If I have summarize the various dysfunctions that people feel in their life, they can be described as below
Anxiety – This is an imbalanced aspect of the fear dimension in our thinking. Fear is natural in life, simply because life is “uncertain” (where you can’t even know, with 100% certainty, what’s going to happen 10 minutes from now). This fear can keep gaining momentum through constant identification, until it becomes a strong force called “the feeling of anxiety”. Anxiety always stems from a projection of thought, it can be a deluded or reality-based projection, however the “intensity” of the feeling is what becomes the resistance – without this intensity fear, as a mode thinking, has no negative effect on your being. Anxiety also leads to a rigidity in thinking where one is afraid of being open-minded towards the dark nature of life. Being free of delusion, and allowing the momentum of past-accumulated fear-energy to ebb away, is all it takes for you to find balance in this dimension. In the state of wholeness, fear is not experienced as a strong/uncomfortable feeling, rather it’s just experienced as thinking mode with respect to certain situations and can be a part of wisdom in terms of taking some corrective/proactive action – fear also loses its “delusional” aspect, and is more rooted in reality based thinking.
Emotional neediness – Each of us has the potential to be emotionally independent, where we don’t need an external crutch (support) to feel emotionally stable. To tap into this inherent potential in us, towards having inner independence, one has to connect with the dark nature of inner power instead of simply clinging to the light nature of sensitivity alone. Overly sensitive people are the ones who always need emotional support and though they can seem “harmless” their very need for emotional leverage causes them to become an energy “leech”, of some form, towards others. Emotional neediness is not attractive, at least not in the long run – of course, some people may find emotional neediness (or over sensitivity) as being “cute” and lovable, for a while, but it’s not long before they start getting repelled by it. The state of wholeness is free of any form of emotional neediness or over-sensitivity, in fact sensitivity is balanced with your sense of inner power to the point where you are never taken in by a narrow influence – you always have a wholistic view.
Bitterness – This the most accurate description for the imbalance in hatred dimension. There are various forms that bitterness can take – jealousy, shallowness, over-competitiveness, exploitation, grudge or spite. Though bitterness is a dimension of hatred it can easily stem from aspects like “emotional neediness”, deeply sensitive people can also be highly bitter people who have a lot of hidden anger in them. In fact, all dysfunctions are inter-related, one imbalance affects all other dimensions of thinking – so in that sense there are no light-natured imbalances or dark-natured imbalances, all imbalances are just imbalances, period, and I just use different terms to create a better reference for better understanding.
Lethargy – Being productive, or being aligned with growth, is a part of our inherent nature as life-energy. When we start suppressing this nature in us, for any reason, we start getting rooted in lethargy. Of course, an imbalance of restlessness (or over-activity), over a long period of time, can eventually cause you to get so exhausted that you require the balance of lethargy for a while until you can find the middle ground between activity and ease – so during the process of balance you can have a period of dullness/lethargy, where you don’t feel like doing anything much, or feel zero-motivation, and this is normal, especially if you were an over-active person previously. However, lethargy can become a habit, or a way of being, out of a fear of being involved in life or out of some sense of delusion about what “ease” (or being struggle-free) means. Growth is deeply necessary, for you, as a being, and you can’t oppose this nature in you without feeling the brunt of its pressure – this is the reason why prolonged lethargy leads to an emaciation of the body and mind. In fact, doing drugs, or being addicted to alcohol, can be symptoms of wanting to disconnect with life and can be more prominent in people who are prone to lethargy.
Restlessness – This is a sign of over-zealousness, or hyper-ness, where one is addicted to being mindlessly active all the time. The energy of restlessness is highly draining, and you can see that when you are in the company of a restless person – you can sense how their restlessness can make you feel drained if you are not rooted in your own conscious balance (this happens because unconsciously we tend to resonate with the frequency of the external influence, and hence get captured by the outside imbalance). Being restless is not really a state conducive to true productivity, neither is it rooted in wisdom. Sooner or later, a restless person does hit a “brunt out” point or a crash as a result of the mounting accumulation of imbalance. Over-excitement is a part of restlessness, and can be a huge resistance towards a mature outlook towards life. Restless people are also highly volatile and hence poor in decision making or staying true to their commitment, they are usually just in search of the next high.
Lust – A person lost to lust is imbalanced towards “sensory pleasure”, and sexual over-indulgence is just one part of such an imbalance; this imbalance can extend towards behaviors of greediness, shallow selfishness (becoming too self-centered), superficiality and manipulation towards serving one’s self-interest alone. Lust is mostly a “cold” aspect of joy which disconnects from aspects of sensitivity making you almost machine-like in your pleasure seeking mindset, leading to a lack of “warmth”. Lust can sometimes be equated to imbalanced passion, and in an imbalance it’s not long before the passion turns into a narrow obsession without any sense of wholeness within – a passion pursued from a place of wholeness does not cause you to have a “tunnel vision”, whereas a passion pursued purely from the motivation of lust causes the creation of a deluded/narrow vision. The lust can also be towards some imagination of success – such a lust can delude you into being rooted in this cycle of craving an outside success for your sense of wholeness.
Quite simply, these are the six dysfunctions that a being would deal with, and each of these dysfunctions can get amplified during a physical journey under the influence of your brain’s allure. Imbalance happens for two reasons
1. Delusion – When your thinking is deluded, you are very likely to enter into imbalance. For example, to think that achievement/success is the way to happiness is a form of deluded thinking which can cause you to become anxiety ridden, or lust-based, and it can also cause strong feelings of bitterness towards anyone who seems oppose your sense of achievement. To think that there is a “punishing” God up there who is judging you critically is another example of deluded thinking, which leads to anxieties in the form of constant guilt and doubt regarding one’s desire. The only solution to eliminate delusion is to develop the receptivity to be open to the reality of life. Through this receptivity one can acquire the right understanding and can imbibe well-rounded insights, thus bringing wholeness to one’s thinking. This receptivity requires one to have the attitude of being fearless from within towards wanting to know the truth about life rather than wanting to cling to one’s narrow beliefs about it. For example, if you only want to see life from a light-natured perspective, you will always feel fearful of the dark natured influences around you and hence feel powerless/meek in your life, rather if you are open towards understanding life in a perspective that’s balanced towards the light and dark nature, you are in a better position to find a wholeness in your thinking by connecting with the reality.
2. Past momentum – The illusion of past momentum is that though your awareness and understanding has grown, your mind’s thinking (and emotional response) seems to be rooted in old patterns/behaviors. A feeling of helplessness is natural when you can’t seem to be free of certain patterns of thinking, or imbalanced patterns of emotional response, that you no longer resonate with in your current awareness. The past momentum is not only present in your being but is also stored up as cellular memory in your brain/body, along with the solidified presence of neural pathways in your brain that keep reinforcing the past patterns by repeating them in thought. Past momentum can easily keep you rooted in dysfunction and it takes a solid foundation of awareness, and courage, to no longer identify with the pull of this momentum, until it ebbs away in force, so that you can internalize your balanced perspective.
Brain momentum can impede the process of internalization
You, as a being, can grow in awareness and gain the right understanding quite easily, because you don’t have “programmed neural networks” to deal with. However your brain does not synchronize with your understanding on immediate basis, because it has its past momentum (solidified as neural pathways) to deal with. This is the reason why you feel conflicted – you can sense that you have a balanced understanding/awareness, but you feel helpless to the pull of your brain’s momentum towards anxiety, bitterness, emotional neediness etc. Of course, it’s also possible that you are still deluded as a being, and are yet to balance out in your own thinking, in which case it’s your responsibility, towards yourself, to work on being receptive towards letting go of deluded thinking (or dramatic thinking) and be open towards finding an aligned understanding about life. If your understanding of life is deluded you will keep reinforcing imbalanced patterns of thought in you. Of course, the presence of the past momentum can also hinder you from finding an aligned understanding of life, for example anxiety in your brain can keep you from being open-minded as a being. So, in truth, it’s like a loop.
I talked about this “loop” in the post – Eliminating Anxiety – mentioning that I find Brainev to be very effective in assisting with breaking this loop by bringing forth a balance in your brain’s momentum of negativity. When coupled with gaining the right understanding of life, it can be instrumental towards reducing your time towards finding balancing in your physicality by bringing a balance to your brain states through external training. I am currently finishing the level-3 mp3 and I can sense the amount of deeper momentum that it has been able to clear off. The mp3s don’t use sublimal messages or hypnosis, neither does it force train the brain into a particular state (by simply playing one frequency alone, the way some binaural beats do), rather the logic of this technology is to keep introducing frequencies related to the balanced brain-states in an undulating fashion (it uses three different harmonics – binaural, rhythmic and temporal – to simulate the way a natural brainwave pattern moves, by not following a rigid pattern) to get the brain acquainted with these states, over time, so that it can make a conscious choice towards connecting with these balanced states by letting go of connecting with the imbalanced frequencies. In fact, in level-2 and level-3 mp3s you can see that some “noises” are introduced now and then (as disturbances, like clanging bells or noisy ocean) to train you brain to access a balanced state in the presence of stress-factors. This logic of pattern induced training is makes it effective.
I’ve gotten several positive feedbacks, by mail, from the readers, since my last post, about how the use of Brainev has been effective in reducing the momentum of anxiety and restlessness/over-excitement, and about its assistance in releasing emotional momentum. These feedbacks resonate with my own experience of the effectiveness of this product, which is the reason why I talk about it as an asset towards finding inner balance and improving your brain’s productivity or performance. Without an impeding brain momentum, it’s much easier to internalize your understandings, thus bringing a sync between the awareness in your being and your brain.
(On a side note, I received a few queries about the pricing of the product. Here’s what I observed – when I subscribed to downloading the “demo” version, I got a daily mail from the Brainev team regarding the technology behind the product and during the 7th mail I was offered a discount to buy the full-version of the product for $100, which, to me, seemed like a nominal price; since I was impressed by the demo, I bought the full version for this discounted price of $100 (the actual price comes to $270) – so if you are planning on buying it, I would suggest that you wait for a few days after downloading the demo, so that you can purchase it at a discounted price rather than the full price. If you are not interested in buying the full version you can just use the 15 min demo, or possibly get the full 30 min level-1 mp3, by signing up for the trial period, for free. The level-1 mp3 is highly effective, by itself, towards training your brain-state towards the frequency of being in a relaxed/non-reactive awareness)
A balanced experience of physicality
You must understand that in a physical body there are two intelligences at play – the intelligence of you, as the being, along with the intelligence of your brain (the organ). The brain is a highly complex neural network that’s designed for aspects of mechanical and “conditioning-based” intelligence – in other words, the brain is a “programmable” intelligence and a lot of its behavior stems from the mechanical aspect of “habit” (if you are identified with a certain way of behaving/reacting it becomes a pattern in your brain, and then it start feeling “natural” to you when in truth it’s just an induced habit). Also, the brain, is influenced by the cellular memory which is passed on as inheritance from the gene pool of your parents – this is like passing on a certain programming/conditioning along with a certain load of emotional energy (cellular memory can store emotional energy). So in that sense a lot of your brain’s imbalance, or momentum of negativity, could easily be due to the cellular memory passed on as inheritance – it can seem unfair, but considering the fact that you are part of the collective humanity, and it’s your collective body, you are privy to its imbalances also.
When I talk about you, as the being, I am referring to the non-physical aspect of you as a stream of consciousness, currently focused on this body, who has, in the past, been moving through several incarnation/life-times accumulating emotional energy and imprints of thoughts. Hence you, as a being, can also get conditioned, especially when you are low on awareness. Of course there is a deeper aspect to you, the higher consciousness, or inner being, or over-soul, or any term that you like, which is like the “wholeness” part to which you are connected, or from where you got created – like a river connected to the ocean. It’s just that you have a journey towards growing in awareness, and finding wholeness, and balance, and eternal growth, that you are on – an individual journey in many aspects. In simple words, there can be imbalances present in you as a being, especially with the influences of your past lifetimes (possibly influences stemming from low awareness), that you carry forth into your current physical body and these imbalances can further add to the inherited imbalances in your brain, thus adding to the momentum and creating a vicious circle of re-fueling/feeding the accumulation.
Understanding this basic concept of how a cycle, of fueling the momentum of imbalance, gets created is instrumental towards bringing an awareness towards breaking the loop. It’s not about feeling helpless to the present momentum, but about understanding that it’s just energy accumulation and it can be released if you no longer feed it with your unconscious identification or forced suppression (remember that suppression stems from fear and adds to the momentum of negativity). The stronger your awareness, or capacity to be a conscious “observer”, the less likely you are to be lost in identification with the pull of a momentum of negativity in you, and the more you connect with the state of allowing the less likely you are to “suppress” the accumulated energy, thus allowing its conscious release, over time. Awareness, and aware understanding, has to work in conjunction with the state of allowing in order have a seamless release of the past momentum, along with finding freedom from deluded thinking.
Remember that a product like Brainev does not automatically create the “right understanding” in you, rather it creates the conducive environment towards allowing the internalization, of your aware understandings, by “helping” release the imbalanced momentum in your brain which is usually the cause of resistance towards such an internalization. As a being, you have to consciously work on being authentic towards seeing through deluded patterns of thinking that you may be holding on to and be willing to be more open towards connecting with the attitude required for inner freedom. I was able to release the major portion of the momentum of negativity, within me, purely through the state of allowing, I just find Brainev to be a product conducive towards assisting with the state of allowing thus reducing the time-frame required to release the momentum.
(PS: I may not be able to respond to all the comments as I am currently busy with some of my work related projects. There was an option of disabling comments, but I prefer to allow the comments while responding to a few when I get the time. It would be useful if some of the regular/old readers of this blog are able to assist the new readers by answering to their comments or queries with respect to the state of allowing, relaxed awareness etc – it would be much appreciated)
Hi, ive been to the site and cant find the free demo, only the trial one?
Stonez, around the center of the website there is a form where you need to fill in your email address, to which they mail the link for your demo download.
Hey Sen, you have been helping me, and im sure many many others out with anxiety, stress etc. I’ve almost beaten my ocd. It used to be a mild case of skitzophrenia, then it lessened to ocd, now its just anxiety. Brain Ev, is helping tremendously, and in a short amount of time. But my question to you is, WHY are you doing this? Why are you so helpful? Why are you unselfishly devoting your intellectual findings to us, people that don’t even know you?
Why does it matter?
Hi Sen,
Firstly thank you …. I’ve been following your blog for the past 6 months or so, it has helped me immensely to progress towards returning to a life free from anxiety an unhappiness.
Im 35 and whilst ive always been some what of worrier/hypercondriact through my life … I’m am very fortunate and have had a great and happy life thus far. Several years ago however around the age of 30, I had a bout of obsessive thought that really took me by suprise. My particular thoughts we of sharp objects, cutting sensations, pain and general fear … and of course worrying that I was going crazy and going to be like this forever. I was also very scared of going on medication, and another anxious obsession of mine is fear of drug use (which is odd as I experimented with drugs when younger) and also junkies and violence … all of which I find distressing). In any case … I read a lot of self help material and through processes similar to allowing (but not quite as good), and some time, I got through it and life was pretty well back to normal.
Then last year I had a very stressful year, some surgeries and accidents, long travelling for a new job, birth of third child etc etc. I also enjoy a drink or two occasionally (something I really dont want to give up … I’m a social drinker) and find I am far worse when hungover. Anyway sure enough early last year I had another bout of anxiety/obsessive thought and found it very difficult to endure … and also terribly guilty for my family (i.e. being flaky or broken and lost in my head at times, although I am high functioning and they are very supportive or often don’t notice).
I again turned to self help methods and the internet and started working my way back to normal. By some stroke of luck I found your site, and the article on obsessive thoughts and how it described how the mind works helped me immeasurably. Your site, its articles an techniques and overall approach gave me a great sense of peace and hope and often described me to a tee. I practice’d the process of allowing and slowly found the momentum to indeed ebb away!. At times there were set backs (sometimes very challenging ones) as the momentum ebbed away, but overall headed in the right direction and a huge return to my quality of life.
This month I started using BrainEv … I found it has indeed helped me even more reducing momentum and I have been feeling so great lately (even better focus at work despite my hectic life).
However, this weekend surprisingly I went to a theme park with my family and after a great day, I decided to go on a very “scary/thrilling” ride (although I wasn’t that keen). In the buildup to the ride itself … it was very dark and cramped and hot, with caution signs about the effects of the ride every where, all meant to induce fear … it certainly did. I was very shocked and scared at how affected I was by this … all my learnings and what I though was now second nature etc went out the window, as I bought into the hype and my minds stories/projections. I gripped with fear and anxiety. But as I often do, I pushed on and the actual ride itself was really fine … but after it I was so affected, I felt terrible for several days (especially scared and angry at how blindsided and affected I was over something that had never worried me before and after making so much progress).
Sorry for the long explanation … but my couple of questions are. 1.) Should I be avoiding stressful situations until I’m fully balanced again?, or forever? (or should I confront them?)
2.) Re BrainEv … I’m hoping that it continues to help me as I progress through the levels (nearly finished lvl 1), potentially to the point where I am free from all this again. I’m just wondering if I am using it correctly … the instruction manual says to just listen and relax and let the mind wander… should I be just allowing or attempting to confront thoughts during the sessions?, like the recent thoughts that troubled me? I noted in one of you posts you noted that just listening to the BrainEv alone wasn’t going to cure you.
I’m truly hopeful that I can again be completely free of all of my troubles, and will continue to work on this until then, so any advice you can provide would be very helpful.
Cheers Scotty
Scotty,
It would be helpful to look at how you are going about fear in general. Most of your fears seem to be very normal fears for your mind to have (I would have similar thoughts also about what “might happen” from seeing all the warnings before the ride). As you already know allowing will help a fear to ebb away, but allowing can also easily become a technique, and if you cling to it, when you see a lot of fear pop up out of no where the mind can begin to panic and questions things like (such as in my case) “Oh no its not gone” “Oh no i’ll never be free of this” “I thought all this was over” “When will it ever go away, I’ve been doing so well, I thought I found a way to make this go away”. The way thoughts like this work is that they each pointed to me trying to get rid of the fear, when in reality all I had to do was be allowing of them.
The scary/thrilling ride you experienced was just an event that triggered some old past momentum to come up. Sometimes, we need an external event to trigger the fears in order for us to become aware of them. As you have already stated, its not that allowing isn’t working for you, its just that through allowing you continue to access different layers of the past momentum that is present until all the layers ebb away in force. The time it takes depends on the amount of momentum you have and how open you are to allowing the momentum, until it eventually all ebbs away, which according to Sen it takes about 6-8 months average.
It would be helpful for you to be sure you have the right understanding about the state of allowing, because (such as in my case) you can continue to try to use the state of allowing like you did in the beginning (as a technique to “make” the momentum go away). The momentum will continue to ebb away, but eventually it comes down to the attitude you have about your fears and how open you are to allowing them, even if it means the worst does happen (you can never be sure if it will or won’t). Do you have to wait for your past momentum to ebb away completely before you can be free from the fears? Or can you make a choice right now to say I will be totally open to whatever happens. I found that this attitude is really what it means to have freedom from the fear, where as before I always thought I needed this momentum to ebb away before I can be free.
Here are some articles that helped me out, i’m sure some of them you’ve read already but it might be helpful to refresh your understandings based on your current perspective and where you are at now:
http://www.calmdownmind.com/overcoming-fear-through-understanding-reality/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/the-basis-of-inner-freedom/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/faq-on-the-state-of-allowing/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/overcoming-obsessive-thoughts/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/a-question-of-attitude/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/the-attitude-required-for-inner-freedom/
Hope this helps,
Tyler
Scotty,
About BrainEv (Sen would know more about this since i’ve only used the demo a few times and haven’t really had the opportunity for the full product).
I would say that BrainEv is like a catalyst to help speed up the process of allowing (I think Sen talked about this in that post as well). Basically, the instruction manual is also pointing to allowing. Relax and let the mind be free, could also be restated as allow your mind the freedom to do what it wants to do. You’re not forcefully trying to keep your mind from confronting the thoughts or forcefully confronting the thoughts, but allowing your mind to confront the thoughts if it wants to while you remain as being aware of what is happening.
It the same as state of allowing, just with the audio mp3s to help speed up the process of reducing mind momentum.
In the article about BrainEv Sen said you can imagine your momentum like a car moving at 200 mph/hr. Allowing means that you would be removing your foot from the accelerator and allow the car to lose its momentum naturally until it has come to a halt. Then Sen said BrainEv would be like wind pushing again the car as you removed your foot from the accelerator. So now you have the initial state of allowing as you remove your foot from the accelerator allowing the momentum to slowly come to a halt, and the additional gust of wind to help speed of the process of removing the cars momentum.
Again, I haven’t worked with BrainEv, I am just stating my perspective of it and how it includes the state of allowing.
To Sen & all the readers,
I will be happy to help respond to some questions/comments that other readers are posting when I have the time to do so.
Also, some comments may not be fit for me to answer and I wouldn’t want to answer a comment without having an understanding first because I wouldn’t want to cloud another’s understanding. Thus comments that I feel i am able to answer I will focus more of my energy on. Hopefully, other older readers can help on this as well.
As far as where I am at with this journey (so others can get an idea of where im comming from when I answer comments):
– I feel most of my mind momentum, emotional body accumulation, and negative ego force has ebbed away, and I have a good understanding of the dynamics involved with state of allowing and releasing past momentum.
– I have a good understanding of what Sen calls inner freedom and began to understand it about a month ago.
-I feel not yet of wholeness, but then again, Sen has said its hard to describe wholeness, so I am not yet sure exactly what wholeness is. I can however say that I seem to be seeing things on a very real level nowadays (like seeing them as they are, without delusion), and I do feel like I am moving in a direction towards wholeness everyday (instead of previously where I just felt like I was releasing past momentum).
-I have a pretty good understanding of awareness
-I have a good understanding about spiritual pointers, and can hopefully help anyone disect any spiritual confusion they’re having (such as pointers a spiritual teacher is giving) in order to avoid delusion.
-I have an understanding of Light and Dark nature mechanics (also, my journey started premarily from dark nature mechanics such as hatred/fear). Part of this understanding also includes balance.
-Finally, regearding law of attraction (loa), deliberate creation, and life stream, I am still developing my own understanding of them in my life (rather than just the blogs understanding). Law of attraction I understand the most out of these three, then probably the life stream aspect, and finally I have not really worked with deliberate creation much yet.
One last thing I would recommend for anyone on this blog is that you follow your own wisdom and own guidance rather than just taking any suggestion or understanding blindly. Sen would put this in terms of what resonates for you. If you don’t agree with something then feel free to just disregard it.
Hope to be of help in the future,
Thanks
Also best of luck to you on your projects Sen.
The logic of allowing is not a measure of how good you feel, (purely light nature) but allowing is an attitude & capacity to let negativites arise within yourself without identification, without suppression, hiding or running from it, it is both the dark and light nature of life… It will takes time to reach the place of total allowing… If you haven’t yet release the accumulated emotional momentum of your mind, you can release it by staying in relax awareness (sen’s old post) while working with your brainev program too
It can accelerate the release process in a shorter span of time. Brainev can help your brain to have a low resistance on the process.
Me, now , without the help of brainev program releases my mind momentum in 40% in allowing alone depending on my load momentum (will vary in every person).
I am now in 6 months on this process since august 2012 (too slow) but the time doesn’t matter, for me i enjoy this journey along the way towards wholeness, i keep experimenting with fear, working playfuly with my awareness, wisdom and inner freedom this my choice and all i want is an experience of it.
Stop fighting with your mind rather allow it fully whatever it is, this is not lossing your ownership and control but this is real control.
When your mind losses the pre-occupation of fighting it is open to pure wisdom from your inner guidance.
Keep reducing your mind momentum with the right understanding throught allowing- the brainev alone cannot help you to reach wholeness without the right understanding, it can only assist you all throughout your journey to cut off longer span of time on the process.
I am having a really bad night tonight and need some advice. I have spent a lifetime (I’m 41) living my life the only way I thought you could. Over the past 4 years I have been looking into many teachings mainly through distress. What I pinpointed as my ‘distress’ was my husband of 22 years ‘alcoholism’. I left him 9 months ago, it wasn’t the first time but it is the last. Since then I have gradually become more at peace with myself and my decision to leave and even previous decisions I.e the decision to marry him, the decision to stay as long as I did etc. besides my truth of ‘alcoholism’ we were best friends so the decision to leave was a tough one and a long time coming although our relationship was volatile to say the least and this is not inline with who I am but it is only through recent awareness that I know this. My distress tonight and on some other occasions is caused by my frustration and devastation at his un acknowledgment of ‘my truth’ and him counter arguing ‘his truth’ which is that he isn’t an alcoholic but that I have just used that as a controlling mechanism. Mostly I truly believe he is an alcoholic. Occasionally, as now, I doubt it and other times I question it’s relevance. I’m not even sure what answer I want other than ‘of course he’s an alcoholic’ – validating my truth, my pain and soothing my ego – I recognise this as one of my potential truths. I wouldn’t go back now anyway so it is irrelevant but I have sobbed tonight in case what? I’ve mistreated him? Me? I don’t know. I wonder if I need his validation for closure. Then I go on the whole mind momentum of, all the teachings that innately resonate with me, I question them, and then feel even more desperate and devastated. I feel better when I feel their truth but I feel better when I cling to the truth of ‘alcoholism’ so what if I’m just clinging? Ahhhhhhh! Really confused. Sometimes I have a lot of clarity. Tonight I have the complete opposite. Dark and light I know and I’m trying to just accept it, or I guess I’m not since I’m on here requesting answers, to what questions, I’m not really sure. Anyway, sorry to rant.
Hi Scotty,
I would tell you to be accepting of you, where you are in your journey. When you are angry with yourself you just keep fueling your mind’s momentum of negativity. You are not regressing, you were in a stressful situation that can be used as a teaching experience where you learn for instance that you still have some momentum to release and that you can be easier on yourself.
The brain is a survival tool. It is a pretty normal reaction to feel fear in a ride. The more you practice relaxed awareness and you release the accumulated negative energy, the less intense your reactions will be towards stressful situations. Your brain will always let you know that you are in a stressful situation, since it’s wired to assure your survival, the difference is that you will have the inner freedom to choose if you want to react to your mind’s thoughts or not.
As for your question about avoiding stressful situations, I would say try to do what feels right for you by listening to your instinct. It’s not bad to avoid them if you feel you need a break, and at the same time, if they arise, they can be good practise and good check points to see where you are on your journey.
I don’t think there is necessarily a need to focus on anything while practising relaxed awareness. The goal is to let your being be a witness of your mind. So you can observe the mind, observe the thoughts it produces, observe it’s patterns, without being pulled into them. If a thought produces anxiety for example, just relax, let the feelings arise. The mind will panic, let it panic don’t try to fix it with active thinking. If more thoughts arise let them come without identifying to them.
Relaxed awareness will help you along with getting the right understanding of life. Reading Sen’s posts is a great way to start. You can also look for other teachings as long as you make sure that what you read or listen to resonates with you. You can also always feel free to ask questions in order to gain better understanding.
Hope this helps,
Take care,
Marie
I’ve been using BrainEv, and I believe it has been significantly helpful toward releasing my mind momentum. However I tend to notice that while somedays I will sit and relax, whilst playing the demo (playing it twice, to simulate the actual Lvl. 1 version) and I will feel a sense of deepening, a sense of awareness and freedom from my mind, where everything passes by smoothly. This will last roughly a day, and then sort of go back to the place of being somewhere between freedom and being trapped. That tug and pull feeling. The next few days I meditate and listen it seems like nothing really happens. I feel the same before and after, only feeling somewhat calmer during. Then it tends to once again feel like a deepening of the mind by the fourth day or so, in a cycle like that. It’s been that way for about a month now. Is this normal, or am I being somehow inconsistent with this process?
Sen, it’s been 5 months since I’ve started reading your articles, thus staying allowing (as much as I can at every given moment) to whatever arises in me.
I believe that, because of this allowing, I’ve gained better understanding on life, but at the same time, as a Psychology student, sometimes I worry not to fall into a depression. As I’m being amidst my winter term exams, I can feel how easily I cry over little things, or misunderstanding, or whatever else that goes wrong, in one way or another (as far as my perception goes).
I had periods of very nice balance, but now, during exams, the stress is higher and I can biologically and psychologically feel its intensity from the very start of my day in the morning. Isolation for studying adds to the anxiety of it.
My question is, as long as I’m staying allowing and ‘kinda fearless’ even towards the fears and anxieties, it’s not possible to become depressed, right?
Because right now, I feel like I’m getting more and more emotional and stressed over little things that didn’t bother me before, and I don’t want this to become a part of my character permanently.
I know I do have many defenses still, that’s why I’m writing to you.
Writing down some of my cognitive distortions makes it easier to be aware, but I can’t always follow them.
Hi Sen,
I’m wondering if you please could elaborate your view on depersonalization/derealization, for those of us suffering from this due to high amounts of anxiety ?
I believe I eventually found the surroundings and people around me to cause so much anxiety I started kinda zooming out to shelter myself from the scary experiences. However I am kicking myself in the leg, especially after I started focusing on trying to allow: Whenever I “zoom out” (which I do on autopilot all the time) my momentum gets extreme. Having this foggy view on the world makes me feel even less in control.
I might as well add that me smoking weed for years to give myself a break from the anxiety is probably also a contributing factor to this condition.
Thanks again for giving so myself of yourself and your time to us.
Take care.
this is amazing. i’m grateful for you, sen, if that’s your name, thank you 🙂 i’ve never been so receptive to a concept seemingly so complicated explained in such a way that really nails the basic simplicity of it.
From my perception,state of allowing is all about embracing what ever thought that comes up,whn u embrace then u let go of futher understanding and identification.you dnt ponder on thoughts you just let it be then the mind momentum wil gradually ebb away but as you deep in this process the mind will react that what is happening is nt right ,you also allow it without futher understanding.
Hi Sen/readers/contributors,
First I’d like to say what an excellent resource this website is Sen – there’s not much of what you’ve said that I haven’t heard before/didn’t know already, but the way you pass on your ‘handle’ on these issues allows me to absorb them much better, leading to, I feel, a shorter path from there towards the *understanding* and then *realisation* of that knowledge.
– it’s become patently obvious to me throughout my life, than merely ‘knowing’ the information is not enough – it’s just one of the first baby-steps, in fact.
I downloaded the brainEV 15 minute demo, and another free 15 minute ‘razor sharp focus’ mp3. They seemed mildly effective when I finally got to use them, so I have persisted this last few days.
However the one thing I am noticing this past few days is a energetic ‘push’/relentless drive – can’t really relax, not sleeping as much or as well. Not sure that it’s allowing me to get more done though – it’s a rather chaotic energy when indulged, much like too much caffeine.
Now this may have nothing to do with the 2 mp3’s at all – I’m reducing my nicotine intake and also reducing my dosage of some medication I’ve been taking recently (for emotional balance during some trying times).
I just wanted to mention this…
——-
Something else I feel I really want to type about right now, is what’s been happening to me this last 2 or 3 years – after suffering from anxiety/panic attack issues and before that, bouts of depresion, but after some quite ‘stable’ months indeed, there was a family situation that resulted in lots of heated, quite vicious argument – I did my best to handle it calmly, and personally kept my lid on – I took a walk later and blew my top in private, only the universe listening. I vented, I tore at my emotional innards and issued forth ‘far’ too many pained ”Why!!!”-s, then when I’d calmed returned home, where things had also settled down…
In the coming days however my ‘reality filters’ began to dissolve – started with an incredible nervous energy as if born of the fear of death itself but with no ‘psychology’ to support it, and progressed to the point I felt I (not the body – the inner ‘I’ – heart/soul/mind/spirit) was being chased/followed/stalked/hunted by some unknown force of nature with drastic intent.
I tried to run/evade/hide but it caught up with me and my world *exploded* into coloured kaleidoscopic fractals and matrices – only way I can describe it! I became aware of the connectedness of everything, the lack of any real boundary or division, but not in a blissful, ecstatic fashion – all but my ‘eye’ was diminished more and more, until all I was was perception, the perceiver having been lost.
I felt like I was being shown the ‘wiring behind the boards’ of the world and universe, but from the underside – I saw (rather was made to see) every sneaky trick in the book, and deception everywhere.
I was brought to my knees in front of and by ‘her’, in the guise of harridan/crone (things I’d never really thought about until they were shown to me and I was ‘told’ – would later go on to see other aspects – mother, daughter,sister, lover, whore etc. ).
I was told that *I* had died, shown my own grave every day, People mourned me. I was told of all the harm my ways had caused ‘her’ and this subtle realm. I was judged harshly and found utterly wanting. My loves were taken from me – it was as if all my relationships had died. I was told every day that, in spirit, my wife had left me, despite the fact her words and actions showing she was with me all the way.
There’s so much more – it was utter hell and I cried deep wracked sobs for hours sometimes, every day for weeks.
Anyway, the state of mind and my altered perceptions (visual and all) stayed with me for a solid 12 months, thereabouts, but during this time I tried ‘submission’ – that was fine. That’s what ‘She’ and ‘He’ wanted, but it seemed I was held to some very high standards of behaviour, and should I fall below them, well it was a harsh time for me indeed.
It/that state all made sense to me – it fit the science of how the universe works as far as my understanding of the new physics goes – it fit with what I’ve heard about the shamanic life/similar awakened states, but oh my I didn’t WANT to have to maintain such a level of worthiness.
In the end I fought to ‘come down’ – the constant voices were too much, it was a nightmare and I don’t know how I managed to stay with my home and family and out of psychiatric care, apart from my fear of being removed from my loved ones.
So, some good things have come from this experience, but I am still eft largely unable to assimilate it. ‘She’ still tries to reach me/take me in hand and bring me to the path she sees for me, but none of it really cuts through the noise most of the time, so mostly I retain some balance and continue to forge my own path, which is, I know, a good path and will lead to the solving of many of my problems, and those of my family.
I could go on forever, but only parts of the experience are available to me at any given moment, and the remembering tends to tax me quite heavily…
Take Care, and Be Well, All!
Shaun