RickyFitts

I was meditating a little earlier and started to feel a lot of discomfort and nausea in my solar plexus, holy fuck did it feel awful. Interesting to sit with sensations like that and just really feel into them, I noticed that there was a feeling of deep sadness lurking underneath the physical sensations - seems to me that the physical discomfort is a result of the patterns of emotional repression that I'd developed from quite a young age, which manifests as physical tightness and tension, and, as the body relaxes and those patterns start to release, first the discomfort is felt and then the repressed emotion can also start to surface. Not a whole lot of fun to feel these feelings and sensations, obviously, but I do think it's actually a good sign that they are being felt, as counter-instinctual and even perverse as that might sound - 'you can only heal what you can feel', as Teal Swan would say. And we're never really free whilst these emotions remain frozen inside of us. Does make me wonder sometimes if it helps to have a bit of a masochistic streak, though, because boy can it be a painful process at times.

I think one of the most loving things you can do for anyone is to be emotionally available for them, and this extends to yourself, too - no matter what you're feeling, even if it's intense anger or self-loathing, say. People often try to push these feelings down or refuse to acknowledge their existence altogether, but they're not going to go away if you live in denial of them; what's often not understood is that what's at the root of this sort of negativity is more vulnerable, visceral emotions like grief and despair, and it's these deeper emotions that need to be felt in order to move past the surface negativity. Self-love is unconditional self-acceptance. Self-honesty and self-awareness are such important qualities on the spiritual path, as is the courage to feel what we don't want to feel.

This Matt Kahn video on the subject of self-love came up in my Youtube recommendations, funnily enough, I figured you might find it useful. Edit: I watched a bit more of the video and a lot of what he's saying doesn't especially resonate with me, but I'll leave the link anyway just in case anyone does find it useful:

One teacher whose teachings really helped me at a very difficult time in my life, and who still doesn't seem to be very well-known, is a guy called Jon Bernie - his teachings are focused on the energetic and emotional side of spiritual development, and I'd recommend them to anyone who's struggling to come to terms with strong emotions like anxiety and grief:

I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but no, that apparently really is Johnny Marr on guitar Seems a bit of a waste of his considerable talents, given that I reckon I could play that part (and I'm no lead guitarist, I'm strictly rhythm), but must've been amazing to play along with the orchestra all the same.

@Gianna ?

Beautiful.

I love you more than I can say...

Hehehe, cheers bro, and you're welcome! <3

Be interesting to see how Nahm deals with this situation, seems like it could actually be an acid test of just how spiritually advanced he actually is. I've got to say, I'm personally not disappointed to hear about this latest development, his input on the forum just seemed like spiritual egotism a lot of the time quite frankly, and it was really getting under my skin, particularly as I couldn't put him on ignore as he was a moderator.

@Gregory1 It's like John Lennon said, my friend: 'Life is what happens when you're making other plans'. Life often doesn't go to plan, but that's all right, that's just how it goes sometimes - there's always another chance to make things right, you don't have to be perfect.

I can't add a whole lot to that ?

Humility, I'd say. Hugely important that people on the spiritual path learn the value of that, it seems to me.

I love this, I think there's so much wisdom in this. Edit: I think @flume's post is spot on too, those emotional issues really are so important to resolve.

@Natasha Comforting to know ?

I was thinking of that quote just yesterday, funnily enough, don't know why.