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Post by loverofall on Nov 16, 2009 21:19:28 GMT -5
From an emotional perspective emotional control is the whole problem. Deep emotional pain or lack of connection with parents as a child causes the child to control their experience through thoughts, behaviors and "created emotions". If you are creating anxiety or frustration through thoughts and then relieve them you are controlling your experience. Its a form of emotional protection. By creating emotions and relieving them you are never truly present which in my opinion is the vast majority of people. EFT can definitely help get through resistance to becoming present and emotionally free.
Distractions that are positive will work very well on this path. Excercise, EFT or meditation are all effective ways to feel more because they make your emotional environment safer to feel. Its harder to control your feelings if your environment is safe.
It is my opinion that is why enlightenment is so powerful and related to emotions. You come to a realization there is never any reason to fear anything so you become completely emotionally free and willing to feel anything. Fear and control are the opposite.
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Post by lightmystic on Nov 17, 2009 14:28:15 GMT -5
Sounds like a good pointer to me.  Our subconscious contains everything, so there's no telling what will bubble up during REM sleep. It is quite obvious to everybody that there is no one controlling the dreams. On the other hand, we like to think that we control our thoughts. Could dreams be a "built-in pointer" that we don't control our thoughts either? |
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Post by lightmystic on Nov 17, 2009 14:30:12 GMT -5
Yeah, controlling anything, especially emotions, leads to problems. Only because it doesn't work. Emotions tend to be the hardest to deal with because they can feel threatening. But I know that it can be realized that feelings are safe. There is great joy and comfort in that. I think it cannot have real safety, though, until there is a shift in identity. Otherwise, it gets messy. A bit like trying to hammer a stuck nail with a paper napkin... From an emotional perspective emotional control is the whole problem. Deep emotional pain or lack of connection with parents as a child causes the child to control their experience through thoughts, behaviors and "created emotions". If you are creating anxiety or frustration through thoughts and then relieve them you are controlling your experience. Its a form of emotional protection. By creating emotions and relieving them you are never truly present which in my opinion is the vast majority of people. EFT can definitely help get through resistance to becoming present and emotionally free. Distractions that are positive will work very well on this path. Excercise, EFT or meditation are all effective ways to feel more because they make your emotional environment safer to feel. Its harder to control your feelings if your environment is safe. It is my opinion that is why enlightenment is so powerful and related to emotions. You come to a realization there is never any reason to fear anything so you become completely emotionally free and willing to feel anything. Fear and control are the opposite. |
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Post by loverofall on Dec 17, 2009 15:57:36 GMT -5
I am learning to close emotional distance with others and what really rocked me was how quick separating thoughts can come. I have learned that these thoughts are just the mind trying to keep control and protect the heart.
I understand now why loving who ever is in your life at this moment is a perfect way to undo the ego. Any self defense or walls you have built from previous pains in life come to the surface in nanoseconds. Just the thought of accepting someone with all their faults and not wanting them to change triggers thoughts of everything you want them to change and what you don't like. I guess its the same with any reality. The mind looks to change what is instead of accept. Except the worst pains most people have felt emotionally in life is from other people so by accepting and loving those closest to you and bring them closer challenges your deep fear of losing emotional control and being vulnerable to deep emotional pain.
I know the advaita types can say just see you are the sun and all these thoughts are just clouds and there is not anything to seek or do they haven't experience this type of resistance I have coming from some childhood traumas. There is no doubt there is work to do to clear enough clouds away to see the sun.
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Post by karen on Dec 17, 2009 22:36:51 GMT -5
Yeah, there's work to be done and people to be.
But for me I think its more about when those painful feelings come up - be there and accept them etc.. But when waiting for the elevator or whatever - that's the time to be the sun. All the other times.
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Post by loverofall on Dec 18, 2009 0:55:10 GMT -5
Good point.
Its the more your stuff gets hit and the more you can watch and detach the quicker things pass and the clearer the sky gets.
I remember reading one of the teachers reviewed here where he had to back into regular life to finally see it.
When I remember, asking to whom do these thoughts and feelings come always causes a shift but when those deep patterns get hit perspective is lost and I can't even remember for a few moments to ask that question. Its like a dialogue starts up. I don't like this, I am mad I am sick and tired etc. and then I see I am in my own pattern and start coming out of it to where I can ask a question like who is feeling and thinking this. Sometimes it takes longer because I am pulled by the emotion that I think screw that enlightenment crap right now, I am mad. LOL.
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Post by karen on Dec 18, 2009 2:10:53 GMT -5
I've really been getting this resting in awareness business people have been talking about. It occurred to me when listening to a teacher talk about how "luminous this is". The only thing that is close to being luminous and ever fresh with me is awareness.
The next day I was on my 11th hour of seasonal work, and I was tired. But its quite amazing to think about how crisp and solid that awareness is even when completely beat. I recall now, how when I was a child, sitting there in the living room - how when my mind would drift off the volume in the room would shoot up - I wondered about that even then as a child.
So anyway, I've been reaching into my perception and then kinda like dig into it down into the base as much as possible: putting my attention onto it like a koan just hanging there as much as possible as often as possible wherever I remember to.
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Post by lightmystic on Dec 18, 2009 16:38:11 GMT -5
Definitely, and you can also appreciate your separating thoughts as just simply thoughts as well. It's okay to have them, as I find that it's really just the putting stock in them that hurts. It's also totally okay to not like something about someone. If you give permission to others to be exactly as they are, it's important to give ourselves permission to be exactly as we are. Ironically, some of my most intense feelings of universal love came flooding in when I stopped trying like people that I did not. The simple admission to myself that I did not like them brought forth a rush of complete universal love for them, even though I still did not like them on the personal level. But that impersonal love remains, because I admitted to myself what was true for me.... Honesty about ones own feelings are so powerful.....and I'm not talking about a story as to WHY we feel how we do (we can come up with any excuse for that), but simply honesty about what the feelings are themselves....the story is simply something the mind tacks on at the end to try to make sense of things. After all, that's what the mind does: tells stories.... I am learning to close emotional distance with others and what really rocked me was how quick separating thoughts can come. I have learned that these thoughts are just the mind trying to keep control and protect the heart. I understand now why loving who ever is in your life at this moment is a perfect way to undo the ego. Any self defense or walls you have built from previous pains in life come to the surface in nanoseconds. Just the thought of accepting someone with all their faults and not wanting them to change triggers thoughts of everything you want them to change and what you don't like. I guess its the same with any reality. The mind looks to change what is instead of accept. Except the worst pains most people have felt emotionally in life is from other people so by accepting and loving those closest to you and bring them closer challenges your deep fear of losing emotional control and being vulnerable to deep emotional pain. I know the advaita types can say just see you are the sun and all these thoughts are just clouds and there is not anything to seek or do they haven't experience this type of resistance I have coming from some childhood traumas. There is no doubt there is work to do to clear enough clouds away to see the sun. |
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Post by loverofall on Dec 18, 2009 20:23:58 GMT -5
Karen: The resting with awareness really resonates with me too. No points of view and short moments are great words for me. I just need to put reminders around me so I do it more often. It seems the more I am reminded or pointed back the better. I was thinking of using technology more like automated texts to my cell and such. I wonder if anyone has any ideas on that side of things.
Lightmystic: Excellent clarity for me in your reply. I can accept a person and the feelings of dislike and the separating thoughts. The story thought at times comes on so hard. If only I had an electric buzzer for emergencies where I could zap myself to break the pattern that takes hold. The patterns are strong and awareness breaks them down but time and effort are still involved on this part.
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Post by souley on Dec 20, 2009 10:47:09 GMT -5
Yeah well it takes a while, I also had this practice where I would remind myself as often as possible to just step back and be aware. At some point I had a periodic alarm on my cellphone. Now I don't need that as much, at a certain point I started falling into being aware, as I previously would only fall into thoughts. Now it's back and forth:) Its like you have to very deliberately and forcefully start the trend of being aware as often as possible, but after a while (could be months, years) it gets a good momentum For me it was very important to do this in everyday life, maybe stepping out while in the most stressed situation, not just in a silent meditation session far away from the chaos. |
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Post by zendancer on Dec 20, 2009 12:55:02 GMT -5
Souley: Yep, the "everyday life" aspect is a biggie. Silent meditation in a quiet place is helpful in the beginning, but sooner or later we have to shift awareness to the here and now of whatever is happening in the workaday world. No past, present, or future. No imagination. Just this.
After we discover (in an embodied way) that we are "what is," then we can imagine all we want; imagination no longer has the power to make us believe that there is any "other."
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Post by lightmystic on Dec 21, 2009 10:59:57 GMT -5
Hehe, well I think that with some attention, motivated by the recognition that, difficult as it may be, it truly gets us out of suffering, the change in old old habits will come.... Karen: The resting with awareness really resonates with me too. No points of view and short moments are great words for me. I just need to put reminders around me so I do it more often. It seems the more I am reminded or pointed back the better. I was thinking of using technology more like automated texts to my cell and such. I wonder if anyone has any ideas on that side of things. Lightmystic: Excellent clarity for me in your reply. I can accept a person and the feelings of dislike and the separating thoughts. The story thought at times comes on so hard. If only I had an electric buzzer for emergencies where I could zap myself to break the pattern that takes hold. The patterns are strong and awareness breaks them down but time and effort are still involved on this part. |
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Post by jimmytantric on Jan 15, 2010 6:08:36 GMT -5
Do you think God got emotional when Haiti recieved the earthquake-or the tsunami hit or Katrina? Emotions are self centered-due to a thought process. Who is emotional? You are living in the Phenomenal/relative plain of Maya a superimposition of Bhraman who is not effected by any physical occurence. YOU are Bhramin-Read Maharshi-Shankaras Crest Jewel ot Pointers-Nisgardatti-it's all ther. Good luck
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Post by zendancer on Jan 15, 2010 9:06:32 GMT -5
Jimmy: What you wrote represents an intellectual understanding only. Do you think awakened people do not have emotions or that emotions are only self-centered? I can assure you that emotions continue after one wakes up. In fact, yes, God gets emotional after earthquakes and tsunamis! To understand this statement you have to understand what God is. God is not some impersonal entity that stands outside of reality. That is an idea. The truth is alive.
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Post by loverofall on Jan 30, 2010 21:43:53 GMT -5
I haven't been posting because I have been working hard on this. What I mean by working hard is challening patterns I have in place. I push myself to be uncomfortable. This is a path of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. I won't call a feeling bad anymore since that creates resistance and a desire to be rid of the feeling. Uncomfortable feelings are that and they can be welcomed. As soon as resistance appears, I am being grateful for the resistance and does that push you through patterns quicker.
If I start coasting by looking for distraction I pull myself back to now by saying "I want this".
I also have realized how much I think I own feelings and thoughts and as soon as I think I don't own this body, this feeling, this sensation, it becomes much easier to let go.
Doing the uncomfortable and desiring it seems to be working because my mind has quieted down so much. Things that used to bother me are getting less and less and if they do bother me I get excited because it is an opportunity to welcome another uncomfortable feeling. I can see now how the mind wants to get rid of pain all the time with any distracting thought, feeling or behavior. (on another note I lost 20lbs learning to not use food as relief). I was amazed at how much I use thinking about food, eating food and feeling full as ways to trap feelings. Its been wild but great. Cheers!
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