Repressed feelings coming to the surface as a result of meditation?

[Unseen_Abilities]

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Edited January 31, 2014 by Unseen_Abilities

[WHITEROOMENERGYMINE1]

Hello T.S.

 

I think the scariest part of going within is finding out how little you may actually know about yourself. One must learn to practice equanimity in all situations or you will allow these dark feelings and emotions to overtake you.

 

This has helped me to get through repressed feelings and enter into subconscious parts of myself that I may never have known existed. It is described in the book The Master Game by Robert S. de Ropp. He calls it the inner film or something along those lines.

 

First you should go within yourself as deep as you feel comfortable. Then you imagine a sort of screen in the field of your vision. From there all you have to do is wait After a while some faint image or scene will enter your awareness and you must objectively observe it. No matter what it is! If you become scared when it first comes up this is good! It means you are onto some deep shit and you must continue to focus on it The key is to remain an observer and nothing more. In this way you can begin to integrate aspects of your subconscious mind into your conscious mind and learn who you truly are on a deeper level.

 

I wish you the best of luck

 

theNERD

[Aetherous]

...book in my signature...

[Nelida]

In my personal experience the most difficult yet most liberating has been the intense confrontation with these aspects of myself or my behaviour, and I think getting through them is one of the, if not the central key to spiritual growth, it is also where most people get stuck, either because it is too difficult or because there is a subconscious unwillingness to go there, but for me the most valuable and most confronting lesson was in realizing that I had to crawl through this shit as deep as it goes, and really look it straight in the eye.

 

This can't be done all at once though, at least, I don't think so...it's like you go through cycles, and when you're in a certain cycle of growth you can deal with some things, but not all of them, I don't mean one aspect, like anger, but more in phases, like recognizing your own reactions and behaviour, then recognizing how they are triggered, or were triggered in the past, then recognizing what may have changed so their influence became smaller in your life, but then you may start to see how, if you're honest with yourself, these triggers have deeper layers that come from somewhere else, then you may start to recognize how these triggers still are in your life and you can view them with more detachment and you are not 'at their mercy' any longer, or maybe you find out that you are, and you realize it takes more....

 

every cycle that you finish, you end up in the same spot, only a little higher, see it as a spiral, and you pass the same place over and over, but ever more upward in the spiral, and the more turns you take in that spiral, the more you grow, in turn number 15 you are able to work with this in a completely different way that when you were in turn 2 or 3, and it is only then that this becomes possible, the option simply wasn't there before, so you have to go through it all, there's no skipping here....

 

Realize that things may take time to come to you, and just work through it all, it doesn't have to be a conscious effort all the time, and what may seem like falling back, into old frustrations or anxiety, always has a purpose, it may show you how things may have changed for you, sometimes I feel like I have learned nothing, back to square one, but in being in this 'old feeling' ( which can scare the crap out of me! ) I may realize that my perception of everything had changed much much more than I was conscious of, and I find myself able to observe what happens, or what happened way back when maybe, or I find I can deal with things in a manner that I couldn't have before.

 

Try not to let it push you out of your flow, it will pass, if you let it come up as it does. Everything happens for you, not to you!

I'm not sure a hard style martial art will help you with this.

 

∞Nelida

Edited September 8, 2012 by Nelida

[Alchemistgeorge]

I'm a newbie at a technique I'm sure many other people on this board know more about than I - the water method - dissolving - its spelled out in "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body" and "Tao of Letting Go" - both by Bruce Frantzis.

 

Briefly, you stand in wuji posture (google it if necessary) and slowly scan down your body starting from above your head to under your feet, where ever in your body you notice tension, blockage, strength, weakness, etc. you surround it with your attention and allow it to dissolve. If it won't dissolve, or only partially dissolves, move on. No force, no effort, just alert attentiveness. I think of it like watching a sugar cube in a glass of water - you don't have to use any effort - the water does the dissolving - infinitely gentle.

 

Lots of stuff will come out - you just allow it to go - it dissolves.

 

Now that I have a bit of practice at it, if a strong emotion comes up during the day I step out and stand for three or four minutes and do one pass of dissolving - that pretty much handles it now. Like most things it works better the more practice you have and the more regularly you do it.

[RiverSnake]

Keep going T.S. This is a sign of progress and not of regression.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

[Unseen_Abilities]

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Edited January 31, 2014 by Unseen_Abilities

[Alchemistgeorge]

I have been meditating lately, and I've been feeling more anger, darkness, and anxiety than I have for a long time - I used to feel these feelings quite a bit, and I thought I'd dealt with them, but apparently a lot of it has just been getting pushed down into my subconscious mind. I've heard of this happening (meditation bringing such feelings out of the subconscious) but I don't really know how or why it does, or how to deal with it.

T.S., maybe I'm missing something here - or maybe you are having a different experience than I have. My experience from standing and dissolving is that I sometimes get really emotional - its all OLD stuff - and as far as I can tell - once its out, it is gone. So there is no "how to deal with it" needed - its been dealt with.

 

For example, the first layer of stuff was like an inventory of every place on my body where I'd ever been hit - since I've done a fair amount of martial arts that took a while.

 

The only "problem" I've had is that sometimes a couple hours after standing/dissolving I would find myself full of some awful feeling - and I would just feel awful - like trying to walk uphill through 4 feet of liquid clay, with the flu. This would last for an hour or two. The first couple times I had no idea what it was, eventually I realized it was a release and it was caused by my dissolving. It took me a bit to realize I could just stand - right then - and dissolve and release that awful feeling energy. And now pretty much anytime I have a lot of unwanted emotion, I can stand and dissolve, (or sit and dissolve), and I get my equilibrium back.

 

After a while, I've come to realize that its really true - my emotions are just body sensations, and I judge them to be good or bad.

 

And I am not the victim of my emotions, I am not their bitch, they aren't doing it to me.

 

this dissolving stuff is pretty f-ing awesome (imho)

 

It doesn't seem like anything further needs to be done with the old stuff. I still have the memories, it seems like what I've done is to dissolve off the emotional energy that was bound into them.

 

And the more I do, the more alive I feel.

 

I am also realizing how angry I have been for so much of my life

 

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*OK, neither of these guys were Taoists, but they said it better than I can:

• "For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." William Shakespeare, Hamlet
  
• "Men are not disturbed by things, but the view they take of things." Epictetus (55-135 A.D.)
  

** I am beginning to suspect that mostly I am the author and director of my own life. Damn.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Alchemistgeorge

[Unseen_Abilities]

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Edited January 31, 2014 by Unseen_Abilities

[Jetsun]

Repression happens when emotions emerge which threaten your sense of self and your attachment to the image you have of yourself, it is difficult to deal with but if you are taking the path of meditation then the advice is when such emotions emerge just witness them so you don't express them and you don't repress them either, so they are not too close but they are also not to far away. Over time if you are enquiring into who you really are your sense of self should expand and become more fluid so there will be less need to repress anything.

[Unseen_Abilities]

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Edited January 31, 2014 by Unseen_Abilities

[Maddie]

Keep going T.S. This is a sign of progress and not of regression.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

 

I just thought I'd second that ;-)

Edited September 10, 2012 by dmattwads

[Boy]

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Edited October 11, 2012 by Boy