Sensation Of Clarity

[Galyna]

Hello Guys ,

 

I would like to hear your opinions. I have this realization that sometimes when I interact with people I lose the sensation of clarity in my awareness. I am sinking in emotions, because I react on external stimuli.  I have this feeling that the clarity that I have within me, is like a lake, and when I interact with people, the water becomes muddy, because it is so hard not be involved. However I try to observe my anger/hurt/anxiety.

What is the best practice to use to pull myself and not get involved ,when emotions are very strong, just right at that moment?

Obviously, we can not do meditation all the time during the day, so?

I am not talking about everyday situations, but more about unique moments. 

 

[Neo]

This is a good question. If you do any job that involves the public or customer service, you will run into problems. I mean what would the Buddha say when a customer says "I bought this item, it's not what I thought it was and now I want you to pay me compensation." Life is stressful. But I find the more you deal with the "muddy lake" the better you get at dealing with it, and you become tougher, and yet this is more a mental way of dealing with it, more baggage, more internal coping mechanisms and dissonance. When on this forum people are looking to remove all that baggage, so what is the answer?

[Azrael]

20 hours ago, Galyna said:

What is the best practice to use to pull myself and not get involved ,when emotions are very strong, just right at that moment?

It takes some practice but it seems to help to really concentrate into the feeling, get a good sense of it. Do not resist it and merge with it. Though this seems counter-intuitive because you give all your attention to it and stop negating it - but by that you accept it so much that it will choose to go or at least lessen. It's like you say to your feeling: "How can I serve you best, darling?", "How can I give you the most authentic experience to exist?"

By doing that you will just release every negative association connected to it. Of course if also helps to deepen your breath while you do that and to really feel in.

If you interact with others you can just merge with what they say and get a little bit out of your head. Instead of talking to yourself all the time while listening, try to listen to the other's breath and to the sound of their talk. Merge with the whole conversation, deepen your breath and create this rhythmic kind of sense that lets you play with the conversation. I love that.

Good question!

[Galyna]

2 hours ago, Arik said:

It takes some practice but it seems to help to really concentrate into the feeling, get a good sense of it. Do not resist it and merge with it. Though this seems counter-intuitive because you give all your attention to it and stop negating it - but by that you accept it so much that it will choose to go or at least lessen. It's like you say to your feeling: "How can I serve you best, darling?", "How can I give you the most authentic experience to exist?"

By doing that you will just release every negative association connected to it. Of course if also helps to deepen your breath while you do that and to really feel in.

If you interact with others you can just merge with what they say and get a little bit out of your head. Instead of talking to yourself all the time while listening, try to listen to the other's breath and to the sound of their talk. Merge with the whole conversation, deepen your breath and create this rhythmic kind of sense that lets you play with the conversation. I love that.

Good question!

Dear Arik, thank you so much for your response, I know this method, it was very well described in the novel " The Book of EST" by Luke Rhinehart (also known as George Cockcroft). He wrote that if you really want to alleviate emotions, look very close into it, allow it and accept it with all your being. 

[Galyna]

@Neo  Dear Neo, 

Thank you for feedback. Yeah, totally agree with you, because by detaching yourself from other people, you would not get any experience, we only acknowledge ourselves through others, by interacting with them. 

However with some knowledge and deeper understanding, I still react deeply on certain things.  Thanks to God it does not last long!!!!

 

[FindingPeace]

On 05/03/2016 at 1:49 AM, Galyna said:

I would like to hear your opinions. I have this realization that sometimes when I interact with people I lose the sensation of clarity in my awareness. I am sinking in emotions, because I react on external stimuli.  I have this feeling that the clarity that I have within me, is like a lake, and when I interact with people, the water becomes muddy, because it is so hard not be involved. However I try to observe my anger/hurt/anxiety.

What is the best practice to use to pull myself and not get involved ,when emotions are very strong, just right at that moment?

I know what you mean here. I find the same problems when interacting. What I do is to allow myself to notice my response, be it thoughts or emotions, but not judge the response. I then try to refocus my attention back on to the person and not on my reaction to them. It's not unlike meditating where you become aware of a thought-story but refocus your mind back on the present moment.

It's when we start to react to someone internally that we get distracted by our reaction and then start to buy in to it, analysing it, judging it, trying to fight it or allowing it to pull us off into some story about the interraction and our relationship to it. At least that's how it is for me. So by noticing but keeping the focus externally rather than internally I avoid gettiing caught up in my own reaction.

Hope that makes sense.

[Galyna]

On 3/9/2016 at 10:16 AM, FindingPeace said:

I know what you mean here. I find the same problems when interacting. What I do is to allow myself to notice my response, be it thoughts or emotions, but not judge the response. I then try to refocus my attention back on to the person and not on my reaction to them. It's not unlike meditating where you become aware of a thought-story but refocus your mind back on the present moment.

It's when we start to react to someone internally that we get distracted by our reaction and then start to buy in to it, analysing it, judging it, trying to fight it or allowing it to pull us off into some story about the interraction and our relationship to it. At least that's how it is for me. So by noticing but keeping the focus externally rather than internally I avoid gettiing caught up in my own reaction.

Hope that makes sense.

Thank you FindingPeace ,

“What I do is to allow myself to notice my response…”

Are you familiar with EST (Erhard Seminars Training)? Basically what they were claiming there on those trainings is to closely watch your reactions/emotions to the events. By the fact of the observation you can “melt” the emotion itself.  You give the emotion your full attention and live through it entirely. Luke Rhinehart described this method in his book “The Book of est”. I love the method, but he was not the first, of course, (I mean Erhard Werner) who gave birth to this methodology.  I read the book in one breath. 

P.S.  I am sorry for the delay in my response, trying to catch up.

[Galyna]

@FindingPeace

Disclaimer: Sometimes when I am in a fury (and by nature I am very emotional) I forget about Erhard Werner and his methodology. 

[Cuzzo]

This lady friend of mine was causing me a lot of drama tonight. Normally women are able to get the best of me emotionally (even if they don't know it). But for the first time when I was irked, I felt the emotions and thoughts pass over me as a sensation. Almost like water. I felt like the awareness being aware of all the sensations for a few seconds instead of becoming my thoughts and emotions.

 

It was a great ten seconds! 

[Galyna]

@Cuzzo  Way to go! Thank you for the response. 

I usually compare it with a cloud. When I am under the affect of emotions, I feel like I am in a big cloud, because loosing the sensation of clarity. For the past years I showed a good  trait in recognizing the emotion, give it a label  and observing it, but if it's really really strong, I might fail the practice   

[FindingPeace]

On 12/03/2016 at 2:00 AM, Galyna said:

Are you familiar with EST (Erhard Seminars Training)? Basically what they were claiming there on those trainings is to closely watch your reactions/emotions to the events. By the fact of the observation you can “melt” the emotion itself.  You give the emotion your full attention and live through it entirely.

This is something I do. In much the way that Leo talks about dealing with strong emotions by 'superconducting' them through you, this works for all feelings and emotions. Just observing it without judging it, or expecting anything from it, and most importantly without resisting it. We often feel a negative emotion well up inside us and  then judge it as something that shouldn't happen or we don't want. Then we try to fight it and push it away, deny that it is happening. But if we just let it be, observe it, recognise it and allow it without reacting to it then, as you say, it melts away.

This is also something I practive when meditating. If I am experiencing an emotional reation to something I can invoke that emotion during meditation, give it my full attention, then refocus my mind back on the 'nothingness', allow my thoughts to dissolve and the emotion dissolves with them. Then I'll re-invoke the emotion, observe it and do the same. I find each time I run this cycle the emotion becomes weaker and weaker until it no longer happens and I am at peace in my mind and body again. This effect lasts for a while afterwards. It's a great way to reduce emotional reactivity and maintain a more calmer and constructve mindset.

[Galyna]

@FindingPeace

Thank you for your comment! 

Funny thing happens here: when I notice my emotion, I start to feel shame and guilt, instead of “giving myself” fully to emotion, I, sometimes, suppress it because of embarrassment. That Alter Ego does not allow me to relax, because it expects certain behavior from me. It considers that after reading and developing myself in this direction, I should not feel the way I do toward people.

 

It does not happen to me all the time, but I just noticed it two days ago when talking to my friend. I felt irritation while our conversation. “The voice” came out accusing me of my ugly reactions. I did not have a chance to work with it, because I concentrated on the guilt part.

[FindingPeace]

3 minutes ago, Galyna said:

It considers that after reading and developing myself in this direction, I should not feel the way I do toward people.

I get this too. I try to take the advice Leo has given in some of his older videos: "Notice the feeling but don't judge yourself for it." Easier said than done. I still feel bad for egoic reactions but I remind myself that I am not fully developed yet and that I am still working on myself. Therefore I have to accept that I will continue to have these reactions for a while. Being aware of them is the important part. I also take some time to reflect on it afterwards and how I could have felt differently about the scenario. I ask myself why there was an egoic reaction and what it was, within me, that had caused it.

It happens though, and it will do for a while. It's part of the journey. At least you recognise that it happens and have intent to work on it.

[Galyna]

@FindingPeace

Our main issue with you here is that somehow we have to organize these “mini I” so they could reach the consent and harmony with each other. Thereby, one ,so called, “I” would not beat another “I” for not being perfect. As we know, we do not have the main Center who is in charge for the stable personality. Dissonance happens when fictional parts of our imaginary entity fight with each other for the main “throne”.

Good luck for both of us.