Dissolving meditation not working after 8 years

[z00se]

On 29/08/2020 at 11:35 AM, oglights said:

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.

 

Good on you for giving it an amazing effort. Did you enjoy any of the time you spent doing it or not? If so it's been good for you, if not well you have probably wasted your time. Here are some thoughts that you may find helpful.

 

What you are looking for is medicine, energetic or whatever. Any medicine works for a time then stops working and it needs to be altered, if you do anything a long time it will just become another habit and add another issue.

 

What is medicine for one person is not necessarily medicine for another. I can treat 10 people with the same injury but all have different treatment methods because they all have different causes. So try something else. Lets face it even with clinical trials for pharmaciticals there is never 100% success, i think if they hit 60% they are doing pretty well. Even physio.

 

 

On 29/08/2020 at 11:35 AM, oglights said:

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 think you have tried doing it from the book, and with every variation and for quiet a great number of hours. You should be pretty experienced meditator by now, so throw the book and the tape away, you know it off by heart listening/reading it again is only going to bring you back to doing the method in a way that is proven not to work. Ask yourself inside how you can do it in a way that will be more benefitial to you.

 

Something that i think you might find helpful is check in with yourself throught the day. When do you feel worst and when do you feel better? Keep a log and try to work out the things that help and what make you worse. Then it becomes easy and spend more time doing the things that help, thats getting the fruit of meditaiton without meditating, plus you are living not sitting with your eyes closed or whatever.

 

In all honesty if you spend at least 80% of your time purposely doing these things that make you feel better, then leave the other 20% to chance. You eat good food, get good sleep and exercise i think your problems may dissapear.

 

Then if you really want to meditate, when you meditate bring the thoughts and feelings from those good activities into your meditation. Were you gentle? did you do something slow, what is it about these good activities that make you feel better? Bring them into your mediations.

 

 

 

On 29/08/2020 at 11:35 AM, oglights said:

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?

 

To me this is a red flag that this is not the method for you. If BKF said himself that mentally ill people are not worth your time, then what that says to me is he is wasting his time with them because he can't help them. Find something else specifically marketed to mentally ill.

 

On 29/08/2020 at 11:35 AM, oglights said:

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.

 

What is on paper is mostly all sales. What you experience is the truth. So what is on paper is just to entice you to try it, then give it a try. If it doesn't work try something else. I have clients who have tried like 5-6 doctors, specialists, accupuncture, massage, chiro, osteo, etc and then they find help with what i do. I don't claim to be so great, it's just that different things work well for different people. Often clients get fustrated that each professional they seek help from says the problem is due to something else. They are just saying that based on their training and it is true for them. But instead of being fustrated they should be happy that there is a new point of view on the problem, a new opportunity for improvement.

 

There are alot of paradoxes in all of this too though. I spent extensive time doing healing tao like you mayve 3-8hrs a day for 3 years plus most days for another 7 and felt like i was getting so much out of it but did bugger all for original problem i began practicing for. Then did anapana portion of vipassana intensely for a few weeks/days here and there and got massive benefit for my problem, but found it difficult to practice. Healing tao is like sitting down to get high, anapana / vipassana is like sitting down to watch the breath which in comparison is boring as hell.

 

And sorry to just put another spin on it, sometimes there are problems we can just get used to living with. Getting older is no fun and shit happens. I remember seeing Richard Bandler talking about going into mental homes and enableing people to leave simply by having fun with their hallusinations and not taking things so seriously. There are heaps of people living with f**ked up minds, and severely disabled bodies that are doing just fine. Sometimes you can fix something, sometimes the answer is to change your perception and see your problem in a less serious light, or look at the benefits of having your particular problem which can carry you over until the solution for your problem comes into your life.

 

Maybe the solution has come into your life already but you didn't give it a go because you were so sure that this  water method should work. It may have blocked you. Be open to trying lots of different things, sometimes things you don't think will work do work.

[oglights]

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.

Edited September 24, 2020 by oglights

[lrn2livorlive2lrn]

"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."

 

I am not experienced with energy work or any intense systematic meditation so..you know.. keep that in mind

 

You've invested a considerable part of your life to this and you seem to genuinely believe in your damage and energy work of all kinds.

 

Do you find when youre living normally you're actually mentally living normally? Sometimes our mind latch on to our bodies in defense, out of fear and out of insecurity. I don't mean logical fear either, can be trauma can be pressure from expectation or belief. 

How much does this kind of practice mean to your self? Do you feel this practice, in your mind, keeping you from instability or did you in the past?  These kinds of emotional contingencies and conflicts can create tension, instability, fear.  

these kind of changes are often years in the making and they can take some time to resolve and by resolve I mean grow/adapt to new stimulus/direction.

 

I suggest you practice letting go, and just   embrace life, ramp up your hopefully mainly positive experiences so that you learn and stimulate growth over time. I'm not you so I can't know how you think or what your mind feels under what you think, but with time hopefully your mind will find the importance of feeling and find security again. 

 

If that doesn't work

maybe try psychotherapy without drugs if you haven't. One who specializes in chronic emotionally driven pain might have insights that help. 

 

i know that you've tried being normal" for a while but, maybe give it another try and try to relax the conflict and expectation of your mind. Engage as best you can and get life to bring you out again. 

 

What I'm talking about may not be part of your problem and it maybe half of the problem and it may be all of the problem. Idk but I hope you feel better 

[thelerner]

No advice from me.  You are man who's able to endure.

A dude who abides.  That's all anyone can do.

Being sensitive is a real bitch in this world.

You'll find a way out of this and emerge stronger. 

[Leif]

On 24. 9. 2020 at 4:56 AM, oglights said:

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. 

 

So that I don't sound like second grader giving advice to ninth-grader, this is more like free form comment from my perspective than advice: I've spent some time on lightly checking various methods for purposes of troubleshooting, and from the little I have always observed the trend to go "to the basics" in those cases, to minimize instead of maximize, and your idea to learn Tummo reminded me of my learning KAP (kundalini awakening process) few years back - my biggest takeaway was not how to arouse the kundalini energy but how the grounding that's used for troubleshooting. IMHO Tummo here sounds like knocking out the wedge with another wedge, adding fire to the fire, etc. Frankly your situation is far beyond my own imaginations and in this case myself I would consult real master/teacher at any price (not meaning monetary, and master being either someone who can fill-in the pieces missing in the books - as in this case regarding dissolving meditation - or someone who can diagnose your situation and advise how to fix it), throw away any garbage (what didn't work for years so far, what is more of an "energy work" than "healing work", etc.), and concentrate on the simplest basics (I'm sure you have more of those in your repertoire than me to choose from, my go-to methods would be eg. standing meditation ie. zhang zhuang, or Hakuin's butter meditation or any simple meditation that makes one go down from head to foot).
It's example stemming from other type of problem but it's about general principles: people who have huge problems due to kundalini/energy issues, don't get healed by fighting it through yet another high energy practice, but by rooting, going to nature more often, changing diet, getting rid of balast and garbage in life,.....
There is nothing wrong with being an adventurer...but at some point one has too choose between further adventure or healing, and I feel here you might ask yourself whether what you have chosen is further adventure or healing.

[Maddie]

Unfortunately I didn't see this post earlier but when I get patients like this in the clinic (childhood trauma, ect...) the only thing that causes real break through's is needling all or most of the command points for the eight extraordinary meridians. There are usually lots of tears several times, and then things improve. I would suggest seeing an acupuncturist/TCM practitioner that uses this approach. Having the right supporting herbal formulas is important as well.