And when the behaviour is bad, and you can see that it's fake and does not actually address your pain, there is a strong incentive to let go
Conversation
In letting go, the problem then evaporates. It is just not there anymore, its originative behaviour cut off.
1
So you feel different every moment, cut to a natural awareness of pain-as-it-comes. Some days suck, others are fine, but you are *there*.
1
This is most certainly not how meditation is generally advertised, but it's what happens when you have strong, unresolved issues.
1
1
Another, more surprising effect, is that most forms of fear people feel seem to be regulatory. It's there to inhibit "bad" behaviour.
1
Once those inhibitions (the ones that are clearly phony and counter-productive) start to break down, there is a whole lot less fear.
1
2
I feel sadness, anger and other emotions with far deeper intensity and more often than I remember doing before, but I'm almost never scared.
2
1
Even in situations we might think of as intrinsically frightening are not quite frightening when you recognize your feelings as they appear.
1
This has put me in a strange bubble where I am shocked people *don't* react to certain things, and perplexed when they react to others.
1
Much of what we would describe as "genuine" emotion is fear of a situation triggering unwanted behaviour; fear you'll lose control.
1
And much of what is described as overreaction, childishness or "weird" is really how you actually feel.
Replying to
The thing is: it's not a dichotomy. You don't need to either react to emotions or suppress them; society just doesn't know what else to do.
1
When you start deeply feeling your feelings, deeply feeling your pain, it comes about that it usually has a very salient cause.
1
In some cases, the cause can be dealth with. In other cases, the pain can only be accepted or rejected. Rejection makes it worse, so...
1
... in genuine acceptance of what's going on, things either dissolve utterly or come to a sort of stillness. "There is pain. OK, fine."
1
Coming to this sort of calm integration, however, takes time. Emotions produce implicit responses, and you don't really *control* them.
1
So the chaos, the lack of stability, the sense of losing control, the utter bewilderment as you cry or shout or do something unexpected...
1
... is all a normal side-effect of meditating a lot if you have severe distortions in your psychosomatic awareness. Which you do, 99.999%.
1
1
Oh and it's not just about emotions, either. Coping with an issue like, say, chronic back pain or bad balance, also seems to cause trouble.
1
So while they don't tell you "some therapy may be required", it's a common enough result. We can't solve everything by ourselves.
3