistances present in the brain. Level-2 mp3 (lucid echoes) is designed to simulate stress environment (through the use of bell sounds and rustling of leaves) to unearth patterns of stress in the brain, you can notice how your brain reacts in the form of irritation and anxiety towards this simulation, this is how the resistance in your brain are being unearthed. The mp3 also allows for the space of “release” by moving into theta frequencies (towards the later part of 15 mins) after the resistances are unearthed – basically the mp3 is designed to unearth a resistance and train the brain towards finding its balance by creating the space for it. It does not force the brain into a feel good state, rather it gives the space for the brain to naturally find its balance again after the resistance is unearthed.
When I talk about the “mind”, I infer anything “thinking influence” – be it your brain, or the thinking of other people in your environment (other brains), or the non-physical influences (like what you call astral parasites are just beings imbalanced in dark nature). The understanding and stability that you gain as a being is retained even during sleep mode – if you can reach a state of balance by integrating light and dark nature in your waking state, you will retain the same balance in your sleep state. Ask yourself if you sense a lack of inner power, where you feel anxious around people or situations, where you feel driven by fear-based motivations; it’s indicative of an imbalance towards light nature in terms of meekness which makes you prone to attack from beings that are imbalanced in dark nature – be in your physical reality or in the non-physical reality. The pointer would simply be towards work on developing inner power, which what the state of allowing does when you no longer suppress fear. Also, as you mentioned, that anxiety patterns are being unearthed while listening to Brainev, as you move up the levels deeper layers of anxiety/stress can be unearthed and released, and thus it can facilitate in your journey towards finding inner power.
This is kind of stressing me. Ok, I’ve had a really bad computer virus on my computer for two days, and it blocked my iTunes and erased the song on my iPod, which included the Brainev mp3s, so I went two days without them, and therefore, two days without meditation. Today I woke up feeling horrible. Can withdrawal of meditation after using for awhile cause a negative reaction? I just feel more closed up again. It makes me wonder if I’ve progressed at all, and I haven’t just been delaying it, though that isn’t my intention and I am letting go of control when I meditate. Please help me out with this one, I can’t seem to get it off my mind (ironic, I know)
Tyler, it’s important to realize that mind/emotional momentum has an accumulation that goes into layers, you may release a few layers but there is still deeper layers to be released. The progress is happening but new layers do come up to be released (which can make you wonder if you are regressing, when in truth you are just opening up a new layer). Always remember that there is this deal of “fierce grace” where certain events happen purely to unearth a deeper layer of resistance so that it can be released – rest assured that these events are designed to just unearth the resistance without causing any real harm to your well-being, in the sense that sometimes they are false alarms or just things that can be easily restored back to normalcy. The pointer would simply be to stay allowing to what arises, it’s not about checking your progress but about deepening in openness – openness is just an ability to stay open to anything, it does not put a condition like “am I progressing?”. Once you truly understand the attitude of openness you can move into the state of total allowing, after that you won’t cling to any doubts or questions from the mind, or any negativity per se.
dear sen,
I feel so lost..
idk how much to “allow”
seems like I’m allowing all waking hours .. meaning I’m in this low state the whole time. feel hopeless, depressed, angry.. maybe I’m being identified instead of allowing it.. I don’t feel like socializing because I’d feel like I’m suppressing my sad feelings n putting up my fake smile(so I avoid socializing). and I don’t want to continue this way.. am I on the right track of releasing momentum ? I know u mentioned somewhere that this releasing period does seem a little hazy but what if I’m feeling like this for my whole waking hour? I wish I can release 30minutes as u suggest and get back to my life.. but I’m just stuck in this depressed mode..
I’m so confused..
J, it’s important to get a real sense of the attitude that the state of allowing invites to instill which is the “power” to allow any emotion or thought, without being dominated by it, or being lost to it. You need to get a sense of this power in you; currently what’s missing is a connection towards this power – I refer to inner freedom as a state of inner power because in this state you have the power to not be prisoner to anything, not be dominated anything, and hence have the ability to simply move from wisdom rather than from a negative motivation. It’s not about how long the release happens, it’s about how much inner power you are developing towards allowing the release – from a place of weakness you can end up re-fueling the same old patterns of negativity as they arise and thus delay the progress towards balance, only from a place of power can you truly allow a full release to take place (I talk about this attitude in the post – the attitude required for inner freedom). Remember that the state of allowing is all about bringing inner balance between your light and dark nature, sensitivity is the light nature and power is the dark nature. A true allowing cannot happen from a place of fear, weakness or meekness, it can’t happen from a place of being afraid of the release and hoping for it to end, hoping to reach some place of peace, it happens more from a place where you have the power to allow anything that arises, in any intensity, without needing to get to some other place – this sense of power is what gives you the inner freedom from all forms of neediness and fear-based motivations.
Also, it’s not about feeling fulfilled, rather it’s about the openness to allow the feelings of un-fulfillment or lack without being driven by their force. Lack will always be a part of living, because growth is an eternal part of living, and we can only grow when we sense a lack – the problem is not with feeling the lack, or feeling unfulfilled, the problem is with the state of being a “prisoner” to these feelings, where you are helplessly driven by them, with no sense of inner power. It’s not about trying to feel fulfilled in your aloneness (or trying to feel good about it), it’s about having the “power” to be alone when needed, so that you are not always needy for some support on the outside for your sense of stability. If you sense that you lack this power, it just means that you have to connect with this power (it’s a dark nature), there is no way around it – I talk about this in the post “intimate indifference” where you have the capacity to be intimate while also having the openness/power to “let go” at any point, this is the state of true balance between light and dark.
continued …
or maybe I feel like this like u said because my “deluded desires” now don’t seem to motivate me anymore.. things I used to do that were fueled by delusion now doesn’t make sense and just seem pathetic. it feels like I was on constant loop of denial of deeper issues . such as fear of being alone. now it saddens me because this fear of aloneness will never be fulfilled from outside.. and yet, (feel lost becuz)I don’t know how to be fulfilled myself all alone .
like I’ve gained enough wisdom to not blindly follow my deluded desire but don’t know what’s next. or maybe I’m still hanging on to delusion of clinging to high state.
but I feel like there’s something wrong if I’m feeling this blue for day and night.
any word of wisdom from anyonewould b great help.
i felt like that for a while too. sometimes i still do. When it comes up which it will and it can come at any moment or can be there for hours at a time.
1) accept it. Accept everything as it is. Accept what is. There is nothing more ridiculous than resisting what is. For example if you get a bad grade on an exam. See yourself in your head telling yourself that you should have done better…or i feel stupid etc etc… the moment you accept that you failed the exam or got a ‘ok’ grade you are at peace with yourself.
2)breathe and stay relaxed. Feel what ever you are feeling fully. dont run away from any of it. Be aware if that feeling triggers any responses in your body. Just observe silently and calmly. Observe everything.
3) Observe even your fear of never being fulfilled. just observe..be aware when your mind starts or”you” start to think about how terrible this feeling is, how you will be here forever. See the thoughts for what they are. They are just thoughts. Suffering happens when you believe a thought that argues with what is. Dont try to change anything. Leave everything be. You may feel passive for a while, but even feel that fully.
this may last for a while or may not. i still sometimes am feared by a certain thought or a belief. Look at it for what it is. Inquire the belief, ask yourself is the really true? Do you absolutely know that it is true? How do you react when you believe the thought? etc etc…
Thanks Sen, vj.
Since that last post, I an article “FAQ on the State of Allowing” written by sen under “I find it difficult to sit and allow, my fears are too gripping, what do I do?” section.
Simply summarized, the article states: to release and allow momentum is to focus on the fearful (negative) ‘energy’ (and allow that uncomfortable energy and stay with it because it is finite). And have the ability to face the ‘energy/feeling’ because its very minimally uncomfortable compared to electric shock. (and that was so true, the fear in me was no way near uncomfortable as an electric shock could be, which kinda made me laugh at my stupidity)
I thought about that ‘focus on the energy’ idea, and everything changed.
Before I used to be over identified. A thought/music/scent/vision may trigger a certain emotion; and i thought ‘allowing’ is to merge myself with that emotion or get lost in that thought. But now, when I feel that suppressed emotional response, I bring awareness to ‘sense’ the energy (instead of habitual reaction). Fear energy feels like a tug in the gut area (that’s usually accompanied by pounding heartbeat feeling). Sadness felt like drained energy. Anger felt like my whole body is rigid/stiff. (We all may have diff. reactions)
I had difficulty realizing all these suppressed emotions because I guess I’d been suppressing it for so long that I automatically put off that feeling with ‘denial mechanisms’ such as eating/playing games/drinking/smoking/oversleeping/replaying thoughts over and over (instead of FEELING the emotion that ‘fuels’ the thought). For so long, I just thought I had ‘bad habits’ and just wasn’t well-rounded enough or just spoiled child. But they were all unconscious ‘reactions’ to my ‘negative’ emotions.
For example, I would be insomniac due to a replaying thought in my head.
“I hate my job, what will I do if I make a mistake, what if I’m fired, what happens if I lose my job? how will I support myself in the future?” and the theme of these thoughts are primarily fueled by fear emotion. So I will try to go deeper in myself and try to go beyond the ‘thoughts’ that are blocking access to my suppressed feeling=fear.
Another example, I would be thinking “Why did this person seem angry at me? Did I did something to offend this person? Was I rude? I should’ve been nicer/politer/generous/etc. Maybe that person hates me”. These thoughts initially seemed like ‘fear’ but I realized it was actually a mixture of ‘anger’.
When that other person seemed angry at me, I was too ‘meek’ to feel anger in return. I was afraid of my own anger because of the conflict that my anger will cause once expressed. So I would totally shut off(suppress) my anger and resort to ‘fear’ instead; an unconscious response to avoid conflict. I would fear having conflict with someone so instead I would internalize and direct to myself “why did I do that? why weren’t I more nicer? why weren’t I friendlier?” (I guess this is the imbalance toward light nature as Sen had been writing about). I had to get in touch with my anger and accept it as my feeling (connecting with dark nature).
So I’m still trying to allow my anger response with being ‘ok’ with fear.
Upon release I also realized that it doesnt stick with one emotion, it goes back and forth.
It will start off as sadness(meek), then with some ability to face fear I am able to accept my angry feelings, after releasing angry feelings, I go back to fear (of “what if my anger will repel all my good relationships and thus I will be alone and a loner?”) – fear of abandonement/loneliness. And this feeling of abandonment will trigger grief (sadness).
I know my comment is not clear and I’m not sure if you’ll be able to understand what I’m trying to say, but the point is..
I allowed the fear by allowing myself to ‘sense the fearful energy’ not ‘feeling the fear and feel hopeless as a reaction’. Nor did I allowed my mind to get lost in a thought. To allow mind momentum, I had to break myself off by connecting and asking myself “what suppressed emotion is fueling all these thoughts? what ‘uncomfortable’ emotion am I trying to run away from?”
I’d feel tingling sensations from all my stiff/tense area and muscle is much relaxed and flexible. I thought I had scoliosis or fibromyalgia, but unbelievably, releasing these suppressed energies relieved most pain from tender points.
Still, I try to allow/sense the fear of uncertainty (losing money, job, relationship, security, etc), so I can be ‘ok’ with the thoughts of losing such securities that fear no longer will hold a strong grip on me.
Dear Sen,
last night, in deep relaxation, yet again, I was convinced that – I AM creating those thoughts. It’s not like – first thoughts than me. I was first, and I was able to choose not to think bad or stupid thoughts. I was concious of all that process – seeing, choosing… there was no chooser like something fixed. I simply decided not to follow stupid thought patterns. I nourish them from some belief that I must “solve” those “problems”. Instead, I thought, why not think about problems from a positive manner, from some kind of brightness… I felt more like i am Creating future in creative manner, seeing what I can do creatively to resolve real things and problems, it was not that feeling like problems are repeating themselves. It’s hard to explain. It was not a feeling, it was more existential attitude…
Does this sound real? Can this be mind-made, or it maybe sounds like something real?
It seemed real. Prerequiste for this was just relaxation…
Chow, this “existential” attitude (or what I also call objective living) is what comes in naturally from a place of inner balance, in a lot of ways this dream just gave you a fore-taste of this natural state of being. The attitude towards problems is very different from this place, it’s not that you “try” to be positive, it’s just that you naturally don’t cling to a fixated negativity about it thus allowing yourself to bring in the necessary inner growth and objective actions towards the solution.
So in a nutshell:
First, you dissolve your past momentum, by being totally allowing of whatever arises.
When the momentum is completely dissolved, it will bring you to the foundation of openness.
This foundation is not the final destination, but it gives you inner freedom, and that inner freedom will bring you to wholeness.
This wholeness is unwavering inner peace, and from here there is pretty much no chance of becoming imbalanced again.
From this wholeness, you are free to live your life as you choose, from a place of wisdom, and with no more suffering.
I’d say I’m attaining higher levels of awareness, however this question (which I believe is fine to ask, as it isn’t related to being aware or having some blind trust)
In the past few days, my back has tightened up again. It is very uncomfortable and prohibits me from breathing properly, so I end up gasping for hours until it subsides or I fall asleep. I had a month or 2 long break from this discomfort, and was not injured in the past or recently.
Is it possible that the release is touching my physicality?
Dear sen,
I love your articles, and you give reliable advice. My question relates to the teachings of certain spiritual teachers. My first encounter with meditation was a simple body scan, feeling different parts of the body, very relaxing. Next i tried to maintain connection with feeling this “inner body” , throughout the day. This was possible to some degree, but i began to feel as though i was using this technique as an escape to reality, similar to a drug, because if a problem came i didnt have to deal with it i could just focus my attention on my body. I dont feel that i should deny body, but i dont feel i should deny mind either. I feel as though i am missing something between the two. Will enough concentration on the body reduce mind momentum or suppress it? Please explain the dynamic of focusing attention on the body and its effects. Is it suppression or reality, or both or neither?
George, focusing on your “inner body” is a useful pointer for people who are lost to the unconscious momentum of their living, where there is a tendency to simply live in a daze of activity and distractions, without any touch with what’s going on within them. This pointer can cause a person to become “more conscious/aware” through the practice of consciously focusing on the inner-body now and then, without being lost to the external movement of living. In that sense its an “awareness enhancing” practice. Of course, it also has some therapeutic/healing effects, when you rest your awareness on some body part that needs healing, and stay with the intention of healing it, there is a definite focus of energy that can assist in the healing of that part – a focused intention of healing has a power to assist the healing process to a good degree.
However, the crux of finding a balance within lies in the state of allowing/openness, as discussed in this post. You can use a practice like “inner body focus” to develop some strength in your awareness, which can then be used to move into a state of allowing – you need to have some awareness before you can start becoming consciously “allowing”, so that a release towards balance can start happening. I explain how one needs to migrate from awareness practice towards the state of allowing in this post – moving towards total allowing. The “awareness practices” in themselves can become an escape mechanism, and can eventually become some form of “imbalanced control”. The only usefulness of “awareness practices” is to assist in increasing one’s potential for awareness, and snapping out the haze of unconscious living – beyond that one has to enter into a state of allowing so as to allow for the release of imbalanced momentum, and for a migration towards a balanced of light and dark nature in oneself.
Thank you sen! Thank you for such a prompt reply! I have a final question. For the past week, rather than going to my body i have been placing my attention where i have avoided for so long, my mind. When i begin, almost immediately, the thought comes ” I cannot change me” or “mind cannot change mind”, i have nit read this anywhere, simply an intuition, not necessarily good or bad just that i cannot fundamentally change myself. From there my thoughts become much more rapid yet on some level i am still. The thoughts rarely make sense, most of the time just random words, sometimes not even associated with each other,probably 2 or 3 words per second. Do you think my intuition of “i cannot change me” is enough? I ask this because sometimes i get the feeling that i am missing something, like i should be “watching” my thoughts, however when i try to watch, i feel like i am trying to change something which immediately takes me back to my intuition. Does it sound like my intuition is on the right track? Or shoukd i be trying to be mire “active” through “watching” ?