There was a recent query in the comment section from a reader dealing with a certain fear in the mind, wanting to understand how to release its hold. I thought it would be useful to use this example to elucidate the actual process that’s involved in dissolving a certain fear in a state of allowing. So, below is the comment and my reply.
Comment from the Reader
Hello Sen,
I want to thank you for your insightful posts and for helping me.
I have been reading a lot on your website. I did not even know what awareness was until i read Eckhart Tolle’s book “The power of now”. Then i developed my awareness through concentration practices as watching one’s thoughts or feeling the inner body or focusing on visual or auditory senses. I can say that i now fully understand the mechanics of the mind and the patterns of negativity which you talk about in your post describing the heart and the brain connection. All of this was required for me by life, as i now understand, because i was rooted in negativity and anxiety all my life, having different kind of fears depending on my age and interests. As I always identified with my thoughts there was no space at all and the negativity has increased through the years of unconscious living.
My main negative pattern with fluctuations in intensity is now a fear which i have had for some years now and i understand is more common nowadays and it could be described as a fear of being gay. The fear is reinforced by the repetitive pattern of this word combined with the “I” thought which is constantly replaying in my mind. I now fully understand the pattern and i see through it’s ludicrous repetitive nature. But the reaction of negativity in the body still exists. I also understand that all fears or phobias are not very different in nature and are based on conditioning of an unconscious mind. Although this fear has diminished in the last 6 months because of the wisdom acquired through different means i think the reason for this is that i have been concentrating on practices instead of being in the state of total openness. But as you stated in a previous post, before discovering Tolle’s book I thought I could get rid of my insecurities and anxieties through affirmations which gave me a sense of relief but eventually did not work because the negative thought would still be there and would counter the positive one.
I also became paranoid of creating a negative reality when i found out about the law of attraction. I now know that life cannot sustain negative energy and you cannot create something that is not congruent with what feels good to you if you live in consciousness. I think i am in the detox phase in which i have to just let go of any form of control but i wanted to ask you: In this state of total allowance one just rests in relaxed awareness but is not trying to be aware? one lets all thoughts come and go and embraces the sensation of fear? i mean if i don’t concentrate on being aware of my thoughts to acknowledge them as a kind of a radio station that is broadcasting will i not get pulled in the thoughts and start ruminating on them again…will not the sensation of fear cause more thoughts to be created and fuel the sensation once again? Thank you for everything and may there be more people like you in the world.
My reply
Let me use the example of the fear you’ve mentioned to clarify what I mean by a state of allowing. I use terms like “relaxed awareness”, staying as a space of being, “letting be”, staying open to what arises, staying surrendered to what is, staying dis-identified with the negativity etc and all these pointers are just different ways of driving home the point that you have a freedom to not buy into the mind – but none of these pointers are meant to be used as means to “avoid” facing the truth. We make too big a deal out of our mind, and usually it’s this attitude of being afraid of the mind that’s the problem. As long as you are fearless towards your mind, you are automatically in a place of relaxed awareness, and after that it doesn’t matter what you do – you can analyse the thoughts, you can let go of thoughts, you can introspect the thoughts, you can ignore some thoughts, you can dis-identify with some thoughts – you can basically “work” with the mind, but the bottom-line is to want the truth above anything else. For example, you can “ignore” a thought when you are certain there is no truth in it, but don’t try to ignore a thought out of fear.
It’s not about implementing some “technique” of staying aware of the mind all the time, of just watching the mind like a strict practice – that just becomes a “routine” or practice and it’s not in sync with following the inspiration of the moment. I do give out the practice of watching the mind to people who are just starting out towards understanding awareness, but as soon as you gain some awareness of how negativity works, when you see the momentum in your mind, when you understand your mind’s daily patterns, you are in a position to then start working with the mind instead of just standing as a bystander watching it. Ultimately, it’s about being open in your being towards allowing the mind without fear and bringing an honest observation to it instead of living in fear of it.
To take an example of the fear you mentioned about being gay, the thought that your mind is repeating now and again is – “I am gay” or “I may be gay” or “what if I am gay” etc and these thoughts produces a lot of fear in your being. So initially you watch these thoughts, understand their repetitive/cyclic nature in your mind, thus bring a deep awareness to this pattern in your mind.
After that you start understanding that it’s your “fear” towards these thoughts that’s actually keeping them in place – your fear gives “attention”/interest to these thoughts, if you were not afraid of this thought you would not give it interest either, you could care less, and these thoughts would lose their hold. Once you have this understanding, you start observing your fear towards these thoughts and you will see that your fear stems from a certain thinking patterns in you towards being gay – you may consider being gay as “wrong”, as something inappropriate, as something unaccepted, as a dent to your manhood/ego etc these thinking patterns obviously got developed by observing the attitude of society at large towards gay people. So you bring awareness to these thinking patterns within you and identify the reasons why you fear being gay – just be brutally honest with yourself, it’s not a judgment, it’s just an investigation.
Once your awareness has reached this point of clarity, you need to go to the “allowing” stage, this is basically the crux of dissolving the conflict. You need to allow this thought in totally which means that you stop fighting the thought and just embrace it – to do so you have to allow all the fears that you have about being gay, and allow the fact that you may be gay. This can be challenging if you don’t have some inner stability in you, but rest-assured that just allowing the thought of being gay does not make you gay (if you are not biologically gay you don’t “become” gay by thinking about it). Once you allow the thought in, without fearing it you are not fighting the mind and the mind does not have something to blackmail you with, because you’ve accepted its thought fearlessly – it’s like “fine may be I am gay”, and now investigate if this is true from this place of “acceptance” within.
Allowing comes first, seeing the truth comes next. Most people are not “allowing” a certain fearful thought, and hence the can’t move the phase of seeing the truth. You will see that in this place of allowing, you are now open to see the truth as it is – the truth could be anything, it could be that you are gay, it could be that you are not gay, or it could be that you are bi-sexual. But in this place of allowing you are open to sense the truth, and it’s the truth that really sets you free. So if the truth is that you are gay, what’s the use of fighting it? you may as well enjoy it And if the truth comes out that you are not gay, you are clear now and hence no longer confused. In this inner conviction you will no longer be afraid if the thought pops up in your mind again, because you are clear about the truth within you.
The question you may now have is “how do I see the truth of if I am gay or not?”. Like I said before, the first step is to be openly allowing of the fact that you may be gay, if you fear being gay you will never be able to see the truth in you about it. Without holding distance just be totally okay with the fact that you may be gay, only then can you see if that’s really true for you “objectively” – look at the characteristics of being gay and sense it it’s present in you, a gay man would not be sexually attracted to a woman’s body, so you need to see if you are sexually attracted to a woman’s body, if so – you are not gay, but you could still be bi-sexual. The next step is to clarify if you are straight or bi, a bi male would want to have sex with another male, so ask yourself if you were in a situation where you have to have actual sex with another man, in real life, would it be an enticing prospect, just allow yourself to imagine this fearlessly (the imagination will not “make” you gay), imagine it in as much detail as you can and conjure up the act of having sex with another male in “real life”, don’t just imagine it as a “fantasy”(fantasies have nothing to do with reality), and see if it really is something you want for yourself in practicality of real life (you may need to allow this imagination a few times before you can be clear) – in order to be open to this imagination you have to be fearless towards the truth that can come up. There are two results that can come up in this honest/aware reality-based investigation – you will sense that you really have no interest in having sex with another male, in which case you are straight, or you will sense that the prospect of having sex with another male in real life is enticing in which case you are a bi. To find out the truth is what liberates you, unlike what you feared. When you find the truth, it allows you to move forward.
You can keep trying all kinds of practices of awareness, but if you are not fearless enough within to want to find the “truth”, you can’t be free of a certain negativity like this. That’s why I always mention, this state of allowing is not a “practice”, it’s an attitude, a way of life, where truth is more important to you than “avoidance” or distraction, where being authentic is more important to you than being in the hiding – awareness in its true sense is “honest observation”, a truthful observation, a fearless observation, it’s not just a technique you employ without any involvement on your part. Most people just want a technique to get rid of the mind without ever being “involved” in the process, because being involved causes them to face the fear “personally” rather than just sit hoping that it will go away on its own.
Brilliant
Sen, it was my understanding (from your writings) that the mind will come to its natural balance all by itself once we completely “let go” and we stop trying to force the mind around.
Now I read this post and see a paradox because in this post you say that we have to “become allowing” and its almost as if you give us a step by step technique on how to get rid of the mind’s fears and negativities.
Isn’t everything you described above considered a “strategy” if our main deal is to let go of trying to figure things out through active thinking then what this post describes is the complete opposite of that.
Please help me understand what is going on….
Abet, the state of “allowing” works on different levels
1. Allowing the release of suppressed energy in your body, created through past accumulation of negativity
2. Allowing the release of mind momentum as your attention is no longer anchored on negative thoughts
3. Allowing an understanding/insight to come in towards dissolving a fear or negative thought
4. Allowing your dark nature to have an expression within (if it was suppressed) and thus come to a balance
5. Allowing your light nature to have an expression within (if it was suppressed) and thus come to a balance
6. Integrating dark nature with light nature to remove any form of over-indulgence towards any of these natures, thus creating inner wholeness
All of the above happen automatically when you are truly “allowing”. The example mentioned here, was about dissolving a certain fear that required an “understanding” (point 3). The sequence I’ve mentioned is the sequence that follows automatically if one is truly allowing of that fear.
This is the sequence
1. Allowing the thought (of being gay in this example) and thus sense the fear(s) you have towards it (this sensing is bound to happen naturally if one is willing to be aware)
2. Allowing your fear(s) in, embracing them without holding distance (natural part of “acceptance” that happens while allowing)
3. Having allowed the fears, you become open/allowing to seeing the truth in the thought (this again happens naturally as a part of allowing if one is not trying to ignore/avoid the thought)
4. Seeing the truth causes the thought lose power over your attention, and thus dissolves in force (again a natural outcome)
This is just a specific example of how a fearful thought “gets” dissolved in a state of allowing. It’s not a strategy, it’s just the way it works for someone who is willing to be fearlessly allowing. The “figuring out” happens, it doesn’t have to be forced – when you allow a problem in, there is an automatic process of figuring out which happens within when you are not “efforting” towards it. If you notice, in this whole sequence you are not trying to “force” the mind around, you are totally allowing of the mind’s thoughts and seeing through your fears towards it – you are not trying to “silence” the mind.
The only reason you see a paradox is because you are looking at allowing as some “technique” that makes fears disappear without requiring any authentic involvement on your part, this is because you may be afraid of getting involved which just means you are not in a state of total allowing – in that case it’s not allowing, it becomes “ignoring” or denial. When you are truly allowing it opens you up to face everything authentically within you, something you don’t face with your consciousness cannot just dissolve on its own. Even the release of suppressed energy requires you to consciously allow its presence in the body before it can be released, it’s an active involvement, it’s not a state of holding distance.
Sen
I have been a Buddhist for some time now but never really understood the ‘how’ of not turning away from my own fears. However, over the past few weeks, something has changed. I have made deliberate choices several times to sit with two of my recurrent feelings: hypochondria and envy. My way of doing this has been to let the thought run, rather than telling myself not to be silly, and also to let the feelings and bodily sensations that then come up – shaking (hypochondria) and tears (envy) to run rampant through my body.
It has been amazing. Under the envy I found deep sadness, and a perception of ‘being left out of the gang’. Under the hypochondria I found love of life. Also amazing has been how quickly these emotional states and thoughts have flown once allowed, to be quickly replaced by others. Within seconds of strong hypochondria I found myself looking at the pea plants in my garden that were next to where I was sitting and being enchanted by them. Within seconds of the envy there was a great softening and then I fell asleep.
I have a long way to go but the journey has begun. Thank you so much for your wisdom.
p.s. I have noticed, since making a point of facing these fears, a much great tendency in me to just ‘go with the flow’ of events day to day. I’m becoming conscious of just how much resistance was in me before, and this has been quite a shock because I always thought of myself as an easy-going person!
this is awesome sen. totally applies to my issues or whatever they could be “labeled” as. thought forms etc.
I too am/was afraid of being something i knew i wasn’t and was “allowing” myself to see a mental movie of it over n over. sometimes it felt reassuring sometimes horrified me even more. guess it took time(which isn’t really real anyway). man the mind is tricky. so easy to fight it rather than allow it but i guess thats its power if you’re addicted to it.
thank you for clearing this up,
and when you say “get involved” it just means basically to be aware, consciously aware? and the rest of the process will take care of itself
Abet, when you are in a place of allowing there will also be inspirations to get “involved” actively with a thought or an idea or a focus or an action, when this inspiration happens you need to allow yourself to move with it instead of trying to force yourself to be “passive” – it’s possible to use allowing as a technique to the point where you force yourself to be passive when the call within is for engagement/action/focus. The mind can use anything as rigid technique and disconnect with flexibility that’s needed to be in tune with the inspiration of the moment. I write about several things on this blog about understanding negativity, about deliberate creation, about working with thoughts/beliefs, because all of this is part of understanding that comes from inner inspiration/insight as a part of being allowing of the intelligence of my life-stream – to grow and explore life one needs to have the flexibility to work with several understandings. Else, I would just write one post, with two words “Just allow” and be done with it. Gaining understandings that help you live a better physical life is also part of “allowing” because only when you are allowing can you be receptive to new ways of thinking, new perspectives and new growth, else you just become a rigid fundamentalist – there are just as many spiritual fundamentalists hanging on to pointers like “staying in the now” as there are fundamentalists hanging on to certain orthodox religious teachings. If you are not flexible within you can’t keep up with the dynamism of life, which is always moving towards growth.
This example hit home for me. I have had fears like this for over 30 years. They developed overnite and have haunted me ever since, now and then. Your article is beautifully written and is analogous to the strategy of cognitive behavioral therapy for OCD.. I am now finally starting to ‘let go and allow’ USING A STATE OF RELAXED AWARENESS and not struggling within or with my mind. I wish these teachings were available to me years ago. I have some stored up negativity and mind momentum that needs to be released. And I am working on this. Thanks so much for providing such insightful guidance for those of us that suffer and struggle needlessly from aspects of the human experience.
Sen, in law of attraction, Deliberate creation, I have encountered abundance, but On the other hand, I also got some kind of negative experience, like meeting negative angry people. Therefore I was sad. And I cried. My question is, are we allowed to feel sad? Because in law of attraction it will only attracts negativity. If we are not allowed, how to surpress our sadnesses abd if we are allowed, what to do next? Thanks.
Mika, instead of working with law of attraction as a technique, the approach would be to first come to a place of inner balance with respect to clearing up your emotional hangups, momentum of negativity in the mind (the negative ego) and suppressed negative energy of the past. When you come to an inner balance you become resistance free in your being towards allowing the inherent well-being of your lifestream, which automatically allows for an abundant life. As you see, a big hang up of using law of attraction as a technique is that people become afraid of allowing the “low states” like sadness, because they fear attracting negativity – this is just a fear based living. The point is to come to a life of inner freedom and this happens when you are no longer fighting the low states, but become allowing of it to instigate a release – in this state of allowing you will sense a wholeness setting in as the lower energies are cleared up in the release. The angry/negative people that you meet are reflective of your own suppressed anger/fear, and you need to allow the release that’s instigated by these events.
hey sen what are your thoughts on brainwave entrainment?
Kenny, you can use such mechanisms to bring a temporary balance or synchronization, but eventually if you’ve not grown in awareness or understanding you will automatically re-create the same patterns of imbalance. An external crutch cannot bring permanent balance.
Sen,
So to dissolve these irritating thoughts I must allow them to freely come through in my mind? My problem is when I do this I struggle to find the truth. I do spend time allowing these thoughts to come through from my mind, and I fearlessly allow whatever it produces to see the truth so I can move forward. For some of these thoughts eventually I come to a conclusion that I believe is the truth, but later when those irritating thoughts pop again at some other time I need to affirm the truth that I found before, telling myself over and over that this truth is why this irritating thought is stupid and misguided. Does affirming this truth mean I’m still afraid? Are these not the truth because the thoughts keep coming again? I’ve admittedly only started using “allowing” for a couple days and have felt some progress. For example, certain activities that I did, before the cause of these irritating thoughts, made me happy. Once the irritating thoughts came, these activities started only causing me more stress. Now, the thoughts don’t come around during these activities and I feel happier.
I guess I’m still reluctant on whether I’m reaching true truths. I just wish I knew if i was doing “allowing” correctly and not over analyzing any thoughts my mind comes up with and then twisting them with my analysis so it fits to make me happy. I’m grateful for the example above, but I’m still not certain when I’ve over analyzed my thought or if i should analyze at all. These irritating thoughts associate quickly and lead to new thoughts (some irritating while others not so) and I suppose i spend time analyzing the meaning of these thoughts, the previous thoughts and how they are connected together in search of truth. This does at times make me stop analyzing the thought before and the irritating thoughts as well. I’m certain “allowing” is a natural process and thinking about the thoughts is natural to me, so I’m not sure if it’s wrong or not. So should i just analyze when my mind wants and to of its own accord naturally, or try to analyze and make sense of all these thoughts that the mind has during allowing? I’m struggling with the idea of doing “allowing” naturally and not artificially with over analysis. Thanks so much, you’re an awesome dude!
Iz, the part of you that’s trying to do allowing “correctly” is just the mind that’s always trying to get it right, however the state of total allowing is to go beyond the mind’s judgment by not buying into it. With time you will be able to see through the various mind “tricks” that you can get caught up in, as long as you are spending time bringing awareness within yourself, you will continue growing in stability. You may want to read the post – reaching total allowing and healing the imbalance
Sen thank you for your wonderful post and how you take time to answer all that.
Pls sen, am trying to see how this example you gave above can be applicable in the case of intense social phobia(fear)…. How do you allow it especialy when you are to/calledto perform in public. Do you just allow the tension/trembling to arrise both in d mind/body, and go out there and mess yourself up? Or can such kind of phobia be a Trait or persons natural make up….
Willy, you can read this post – working on specific fears vs reducing mind momentum – where I talk about the fact that if you first focus on reducing the mind momentum, you can deal with the fears easily – irrespective of what they are. Reducing the momentum of the mind, and the momentum of negativity stored up in your emotional space is the key to start with. You can do this by practicing a state of total allowing during your waking hours, initially it’s best to just do it for 20-30 mins when you are totally by yourself, alone, without distraction – where you sit and fully allow the mind and your emotions to play out while staying as a space of open awareness. The deal is to allow all the fear to emerge fully without trying to sort them out, without trying to find a solution, just stay as a space of allowing. With time you will start sensing an inner stability building in you where you can feel that you are not a prisoner to your mind’s movements anymore – if you continue with this practice of allowing, you will inevitably reach this place. At one point the state of allowing is not longer felt as a practice, but a natural state of being.
Sen,
I have a fear that I will constantly be trying to control my thoughts. I constantly analyze what I am thinking and thus feel as though I rarely experience anything fully. I am ready to face whatever needs to be faced to feel alive again. Please help me as you did this fellow in a way I can understand maybe with steps similar to his. I don’t want to feel trapped in my head anymore.
George, the underlying reason why you try to control your mind is because you feel afraid of what it might throw up. As long as you live in the fear of your mind you will constantly feel like a prisoner to it. The mind is a mechanism (mechanical intelligence), and though it has a complex intelligence, it’s still just a mechanical neural network – the mind has several limitations and once you see its limits you will no longer fear it. You can read this post for more insight along these lines – http://www.calmdownmind.com/why-do-we-fear-the-mind/
Sen, im really enjoying this site. I recently had a breakdown and went to therapy for anxiety/depression.They employ similar principles but there is alot of identifying and labeling the thoughts.I found this created an argument in my mind which was excruciating. I feel alot better about just letting it be. Its only been a week. I would like some advice on my current situation. My partner and i broke up two months ago after our second huge row in 6 mths. She ended it. She had anxiety issues we knew about but i didnt. We both had lots of pressure and boom.It was e very loving relationship outside of the two fights.She is done with it and believes we are bad for eachothers condition. Im trying to decide if she is right. My mind goes back and forward on the topic. I get calmer this last week just letting my mind battle it out. Thing is she is in the same circle of friends im in and i see her weekly. She appears to be well over it, atleast to the point where she can be in the same room as me and have a great time. Im good for a few hours then the mind activity gets too much.How do i detach from the mind while im trying to be social with others?Also this war your talkin about in the mind is raging, mostly about trying to win her back. Is being around her at this stage in my ego dissolve a healthy thing for me or is it too much pressure?
Stonez, you may not have anxiety issues but it’s possibly that she felt suffocated by your neediness (your need for her to be there for you) in some way, which instigated her anxieties (you can read some posts in the “relationship” category about how neediness works in a relationship). Just use this as a wake up call towards finding an inner stability (independence) that allows you the freedom to let go at will and thus not feel so helpless to any outside influence. As you start allowing the momentum of your mind and emotional space to ebb away, you will sense an inner freedom which is what allows you to live from a place of security instead of feeling powerless. As you start balancing out within yourself, whether you win this girl back or not becomes secondary, it may or may not happen depending on whether she’s right for you in your balanced state.The journey is towards finding inner wholeness, you can read this post for more insight – http://www.calmdownmind.com/inner-wholeness/
Thx sen. When im in some calm,winning her back does seem secondary to me. I want to be free from these insecurities. Its happened before this girl, just not as bad. As far as her anxiety i should have been more specific. She has D.I.D. She will do anything to avoid being triggered, which means not being with me.I keep trying to convince her that i can get over this neediness but of course the constant contact pushes her farther away. My concern at the moment is this phase that im in. Im seeing things differently in the regard that no matter how bad she has been or other things in the past i see this neediness everytime im under pressure. Im allowing it as much as i can and its overwhelming at times but im determined to see it through. You say it can take a while and i might not be at my best in activities. Im confused at the best way to go here. Shes at every social thing i go to. Do i need time away from her/this until my mind momentum slows alittle or is avoiding these situations for a while running away from fear.Theres a section on wanting to be alone for a while and one on not fearing fear, its conflicting me as i dont feel enough stability inside yet to know what i feel is best.
stonez, eventually it’s about you feeling like a prisoner to her presence, and this feeling of helplessness is what makes you feel bad. Basically, she is just being a wake up call for you to realize the inner instability that you have been harboring for so long and it’s not really about her but about your sense/realization of your own state of instability within you that she made possible. So, basically, now that you are aware of this instability, it becomes the first step towards bringing the desired stability – you can take the call on whether you feel you can handle her presence or not, and depending on that you can either avoid being in situations she may be present in or be around her, just follow your own inspiration with respect to this. What’s more important is to now start moving towards this process of inner growth as this is what is the calling for you presently, by spending time connecting with your inner space, connecting with your space of being and allowing your mind/emotional momentum to start releasing.
Thx sen. Putting the focus on finding inner stability was a nice reminder that its about me. The psycologist that i was seeing had me doing simailar things. We discovered the same issue as you mentioned. He said that it should have made a difference to me after two months but my resistance to letting her go was holding me back. For the first time the other night while practising relaxed awareness i finally got a sense of the space between thoughts you talk about. It was not as exciting as other times it felt alot calmer. It seemed really simple to just obsereve. Other times its like im forcing it to happen and cant tell if my ego has been watching. Its tricky since ive been reading philosophy for years. This time i could really see patterns in my thinking, real familiar ones but im not sure if its just hapenning or im examining them. Its really painfull emotionally to go through.Its leaving me very vunerable socially. The next day after this i had my lowest day for weeks.I observed my thoughts, got sucked in ,jumped back out over and over for hours and was asked to go home from work because my supervisor said my mind wasnt on the job. He was right. When i got home i decided just to lie down and let my mind do what it wanted to do. It kept focusing on the love lost.how in four days it went from talking about marriage to being over and it was because of me being needy. I tried not to fight it, i felt the emotion build and thought i will let it come up. Ive cried a few times but this was heavy, i tried not to think about it but just feel it. I was hoping this was some negative energy coming out. The next day was much the same and by the end of it i was feeling quite angry. I saw an old friend in town and went and had a beer with him. unlike with our new mutual friends i was able to tell him about everything that had happened. He said why are you putting all this on yourself, theres nothing wrong with you. Youve always been a romantic, you wear your heart on your sleeve, its why we all love you. He told me that other friends of ours knew she was unfaithfull to me, that she was using me, the stories of multiple personalities was a lie and that they know of others she has done this to.She pushed you man he said, you were recovering from cancer your mum had a heart attack, you were struggling with work and trying to look after her. It got too much for you. You were both hitting the party scene pretty hard too . She didnt love you bro, sorry to say it but its true, if she did she would show some compassion and want to work it out. She was homeless, you brought her to paradise where you live, put her in your home for free and paid for everything while she played victim and saved money for her own house . Mate i would have loved you to he said with a laugh.She has her own place now, she has new friends, shes popular around town like she always does and has no use for you, shes a narcissist mate. Youve got nothing to offer anymore.I had been told these things a year before but i didnt want to believe it.Being a bit angry when i told him what had been happening hearing this stuff made me look at things in a different light. I started to feel a little empowered. I could see everything that had been going on and i knew it, deep down i suspected as much but i just didnt want to admit it to myself.Admitting it felt really good. I didnt feel like a victim anymore. I no longer felt i want to be with this person obviously. That night i slept the best i have for weeks. I woke up happy for the first time. It was a strange day, people were smiling at me my thoughts were minimal, when they were it was about her lying to me and it didnt hurt. occasionally i would respond to it and remind myself that i deserve better than that and i wont allow that to happen to me again. Im aware i have some needy issues so my next love will be better.With everything that had happened i believed this was my true self coming through a little, since i was seeing things as they really are and accepting it. I felt good in this space for two days straight. I decided to get back to relaxed awareness the next day. My thoughts would go to all the lies shes told me and i wanted to answer them to make myself feel better but decided to just let them flow. It was really hard to do because emotions would come up with them.I would watch them and my thoughts where going between me using anger to feel better and its temporary to what is it in me that allowed her to treat me like that. I start to feel helpless again. I start thinking she wasnt that bad it was me, i was needy. My thoughts would go back to my friends saying no you wernt, you were burnt out. It happens to all of us, it got too much and i lost my mind again.As i write this im a little numb. A small part of me loves her as i know she has pain and although she did do these things, it was her ego. A larger part of me knows going back there is being in denial. Im very confused about where to go. Most of my friends see it as pretty simple. Be angry, you have a right to be, stop holding it in. Go away for a while. Have some fun and meet some other girls, youll be fine after a while, forget this mind stuff, your doing your head in.What do i do. Who am i. The angry part makes me feel stronger, things happen for me, people respond well toward me. When i surrender to everything, im vunerable to everything and think this is all my doing. I dont know how to let go. Ive been at it for two months now and its gettin worse. Im getting anxiety about this now.The experiences i have in meditation feel like im just using my imagination. I know you said it can take a while but im not sure if i can take anymore suffering. What do u think. I hope this makes sense to you.
Stonez, being needy is an imbalance created by a suppression of either our light nature or dark nature in the mind. For example, with respect to relationships, when you suppress your dark nature, you become a very “mushy” person (poetic, sappy, with a “nice guy syndrome” and too willing to please), and this causes you to be needy of approval and love from the other person, doing things (something trying to buy their love) out of a need to impress or make them feel “indebted” to you. When you suppress your light nature, you become a very aggressive person causing you to look for someone to exploit and victimize (or abuse), and you become needy of their presence so that you can vent your anger on them. Basically what’s needed is a balance between the dark and the light nature in you, ultimately this balance is what brings you to wholeness, and this sense of wholeness is what gives you the balanced approach to relationships.
Right now you are just finding yourself swinging between polarities of dark (getting angry or blaming the outside) and light (getting too emotional, over-sensitive and love-bitten enough to not see reality of the situation). This is “swinging” is normal, but what’s required is to not get identified with either polarities for a while. The space of allowing is about allowing this swing of polarities in your mind, while staying in a space of “being” (just staying open to both polarities) without feeling the need to cling to any one polarity. It’s quite easy once you see that clinging to either polarities is only going to give you a temporary relief before you swing back to another polarity. Friends who ask you to let your hair loose and chill out are simply asking you to align with your dark nature, while a part of you wants to sit think about the love you lost which is your desire to stay with your light nature, basically what’s needed is that you initially just let yourself follow your inner inspiration (if you feel like hanging out with your friends, having a few drinks and meeting new company do so, if you feel like staying alone for a while and keeping yourself isolated do so). Remember that “inspiration” is only for the moment, don’t try to make an inspiration into a technique – follow the inspiration that comes from within, as you stay in a space of allowing, but don’t make it into a strategy that you want to cling to. For example, one evening, if you feel like having a few drinks and being a “player”, do that as per your inspiration without thinking that it’s how you are going to live out your every evening. For a while you have to allow the swing of polarities (a conscious allowing), until you come to a balance – don’t avoid the dark and don’t avoid the light either, if you stay in this space of allowing you will slowly come to a natural balance within you. In a sense you have an imbalance towards your light nature (you may be trying too hard to be a “nice guy”) and you would need to look at allowing the dark nature in you more fully so that a balance can come into play.
Thx sen. Alot of that hit home for me. Im confused a bit about the light and dark nature. Ive read your stuff on it and i dont quite think i get it. In the relationship i wasnt mr nice guy all the time.I was very calm and confident the majority. I only ever put myself second when she was suffering with something, which was alot.Also when my life situation got tough and stressfull i got a bit needy. Never like this though.People tell me its normal. This is why my friends think nothings wrong.Going out in this small town with her every where i go makes it hard to have fun and let my hair down so to speak.Follow my inspiration is hard right now because i dont know whether its my mind or real self talking.How do i allow the dark nature in me,im not sure what it is.I can allow it in my mind like any other thought i think but how do i allow it to flow into my physical world. Most of the time i have the mindset these days to stay away from her and crowds, my mind activity goes nuts. Friends are pulling away from me because of my negativity.I talk about how bad she is constantly but dont realize it until hindsight, occasionally i catch myself half way through and stop. As you could imagine it makes socializing tough.You say it can take months to take effect so im thinking my feelings of inspiration and real desires are out of whack. If i dissapear for a while and return with a clearer mind in a couple of months. Is this wishfull thinking for the future, am i operating out of fear or am i giving myself space to learn and slow down my mind. My inspiration to say leads me all over the place and is costing me friends and effecting my work.
Stonez, you can consider taking some time off for yourself, where you sit and allow the release of your emotional, and mind, momentum instigated by this relationship. Basically, just use this as an opportunity to start connecting with your “being” nature and thus finding your inner stability. You can read this post – Allowing the release of suppressed energy
Hi Sen,
Thanks for this article, it was written so beautifully and has clarified so much for me.
i thought I would share my experience in order to give another example to others and get some reassurance from you…
Whenever I have been through a stressful period, and it comes to an end I often am left with some residual stress- or built up negative energy. During this time, my mind often produces dark thoughts of death, suicide etc… I was always very confused about this, as normally the stress in my life may have been disolved but i am still left feeling extremely anxious and negative. This therefore made me very fearful and i was determined not to accept this.
Overtime I was very fearful every time one of these dark thoughts came up. They terrified me… I would be so determined to figure them out and understand why I could possibly be thinking these horrible things. I was finally encouraged to be “allowing” of these thoughts and see what would happen. what happened? NOTHING. I got anxious, fearful, stressed out and then … eventually they were gone. I realised that analysing them and giving them problem solving attention is what kept them around…
NOW i realise that the reason these thoughts caused me so much fear is because of my belief system about death and suicide. I have obviously got very strong views about this act and believe it to be “wrong”- and this has stemmed from somehwere in my past…
Now I find it much easier to recognise these thoughts as just thoughts and notice them as symptoms of a “tired and stressed out mind”. I understand that my fear of them is because they are so untrue, and the truth is i value life more than anything… So i can allow them in my presence, but I no long fear there significance…
hope this example helped someone… and Sen do you think I may be experiencing the process of lettin go of negative momentum…?
thanks
Jess, yeah, as you mentioned it’s easier for you to not cling to the mind’s thinking, and this is the start of inner freedom/stability which also implies that your mind momentum is on a decline.
Hi sen, this is a wonderful article. i want to know something about my problem.we are not sure about our future that what will happen in the future . But we all are normaly sure about our pasts, like what had happened in the past or what never happened. when i fear of some particular thing, i’m not able to clarify that it never happened in the past. i always fear that it had happened in the past.i’m not able to clarify even if i i know the truth. for example if i never met you till now, how can i be confused that if i met u or not. waiting for the reply.
thanks
suman
Suman, the point is not about clarifying if it happened or not, rather it’s about the freedom to be free of the “fear” it causes you. If your sense of freedom depends on clarifying if something happened in the past, you will always be at the mercy of any thought that your mind puts in about some random event happening in the past (the mind can just state that it happened, that you did it and you were not aware). What’s needed is that you gain freedom from fearing the mind and its thoughts – you can read this post for more insight – why do we fear the mind
hi sen, if i’ll totally allow the fear, that may be i’ve done something wrong(because my fear is that my mind says you have done something wrong but you are nt aware), then how can i see the truth. Or the other option is to forgive yourself, but forgiveness is not working in my case. How can i dissolve this fear. please help with your valuable suggestions. i really want your reply.
Thanks
Suman, if your mind can keep causing you to feel guilty (whatever be the thought), it’s an indication that you have a sense of “meekness” towards your mind – mostly because of an imbalance of light nature which causes you to feel powerless, over-sensitive and meek. To live a balanced life, you need to develop a sense of inner fearlessness/power, where you have a freedom from your mind’s influence – this power or fearlessness comes from connecting with your dark nature, as explained in the below posts
http://www.calmdownmind.com/integrating-your-light-and-dark-nature/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/healing-the-imbalance/
Blind techniques cannot bring any true freedom. Practicing forgiveness can become a mechanical technique, where you try to do it as a practice to get rid of the thoughts, and such “manipulations” don’t work. So focus on understanding the essence of what’s being pointed out in these posts.
thanks sen. you told the symptoms for light and dark nature and that i’m overwhelmed by my light nature. but sometimes i feel over aggressive, jealous also and these are the symptoms of the dark nature. so isn’t it like that i’m overwhelmed by both the natures. sometimes light nature is high for me, sometimes dark nature, or a person is always over aligned towards only one nature all the time in an imbalance?
Suman, when you suppress your dark nature with respect to your brain’s dimension of “hatred” (owing to your fear of dark nature, when you try to be too light-natured), it comes up in spurts of high intensity, like aggression, anger and stark resentment. So, an imbalance in one nature naturally creates an imbalance in the other nature also. It’s about healing the imbalance consciously as explained in the below post
http://www.calmdownmind.com/healing-the-imbalance/
Sen,
First, thank you for this site and the wonderful service you give, it’s very encouraging to find such helpful information. I have struggled with this same fear/obsessive thought and I’m tired of it to say the least. What holds me back from progress is giving in to the mind and feeling discouraged about having these thoughts, and then feeling more insecure causing a cycle of thought, insecurity/fear, suppression, and thought. I understand that this thought is not true (I’ve given it consideration and found that I am heterosexual), but even so I feel a sense of fear or paranoia like “why would my mind think this and continue to think this” and it just leads to more of the same. I guess what I fear most is that allowing this thought to be will manifest it as a reality. Can you give any advice on how I may accept the thoughts so that they may have no more power? I try to live in the now but when thoughts like these arise, it’s hard not to give them attention. You stated that beautifully in the article above but sometimes I feel hearing the same thing in a different way can shed new light on a concept. Thank you for your help.
ryan, I don’t know if you believe in past lives, but maybe you lived out whatever you fear in another lifetime/body/experience. Whatever trauma or suffering there may have been around this topic could be that which you are now letting go? If it had a large impact, it could take a while to release.
It’s amazing to me how I think I “know” these things, have known them for some time, but never really had it properly sink in. These are the same pointers I’ve read and seemingly understood from Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, Russ Harris and the Sedona Method. I was missing something but now I have a better understanding. No matter how much I suggested to myself that I “allow” or “accept” or “release” a feeling or thought or some issue, I don’t think I ever truly did that. There was always some element of resistance, something in the back of my mind that was hell-bent on getting rid of the feeling. Truly allowing it requires something different, it means a complete allowing.
So I have a fear of death … To truly allow this I would allow not just the thought of death and the accompanying fear, while still hoping in the back of my mind that I could somehow avoid it, make it better. I would allow the entire belief of death itself. I would allow for death to be the end, fearlessly let that be true. Not just the words, not even just the feelings but actually be in the concept itself. If my mind believes in death and is scared of it then that’s where I need to be willing to go. And if death is truly what I fear it is then although it would be a tough thing for me to face, I do surely have to face it. I can’t avoid the truth.
I have a fear that I’m not happy in my relationship … It’s not enough to just let some of the thoughts be there in my head, feel a bit tense and then hope it all goes away. I actually need to face up to the reality of my relationship ending. I need to allow it to be possible that it’s not what I need or what I want. I need to allow it to end, fearlessly living in that very real life path.
Perhaps before having this better understanding I was trying to by-pass my feelings, my likes and dislikes, the parts of me that I didn’t want to deal with. I was hoping that I’d find a new perspective where those things would dissolve and I’d be left feeling happy and OK. Now that may still be the case, each of my main issues may absolutely just fade away and leave me without having to make any tough changes or face up to a harsh new truth, but while I still fear them and still avoid them I won’t feel comfortable. They’ll always be more than what they really are, always niggling and pushing at me and leaving me with a sense of dis-ease.
There might be a way to just let those things go without diving into them. For other people that may be the case but it’s the wrong pointer for me. I’m still very much a mind-identified person. My emotional and mental experience is still very strong and that means if I am to allow something, truly let it be here, then I have to give in to that experience 100%. I have to let it seem true, even if it might not be. What helps me through all of this is that action is not always required. I can allow feelings, thoughts, beliefs and internal dialogues but I don’t actually have to do anything. Facing my fear of death doesn’t mean I have to die. Facing my fear of my relationship not being “right” doesn’t mean I have to end it. It just means allowing things to be there, considering them just as they are, without pushing them away. I do hope that at the end of such a process that making an decision or taking an action will be a little easier. I don’t know if it will be, but I can start to see that unrelenting resisting is not a good way to get there.
Hi Sen,
I’ve always had obsessional thoughts, and for the past year, I’ve had one after another. I seemed to have moved on from one, and onto another when I started having thoughts and worried about my orientation after getting some thoughts that I did not have before in terms of questioning. Despite being in a relationship, which at the time my partner and I were not getting along, it was the cause of these reoccurring cycle of thoughts. I thought I had moved on from it by just ignoring the thoughts and simply not paying enough attention to them, but after a few months, they came back with a vengeance and forced me to spend countless hours looking to find an answer. I then came back to you blog and read the way you answered this person’s issue, which is exactly what I was going through even though I felt that my mind and obsessional thoughts were lying to me. I had read over and over again that you have to allow the fear in full throttle and then accept it for whatever the outcome is; I did not want to do this as I I was not fearless enough to accept that my mind would possibly tell me I wanted something else. However tonight, I’d decided that enough was enough and that I was going to fearlessly pluck up the courage to allow this fear in and accept and embrace the result whatever the outcome was. I did it, and as I started I could hear the obsessive thoughts egging me on telling me it’s what I wanted, then I saw images. At that point I accepted what I was being told and embraced what I thought was the truth regardless of anything. And then, something strange happened in the sense that another set of thoughts came in and decided that I should not except this as my truth, because it was not my truth, I realised this was my ‘true self’ talking and it started putting other thoughts and feelings up, showing me what it thought I needed to see, needed to know and even when I tried to grasped the other thoughts back, it would automatically change them into these new thoughts, thoughts of desire, want and truth. All the time this was happening, I was experiencing this experience like a film in the cinema, I, myself was watching as my ‘true self’ and my reoccurrant thoughts were fighting. I felt a sense of liberation and truth when I had finished. I did not even care about the fact of wanting to find the truth as I had set out to being the experience, but the feeling of truth and knowing oneself, and truth desires.
I just want to know, is this meant to happen all in one go, or is it meant to be space out? I’m not looking for right or wrong answers as I feel I have found my truth, but I would like to know if this experience is normally like this?
Feeling-free, this is what I mean by the wisdom of your “inner being” (or just wholeness-based wisdom) coming into play once you are in a state of total allowing – as long as we keep suppressing a fear, or over-identify with it, we stay in a place of “holding on” and hence are not receptive to this space of wisdom, which is also what I call the “space of being”. It doesn’t address all fears in one go, rather it happens in layers, and over time, but once you get this taste of the power of openness you are set to dissolve all the layers of fear in you and thus your journey towards wholeness becomes smooth (in terms of there being no confusion or doubt about this state of allowing).
Thanks for this wonderful article, it really clarifies many things but still I have a few confusions. I will start with 2 quotes of yours:
“In this inner conviction you will no longer be afraid if the thought pops up in your mind again, because you are clear about the truth within you.
(…)
To find out the truth is what liberates you, unlike what you feared. When you find the truth, it allows you to move forward.”
It seems it just doesn’t happen that easy in my case. There have been MANY times when I have allowed and seen through the certain thoughts and have seen them from the place of clarity. I have understood the truth about them very clearly. I have truly felt liberated for those moments. BUT… After a while the same thoughts keeps coming up again, and, despite of your “promise” – even though I have allowed them and seen through them, I start to fear again of them. When that happens I usually try to remind myself the sense of truth I got about these thoughts&emotions – but then it just seems “lost”, it’s just an empty words not the real, living truth anymore. Then, after some pain and suffering, I am able to get back to really sensing truth again and seeing through the thoughts… And so the cycle goes on. Hundreds of times.
So – why the truth, when I have seen it about certain thoughts, still not make me free of fearing those thoughts? How many times I have to allow&face thought and come to truth, in order to finally it stays permanent and I’m not buying into delusions anymore? Why delusions and fears still keep holding me even after I have seen through them many times?
And the second question… Here is an example with a man being afraid of being gay and you recommend to allow that thought so it could be examined. But what if the worrying thought is projected into the future, for example, it’s not about “what if I am gay??” but “what if I will become gay??” or “what if I will become sick with cancer” or “what if someone attacks me and kills me” etc… How it’s possible to examine this kind of thoughts? They are projected into the future, so, even if I didn’t get killed today, my mind can still frighten me with this possibility to happen tomorrow… So, how can I see the truth in this case? And, of course, how on earth it’s even possible to allow a thought like this: “maybe I will become sick with cancer and die in slow and painfull death” (these are just examples, in my case I don’t fear of becoming sick or get killed, but I just want to understand –
1) how it’s possible to examine the truth about a thought which is projected into future (so, it’s unexaminable)
2) how it’s possible to be OK with really terrifying possibilities (for example, some time ago my mind started to play out the thought that someone could injure my eye… I suffered from it 4 years but now I just laugh about it, because I just don’t believe in it anymore, it just doesn’t seem real – but it happened not because some allowing but just because some other frightening “what if?” thoughts had occupied my attention instead and I forgot these old ones)
IJ, the part about “reasoning” (in a bid to want to see the truth) is an aspect of gaining an aligned “understanding” and it’s one part of finding clarity, however, there is still the past momentum of imbalance which is still present. Gaining an understanding does not clear away the past momentum by itself, the momentum has to be dissolved through the “state of allowing”. When fear arises stop trying to seek assurance in your understanding, rather just be allowing of its momentum – allow the thoughts, allow the feelings, allow your fear of it, and just drop into a real openness which does not try to find assurance, does not try to sort out the thoughts, does not try to find relief, it’s just open to what’s arising. This openness is not a “one thing” relief mechanism, it’s a way of life, it’s an attitude, and it’s actually your true nature which gets ingrained into you as you keep connecting with it. Understanding the state of allowing is more important than any other understanding, and once you connect with this openness (read the post – the foundation of openness) and thus go through a phase of releasing the past momentum, you can start living your other understanding, you can start living your truth (because you are not longer in the pull of past momentum). Without the foundation of openness your understandings will all just become a “concept” sooner or later, and then you would just start using them to find some assurance and relief. Though you are trying to use reasoning and wanting to connect with the truth, you don’t yet have the foundation of openness and hence everytime the fear arises you start trying to fight it and hence its past momentum does not get released.
Vow, many thanks! I’m gradually learning to be in the state of allowing, which is not easy as there are strong resistances in my mind, but I see it’s the right and only way… Thank you!