Coping with intense grief

[carbonbreath]

I apologize in advance as there have been many similar threads on TTB in the past, especially dealing with negative emotions. I know that most techniques for dealing with negative emotions can be applied to grief/sadness but I was trying to get more insight into the nature of what it is to be sad.

 

I have gone through several years of intermittent depressions that have had different factors and variables involved.   More recently, what has been brought to the surface for me to deal with is a feeling of intense sadness.

 

It is dormant when I am alone, but when I am around other people, especially with friends or at work, it comes up. It gets intensified when I have to speak, as if producing sound amplifies that feeling and projects it outward.  Yet, I have to talk to other people- there's no option- so it gets triggered and activated over and over.  It's the same feeling as the "sting" of rejection or heart-break, but much stronger, and stuck in the "on" position.  Of course, I get worried, because I very much try to hide this sadness from others, but they see it and they feel it, too.

 

I have been trying to let it go using things like EFT, dissolving, plant entheogens, energy work, etc., but it won't budge. It really feels crystallized and anchored and I cannot get to the root of it. It's that feeling that leads to crying, but it feels so malignant and out of place.

 

I realized at some point that all my attempts at releasing it were possibly failing because not much was changing in my life situation. The only conclusion I have come up with is that it's still there because I have not made the necessary life changes to stop triggering it (primary obstacle is financial). However, this goes against most of the spiritual teachings that state that your environment's influence on you is a complete illusion, so the problem is always inwards. However, the more inwards I go and the more I try to resolve it, the more it makes it's message clear that "I am here to stay".  So alright, I'll accept it. Completely. I'll love it, even. But it's still there and it's still painful as hell!

 

I feel that probably my best resort is to keep dissolving and dissolving it, but it won't "hook", if anyone who has done dissolving knows. It's just always there as the default background emotion.

 

I just want to get to the root of this sucker once and for all. I do not think this is a natural state at all, and there is no reason that I should keep putting up with it year after year!

[Jetsun]

The thing which often keeps such emotional things stuck is the process of trying to get rid of them.

[Aetherous]

The only conclusion I have come up with is that it's still there because I have not made the necessary life changes to stop triggering it (primary obstacle is financial). However, this goes against most of the spiritual teachings that state that your environment's influence on you is a complete illusion, so the problem is always inwards.

 

Take care of your financial obstacle. Those spiritual teachings are half true at best...in my opinion, what we do in life has the biggest consequence on the state of our being. Take care of what needs to be taken care of, rather than attempting to ignore real life stuff.

 

Also, it seems that you're making the problem worse by assuming various things...such as people being able to pick up on this grief, which causes you to try and hide it (which of course makes it worse, and pathological), and you believing that it comes out when you speak, etc. The solution to this, is to deny these beliefs and just drop them...do what needs to be done, and don't worry. You need to speak...why think about subtle energetics; just speak and forget about that stuff. What you believe is true can become true in your own perception...so have control over your perceptions, rather than having false beliefs run amok. If a person confronts you about your grief, then just tell the truth...it's normal for people to have feelings. Sometimes what's perceived as grief is really a state of calmness, too. Sometimes a person just has the "resting bitch face". So if someone thinks you look sad, that's just one opinion. Another person might think you look calm. Or another might think you're cool. Don't base your perceptions of yourself on the varying perceptions of others.

 

So yeah my basic message: do what's necessary...be wary of being controlled by delusion, just forget about it.

 

Also, look into doing the 9 round breathing, or 9 purification breaths, from Buddhism. That can help with emotions. But don't rely on it...it's not like any one thing can completely rid you of your feelings. You wouldn't even want that. To feel is to be alive and human. Rise up to the challenge of being alive, rather than feeling run down by these things. In Buddhism they say that it's a mental poison to be attached to feeling good, and to be averse from feeling bad. Of course everyone has a natural aversion to it...but the aversion itself, as Jetsun said, can lead to feeling worse.

[carbonbreath]

Aetherous, that was amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you also, Jetsun

[Daeluin]

Past traumas need to be dissolved to the root.

 

We can track them down mentally through our history, day after day, never letting the trail go until we find their origin like a wild animal and face it down with the full intensity that originated it.

 

Or we can dissolve them via qi gong, guiding our energy via whatever means to dissolve blockages, seal leaks and return to a harmonious inner flow. But as the heavenly winds blow, as the seasons revolve, as the planetary gravities shift, those blockages will want to return again and again, until enough time has past that the pattern has been dissolved from every perspective and can no longer return.

 

It all comes down to maintaining inner sincerity.

 

These traumas are encapsulated energies, and they have an origin. We can clear the surface encapsulations and feel cleared for a time, but as log as the seed remains, it will continue creating new encapsulations, like a cancer cell continuously mutating healthy cells to support it and make it grow bigger.

 

Most of us have these to some degree. We do our work toward healing for a time, and then run into a period of time where we just want to have fun and let go of our sincerity for a little bit. Or when we cave to the pressures we find ourselves facing. Going out drinking for fun or for sadness can't hurt, can it? No, we can do anything we want, it is a matter of maintaining sincerity no matter what we do. Drinking is a great way to weaken our grasp on sincerity, even when we intend to hold onto it.

 

Maintaining sincerity isn't about being overly serious either, as that will only create stiffness and imbalance. We do need to have fun, to lighten up what is heavy in our depths so that it does not stagnate. But sometimes social noise is too overwhelming for laughter to be anything but surface level, and going along with the surface flow leads to surrendering connection to our inner depths.

 

So sometimes, in order to maintain sincerity, the best thing do to is get away from the noise that takes us away from ourselves. Go for a walk in the woods and be one with the body, let the mind settle into the body. Learn to eat time patiently and with equanimity. Equanimity does not mean sealing off from sensitivity, rather, it is the means by which one can handle the increased sensitivity that comes as one returns to being whole. Increased sensitivity requires increased refinement to avoid extremes.

 

If choosing the path of facing the trauma down mentally, and tracking it down in battle, just be careful that the intensity required to clear the trauma more quickly does not create more trauma itself. Perhaps it is best to track things down patiently as time unfolds. Fighting creates and maintains polarity, but we want to dissolve the polarity, balance the extremes. The I Ching recommends balance and gradual progress. Extremes are what cause trauma. Extremes lead to more extremes; what goes up then comes down. Balance evens things out. You are not what you think you are in any moment; you are change itself. Don't look back down the long road of history with judgment - there is no right or wrong - simply discern and accept, and allow the increasing clarity to inform future momentum towards what better serves balance and wholeness. Be patient and see where change leads when guided thusly - this is how one finds and merges with the dao.

[C T]

The best medicine to get rid of your grief is to will yourself to do something good everyday for other people, even if its just establishing a positive visualisation habit. If you cannot do this now, you will never be able to cut the root of your mental impoverishment. Begin by generating the wish that all beings find happiness and connect with the causes of happiness. If you can maintain this mental poise often throughout the day, even if its just for a couple of minutes each time, i assure you within a short period you will glimpse reinvigoration and things will appear brighter and more promising. 

[Spotless]

Look to your heart - higher heart work.

 

You have energy patterns that have been diverted from your heart connection - re-own this connection.

You also have disruption in the throat chakra which greatly translates heart issues as well as head.

Dissolving "deliberately" assumes you know the souce of the problem - an assumption that has not been working - a "doing" that does little.

 

Read up on heart work - breath into your higher heart - some would locate it where your heart is but on the right side - if you are doing Qi Gong and working in this area as well the patterns will reform themselves and you will know quite immediately when this has begun to happen.

 

Fasting can also help at this time.

A good acupuncturist could be a great blessing.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Spotless