I think I might be shying away from meditation while upset because I think the emotions will distract my focus - and they will, but I've done the "find the feeling in the body and sit with that" thing before and... Well not enjoyed it per se, but you get the idea.
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That is not entirely what I am thinking of. Just sitting with a feeling and not doing anything is very Vipassana, renunciate stuff. Not my line.
The problem is freezing, anxiety. The desired outcome is healthy bodily *responses*. The means is acceptance and sometimes action.
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So the idea becomes that if you have something like a fear response, you don't go "oh there's fear! ... oh, more fear ... Huh, fear!"
If anything, that's retraumatizing when the feeling is strong. Dissociation exists for good reason...
Instead...
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... you strengthen yourself *first*, so your prana routine is great for that. Lots of breath control. Good stuff.
*Then*, you don't just feel. You fully experience. What does the body stuff come from? Where does it go? What does it want?
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The strengthening aspect is super important. I ignored it for a while when my practice lapsed, and went completely batshit bananas for a while.
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When your breathing practice is strong enough to just chill out, you enter the body work. You let those sensations just be, but you listen.
Then you evaluate how to respond. It's OK to get really emotional here. You want to *unblock* stuff. Best practiced in temporary seclusion!
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Ah, I think this is the trick I'm missing. Because yes, I'm not looking for detachment - and you're right, from experience that does feel like it errs dangerously close to a freeze response, which I reallt don't want to reinforce after spending this much effort unlearning it.
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Yes, this is vamachara - left-handed attainment. Empowerment-as-path.
All that ludicrous satanic shit in Western occultism bottoms out here. But the yogic and shamanic versions are vastly better developed.
Dangerous, though. And not just for the risks involved in poor form.
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Yes. I don't really talk about it except to my two closest friends who've been through all the weird shit too - but I've been walking down the shaman garden path. I've done
a lot of work with breath and body and standard reprogramming systems/therapy.
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Thank you for talking about all of this! It's been really helpful.
I feel you there on the parents. Eventually you get stuck in the pattern that most people are stuck in or you break out completely. I manage civil relations but it was touch and go for a long time.
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Glad if it was useful. I keep wanting to put this into longer form (essays, a book? Idk), but I feel there is a bit more work to do first.
The end result of the practice is supposed to make you almost entirely unfuckwithable. I am not quite there, so I demurr.
The other reason would be that I seem to pick this stuff up with very minimal understanding and get decent outcomes.
I worry that I'd teach bad form. But this particular issue was bothering me for ages.
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