2023-06-30, 01:17 AM
So I think I've mentioned in some anxiety video threads through the years that I have some personal issues. Early childhood trauma that colored my whole life (and still does) and can come up and manifest in strong anxiety & extremely painful feelings and obsessional thinking (meaning thinking about the future all the time). Meds, therapy, the whole lot has been with me for a long time. Now I'm doing QiGong as well. Certain life contexts and my willingness to face the feelings more has made it more intense over the past year or so, even though I've had good periods through all this, and the last 10 days were pretty excruciating. The feeling is a convincing one that I will be left alone in the world, feeling like a 2-year-old, defenseless, helpless, and with no one at all to "be with" emotionally. Abandoned basically, with all the solitude/depression and feelings of annihilation that comes with it. (Which is why I say I'm more of afraid of life than what comes after physical death). It's irrational but it can be completely convincing and take up my whole mind and make me look for "solutions".
I'm told by my helpers (living! not in spirit! ) including my acunpuncturist who is going to try EFT on me, that it's part of the healing process and actually means, paradoxically, that I'm where I should be.
Anyway all this to say that Tuesday, going through my normal workday, I was fighting such states, including a lot of being hijacked by my mind again. To the point where I thought I was going to explode. And I'm talking to people during my work so it's quite a challenge, because I have to be "thinking" and relating while all this is going on inside. But late in the day, while still talking to someone, I started focusing on my breathing and basically just focusing on the sense of "being" (pure consciousness) and I suddenly felt extremely different - not just symptom free, but with a sense of being completely at peace, and having a sense of "myself" or my body as more porous. As if everything around me was part of "me". It was something that felt beyond the psychological and the physical. I felt completely connected or at one with everything and absolutely fearless and ready for anything to happen, just completely peaceful and accepting. There was definitely disidentification with the normal "me". And it wasn't dissociation from emotion because I felt extremely grateful and could almost cry for joy. I kept thanking God or the spirits for this moment of grace. There was also a complete lack of thinking, without any effort. I knew it would eventually pass and it did (it still lasted more than an hour, including the whole drive home), and I've had very rough moments since, but I just wanted to write this down to make a note of it, and share it.
I don't know what it is or means, it's definitely an "altered state of consciousness" that's for sure, meaning not the "normal' habitual sense of self. I thought of Eckhart Tolle's awakening except he just stayed in that place and never left it. I knew mine would likely past, I was prepared for that. But it's something to hope for, without "striving" for it.
I don't buy into all of the ideas in non-dual philosophy or spirituality but it's clear to me that investigating and continuing to use non-dual teachings (focusing on the "I am", on being pure consciousness) contributed to my being able to suddenly access that.
I just created a Facebook page and decided to "follow" Mooji, because he's a Vedanta/non-dual teacher whose videos I often find helpful. Today there was this post of his on my feed that definitely speaks to me:
Be grateful for the mind,
whose role it is to molest
the false version of yourself and
its world and dealings,
until it becomes unbearable
and you are left with no choice
but to give it up and realise you are
already Home. This is Grace.
~ Mooji
I'm told by my helpers (living! not in spirit! ) including my acunpuncturist who is going to try EFT on me, that it's part of the healing process and actually means, paradoxically, that I'm where I should be.
Anyway all this to say that Tuesday, going through my normal workday, I was fighting such states, including a lot of being hijacked by my mind again. To the point where I thought I was going to explode. And I'm talking to people during my work so it's quite a challenge, because I have to be "thinking" and relating while all this is going on inside. But late in the day, while still talking to someone, I started focusing on my breathing and basically just focusing on the sense of "being" (pure consciousness) and I suddenly felt extremely different - not just symptom free, but with a sense of being completely at peace, and having a sense of "myself" or my body as more porous. As if everything around me was part of "me". It was something that felt beyond the psychological and the physical. I felt completely connected or at one with everything and absolutely fearless and ready for anything to happen, just completely peaceful and accepting. There was definitely disidentification with the normal "me". And it wasn't dissociation from emotion because I felt extremely grateful and could almost cry for joy. I kept thanking God or the spirits for this moment of grace. There was also a complete lack of thinking, without any effort. I knew it would eventually pass and it did (it still lasted more than an hour, including the whole drive home), and I've had very rough moments since, but I just wanted to write this down to make a note of it, and share it.
I don't know what it is or means, it's definitely an "altered state of consciousness" that's for sure, meaning not the "normal' habitual sense of self. I thought of Eckhart Tolle's awakening except he just stayed in that place and never left it. I knew mine would likely past, I was prepared for that. But it's something to hope for, without "striving" for it.
I don't buy into all of the ideas in non-dual philosophy or spirituality but it's clear to me that investigating and continuing to use non-dual teachings (focusing on the "I am", on being pure consciousness) contributed to my being able to suddenly access that.
I just created a Facebook page and decided to "follow" Mooji, because he's a Vedanta/non-dual teacher whose videos I often find helpful. Today there was this post of his on my feed that definitely speaks to me:
Be grateful for the mind,
whose role it is to molest
the false version of yourself and
its world and dealings,
until it becomes unbearable
and you are left with no choice
but to give it up and realise you are
already Home. This is Grace.
~ Mooji