Emotional Freedom

[loverofall]

Since my whole path started with a mentor on getting emotional free who had some very unique insights, I wanted to start a topic related to this. Enlightenment is complete emotional freedom as I see it to experience anything without suppression or walls.

Detaching is just letting the emotions and thoughts flow through you without sticking. They burn up quicker and quicker the farther I go down this path.

Emotional distance is the comfort level you have getting close enough to other people. As we get closer to a person or someone enters our emotional bubble, all sort of bubbling up can happen. The mind will attempt to put the distance back in to keep the heart protected from pain. I guess this also is the ego raising its ugly head again.

I have experienced this as I close distance with family. When things get too close I can feel irritations growing and can observe this in the other people too with their facial expressions and comments. The need to feel separate is all ego based and I guess the closer we get to others the more threatened the ego mind patterns are.

Emotional distance is put in place by how much emotional pain a person has experienced in life. The more emotional pain the less we ever want to experience the moment and the more we want to control the experience through thoughts, behaviors and creating other emotions.

I am confident enlightenment and emotional freedom all go together. What amazes me is when I think I am so far along that all of a sudden an event will happen and my ego will come out of no where with anger and fear and try to put distance back into my relationships.

Does anyone have experience with these sort of things? Also would it be safe to say the more emotional pain in your past the bigger the ego and the less present you would be?

[souley]

I am a feeler as ZD would say, meaning that I relate primarily through feeling and not thought. That makes me very susceptible to emotions in general. This is a great aid on this path, since resistance and negativity is felt pretty easily, if you try to feel it.

Letting go of resistance for me means to let emotions flow free. We build resistance through emotions by trying to control them with our thoughts. When we pay direct attention to an emotion and try to invite it, thoughts have no chance, and generally we are not as bothered any more.

This is very easy to see in other people once you understand the mechanisms. The people I know who are hardest to relate to definitely are the ones that are most emotionally cut off. Relating to people like this is a great learning experience.. it has taught me a lot but has been pretty painful as well. Basically you can give and give, but their fear will never stop. In one person I can see a relation to past pain, causing this emotional shut-down early in childhood.

But then again I really think that suffering creates pretty good people. If you never get pushed into asking some questions, you can run around conditioned by society until you die. It's all in how we handle it, if we have a tendency to be open or shut.

The opposite of emotional freedom is fear and resistance to the loss of control that emotions bring (we never have any control really), and if you practice to let go of resistance, and see through your thoughts to what is underneath, you can free yourself from it. And without resistance to emotion, without resistance to the world, you are one with the world. There is no longer any you in the sense we normally use the word, there is just life, and being totally open to what it gives.

You might feel that you get clearer and handles situations better, but resistance will come up sooner or later. Interacting with people and never avoiding situations can really help bringing it up. And as LM said sometime, the amounts of resistance can feel endless, but it will go eventually!

[zendancer]

Loverofall and Souley: I agree with you both. I recommend extreme vulnerability coupled with a reasonable degree of discernment. I trust the universe totally, but I am not stupid. If you love, love with abandon. You may get hurt doing this, but if that happens, then feel it 100%. Let it all in. If you become emotionally open, something curious happens. If pain is allowed in fully, it gradually becomes bittersweet, and later turns to joy. It is the exact opposite of what one would expect. I am primarily a thinker, but I do not reject feelings in any way. Remember, everyone is always doing the best they can, even the ones who hurt you. Examine your ideas and see how they contribute to what you feel.

Let's imagine that you fall in love with someone. You love her 100%. You'd like to spend the rest of your life with her. She makes you happy. All you want to do is dance and sing when she is around. Unfortunately, your love isn't reciprocated. You find out that she loves someone else. What agony! What pain! But let it all in. Be 100% sad. Don;t dwell on what should have been; stay in the moment and just feel it all. I guarantee that if you do so, it will burn through you and turn cosmic. You may still love her, but you will be happy if she is happy. You will wish her the best and continue on your way. This is what living life fully is all about. Bring it on!

One time I heard Adyashanti in a satsang telling someone to imagine that they have a flap on the back of their head, and when something hits them in the face to open up that flap and let it pass on through. He said, "Don't let any of it stick to you." He's pointing to the same sort of thing I am in a different way. It all boils down to openess, acceptance, and transparency. Cheers.

[lightmystic]

Yes, the emotional aspect of growth is the hardest for most people. They like understanding it intellectually, because that's safety, but it ultimately cannot really be understood, but more known directly, on the subtlest, most innocent level of our feelings.

So it's really finding emotional safety with those delicate feelings that allows one to truly safely examine what is going on. It's a recognition that could almost be said to be intellectual, but that's the easy part. The hard part is allowing all that fear to be experienced safely, to open to the pain so it doesn't have to hurt and overwhelm, and to be easy with life.

It may not be that intense for many people, but it's the same process either way. Emotional acceptance is the hard part, but it's not blind acceptance. It's complete honesty with one's feelings and experience, and taking full responsibility for the experience every inch as much as it is completely letting go and learning that there is safety with any emotion.

Practically speaking, most of the more intense experiences cannot even be fully accepted and looked at until one directly recognizes that they are Pure Awareness. Because that creates a safety to go look at things that would otherwise be too intense to look at.

So, the emotional aspect is a very very important part of the growth process, and is far too often ignored. But it is also important not to negate the rest of the process (not that I am meaning in any way to imply that you are).

Nov 2, 2009 12:50:56 GMT -5 loverofall said:

Since my whole path started with a mentor on getting emotional free who had some very unique insights, I wanted to start a topic related to this. Enlightenment is complete emotional freedom as I see it to experience anything without suppression or walls.

Detaching is just letting the emotions and thoughts flow through you without sticking. They burn up quicker and quicker the farther I go down this path.

Emotional distance is the comfort level you have getting close enough to other people. As we get closer to a person or someone enters our emotional bubble, all sort of bubbling up can happen. The mind will attempt to put the distance back in to keep the heart protected from pain. I guess this also is the ego raising its ugly head again.

I have experienced this as I close distance with family. When things get too close I can feel irritations growing and can observe this in the other people too with their facial expressions and comments. The need to feel separate is all ego based and I guess the closer we get to others the more threatened the ego mind patterns are.

Emotional distance is put in place by how much emotional pain a person has experienced in life. The more emotional pain the less we ever want to experience the moment and the more we want to control the experience through thoughts, behaviors and creating other emotions.

I am confident enlightenment and emotional freedom all go together. What amazes me is when I think I am so far along that all of a sudden an event will happen and my ego will come out of no where with anger and fear and try to put distance back into my relationships.

Does anyone have experience with these sort of things? Also would it be safe to say the more emotional pain in your past the bigger the ego and the less present you would be?

[souley]

Nov 3, 2009 11:49:42 GMT -5 lightmystic said:

So, the emotional aspect is a very very important part of the growth process, and is far too often ignored. But it is also important not to negate the rest of the process (not that I am meaning in any way to imply that you are).

I read a Harding quote that said something like "If you go about the search only one way, then you will eventually be led around to all other ways by the means of something like traffic conditions". I think that's pretty true, and very cool And I'm not disagreeing with your statement, rather the opposite!

[loverofall]

To fully experience your emotions, you have to create a safe environment which includes thoughts, behaviors and surroundings. I am glad lightmystic pointed out that this process makes all emotions safe since there really is nothing to fear but feelings themselves.

So would the statement be true that the more i realize there is nothing to fear (since there is no separate I and I am not my body or mind and nothing ever dies etc.) the safer and easier it becomes to completely experience all my emotions.

[zendancer]

Loverofall: I don't know anything about creating a safe environment (safe for whom?), but when there is no separate you, then there is no one who needs protection. Recently someone asked Byron Katie at one of her workshops, "How would you feel if your husband left you?" She replied, "It wouldn't disturb my happiness at all. I will always be in love with what is."

Here's a story along the same line. At one point many years ago, I thought that my wife might leave me. She was very angry because I had become a fanatic in my quest for enlightenment. I meditated a lot, went on lots of silent retreats, and talked so much about spirituality that she was afraid I might abandon her like the Buddha abandoned his family. She concluded that I needed to go to a psychology workshop in order to get rid of my resentments and become emotionally open. I told her that I didn't have any resentments. She told me that I was probably in denial. I told her that I had had a happy childhood and couldn't think of a single thing that I felt resentful about. She didn't believe me. I told her that I was familiar with the psychology workshop she was advocating and it held no interest for me. I told her that it was based upon the idea of self-improvement, and I didn;t think I had a self, much less one that needed to be improved. She implied that if I didn't go, then it might be the end of our relationship. Whoa! That was a deadly serious threat! The love of my life, my soulmate, my best friend, the person that I asked to marry me on a third date, and the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with was telling me, in effect, that if I didn't go to the workshop, our marriage might be over. Fortunately, I had already spent nine years on this path, so I knew precisely what to do. I set aside a day when I could be alone, sat down, and began contemplating the issue--a real-life koan. What should I do? I loved my wife, but she was asking me to do something that violated the core of my being. What should I do? I couldn't bear the thought of not being with her, but the cost of our relationship was becoming too great to bear. What should I do? It took seven hours of contemplation, but suddenly a scene from the movie "Forrest Gump" appeared in my mind, and I had my answer. When the girl that Forrest loved, left him, he was in such psychological pain that he started running across the country non-stop, from ocean to ocean. As a result of that movie sequence appearing in my mind, I realized that I could handle any kind of psychological pain that might appear in my life. I, too, could run from coast to coast, or hike the Appalachian Trail, as long as it took to internalize whatever pain occured. The bottom line? I knew that I had to be true to myself. When my wife came home, I told her that I was not going to the workshop, and that I would love her no matter what she decided to do. The issue was out of my hands, and how things proceeded from there was up to God. Amazingly, and to my great happiness, the issue instantly evaporated. My wife could see that although I loved her dearly, I did not need her at any cost, and I was willing to set her free. Ten years later we are still married, but she knows that she is free to leave at any time. If she ever does that, then I'll put on my running shoes (or my hiking boots), leave my business behind, and set off across the country. Whatever plot God wants this story to follow I'm willing to follow.

Your second statement is correct; the more you realize, the more that you will realize that there is nothing to fear, and the more fearless you will become. When you become grounded in self-knowledge, you will act however you must (from your center), regardless of what other people say, think, or do.

Imagine that someone sticks a gun to your head and says, "I am going to kill you." If you are strongly attached to the idea that you are a separate person with a single lifespan, you will probably be afraid. But if you know your true identity, then you will be more curious or compassionate than afraid. You will think, "I wonder what made this person want to do such a desparate thing?" or "I wonder if this is how the story of this body/mind will end?" Byron Katie had this exact thing happen to her, and she writes about it in her book "A Thousand Faces of Joy." Numerous Zen Masters have written about similar experiences. In most cases, the potential murderer sees that the person he has threatened is totally unafraid, and this changes the dynamics of the situation. Many thieves and murderers have had their entire lives changed by one encounter with an enlightened person. The Buddha was once told not to enter a certain forest because of a murderer who lived there (who killed people and cut off their fingers for a necklace he wore). The Buddha immediately went there, met the man, and made a disciple out of him.

The further you go along this path, the more intensely alive you will feel. You won't want to miss anything, good or bad, and you will be grateful for it all. Cheers.



The further one travels down this path, the more fascinated one becomes with how the truth unfolds itself. You want to see and experience everything without filters or protection. You want to be in the center of the action so that you can feel everything.

[alpha]

ZD,I cant speak for others,but for me,your posts are inspiring,no need even to ask questions, theres so much knowledge there, In the example of marriage breakup, you gave good solution,but what about the paralyzing fear of a " breaktrough" in the middle of the night, when ones heart is pounding, J. Kristnamurti oftened asked "where is your anchor", Lightmystic says the same using different words, I went through this and the only good thing I see, is that it gets less frightening as one progresses,
Perhaps the best "anchor" is that "space" that douglas harding talks about...
Ive noticed that all through my life,Ive always "thought" of myself "in relation to someone, or something", Its interesting now to "see" myself totally indepentent of all that, not related to anything, step forward or backward who knows...

[karen]

Nov 3, 2009 19:21:53 GMT -5 alpha said:

ZD,I cant speak for others,but for me,your posts are inspiring,no need even to ask questions, theres so much knowledge there,[snip]

WORD!

[zendancer]

Alpha: This path affects different people in different ways. It can be very frightening to confront the unknown and leave the security of the known behind, but it is often impossible to know how this will affect a particular body/mind. All of us carry different experiences, different thoughts, and different feelings into that space where the known is abandoned. Many people experience violent body responses which are often considered forms of "kundalini." J. Krishnamurti apparently went through a long period of transition which he and the Theosophists interpreted as the preparation of his body for the entry of Maitreya--some sort of cosmic world teacher. This was a crazy idea, but apparently K was wracked with pain, often fainted, and was severely incapacitated for long periods of time. If you read the story of his awakening, you will see that he and the people surrounding him were subscribing to a lot of weird thoughts at that time. UG Krishnamurti also underwent some sort of very painful experience (he described it as being shaken or vibrated) that lasted two weeks, and other Indian teachers have reported similar things. This stuff may be more common in cultures where it is talked about and/or expected.

In my case I experienced several odd things that seemed to be directly related to meditation during the first few years of practice. One night I was meditating on a couch across from a VCR that had a small red light on it. At some point I sensed that some sort of frightening entity was close at hand and that the red light was like a small eye, or portal, through which it might manifest. It felt like that entity was going to materialize in the room with me if I continued to look at the red light and feed it my attention. The sense of that malevolent presence became so frightening that I had to unplug the VCR, and I never again meditated with an electronic light in my line of vision. Today, do I think there was a real entity there? No. I think my own subconscious was projecting something, much like the Krell civilization in the movie "Forbidden Planet" projected a monster generated by their subconscious. Most of this type stuff disappears over time and is apparently junk that bubbles up from below the surface. I had seen the movie Forbidden Planet as a kid, and perhaps that fiery red monster was the basis of what I experienced. Who knows? I read about a Zen student who became so frightened by an image that appeared when he meditated that he had to jump in a tub of icewater to dispel the image. Eventually, the image went away. Sometimes fear generated by the subconscious takes a specific form, as in the above two examples, but some people report a diffuse kind of fear that has no specific form. You can try two or three different things and find out what happens. You can either challenge the fear directly or try to remove it (as I did in my example). If you feel comfortable challenging the fear, then confront it head-on. Invite it in and see what happens. If, like me, it is too frightening to confront, then try some deep breathing and put your attention on the breathing. Or, get up and go eat a snack. Or, go splash some cold water on your face and look at yourself in a mirror. Determine what feels comfortable for you and experiment with it. I suspect that it will go away over time.

I do not know what K was referring to when he asked, "Where is your anchor?" In my case I never felt like there was anything that needed to be anchored, and I simply did whatever felt right at the time. I went through some periods where I felt like I was a dead man walking, but I was sure that it was related to my heavy meditation practice and I assumed that in changing the way the mind worked energy pathways in the body/mind were being affected. I never had any extreme kundalini experiences, and I suspect that the more extreme examples of that (a la UG & J Krishnamurti et al) arise from some cultural conditioning.

AAR, keep us informed about your experiences because it adds to our general knowledge of this sort of thing. Our culture is only now starting to generate relatively large numbers of people interested in this path, and we may have a different range of experiences than those in other cultures. One thing that I discovered in the first few years of meditation is that every single experience in our entire lives is still stored in our neurons. I can't prove this scientifically, but my experiences and those of many others suggest that our entire past history is still present in the brain. If we think about all of the horror movies and violent movies we've ever seen, it is easy to see that we may have a lot of scary material locked in the subconscious that is capable of bubbling to the surface.

In discussing all of this I haven't even touched upon the egoic fear of dissolution, and anyone who has meditated for very long has certainly experienced that kind of fear. The best encouragement that I can give you is that most long-time meditators report that the scary stuff eventually dissipates and they reach a point where fear disappears and is replaced by joy, peace, and equanimity. Take care and keep in touch.

[lightmystic]

Yes, we are all racehorses, trying to run straight, but inevitably just following the racetrack that is perfectly and uniquely designed for us by life in order to get us to the finish line.

Nov 3, 2009 13:50:11 GMT -5 souley said:

Nov 3, 2009 11:49:42 GMT -5 lightmystic said:

So, the emotional aspect is a very very important part of the growth process, and is far too often ignored. But it is also important not to negate the rest of the process (not that I am meaning in any way to imply that you are).

I read a Harding quote that said something like "If you go about the search only one way, then you will eventually be led around to all other ways by the means of something like traffic conditions". I think that's pretty true, and very cool And I'm not disagreeing with your statement, rather the opposite!

[lightmystic]

Hey alpha,

Yes, that step backwards into the unknown. The anchorless anchor. It cannot be grounded in any idea, but it is always there and can be trusted, even though it cannot be pinned down, because it's who we are...

Nov 3, 2009 19:21:53 GMT -5 alpha said:

ZD,I cant speak for others,but for me,your posts are inspiring,no need even to ask questions, theres so much knowledge there, In the example of marriage breakup, you gave good solution,but what about the paralyzing fear of a " breaktrough" in the middle of the night, when ones heart is pounding, J. Kristnamurti oftened asked "where is your anchor", Lightmystic says the same using different words, I went through this and the only good thing I see, is that it gets less frightening as one progresses,
Perhaps the best "anchor" is that "space" that douglas harding talks about...
Ive noticed that all through my life,Ive always "thought" of myself "in relation to someone, or something", Its interesting now to "see" myself totally indepentent of all that, not related to anything, step forward or backward who knows...

[lightmystic]

Yes, I love the recognition that you point to. There is nothing that can be done that will not be able to be healed, as long as one is unreservedly and unconditionally willing to give that to themselves, to give IN to themselves.

And so one can trust that relationship with life, as long as there is the fearless preparation to be true to oneself - even if that means opening up in a way that is frightening in order to receive from life That which is beyond our wildest dreams.

Nov 3, 2009 18:06:37 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Here's a story along the same line.... <snip>

[loverofall]

What about resistance. I get days where there is angst and the understanding I arrived at the best thing you can do is be present with the uncomfortable feelings and just watch them and be aware. Any act to distract is seeking to change and is non acceptance of what is. Am I on the right path with this. I notice at times if I don't distract from uncomfortable feelings, I get tension headaches which I now see the headaches as postive feedback that I am on the right path by not reacting to uncomfortable feelings. I then watch the headaches too until they dissappear. Does this make sense.?

[zendancer]

It makes sense to me and that is exactly what I would recommend. You can't go wrong by staying aware of what is.