Korpo
19th November 2009, 02:12 PM
I recently had good success with another simple practice. I would like to share it with you.
Experiencing energies through the body
Every emotion you feel has some impact in your body. You feel your emotional energies through your body. It acts as a lightning rod through which all of your energies are grounded. As energetic changes occur to you, they move through your body. The ever-changing life you take part in will result in various energies passing through your body, and the ones many of you will most easily recognise are your emotions.
Can you experience it?
Can you feel the pang of jealousy and also the part of the body you feel it in?
Can you point to somewhere inside you where you feel the heat of anger?
If you pay attention, you will find all those feelings in your body.
Past issues, present impact
Your past is stored in your body, and past resistance might continue to exist as blockages. As your energetic system gets more blocked, the energies that impact you hit more and more resistance - creating the sensations we know as negative emotions.
Maybe in the past you had no real choice, and not the awareness required to deal with what you were exposed to. Especially as a child, for example. Maybe you are even experiencing certain resistances as residue from past lives. So, there is preexisting resistance you might have to deal with - conditioning, how you were brought up, the beliefs of your peers, your religion, your nation, your subculture, your hopes, past hurts.
So, energy tries to move through your body and hits past resistances. Feelings arise. And now you have a choice.
The first choice
The first choice is whether you want to be open, not react from habit. The intent is important. Whatever comes to you, as long as you already resist - what can you do? Blockage is resistance, resistance is blockage. What you feel is the result of energy hitting resistance - within you.
Maybe what is needed is being open. Open for whatever outcome. Open for what might not be apparent yet. Open for at least something else than an instant, habitual reaction.
So, this is the first choice. Maybe you don't know the answer. Maybe nobody who ever told you anything, no teacher, friend, parent knows the answer. Maybe the answer lives only in your heart, and nobody can find it but you. If you think you know the answer, think again. Especially if your answer gives you anguish and leads to your suffering.
How often do we go for the "obvious answer" and how often does it really serve us?
Can the same set of answers serve us all the time when life is ever-changing?
Can we really grow when our answers stay the same?
Is life well lived when we repeat our reactions all the time?
This is not to say your beliefs are wrong. They might be perfectly valid. But you can confirm that to yourself. You can make the first choice and not react out of habit.
Choice and awareness
Choice and awareness go hand in hand. You need to develop awareness in order to really have a choice. When you chose to be aware of your emotions as you experience them in your body, you increase your degree of awareness. The more often you do this, the more often you will be able to actually make a conscious choice.
I would say that not reacting out of habit is a greater degree of freedom than what we experience when we give in to the reaction. But it is more. The first choice is a doorway that leads not only to temporary freedom, but possibly to greater freedom in the long run.
The first choice arises again and again, over and over. Especially when an issue is current and needs to be dealt with, you will experience your own reactions in your body, over and over.
The second choice
The second choice is a courageous choice. The second choice is to actually experience what you feel inside you. To stay present to it. To not shy away from it. To expose yourself to what you feel inside you.
Make no mistake, whenever you do this you are a very courageous individual. Pain and suffering, unpleasant sensations, hurt - they live inside you. Your second choice is to make contact with them once you become aware of them. Your second choice is a choice of change.
It takes the first choice to have the second choice. The first choice is stopping you from repeating the same pattern all over - yelling at someone, running through a thought monologue of self pity, kicking the dog, slumping in front of the computer and occupying your mind with a computer game. The second choice is to be at least somewhat aware of what is actually there.
Especially in the beginning it might be hard to make the second choice. But every bit helps. You don't need to face down whatever you find in some superhuman attempt at validly purifying yourself of an emotional reaction in one go. Just try and do what you can. There is no obligation, nobody telling you how much you need to do and when. It is your choice, but it is also first and foremost you who will benefit.
Change
The first choice creates potential for change, the second choice is change.
The more often you make the second choice, the more of the resistance you were experiencing will be cleansed. Persistent effort can yield tremendous results. You might not be able to carry more than one bucket full of water, but do it often enough and you can fill a bathtub. Could you have ever carried a bathtub full of water?
Similarly, change comes in small increments. Making the second choice often enough will change the way you react to things. Once the resistance diminishes you might be able to live with circumstances you have formerly found unbearable. By making a small but courageous choice, again and again, you grow into a new situation.
Once you've seen how you can change yourself for the first time, you might feel much better equipped next time when the next change occurs. You might find one day that you have grown into an individual that really has a choice in life. The little choices have opened you enough to see what lies open to you. You have found a new clarity, where you can now see and appreciate that it is you who makes the choices. Life no longer just happens to you.
The two choices and meditation
So, what I talked about - the first and second choice - is related to meditation. It ties into other meditative skills. It has to do with being aware. It has to do with making conscious choices about your state of mind in your everyday life.
Sitting modes of meditation could for example help with attaining those little moments of lucidity you need to make the first choice. These moments of "Hey, wait a minute...!" where you realise, "Yes, I can now make the first choice."
Meditation is practicing the skill of becoming aware and staying aware. Every time you become aware that you are not focussed on your object of meditation you can make a choice - going back to the object or not. The more you practice, the better you will get at both - at becoming aware and at making a choice about your state of mind, about what your mind does at the moment.
A little practice
For the second choice I would recommend another little practice. How do you get those emotional triggers and learn how to stay with them?
I personally found a little trick. Try to find a piece of music that impacts you emotionally. Maybe you find it very sad, hard to bear. It reminds you of past hurt. Or it expresses a certain emotion so well that you might identify with the performer. In fact, a song might be a good choice.
Now just listen to the song, and pay particular attention to how it makes you feel. Feel what you feel in your body. Can you sometimes feel a tightness in the throat, the stomach, something weird you cannot place but are not really fond of? Look for all the unpleasant sensations it might trigger. Look for all the sensations it might trigger. Be aware what happens.
When you find you could do that till the end of the song, you have exercised the second choice over and over. The emotions triggered by the music washed over and through you and you stayed present. Your choice to stay conscious and aware has changed you, if only a bit.
Final thoughts
This exercise is not overly hard, and music can be a real quick way to access emotions. In fact, why should practicing be hard? Respect your limits, and do it over and over, and there will be results. There are no expectations but your own, and there is no first prize.
The first choice is there to be made, every day, all the time. It might be more apparent in times of crisis, but it is there. You can always go beyond living on auto pilot. You can start anytime. You can do as much or as little as you want.
The more often you do it, the greater the results. The less you beat yourself up about it, the greater the results, too! There is indeed something like "trying too hard." Success is simply doing it again and again. Try to feel the quiet satisfaction of having made the first and second choice. In time the reward will be a different mind. Trying hard and putting pressure on yourself makes it come later, not sooner.
Be well,
Oliver
Experiencing energies through the body
Every emotion you feel has some impact in your body. You feel your emotional energies through your body. It acts as a lightning rod through which all of your energies are grounded. As energetic changes occur to you, they move through your body. The ever-changing life you take part in will result in various energies passing through your body, and the ones many of you will most easily recognise are your emotions.
Can you experience it?
Can you feel the pang of jealousy and also the part of the body you feel it in?
Can you point to somewhere inside you where you feel the heat of anger?
If you pay attention, you will find all those feelings in your body.
Past issues, present impact
Your past is stored in your body, and past resistance might continue to exist as blockages. As your energetic system gets more blocked, the energies that impact you hit more and more resistance - creating the sensations we know as negative emotions.
Maybe in the past you had no real choice, and not the awareness required to deal with what you were exposed to. Especially as a child, for example. Maybe you are even experiencing certain resistances as residue from past lives. So, there is preexisting resistance you might have to deal with - conditioning, how you were brought up, the beliefs of your peers, your religion, your nation, your subculture, your hopes, past hurts.
So, energy tries to move through your body and hits past resistances. Feelings arise. And now you have a choice.
The first choice
The first choice is whether you want to be open, not react from habit. The intent is important. Whatever comes to you, as long as you already resist - what can you do? Blockage is resistance, resistance is blockage. What you feel is the result of energy hitting resistance - within you.
Maybe what is needed is being open. Open for whatever outcome. Open for what might not be apparent yet. Open for at least something else than an instant, habitual reaction.
So, this is the first choice. Maybe you don't know the answer. Maybe nobody who ever told you anything, no teacher, friend, parent knows the answer. Maybe the answer lives only in your heart, and nobody can find it but you. If you think you know the answer, think again. Especially if your answer gives you anguish and leads to your suffering.
How often do we go for the "obvious answer" and how often does it really serve us?
Can the same set of answers serve us all the time when life is ever-changing?
Can we really grow when our answers stay the same?
Is life well lived when we repeat our reactions all the time?
This is not to say your beliefs are wrong. They might be perfectly valid. But you can confirm that to yourself. You can make the first choice and not react out of habit.
Choice and awareness
Choice and awareness go hand in hand. You need to develop awareness in order to really have a choice. When you chose to be aware of your emotions as you experience them in your body, you increase your degree of awareness. The more often you do this, the more often you will be able to actually make a conscious choice.
I would say that not reacting out of habit is a greater degree of freedom than what we experience when we give in to the reaction. But it is more. The first choice is a doorway that leads not only to temporary freedom, but possibly to greater freedom in the long run.
The first choice arises again and again, over and over. Especially when an issue is current and needs to be dealt with, you will experience your own reactions in your body, over and over.
The second choice
The second choice is a courageous choice. The second choice is to actually experience what you feel inside you. To stay present to it. To not shy away from it. To expose yourself to what you feel inside you.
Make no mistake, whenever you do this you are a very courageous individual. Pain and suffering, unpleasant sensations, hurt - they live inside you. Your second choice is to make contact with them once you become aware of them. Your second choice is a choice of change.
It takes the first choice to have the second choice. The first choice is stopping you from repeating the same pattern all over - yelling at someone, running through a thought monologue of self pity, kicking the dog, slumping in front of the computer and occupying your mind with a computer game. The second choice is to be at least somewhat aware of what is actually there.
Especially in the beginning it might be hard to make the second choice. But every bit helps. You don't need to face down whatever you find in some superhuman attempt at validly purifying yourself of an emotional reaction in one go. Just try and do what you can. There is no obligation, nobody telling you how much you need to do and when. It is your choice, but it is also first and foremost you who will benefit.
Change
The first choice creates potential for change, the second choice is change.
The more often you make the second choice, the more of the resistance you were experiencing will be cleansed. Persistent effort can yield tremendous results. You might not be able to carry more than one bucket full of water, but do it often enough and you can fill a bathtub. Could you have ever carried a bathtub full of water?
Similarly, change comes in small increments. Making the second choice often enough will change the way you react to things. Once the resistance diminishes you might be able to live with circumstances you have formerly found unbearable. By making a small but courageous choice, again and again, you grow into a new situation.
Once you've seen how you can change yourself for the first time, you might feel much better equipped next time when the next change occurs. You might find one day that you have grown into an individual that really has a choice in life. The little choices have opened you enough to see what lies open to you. You have found a new clarity, where you can now see and appreciate that it is you who makes the choices. Life no longer just happens to you.
The two choices and meditation
So, what I talked about - the first and second choice - is related to meditation. It ties into other meditative skills. It has to do with being aware. It has to do with making conscious choices about your state of mind in your everyday life.
Sitting modes of meditation could for example help with attaining those little moments of lucidity you need to make the first choice. These moments of "Hey, wait a minute...!" where you realise, "Yes, I can now make the first choice."
Meditation is practicing the skill of becoming aware and staying aware. Every time you become aware that you are not focussed on your object of meditation you can make a choice - going back to the object or not. The more you practice, the better you will get at both - at becoming aware and at making a choice about your state of mind, about what your mind does at the moment.
A little practice
For the second choice I would recommend another little practice. How do you get those emotional triggers and learn how to stay with them?
I personally found a little trick. Try to find a piece of music that impacts you emotionally. Maybe you find it very sad, hard to bear. It reminds you of past hurt. Or it expresses a certain emotion so well that you might identify with the performer. In fact, a song might be a good choice.
Now just listen to the song, and pay particular attention to how it makes you feel. Feel what you feel in your body. Can you sometimes feel a tightness in the throat, the stomach, something weird you cannot place but are not really fond of? Look for all the unpleasant sensations it might trigger. Look for all the sensations it might trigger. Be aware what happens.
When you find you could do that till the end of the song, you have exercised the second choice over and over. The emotions triggered by the music washed over and through you and you stayed present. Your choice to stay conscious and aware has changed you, if only a bit.
Final thoughts
This exercise is not overly hard, and music can be a real quick way to access emotions. In fact, why should practicing be hard? Respect your limits, and do it over and over, and there will be results. There are no expectations but your own, and there is no first prize.
The first choice is there to be made, every day, all the time. It might be more apparent in times of crisis, but it is there. You can always go beyond living on auto pilot. You can start anytime. You can do as much or as little as you want.
The more often you do it, the greater the results. The less you beat yourself up about it, the greater the results, too! There is indeed something like "trying too hard." Success is simply doing it again and again. Try to feel the quiet satisfaction of having made the first and second choice. In time the reward will be a different mind. Trying hard and putting pressure on yourself makes it come later, not sooner.
Be well,
Oliver