RickyFitts

@Esilda Oh no, poor you! You take it nice and easy then darl, you need to rest.

Will do, darl. RE anxiety and over-analysing things, that's something I really struggled with a few years back in the wake of a traumatic break-up, the anxiety became severe and near-continuous and it took me the best part of a year to come to terms with it. What I came to realise about my own neurotic mental activity during this period was that it was a way my mind was attempting to deal with strong emotions that felt overwhelming - the mental activity was essentially a coping strategy, which is something I developed from a very young age I suspect (I was a very sensitive, troubled child, and I wasn't living in an environment that was emotionally supportive so I didn't learn to healthily process my emotions). What ultimately helped me was to shift attention out of thinking and into my body, because we can't think our way to emotional resolution - 'you can only heal what you can feel', as Teal Swan so astutely observed. Sounds simple enough in theory, but it was hugely challenging in practice because I'd become very emotionally shut down and consequently had a lot of trauma and upset stored in my body. So you do have to persevere with whichever practice you choose if you do decide to go down that route (for me personally I've found 'do nothing' meditation or simple breath meditation most effective, though yoga was also a life-saver when my anxiety was at its worst, mindfully stretching your body can work wonders to alleviate bodily tension I've found). Really hope that's helpful, darl, because I know just how debilitating anxiety can be. ?

@Esilda Aw, you're too kind - but thank you. You've always been such a sweetheart so I just wish the absolute best for you, I know how incredibly hard life can be when you're highly sensitive (and I understand how extra-hard it can be for women, as you say, with all the pressures and hormonal fluctuations you have to deal with) so I really hope the therapy's helpful for you, lovely. <3

Absolutely agree with this, our chattering monkey minds tend to make it hard for us to perceive our intuition so it can definitely help to redirect attention out of thinking and into the body. Your mind really needs to be calm in order to perceive your intuition, it requires a certain sensitivity and a listening.

This is very true, it's an excellent point. And that's fine if we've closed our hearts, it's natural to do that if you've experienced trauma and/or emotional upset (and who hasn't?), it's instinctive self-protection. It's where we need to have courage, though, because allowing ourselves to be open and vulnerable can feel really scary - but it's necessary if we're to be truly spiritually-liberated, I feel. And it doesn't tend to happen overnight, so you do need to persevere with it.

I remember Adyashanti saying that the person you'll have the hardest time loving is you, yourself, and I think he was right about that - I think it starts with you, once you can love yourself you can love everyone. No use trying trying to feign self-love if you really feel negatively about yourself, though, it's hugely important to be honest with yourself about how you feel. True self-love arises out of unconditional self-acceptance - not intellectual self-acceptance, true self-acceptance means allowing everything that had previously been repressed within you to arise. Emotional repression is essentially self-rejection and self-hatred.

By recognising that my non-acceptance only makes me suffer. That doesn't mean to say that acceptance comes easily, but it's helpful to understand the futility of non-acceptance, at least. Become intimate with the moment-to-moment experience of non-acceptance - notice what it feels like in the body, how contracted and tight it makes you feel. Let that tightness relax, and notice what sorts of feelings arise when you do that.

Absolutely, spirituality can all too easily become all talk, so practice is hugely important.

@Consilience Wow, amazing - you articulated that so well and I completely get where you're coming from (I've meditated around two hours a day for about four and-a-half years now and my practice has been quite literally a life-saver, I was in a very bad place when I decided to start meditating more intensively), many thanks for elaborating in such depth ? Understanding the essence of meditation is hugely important, obviously, and this is where I feel like a lot of people go wrong, they think it's about having a particular experience, manufacturing a certain state, when for me it's a relaxation of effort as much as anything, and an allowing of what had previously been repressed (I like Adyashanti's simple instruction in relation to meditation: 'Allow everything to be as it is'). I think it's also hugely helpful to understand that what you're looking for is actually already present - it's just a matter of allowing it to be uncovered, it isn't about somehow conjuring some mystical state out of thin air.

How so, out of interest? What benefits have you noticed?

@Raptorsin7 Cheers buddy, I'll check it out ?

I had a relationship a few years back that helped make me conscious of some pretty serious issues with my heart chakra; I had a strong and frankly weird energetic connection with this person that meant that she could feel all my emotions and energetic issues from hundreds of miles away, and she helped to make me conscious of various issues that had previously been largely unconscious, one of which was a very blocked, traumatised heart centre (I was told by a spiritual healer that this relates to past-life trauma I experienced with this person, which would seem to make sense, though how true that is I don't know). In the past few years I've had to deal with issues in all of my four lower energy centres, and I've made lots of progress particularly with regards to my root and sacral chakras (I had a lot of fear and upset stored in those areas), which are much clearer than they used to be, but I'm having ongoing issues with my solar plexus and heart chakras. What I'm feeling at the moment is a significant build-up of energy right in the middle of my chest; when I feel into this, I can sense that there's deep, deep grief there, but it's kind of mixed in with a lot of anger, too, which seems to be impeding the movement of the grief. What also seems to be complicating the issue is that I'm experiencing a lot of head pressure, too - there seems to be a connection between the pressure in my chest and the pressure in my head, though what the exact nature of that connection is, or how to work with it, I'm not really sure. I'm meditating pretty intensively at the moment - a couple of hours a day - so maybe it's just a matter of time, but I just felt like getting it off my chest (no pun intended) as much as anything. Though if anyone has any insights to offer, I'm all ears

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...