All experiences have to be processed; by the intellect, the mind, the emotions, and the body. Much of that takes place at night, through dreams and rest.
However, when we have major experiences, welcome or not, they can take more time to process. We may put aside aspects until we’re ready, especially if it’s difficult. Even very positive experiences can seem overwhelming.
We may have developed the habit of suppressing rather than coming back for completion. This is natural if this is the energetic modelling from our family that we grew up with. We may not have any practice processing the big stuff.
Consider the stress model. When stressed we drop into flight, flight, or freeze. What is your usual response?
Do we lash out at those around us or the apparent cause of our pain?
Do we use escape techniques like TV, drinking, or dulling the body with heavy food? Do we use sugar or caffeine?
Or do we go into overwhelm and become dysfunctional?
Recognizing our usual stress response can help us recognize when we’re stressed or an old issue is coming to the surface. We can be surprisingly dense about stress, as we’ve often habitually keep it unconscious to cope. But the influence is still there in our feeling tone, behaviour, and comfort.
Can we choose instead to feel into what is arising? What is behind our reaction? What is the feeling of the energy driving the behaviour?
For the big stuff, this can take practice. It may be well hidden. We may notice the response but act it out anyway. We may feel into it a bit and go into overwhelm. Or we may find our emotions are just an apparently neutral blank. That means unconscious.
None of this is wrong or bad. This is about making it conscious so we can heal. Allowing what is here to be here as it is.
Some of our unresolved emotions can be from when we were very young. They can feel like our “demons” we’ve kept in the closet. But they’re not so bad when we allow them to arise.
Facing them can bring on a stress response in itself. The big stuff often has many layers of protection and suppression, from each time it came up and was pushed down again, often unconsciously. Now we’re trying to be conscious. If we step into it gradually, we can peel off the layers here and there until we resolve the core.
If we start with the smaller things and learn an effective process for us, we shift our response patterns and stop adding to the pile. This is the magic in getting off the “wheel of karma.” Gradually we’ll be able to tackle the bigger things when they come up. Big healing can occur and weights can be lifted.
I’ve become aware of some massive contractions that have influenced many lifetimes. As one surfaces we can gradually become more conscious and resolve it, bit by bit. As it completes, we don’t have to carry it or live it out anymore.
Be patient with yourself. There are habits to change and deeply entrenched protective measures in place. The ego will feel the status quo is critical to it’s well-being. But the ego’s self-interest is about control, not your well-being. Better to put infinite wisdom in charge by settling back into your true nature.
Davidya
Thanks David,
I have an intuition that there are some big unresolved knots yet to be unpacked, it seems that there is an effective process in place that is slowly unraveling things bit by bit, but like an iceberg there is a sense that the vast majority is still under the surface waiting to be revealed, it’s like there isn’t the bandwidth to take on that ‘chunk’ of unresolved stuff. “…we may find our emotions are just an apparently neutral blank. ” rings true, thanks for the reminder to remain patient and trust the process, life keeps peelin’ the onion 🙂
Hi Peter
Good intuition. I can guarantee it’s accurate. Pretty much everyone has some big old knots from our life, from our soul’s history, and from our ancestors history. Our life is often designed in part to tackle some of that and we may have agreed to help our ancestors in exchange for a life.
An iceberg is a great analogy. Its designed to come up gradually so we can process it while living our life. If, like the warming sun, we melt a little here and there, the iceberg will eventually melt. That weight and shadow will pass without disrupting our life.
But it is important we do that warming. Otherwise, a backlog can build and burst out in difficulties and a rougher time. This is especially true in the current time where we have a great opportunity for healing but many are acting out instead.
And yes, like peeling an onion. I can certainly relate to that. 🙂
So well said David. As we are able feel the feelings, without judgment, but with compassion. The time of now is ripe with stirrings of old to be acknowledged, felt and released.
Agreed, Theresa. So much history is rising to be seen and released in the current time, so much fear is being acted out in world events. Happily, this is just a cycle of time but it is a prime opportunity for healing.
I noticed that cigarettes, coffee, abuse etc. happened to me couple of months before shifts. I came to conclusion that ego feels exactly what is happening inside and tries to prevent from going forward lowering vibration.
Could you explain to me David what is happening. I noticed that I if I can say I (observer) feels much more disattached from ego-body . It’s like living linked to body-mind playing own rule in life. It’s quite weird being somewhere between. I remember since I was boy that I was observing life from point of someone behind the ego-scene but year after year this distance seems to be bigger and playing role of “me” in mundane life become more difficult.
Hi Bartosz
Yeah, I can relate. There’s a few things that can create what may be seen as “backward” behaviour. If there’s a lot of purification going on, the body may desire heavy or lowering things that are grounding. But yes, ego can also balk in fear of loosing control.
I can recall how, prior to awakening, there would be moments of letting go that would suddenly be interrupted by an intense itch or a very strong thought. Then I realized that ego was using memories of spiritual experiences to create conflicts with itself as a distraction. I didn’t know how I was ever going to wake up with all that!
Yet, happily, that’s not what actually wakes up. In the end, the volume of the silence got loud enough that it overshadowed all that and the ego faded.
That transitional place can be challenging. We’re one foot in the world and one in infinity. We’re clear enough to see that mundane life as a me is false and contrived. But not quite clear enough to recognize what is real, our bigger nature.
Just know that it’s a phase. You’re very ripe for the shift but sometimes you have to wait for the optimum time for the whole. The sense of self may seem fake and even pointless. But it’s only the illusion of being a separate person that is. When it finally lets go, the perspective will change.
Your life is actually far from mundane. There is much more to open. But sometimes we need a little patience. With ourselves, and with the Divine. 🙂
Thx David for your opinion. 🙂 By the way, when can we expect your next book?
🙂 (laughs) The second dissertation has the framework for the second book but after 2 dissertations, I needed a break. I have been collecting further observations recently so it has begun to flow again. We’ll see…
Thank you for this. I know exactly what you mean about the “ neutral blank”. TM always has given me a bypass through transcendence , so when I have tried inquiry or been asked “ what do you feel right now” in spiritual work, I have been hard pressed to access anything. I can access visuals…but the feeling part is hard. Strangely, in day to day life my heart and emotions flow freely. Knowing, sensing that there is so much to uncover I can be at a loss regarding how to surrender or inquire. I am familiar with Dorothy and your knowledge bases and have tried various things. Suggestion?
Hi Carol
I wouldn’t take TM as a bypass. It is very effective at transcending and also helps heal emotions. Bypassing comes out of an approach to life. Like using it as an escape by spending too much time in practice or avoiding emotions that come up to be healed.
There’s a few things here. Many people develop a defensive crust on the heart making fine feelings harder to access. Yet emotions can flow freely. Different levels of functioning,
If your emotions flow freely then that arena is not blocked up. You may be getting a neutral because you are feeling neutral in that moment. If you’ve resolved some of your backlog, there isn’t a parade of emotions surging up to be experienced. There can be a neutrality rather than a constant flow of emotions. Emotions arise as called for and settle otherwise. If that’s the experience, it’s excellent and is completely distinct from someone who’s all contracted.
For some, the emotions can be there but they’ve never used their discriminating ability to name them. In that case, when they look to emotions, they can just experience a “noise” of overlapping energy.
To what I was referring to, for some the emotions are largely suppressed so they don’t flow freely and they can’t feel them or name them. It’s just a blank area.
As for trying to uncover, I don’t recommend that approach. Instead, when the time is right, issues that seek resolution will come up to be resolved. Then you apply your approach to support their release. You don’t want to be spending your whole day “fixing” yourself or trying to control healing.
Sounds like you just need to relax and enjoy life. 🙂
Seems like many people are chipping away at these subterranean chunks. I find exercise that involves walking, i.e. feet hitting the ground, helps manage the decompression. It is almost like the knot is dense magma and it has to melt into lava and move out of a small opening bit by bit. So the walking is helping the steam get out. I probably have a subterranean chunk of near solid magma currently surfacing which needs to become molten lava and move out. Who knows how many more surprising chunks there are! Funny how Peter feels it is a cold ice-berg whereas I feel it is hot magma/lava. Yes, that is funny. Maybe Peter is Nordic – I am from a hot climate, India, though I now live in Minnesota.
Yes, the lymph system has no heart so needs movement to help flush. Some of our energy system is similar. From a guna perspective, tamas is inertia, solidity. We need some warmth, rajas, to soften it up and get it moving. The idea of tapas, warming, has multiple levels.
And yet curiously, under the crusts is contractions containing a lot of energy. They’re like a ball of charge but constrained by the chunks. When the chunks soften, it can decompress and release.
It could be cultural context or it could be different doshas. Some will experience it has cold and some not. But in both cases, it is experienced as melting. 🙂
Thank you Davidya❤️You clarified for me and helped me not to feel “ wrong” because after 50 yrs of devoted meditation, I felt I could not access a rich inner emotional field upon request! And your closing statement to relax and enjoy was right on. I’m on a big life lesson curve at the moment with many opportunities for insight and growth ( sandwich generation stuff) and tension does arise and controlled issues cause contraction. Deep breaths!
Hi Carol
Yes, it’s easy to get misled if we compare our experience to the wrong metric. And we’re certainly in a time of extra purification and questioning going on.
Deep breaths! 🙂
Many thanks coming your way from a blustery tropical day in Alabama
” In the end, the volume of the silence got loud enough that it overshadowed all that and the ego faded.” This perfectly describes my current experience during meditation. In an ironically oxymoronic fashion the silence just seems to get louder and more present. It doesn’t take much to experience this; just close the eyes, start meditation and silence arrives like an insistent presence and pushes everything else into the background. I still have thoughts and feelings but they seem less distracting or even significant as the silence takes over. One interesting feature is that sometimes I have thoughts or feelings around certain individuals or situations where I feel a rage bubbling up and I want to exact intense revenge. I’m guessing these might be what you refer to as “knots” that need to be released. Often, I am quite amazed at their intensity, but at the same time I seem to be able to just watch them and wonder where the hell they came from. This is all just so fascinating; I can’t wait to se what happens next.
Hi TO!
Typically, the next thing would be timing and a catalyst. Grace happens when it’s best for the whole. When that flow arrives, the trigger comes and then the honk of a horn, the words of the awake, or other catalyst flips the perspective. We go from a me experiencing silence to silence experiencing a me.
And yes, when there is that deep silence, it gives an opportunity for very deep contractions (knots) to release. Then may arise with great intensity. If we just allow them, they can wash over us in a brief wave and complete. Every so often it will feel like a burden is lifted. Greater energy is available (not used sustaining the contraction), more freedom, and deeper peace.
Thanks for sharing.
Love that thought David that “We go from a me experiencing silence to silence experiencing a me.”
As silence in the background starts to move more towards the foreground, even when are my eyes are open, that level or clarity of reality begins to be more tangible. And, along with that movement I notice some of those disturbances, contractions or impressions (that have also in the background for a long time) releasing. Because of the workshops with AWSF I’ve got more awareness to just notice and givie space for the related traid of thoughts, feelings and senstations to integrate instead of resisting or being it. As the clearing and integration takes place (I think at the level of the pain body) I find more energy, joy and strength is available. A big thank you and Namaste of gratitude.
Hi Harrison
Beautifully put. Yes, just shifting those old habits a bit makes a world of difference. And it’s so much easier when the backdrop is peace rather than being in it.
Releasing the contractions means all the energy it took to contain them is freed up. Lifting the shadows brings the joy already present to the surface. And rooting in what is unchanging brings an inner strength we didn’t know we had.
Thanks for sharing!