Arman

Meditation does passively resolve the traumas of the body but if you want to overcome the roots of your apathy I suggest that you take an active as well as passive approach. It seems to me like you are after something more active and penetrative. I suggest The Presence Process by Michael Brown.

@Epiphany_Inspired hope you're doing well! Last night I found myself fallen into a very dark/upset place and was kind of overrun by negative emotions. I kind of stumbled into a spontaneous exercise that really helped and it made me think of you. I'll recount it cos I think you may find the exercise interesting/useful: I was basically laying in bed like an angry baby with my face into the pillow. I think we are partly trained to avoid certain kinds of thoughts, feelings or behaviors because we deem them as ineffective, unspiritual and as something that we 'should not' do, and I guess that causes resistance, because as I started to allow myself to think certain thoughts, the layers of resistance began to unravel. I have a habit in which when I am upset, I just kind of eat whatever I want as an expression of anger or whatever. Like indulgence. "Fuck it, I'm gonna eat like 8 snickers bars." and so I kind of did the 'thinking' version of indulging in whatever thoughts or behaviors I wanted. I asked myself, "What do I really, really want to do right now?" and I had a thought, (and don't take what I thought too seriously or worry, it was just the flavour/expression of the negativity place I was in, and not how I usually feel) . The thought that wanted to come up was "I want to kill myself out of SPITE so as to prove that the universe really does suck, a kind of middle finger to all the forces at large who promote optimism... yeah... a victim of positive thinking" As I allowed myself to feel/think that thought (express myself), suddenly I laughed because the idea of someone killing themselves from positive thinking was absurd. I felt a little bit of relief. Then I kind of repeated the exercise and I said, If I could do anything right now or express myself in any way, what would it be? The energy in me was now slightly softer. Sometimes I think some youtube-gurus are a little too positive or airy fairy (a thought I think I suppress because I tell myself I shouldn't think badly of others) and so the thought that came to me was "I hope they're all EXPOSED!!!" and as I allowed myself to really think that thought, suddenly I realized that actually I don't want that, because they're just lovely people doing their best and suddenly where there was hate, was now some love coming through. Interestingly it was in repressing that thought that it maintained its negative energy - allowing myself to express it allowed it to transform. Allowing myself to feel that thought (expressing it) released it. Another layer of energy dissolved as I appreciated that even in that space I could feel some love. That once more softened the feeling inside of me and I took a few nice breaths, I repeated the exercise once more "If I could do anything or express myself in any way right now, what would I do?" Now the energy was I really wanted to punch something and scream - but because I live with other people I can't really do that - so what I did was I visualized myself screaming and punching, and with the visualization I kind of physically enacted a 'quiet' version of my visuals. It was still fairly physically intense to act out. So in my minds eye I screamed, yelled, threw punches at a punching bag until I had emptied my lungs. In ""real life"" my body was tensing, and I was inhaling and exhaling in rhythm with the visualization. I often feel like I can't quite up-heave all the anger and frustration, like I want to explode but it doesn't want to arise. By 'acting out' with the visualization, much more was able to come up and though I wasn't truly yelling, I felt like I was getting a similar level of release. I felt a lot of relief. Note that I am not necessarily doing anything during these exercises, just kind of acting them out through thoughts, visualizations and physiology by moving and working with breath and muscles. Once again there was a layer of resistance dissolved, the heavy angryness seemed to dissolve. To cut a long story short, I kept repeating the exercise - after that I simply felt like moving all my body in a crazy loose fashion like someone having a seizure, so I stood up and did that. Repeating the exercise, I wanted to yell at my guides and ask them why they are distant, so in my mind I did - that brought up tears and sadness. I repeated it again, then I wanted to express all the thoughts about the things I'm unhappy with in my life (negative talking is repressed in new-age spirituality so another form of repression) and that brought more relief. Amazingly, after I kept doing this and expressing the different layers and allowing them to dissolve, suddenly a thought came that I wanted to just dip my hands in paint and place them on a white canvas, so in my minds eye I did. Then the thoughts got nicer, and easier. This really gave me an appreciation of expression as a way to release and dissolve. Hope that helped, maybe you can try this type of thing on yourself some time. The cool thing about it is you don't actually have to leave your room or break anything. Go buckwild in your imagination and allow yourself to think, feel and do whatever comes up - and you can meet the visualizations half-way with your body if you like to facilitate it.

I used to experience constant yawning during my meditation practices years ago. I would sit and while breathing, I would yawn, and yawn, and yawn, until my eyes were watering. If someone walked in on my it would look like I was crying. I would also experience discomfort in the breath like I could not fill my lungs and there was a general sense of it feeling off. Nowadays I do not yawn as frequently during meditation, but it can occur frequently during emotional release work or when releasing during meditation. Apparently yawning is a bit of a mystery according to science? I believe strongly that at least one primary purpose, if not its central purpose, is facilitating energic/emotional/physiological release. Certain kinds of breathing allow for greater release. I think yawning does this. Sometimes when going through emotional traumas, during the aftermath I walk around spontaneously yawning, and with each yawn I can feel the left-over discomforts in my body dissolving. I believe that during periods of meditation/release, I was processing a lot of tension and physiological tightness in my body, and the constant yawning was through releasing that. Through that period, eventually the tightness in my chest loosened up, as did my breathing. Both comfort and breathing capacity increased permanently and I do not go into the yawning fits when sitting down every time. In my experience it is not an imbalance necessarily but a natural bodily mechanism. I would allow it.

Interesting. It's kind of like a middle-ground between a sensory deprivation tank and a retreat eh?

+1 Pasting a review from amazon about this book that I like:

Try Bioenergetics by Alexander Lowen

Hmm I'm going to say that divination can be a useful tool to accessing and looking at your own subconscious in different ways. Ajasatya is right in saying that it will often be heavily coloured by our own expectations and conditioning though. There is nothing that is accessed through iching, tarot or otherwise, that can't be accessed within. Still, it is my current belief that if the tools are there... why not use them? I don't think that the future can be predicted though, at least this is what they say. The future is uncertain, at best we can be pointed to probable outcomes based on who we are. If you change, the future changes. Perhaps nothing is set in stone. I used to think Astrology was bunk before I read autobiography of a yogi. I think that pretty much all the material online on it is really low quality though. I'd never really listen to any readings, and I don't think they're particularly helpful... I think the reality of astrology is deeply complex, subtle and a mostly lost art. For this reason I don't bother with it for any reason other than fun. Divination isn't a magic tool and what you get out is directly related to how much you put in.

bruh there's other kinds of laughter beyond laughing at others and self deprecation I think you're right, laughter based in unwholesome thoughts or negativity tends to create seeds that sprout more unwholesome thoughts, but there's other kinds of laughter, for example look at this dog

Someone told me he still takes shits too. I'm not sure if I believe it but it's good to keep an open mind.

that's a little worrying.. you haven't gotten a prognosis or anything have ya?

It's possible to play games while sustaining a meditative state but is it likely? no, at least not unless you are already a seasoned practitioner the mind has a tendency to get absorbed I am doubtful that video games really create much long term relaxation. I feel that it is a short term relief by shifting focus and becoming absorbed in something else. I don't consider that true relaxation. True relaxation let's the body heal. Distraction can be mistaken for relaxation because it feels good only relative to lifes strains. I am not saying there is not value in this, but if ones intention is to make serious gains then it may require reflection. If you want to play video games then play them. If you want to add mindfulness to it then you have nothing to lose. However in practice you may find that it is mostly wishful thinking to make video games into a high quality spiritual medium. Maybe just more thoughts to distract one from actually practicing. Though I suppose anything is possible if you are determined enough.

Neem Karoli Baba aka Maharaji was no ordinary yogi. In fact he may very well have been Hanuman Himself. No, really. If anyone is interested in tasting pure bhakti I suggest the books Miracle of Love by Ram Dass or By His Grace by Dada Mukerjee - the first is a collection of stories about Maharaji, the second is the recount of his closest devotee's time with him.

First time taking any psychedelic. A few grams of a particularly potent Australasian strain of psilocybin. It was all very beautiful at first, lots of fun, joy, light. Then I watched a video... this video by the Madman himself.. Can't remember how I stumbled upon it. God, in retrospect I think this video is actually meant to have been watched under the influence of psychedelics for the very purpose that it lived out that humble evening. Something, at some point, split open in me. I felt a series on unstoppable emotions emerging and expressing themselves. Happiness, fear, anger, confusion, surprise, exhaustion, hilarity, in an endless cycle flashes and expressed themselves in my face many times a second in their exaggerated form. This went on for a minute or two, it was extremely bizarre. After this show all this energy had somehow exhausted itself and suddenly there was some kind of realization. The realization that just like certain beliefs or ideas are adopted, so too was even my most basic assumptions about reality. My interpretation, my experience and complete sense of self were seen as "programs" and as this realization was had, they dissolved. It was like the operating system of my mind had been reformatted. The OS was wiped clean. What happened after that is less englishable. A bit like a new-born baby without the trauma of birth, there were no conceptions. No thoughts, memories, or anything else. I shlepped down off my chair onto the floor and unless memory fails me, I think I may have gently assumed the fetal position. Soon after some level of meta awareness returned. I remember standing and reaching my hand for the lightbulb, I suppose it was symbolic to me, and witnessing my outstretched arm I was saying "I've got it! I've got it!" and some kind of realization was had. I had it. I'd figured it out... whatever it was. Maybe an hour later I remember sitting on my bed and suddenly having the remarkable breakthrough that I was human. It was a comforting rememberance that made sense of the rest of my experience. The seeing, the feeling, the doing, it made sense. That's what humans do. One more mystery solved. I'm on a roll. Still I felt that I had wiped clean so much of the programming. I felt liberated, and in control. I felt that I would never again be a victim, a slave to the programming. I had figured it out. I had got it. Then a little bit later, what it was that I figured out was less tangible. "What was it again? I have to remember it. Oh well. At least I'm a free agent now..." Then disappointingly I had to bare witness to all of that yet again returning. The programming that I was liberated from forever came rushing back to shore. Something in me had changed forever and I'd never be the same, but it solved none of my problems. The programming was still there. Life was no easier. Now... what was the answer? Something about... nowness? hmmm...

ISAYGOODDAYTOYOUTHISDAYOFYOURTIME hooooow-are-you? Gotta love Bashar... thanks for sharing, haven't listened to him in forever.

In order to counter balance these good responses with a shitty response: If you have headphones, you can put them in and listen to something like rain ASMR, or white noise. You may find that going to your room or even putting a pillow over your head doesn't necessarily drown peoples noise, but white noise will usually block everything else out. For the time's when you are not feeling spiritually strong...

Deep physiological rest. Other than meditation, take time to sit and allow tensions to naturally release. If you don't know how to relax, then learn. Relaxation and action are two sides of the same coin. If you can't relax, then you can't act. If you can't act, chances are you cannot relax. So much of the confusion, indecisiveness and sense of general unease about what to do comes from the overstimulated nervous system. The problem is the mind is flooded with signals that something is wrong and tries to translate and solve it at the level of mind (which is not the root of the problem) and this only exhausts the system further. Deep devoted relaxation ( Preferably not watching TV or being on facebook) If you can't devote the hour to consciously relax because you are feeling like you are wasting time, then ironically you will waste 10x more hours spent indecisive and ineffective. Once you have added the ingredient of deeper relaxation into your life, then you will be more grounded. Stress hormones will ease and because you don't feel like something is constantly wrong, you will find decision making easier. Your intuition will be a bit more clear. Then practice following that intuition by taking action regardless of discomfort. Maybe the sense of indecisiveness isn't something that's going to go away by waiting, or even by a clear answer showing up. It is a perpetual energy that is fed by focus and narrative. When it arises, feel it, choose to let it go and take action regardless of the feeling. Any action. Any affirmation is better than no affirmation. Reading any book is better than not reading at all. By taking action on feelings that aren't yet fully formed, regardless of the resistance, you strengthen your will-muscle and your intuition starts to expand. For instance if you don't know what kind of book you want to read, well by reading zero books you compound that resistance and stay confused. By picking up any book at all (whatever is closest!) regardless of the feeling of indecisiveness, you may find that because you have released some of the resistance through taking action, then suddenly after reading for some time, a 'better' choice of reading is clearer. Focusing on indecisiveness to solve it is a tragic irony as it only expands it. So learn to relax deeply (While being awake and gently aware, not sleepy), accept that indecisiveness is there, TAKE ACTION regardless of the resistance, allow and follow intuitive flashes that follow actions, and trust in the process that dissolves the resistance and expands upon the flow of movement.

you know what they say about assumptions, don't you?

Wow. That is intense. Thanks for sharing. How long have you been practicing now and has it had any moderate effect on your experience?

I wouldn't negate any kind of behavior as being off the path of enlightenment, no matter how strange or outside the status quo it might seem. Generally speaking most 'expressing' of emotions that is done in the collective is a form of sedation. It's a reflexive behavior and does very little to respond to the root of the energy. It either perpetuates or aggrandizes the state or just expresses enough of it so that we can push away the rest of it. It also can cause a lot of harm to ourselves and to those around us. However that doesn't mean that expressing is never a good thing. In some cases when certain energies or emotions are habitually repressed, then there can be a blockage of flow/growth in an area and in that case expression of the suppressed emotion can be a healing experience. One example of this is an image of a victim of domestic abuse who is in a state of perpetual apathy. In this case the breakthrough into anger and conscious (mindful!) expression of it would actually be a positive thing. We can imagine how in this circumstance it could also potentially be destructive if over-done so it's good to take care. Some emotional states have more energy than others. From the space of anger it is easier to move to courage than it is from apathy. That would allow a breakthrough of energy that may allow better decisions towards safety and growth. For someone suppressing anger, then moving into anger and expressing is a beneficial thing. For someone who already often has the emotional charge of anger activated without much 'trouble', then trying to artificially drag themselves down into anger through expression or focus may be detrimental. So in situations where there is stifled emotional/energetic flow, then acting out certain behaviors or types of expression can be useful to allow that energy to start flowing. It may be useful for people who have difficulty allowing themselves to feel anger, or who find themselves habitually pushing anger down. When the energy flows a bit more than it can be easier or more effective to work with it. From that space the mindful healing process is facilitated. For someone like myself, I don't necessarily suppress my anger much, so when it flows, there is no need to express it because there is already an abundance of that energy present and most behaviors that could be taken would be me trying to subvert the feeling. Also there is the temptation to express my anger onto others! I can think of no situation where the expression of my anger in words, deeds or subtle behaviors towards anyone else has not been something I have regret. So mindful expression of emotions, I think, should never be directed at others. So yeah it'll basically come down to you and where you think you're at to decide whether you need to simply start to release and let go of what's flowing, or whether it would be beneficial to you to act it out and use other techniques to express that energy to get it to flow a bit more. I guess intuition will let ya know there.

Try metta aka loving kindness meditation also I believe our capacity to love others is roughly a reflection of our capacity to love ourselves

I've heard it's big.

@greenleafx Ok very cool share and you bring up some really cool points that I haven't thought about a lot. I struggle with keeping posts short so apologies for another lengthy one!! I can't help it. (honest) You articulated some of the different perspectives or methods towards the 'practice' well. There seem to be a lot of different ways that it's packaged. Even when describing what the practice is doing at its deepest levels I think gets a bit vague. Whether it's letting go, releasing, integrating, healing the inner child, etc. It's hard to actually know what's really happening, and I suspect that the truth of it is a bit of a mystery, so I think these processes each come with a kind of unique "packaging" in order to help us look in the right direction or try to make sense of it. All that we know is that on some level we are transforming. Different packaging also seems to be fit for different temperaments and different stages of the journey. From my experience it is not about whether a teaching or practice is high or low, good or bad, the effectiveness is going to depend on the person it's reaching. What we may call letting go someone else might simply call prayer. They too ask for healing, they too release on the subject. Like describing the very essence of 'what you're supposed to do' when you do the practice is hard to explain sometimes, but what makes sense to me or to you might make no sense to somebody else. I think that 'being present', 'softening your focus', 'letting go', 'surrendering', 'holding the uneasy feeling', 'being with your inner child' are all the same sign posts to what is essentially the same fundamental mechanism, at least that's how it has felt for me. All the methodologies seem to try to make sense of what's happening from a different angle. For example I think that the model of healing the inner child is a great one. It makes sense to me, because it seems that much of the emotional blocks or the "stuff" that needs releasing is related to childhood traumas. They are like moments stuck in time. The visualizations of returning to your inner child and loving and holding them gently is beautiful to me, and I think it is allowing people to feel and return to emotions and parts of themselves that they have resisted for a long time. I've done this practice in the past and thought it was amazing. I think it helped me learn about myself. So while the 'content' of the various kinds of packaging all seem to point to the same thing, the context in which they are presented is different, and I think that context may be effective or ineffective for a person depending on where they're at. Like one of my earlier introductions to the process was through Teal Swans 'shadow work', which again I think is using the same mechanism. I would dedicate hours to 'healing', and I feel like I made some good inner leaps, but it also felt unsustainable and gave me the sense that I would be healing forever. Maybe at some point we don't want to think of our inner child as our hurt innocence, but instead want to see it solely as a bright light and continue to grow in another way. If that's the case, at that point it would be wise to switch packaging/paradigms. I also like Matt Kahns method of just repeating 'I love you' again and again to oneself. Sounds weird but I think for some it just works, and allows them to be with themselves. Loving yourself seems to activate that mechanism, too. Also maybe there's some other magic going on with that practice, lol. Who knows. When I say whether particular packaging is 'ineffective or effective' I'm mostly referring to to our ability to make the practice sustainable and to be able to contextualize the inevitable challenges that arise. After all it is of limited use to be gung-ho on a practice for a week or two then to forget about it. It is also of limited use to engage in a practice, get temporary gains, then be confused and even heartboken that it seems we are still falling victim to our old patterns, just when we thought we had finally outrun unhappiness. One of the problems I have found with this work is that we start to wise up to the emotional charges that arise, but they get more subtle in their trickery. What seems to happen is that the very fear, confusion, grief, hurt, etc that we are releasing begins to attach itself to the very idea of the process that we're doing. We do some healing, some growth, release some worries, then they seem to increase and it's confusing and it seems sure that we're failing or the process isn't working. "This isn't working." "Things have gotten worse." "I'm angry yet again." "Sigh... Every time I get hopeful, life makes me more miserable." In actuality, we are striking deeper at the core of what is unravelling and at this point it is wise to turn the very process yet again onto what is arising. It is a very common pitfall, and an example of something that research and context could help one to avoid and overcome. These methods have both important short term and long term benefits. I think ideally our focus and intent is held gently on both. It's also typical that we become so tunnel visioned with the discomforts and suffering that arises in the moment that we just don't see how much progress we've made. That we aren't quite as fearful as we used to be. That we have more courage, more ability to love, and that when we become depressed, maybe we are only depressed for a few days instead of two weeks. Good gains. So again, some courage, ability to zoom out our focus and to see the whole journey, and to understand what kind of gains we can expect to make are qualities of an effective context or packaging. That's why I think good research and checking out different teachers can be useful, because knowledge tends to make our ability to practice more sustainable. thanks for letting me ramble on a subject I love

For sure the Sedona Method is an amazing toolkit everyone should have in their arsenal. I haven't actually studied this exact methodology personally but I know of it through methods that are based on it, use similar techniques or use the same central mechanism. From my experience, the use of these techniques are one of the answers to the question of 'how can I make continuous spiritual/developmental gains even off of the meditation cushion?' In my understanding, the primary mechanism is allowing unconditional presence (acceptance of emotions and energy as they arise) which facilitates the automatic release of internal blockages. The 'release' of these emotions is very simple. It is as simple as letting go of a weight we've been holding in our hands, and because it is so deceptively simple, most of us have a resistance to the process. There is a kind of unwillingness. That is where accessory add-on techniques like verbal/written exploration of a subject or asking ourselves questions like 'could I let this go?' come in handy, as they give us an effective door-way into the simple and fundamental process of release/healing. From my understanding The Sedona Method provides different door-ways and techniques into 'letting go' I'll illustrate its use and an alternate way of viewing it for anyone interested in reading more on the subject: A teacher I'm fond of talks about this field in terms of intention and counter-intention. An intention can be something like making money, or being in a good relationship, or losing weight, being healthy, wanting to write a book, etc. Anything really. Think about something you would really like to experience and that would evoke some excitement. If you stay on that subject for long enough and feel into it, reflect it into your life and even take action on it, it will only be a matter of time before some kind of 'counter intention' within you pops up in the form of thoughts, feelings, events, etc. Counter intentions are anything that do not support the effortless alignment with your intention. Self defeating thoughts, opposing realities, cynicism, contractions or feeling bad in the body, fatigue, powerlessness, etc. Counter intentions can take an endless variety of forms. Even strong desire (neediness) is a counter-intention because it holds the experience that you want at bay from you. If it is a particularly 'charged' subject for you, then counter-intentions may rise immediately. These are manifestations of a blockage and they exist within you. If they did not exist, then you would effortlessly align with the realities that you desire, after all, if nothing internally was stopping you, why would you not align with that reality? You would overcome barriers and move towards your goals with confidence. Counter intentions can be seen on the psychological level, but from a deeper perspective they are linked to physiological energies within the body as contractions. The problem with trying to overcome counter-intentions is mistakenly trying to change our environment or cover-up the counter-intention with more thoughts, actions or behaviors, or simply giving up. This is the method of trying to wipe a spot off your face by cleaning the mirror. By recognizing that the barriers are within, they can be released, and one experiences effortless expansion in different areas of life. So let's say your intention is to make money. By simply having an intention, it automatically evokes the counter-intentions held within you. Some of those counter-intentions may be beliefs such as being rich makes you a bad person (guilt), or that once you have money certain people in your life may reject you (fear), or believing that you won't be happy until you have it (strongly charged desire). Most counter-intentions are indoctrinated belief systems inherited by others when we're young. These counter-intentions arise spontaneously, and unless dealt with, they will wear you down and avert you from your goals. This is partly because these counter-intentions are identities of the ego, and the ego only seeks to preserve its sense of reality. So instead of trying to make money by battling through counter-intention after counter-intention and making it an up-hill battle, you can explore your counter intentions through something like The Sedona Method, and accept them/be with them unconditionally. Then, the very physiological root of the counter-intention becomes dissolved, and suddenly where there was doubt, struggle or fear, there is an expansion of awareness and you can see your previous reality for what it was: illusion. The most fascinating part about the process is discovering that clearing up counter-intentions (aka releasing internal blockages) on certain subjects has a universal effect on your experience. Meaning if you release fear on a specific subject, it is not only your experience with that subject that changes, because if you release fear on one subject, you have actually released some fear on all subjects that you've been holding on a deep level, and so you become less fearful overall in general. This release mechanism can also be done effortlessly and on the fly with anything that arises. If anyone's interested in more on that subject you can read Letting Go by David R Hawkins. I like that book, but there are others on the subject. These processes facilitate that same kind of purification of the nervous system that meditation does, which is a gradual release of contraction and subtle traumas of the nervous system, which in turn allows spontaneous raising of consciousness. This is the path of surrender. Before understanding these principles, difficulties in life, negativity and anything that opposes your desires are perceived as negative, and as keeping you from what you want. After practicing these principles and methods, they are instead understood to be the perfect stepping stones that are opportunities to move closer to what you want, So that may have been a bit of an elaborate explanation... but I think it's a deeply fascinating subject and people can mistake it for some kind of a psychological trick or positive thinking. It is in my experience one of the fastest routes to expanding in different areas of your life.

I just watched this video on the subject and I enjoyed it. Wanting to share it here:

It takes long-term practice and persistence to establish that state firmly into your experience as a constant. but if you want to just activate it and consciously enter it that experience... just do it. Focus on an object and release into the moment. Or defocus your attention entirely and release into the moment.