Contemplations
It's very difficult to describe the process of meditation and how it works in my experience of it. It's almost as hard to express the effects I have noted as a result of introducing (and mostly adhering to) a regular practice. Things are different; that much I know.
One of the biggest differences is the ability now to hear and identify specific influences in my thinking and reactivity patterns, primarily in "voices" I have named the Narrator and Little Girl Lost. I have been able to distinguish these influences through the act of creating a space to sit quietly and attend to the thoughts that creep or splash into the quiet space and whatever streamers of emotion they trail behind them when they come. Getting wrapped or tangled in those emotional streamers is historically the point at which outward behaviours have diverged from espoused values and problems arise. Managing those entanglements requires tracing them back to the core thoughts that are trying to be heard, giving them space to be heard more clearly, then connecting not so much with the thoughts themselves (because that's how the worst entanglements often start for the unwary), but the underlying emotional impulses. More often than not it's like touching a live wire or sticking your tongue on the terminals of a D cell battery (c'mon, most of us probably did that as kids, so I know you know exactly what I'm describing here). but sitting through that live reactivity is how we distinguish between the thoughts and the stuff that's actually driving us from underneath the covers. Thoughts are the internal narratives we create around those impulses, often reactively and self-protectively as coping strategies.
Last night - yesterday in general - was a draining, difficult night for me for reasons I won't go into. I do my daily meditation practice in the evenings before bed, because I have learned that, given my historically difficult relationship with sleep, the practice of calming my mind before bed is surprisingly beneficial. "Calming" might actually be a bit of a misnomer, given how often the sitting practice is its own way of giving space to things I unconsciously suppress into unconscious influence over the course of a day, but giving space to process the thoughts and impulses is a way of setting them free so they are at least LESS likely to haunt me into and through the night's sleep. Last night, I envisioned the "glass vase" container metaphor that Philip Akin uses to teach breathwork to actors, and as I developed my breathing within that imagery, I also invited into mind all of the Stuff that had been manifesting as an anxious tension all day. I also played a little with trying to consciously feel where the tension manifested most commonly and tried to envision pushing it around my body. This is related to a discovery made a couple of weeks ago in the realized sense that sometimes when I meditate, it feels like physical energy or sensation is caught on the right side of my head and body, and is notably less perceptible on the left side of my body.
The experience of trying to push things from right to left last night had the interesting result of feeling like I was depressing a plunger; in trying to push energetic tension from where I could feel it to where I could feel nothing, all the day's emotional Stuff rushed into the glass vase and expanded to fill the space. There was a rush of thinking as well, but I could separate out the Narrator's influences there (all of the value-laden thoughts and the carefully-constructed-for-maximum-effect thinking that my internal Writer relies on for public validation when expressed to an audience), and the Little Girl Lost's less coherent emotional state. I knew when distracting thoughts of past or future were spinning in particular directions, and I knew when the blossoming sadness was Little Girl Lost's response to actually being heard and welcomed. The Narrator doesn't like yielding the floor; trying to let go of the thinking is a lot harder than it looks, and some nights I have to actively disengage from the meditative process once I realize I'm actively grappling and trying to seize control and discipline myself... which leads to a cycle of value judgments that only feed the Narrator. Letting go of all that is the only real way to acknowledge without enforcing.
I make use of incense when I meditate because I find it helps me track my breathing when I'm trying to release distraction and get back into my body in the moment, rather than getting stuck in my thinking in the past or future, or stuck in the emotional tides of the moment. Tracking the scent of the incense tells me where I am in my body, where the tides are moving, where I can push or pull air or thought or physical tension. Last night I used it to "illuminate" the shape of the glass vase in my metaphor, without making the imagery any more solid than the air itself. As I breathed in, I pulled in Stuff; as the air dissipates through my lungs into my bloodstream, so too does a lot of that Stuff dissipate. As I breathed out, I pushed air out of my abdomen and lungs, and so too do does a lot of Stuff get pushed and grounded out through whatever channels I can envision in the moment (usually downward and out through my legs and feet as I sit, literally grounding out into the earth through wherever I sit).
Sometimes this process works for releasing whatever has built up; some nights like last night, the impact of pulling Stuff in means the dissipated matter still floats around like loose radical particles and when I reached for the daily gratitude expressions that are the closing part of my nightly practice, there is now some potentially overwhelming Stuff very close to the surface. I give gratitude for that conscious connection to my own Stuff, give it some space, and if that means I cry through the end of my practice, so be it. This too is part of the experience and is not to be sublimated because it is hard, or uncomfortable, or embarrassing or shameful, or just plain messy. Not wanting to face any of that is why Stuff gets buried in the first place to my longer-term detriment, ergo this conscious practice is a part of facing that and learning to be a better friend to myself.
It still would have been nice to have had the hug I really wanted last night, but sometimes, creating space to embrace Self is more needful than seeking the attachments we crave. And in the end (helped a little by some melatonin) I slept very well with only one dream that, on waking reflection, has very clear meaning.
Bright sunlight and a productive morning shake away a lot of yesterday's anxiety. Small connections help.
One day at a time, one breath at a time; one foot in front of the other.
This entry was originally posted at http://much-ado.dreamwidth.org/6885689.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
One of the biggest differences is the ability now to hear and identify specific influences in my thinking and reactivity patterns, primarily in "voices" I have named the Narrator and Little Girl Lost. I have been able to distinguish these influences through the act of creating a space to sit quietly and attend to the thoughts that creep or splash into the quiet space and whatever streamers of emotion they trail behind them when they come. Getting wrapped or tangled in those emotional streamers is historically the point at which outward behaviours have diverged from espoused values and problems arise. Managing those entanglements requires tracing them back to the core thoughts that are trying to be heard, giving them space to be heard more clearly, then connecting not so much with the thoughts themselves (because that's how the worst entanglements often start for the unwary), but the underlying emotional impulses. More often than not it's like touching a live wire or sticking your tongue on the terminals of a D cell battery (c'mon, most of us probably did that as kids, so I know you know exactly what I'm describing here). but sitting through that live reactivity is how we distinguish between the thoughts and the stuff that's actually driving us from underneath the covers. Thoughts are the internal narratives we create around those impulses, often reactively and self-protectively as coping strategies.
Last night - yesterday in general - was a draining, difficult night for me for reasons I won't go into. I do my daily meditation practice in the evenings before bed, because I have learned that, given my historically difficult relationship with sleep, the practice of calming my mind before bed is surprisingly beneficial. "Calming" might actually be a bit of a misnomer, given how often the sitting practice is its own way of giving space to things I unconsciously suppress into unconscious influence over the course of a day, but giving space to process the thoughts and impulses is a way of setting them free so they are at least LESS likely to haunt me into and through the night's sleep. Last night, I envisioned the "glass vase" container metaphor that Philip Akin uses to teach breathwork to actors, and as I developed my breathing within that imagery, I also invited into mind all of the Stuff that had been manifesting as an anxious tension all day. I also played a little with trying to consciously feel where the tension manifested most commonly and tried to envision pushing it around my body. This is related to a discovery made a couple of weeks ago in the realized sense that sometimes when I meditate, it feels like physical energy or sensation is caught on the right side of my head and body, and is notably less perceptible on the left side of my body.
The experience of trying to push things from right to left last night had the interesting result of feeling like I was depressing a plunger; in trying to push energetic tension from where I could feel it to where I could feel nothing, all the day's emotional Stuff rushed into the glass vase and expanded to fill the space. There was a rush of thinking as well, but I could separate out the Narrator's influences there (all of the value-laden thoughts and the carefully-constructed-for-maximum-effect thinking that my internal Writer relies on for public validation when expressed to an audience), and the Little Girl Lost's less coherent emotional state. I knew when distracting thoughts of past or future were spinning in particular directions, and I knew when the blossoming sadness was Little Girl Lost's response to actually being heard and welcomed. The Narrator doesn't like yielding the floor; trying to let go of the thinking is a lot harder than it looks, and some nights I have to actively disengage from the meditative process once I realize I'm actively grappling and trying to seize control and discipline myself... which leads to a cycle of value judgments that only feed the Narrator. Letting go of all that is the only real way to acknowledge without enforcing.
I make use of incense when I meditate because I find it helps me track my breathing when I'm trying to release distraction and get back into my body in the moment, rather than getting stuck in my thinking in the past or future, or stuck in the emotional tides of the moment. Tracking the scent of the incense tells me where I am in my body, where the tides are moving, where I can push or pull air or thought or physical tension. Last night I used it to "illuminate" the shape of the glass vase in my metaphor, without making the imagery any more solid than the air itself. As I breathed in, I pulled in Stuff; as the air dissipates through my lungs into my bloodstream, so too does a lot of that Stuff dissipate. As I breathed out, I pushed air out of my abdomen and lungs, and so too do does a lot of Stuff get pushed and grounded out through whatever channels I can envision in the moment (usually downward and out through my legs and feet as I sit, literally grounding out into the earth through wherever I sit).
Sometimes this process works for releasing whatever has built up; some nights like last night, the impact of pulling Stuff in means the dissipated matter still floats around like loose radical particles and when I reached for the daily gratitude expressions that are the closing part of my nightly practice, there is now some potentially overwhelming Stuff very close to the surface. I give gratitude for that conscious connection to my own Stuff, give it some space, and if that means I cry through the end of my practice, so be it. This too is part of the experience and is not to be sublimated because it is hard, or uncomfortable, or embarrassing or shameful, or just plain messy. Not wanting to face any of that is why Stuff gets buried in the first place to my longer-term detriment, ergo this conscious practice is a part of facing that and learning to be a better friend to myself.
It still would have been nice to have had the hug I really wanted last night, but sometimes, creating space to embrace Self is more needful than seeking the attachments we crave. And in the end (helped a little by some melatonin) I slept very well with only one dream that, on waking reflection, has very clear meaning.
Bright sunlight and a productive morning shake away a lot of yesterday's anxiety. Small connections help.
One day at a time, one breath at a time; one foot in front of the other.
This entry was originally posted at http://much-ado.dreamwidth.org/6885689.html. Please comment there using OpenID.