oglights

Hi guys, I’m at a bit of a loss here. I have been into the “spiritual awakening” scene since 2008. In 2012 I discovered Bruce Kumar Frantzis’ “The Tao of Letting Go” series, aka, the water method or “dissolving meditation”. I must have listened to the audiobook at least 100 times now, practically knowing it by heart by now, as well as much of his other material. I have been putting in 30 minutes to 5 hours of practice time per day since discovering it in 2012, and unfortunately, I have little to nothing to show for it. On an intellectual level, the concept and the technique makes perfect sense yet when I apply it in real life, it just doesn’t seem to have much of an effect. Admittedly, I am probably a hard case as I have layers of incredibly painful emotions and traumas due to neglect and low self-esteem, but you would think with all the work I have put into it, it would have paid off by now. For those that know the technique, it will take me anywhere from 2-3 hours to get through a few centimetres from the top of my had, as every square inch is blocked. On some occasions, if I manage to “relax” that area, the moment I get triggered with some kind of fear, the whole area tightens up and it’s back to square one. I have divided my time in different ways and gone farther down the body to the top of my feet, however it seems that the time required to dissolve every square inch of myself would take hundreds if not thousands of years…. If you take into account the amount of frustration the lack of results causes me, you can multiply that by 100x. I swear I have given it literally all I have, and have tried every little tiny variation in technique I could find. I read the case of Jane Alexander who managed to cure her severe mental illness from using this method, and my hats off to her, that is amazing. All I could get from this experience is that there is something seriously flawed with me, because I have also gone the rounds of pretty much every healing method available under the sun (including heavy duty doses of psychedelic medicines) and have gotten next to nothing out of it. I have applied the method to concrete "agendas" such as grief, and anger, and fear, and even after spending months on a single "energy", there is simply no transformation. Everything within my being, on an energetic level, is exactly the same as before I started. The level of pain and suffering is exactly the same if not higher due to the feeling of desperation/frustration. Yes, of course I know all about the Wu-Wei principle, in that the more you try and the more you want it, the less you are apt to get it. But I have spent years also, "not trying", and applying this reverse principle, and accepting, and letting things be, and it makes no difference in the end, as pain is pain and suffering is suffering. There was recently a private broadcast where BKF said something akin to “stay away from mentally ill people, they are not worth your time” which I just tried to ignore (I have severe depression, anxiety, etc.) but it really severed my connection to this lineage and method, but for whatever reason I am still persevering and putting in the daily practice… perhaps I should give up? Maybe this is a case of the right means being applied by the wrong person, and with all due respect to BKF, I am sure he would suggest I go look elsewhere. I have left out a lot of information specifically about how I practice and my experience with other methods due to brevity, but this is the gist of it. Honestly, I have not come across a seemingly better method (at least on paper) than the water method, and I am unbelievably disappointed that I am not getting anything out of it. I don't mean to sound like an ungrateful bastard. I know that there are no guarantees in life, and that I should not have any expectations. It should be enough that it works for some people, and I know that I should leave it at that. However, I cannot help but feel what I feel, too

I am embarrassed that I am still not able to do this even after many years of serious and devoted practice. Whenever a thought occurs, whether I “observe” it, ignore it, or whatever else strategy I use (it seems like I have tried everything), I still always get pulled in by it. I seem to have no way of separating myself from my experience. All of my thoughts seem to be “huge” and overpower me. They produce an emotional reaction (usually anxiety), no matter how much I try to objectively observe them as a detached watcher. I do not feel much “space” between thoughts, because observing one thought just provokes another, and each thought provokes an emotional reaction that makes this worse. Observing the emotional reaction does not seem to do me any good either. When I observe my emotions, they do not dissipate- there is either no change, or they get more intense. At this point I am wondering if there is anything inherently wrong with my brain. To be honest, I have been meditating for over a decade and regularly put in several hours of meditation a day (usually 1-4 hours per day, as hard as that might be to believe). I have experimented with many methods over the years. I finally decided to do the “waking up” app, and have been following it religiously for a minimum of 1 hour per day for a month now, and I have not noticed any improvement whatsoever. The problem is, is that I get “entangled” in my mindstream regardless of what I do. I still have not been able to accomplish anything with the “watch the watcher”, either. So whether I put in 1 hour of almost all of my effort to be present, mindful, and follow the instructions, or I just let my mind do whatever it wants, the end result is pretty much the same at the end of the session. One thing to note is that I do suffer from severe depression and anxiety, and am in an almost constant state of being overpowered by either anger, fear, or sadness. I have tried every conceivable form of treatment and therapy over the years with no improvement in this regard. The ONLY thing that has ever worked for me over all these years is the “mind stopping” technique, which I am surprisingly able to do quite well. I am able to somehow completely shut out almost all thoughts, or stop them as soon as they appear. When I do this for 20-30 minutes, then I am FINALLY able to experience some semblance of inner space, and of the layers of consciousness and peace that are located beneath the surface waves. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be a viable method of meditation in the long term, because it does not enable me to deal with the inevitable thoughts when they appear. I understand that I should let go of my expectations regarding meditation, but I figure if I have not had any improvement after a decade of dedicated practice, then I am most likely doing something wrong- or there is something wrong with my brain. Tl;dr, I cannot stop “reacting” to thoughts, no matter how hard I try- any advice?

Yes, focusing exclusively on the space between thoughts does help. I have not had much luck in being "aware of awareness"- my brain does not seem to compute that command no matter how many angles I try to experience it from. I have been primarily using the "Tao of Letting Go" or "Inner Dissolving" method, which focusses almost entirely on the body's energy and gives no importance whatsoever to thoughts themselves- however, I am having trouble with that because the thoughts themselves take up such a large part of my awareness.

Yes, that is basically what I end up doing, however, there is no progress in my inner state or my daily life after many years. So, I know that I shouldn't have any expectations, but how do I move forward?

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I have done that, but it still creates a vicious circle of reacting-to-reacting. My main problem is that I am not able to just observe a thought as a thought. I react to every thought as if I believe it, even though I know it is not necessary true. Even if I refuse to believe the thought, I still react to it, and I cannot find a way out of this. Then, I have tried simply observing my reaction to the thought, and I (my body) reacts to that as well.

Hey guys, Thanks to all of you for your amazing replies. I apologize that I have not replied to each and every one of them. The main issues I am attempting to resolve is a combination of extreme emotional pain, along with severe energetic aberrations within my body that cause entire sections to feel constricted, numb, and like tight rubber bands made of scar tissue. Before my mental issues began (they started abruptly in young adulthood), even before I knew anything about inner cultivation, I remember feeling sensations of energetic flow within my entire body, and even my head that felt so free, open, smooth, alive, and blissful. Everything felt totally "right". I have unfortunately never been able to feel those sensations again (It’s been 12 years) as my body has become an energetic wreck and does not seem to improve with age. One of the most disturbing things occurring within my inner body is that I am no longer able to feel the warmth of love in my chest area. It is not just that the emotion is gone, it is that something feels physically wrong in my thoracic area. I can feel my Kundalini energy rise up from the bottom of my spine and then it gets entirely blocked in the liver area, and does not go any higher. Whenever I try to recall the sensation of love (I was once able to do this), my chest simply tightens and feels like a giant knot of scar tissue- it does not even feel like emotional pain, it feels like a physical knot. Some little specks of the feeling of love can arise here and there but only at a tiny fraction (perhaps 5-15%) of what I was once able to feel. For those that are familiar with psychedelic medicines- I have taken huge dosages (in a shamanic setting) of some of the most powerful entheogens, and even they do absolutely nothing to resolve the knots in the chest. There is not even any insight as to what is causing them. I will go into a full-blown psychedelic landscape, but my experience will only reflect those areas that have energetic circulation (and my thoughts). Even when I have taken pure MDMA, I did not get that “full” sensation in the chest area like I once had. The second problem is that I have three chronic emotions that go all the way to 11, all the time, and there is nothing I can do about it. Once they get "triggered" they get stuck for hours, which makes social interactions a land-mine, and largely to be avoided. The biggest one, even worse than fear and anger, is grief. I feel a full on, EXTREME sensation of grief that gets balled up in my throat area and is literally so strong that it causes physical pain. I even had to consult a specialist recently to make sure there was not a tumor because that is what it felt like. It gets worse in social situations and subsides when I am alone, but it is always there. Because it is always there when I am with others, it has made relationships and communication extremely difficult, if not impossible for me. Speaking is painful, because as soon as I produce sound with my mouth or say any words, the “carrier wave” for what I am communicating is pure grief. Even if I pretend to laugh or be enthusiastic, what I feel, what others feel, and the main thing that is communicated is that grief. As soon as I produce sound, it activates the grief full throttle, so it literally hurts to speak. That is why in my day to day life, I talk very little, in fact, I try to speak as little as possible. I have been able through occasional trance states and when I am lucky, stop my thoughts for extended periods of time while communicating, reduce the grief, but it does not fix the underlying problem, and it always returns. I have spent a long time trying to accept that there is only so much I can do about these emotions and painful sensations. I live with them day to day, but the fact is even with my greatest amount of acceptance and self-compassion, they severely restrict and handicap my ability to live, and they make relationships pretty much impossible. These problems were not only caused by my mental illness, but also compounded by a couple of “yogic injuries” I have sustained early in my practice doing risky energetic work (such as shooting energy up the spine upon orgasm) which are so bizarre, seemingly unlikely, and hard to explain, that I have never been able to find a specialist that could understand or treat it. I have seen a ton of energy healers, acupuncturists, herbalists, etc. Consensus says that those types of yogic injuries subside and resolve themselves with time, but mine have proven to so far been permanent, with absolutely no improvement. The sensation of my thoracic area being full of scar tissue, being unable to feel love, and the energy getting stuck in the liver area, is mainly the result of said yogic injury which occurred 8 years ago. All in all, these issues have made improving in the spiritual domain very difficult, because they have taken the forefront. Honestly, I have been looking very hard to find that “right” screwdriver that I can use to go and tinker those itches that I just can’t seem to scratch no matter what I do. At times, I wonder the extent to which my belief system has an effect on these blockages. However, I have reached a couple of “high points” in my life during the last several years, where I was able to (temporarily) reprogram my beliefs and self-talk and live a decent life, but the emotional problems and yogic injuries were still there just as intense. It was just that I had strengthened every other aspect I did have control of so it made it more manageable. Unfortunately, that proved to be unsustainable. I have given the Wim Hoff method a fair try as well (completed the 10 week program), and I’ve done every kind of therapy and medication, and they don’t get to the root of the issue either. I have also practiced internal martial arts (bagua, hsing-i, tai chi), and I do qigong almost daily. I have tried many method of qigong, sometimes practicing up to 2 hours a day, but they too, do not get the energy flowing through the blockages either. The dead zones just stay dead. They literally feel like balls of dead tissue, as I can feel the energy going around them, pushing the blockages around like you would physical tissue. That is why I had so much hope in the dissolving method, which by the way, is not just a technique. BKF claims that it was passed down by Lao Tzu himself and is used as a complete spiritual system which can take you all the way to enlightenment by dissolving any and all blockages in all 8 energy bodies if used long enough. So yes, I have this immense frustration of having all of these excruciating blockages that I can very keenly sense but can do nothing about. There is also some possibility that I have sustained some kind of brain and/or nerve damage and will never recover sensation to those areas. The problem with these issues is that they fundamentally alter and limit what I am able to feel and express, therefore, my entire life has been narrowed and constricted. My personality now is completely different than it used to be (for the worst), especially due to the inability to feel love. People largely perceive me as being cold and lifeless, and don't want much to do with me. I can still remember days when I used to be the charismatic life of the party, and the pain it causes me to no longer be able to feel that is immense. All that, not to mention, the crippling clinical depression and anxiety that’s also in the background. Another fun thing that occurs is that any time I get the slightest fear or anxiety response, my entire body tenses up and entirely erases any progress I made in relaxing and dissolving any blockages. I could be meditating for an hour and have a sudden fear response, and end up right back where I started, my body constricted tightly on itself because that's just what it does now. Last tangent: At the beginning of my cultivation practice, when I just started the inner dissolving method, I was on a daily regimen of benzodiazepine medication (tranquilizers), which relaxed my body to a point that the inner dissolving practice actually worked. It actually worked as it should- within a few minutes I could dissolve entire layers of energy. The benzos, for a period of time, enabled me to live and experience new things. Unfortunately, they are not meant to be taken long-term. I had to stop them after a few years and even after tapering for a lengthy period of time, they left my organism hyper-sensitive to stimuli, and it is since that time that I have not been able to dissolve any blockages. (it has also been 8 years since I stopped the benzos, and I do not feel like I have ever fully recovered, which is not uncommon) Also, yes, I *have* tried just doing nothing (no meditation or energetic practices) and just living a normal life, for several months at a time, and that produces no change or difference whatsoever. At this point in my life, I have come to accept that what I am here to learn is how to cope and endure, and have grace with what is occurring. It has brought out an incredible amount of frustration, hopelessness and despair because it’s like unresolvable issue on top of unresolvable issue which creates a whole energetic clusterfuck of a mess which leaves me in a freeze response, not knowing what to do next. I hope I have not painted myself as some kind of “poor-me” victim, or trying to win a “who has it hardest” contest, as I simply tried to describe the situation as accurately as I could. Right now, I am still very active despite my difficulties. I still meditate 1-3 hours a day, do my qigong, eat well, sleep well, work full time, exercise, etc. I spend almost all of my free time devouring books on self-help and spirituality. I read for hours daily, learning as much as I can. Throughout the years I have amassed an incredible amount of intellectual knowledge on spirituality, very little of which I am physically able to apply. My next idea is to attempt to somehow learn T'ummo, as apparently you can gain control of the central (vagus) nerves, which seem to be where my problem originates. See that's the difficulty, it's a real shot in the dark and I have no idea if it will help. I think it is worth trying. Problem is I don't know any teachers, and learning the inner workings seems very daunting and complicated, and there is some level of risk. What I am secretly hoping for is that one day, I will have an experience of sudden grace where these blockages will open up and I will experience the full flow of energy throughout my body like I did up until my early adulthood years. Perhaps I am deluding myself, but one cannot discount the possibility.

Thanks for having me. I am a huge fan of all things Tao. Seems like the right place!