I Feel a Crying Infant In My Chest While Meditating

[kieranperez]

Okay. So at this point I’m not really surprised with what I feel but when I’m doing Mindfulness with Labeling “See, Hear, Feel”, the longer I go and when I go into the domain of feeling I literally feel just this sensation of this crying infant right at the center of my chest bone. At the same time I feel this tingling sensation at that same spot. It’s almost like this firecracker that’s continually spraying this tingling energy in my chest. When I see, hear, or feel an inner projection of anger or rage (I might think of my dad or someone yelling at me) I feel the sensation of that anger follow up from my chest and travels up my throat and that just hangs out there. 

At this point I’m not surprised by this, I’m not freaked out at all. I’ve done enough homework to know this is totally normal. It also hasn’t developed into something super “out there” where the sensation is killing me or is unbearable or I’m violently shaking or something like that. So it’s very tolerable and bearable. 

I feel like though, and I’m just intuiting this and roughly guessing, that this is that feeling of what Joseph Campbell describes as the torment from God from resisting the call out of fear and so forth. 

What are your guys’ take?

[VioletFlame]

@kieranperez Hey dude, this is beautiful. I can resonate so deeply and I'll explain why.

On Thanksgiving I had one of the most in depth conversations I think I ever had with my mother, I'll never forget it really. It was very powerful, very emotional, we went into some really deep topics involving my childhood and hers and just emotionally releasing everything and expressing how grateful we are for even the painful experiences we've shared together. Independently, and as mother and daughter. This extended discussion we had to me actually conveyed the true essence of what Thanksgiving is supposed to mean for once, which overjoyed me.

One thing I shared with her (and broke down in tears of joy doing) was one of the most effective meditative practices I've ever done in which had an immense impact on my life. This was an Inner Child meditation. Like many people, I had a very rough and abusive upbringing, it damaged me for a very long time. Once I discovered spirituality in my mid-late teens and meditation, the more I kept with it, the more it healed/saved me and the more I could flip the bird to all the doctors who tried to put me on medication for depression & PTSD which only made me feel like a zombie. I had like a different personality everyday, which wasn't good because it's confusing and difficult enough being a teenager and discovering your ID, who you are, what your values are, etc so to be on anti-depressants that alter your hormones/emotions even more was just scary and unhealthy.

So during this meditation (which was basically me making the conscious therapeutic decision to confront my traumatic childhood) to make a long story short, I ended up meeting my Inner Child, (I suddenly seen myself wearing this cute little red dress and Dorothy red slippers I used to adore. This was a blocked memory that I unlocked during this practice. I had my hands covering my eyes against a wall) so I was guided to confront her, I uncovered her hands from her eyes and looked deep into them, saying loving compassionate things to her, eventually leading up to hugging her. It finally took a lot of strength and courage for me to do this. I had to not fear it or reject it, but literally embrace it. 

It was sooo vivid and lucid and beautiful, I can barely put it into words. It felt like I went back in time and met myself and healed myself from the very beginning. It felt like a fresh start ever since then. Resurrection. It was so powerful, tears were streaming down my face, my whole body was tingling with chills and in my heartspace. I was utterly lost in this trance, this beautiful wave of direct healing. I can't stress enough how much Inner Child hypnosis' helped me through dealing with my trauma. It helped me find the gratitude and beauty even in the dark childhood that I inevitably had to face. If only they practiced this more in conventional therapy. However there are things like EMDR therapy in which I think is super cool. They use meditative hypnosis techniques similar to the one I did on my own, for helping people overcome their trauma, and unlock many aspects they had blocked out. Often Jungian related.

Anywho, you say you feel anger in your chest during this experience which makes you think of your dad. To me this reminded me of unlocking something deep within from your childhood that perhaps could be relating to your father. This physical reaction you're having could be your inner compass persuading you to heal your heartspace (heart chakra) that could have been blocked or harmed by this person, or someone/something else. You say it travels up to your throat. To me this is signaling that perhaps you need to verbalize your emotions, let it all spill out. Have you been bottling things inside for a long time? Do you tend to only think what you feel? This is a time to release, the anger and pain wants to be released. I wouldn't let it linger in your body for too long. Something's telling you to let it out I think, in healthy ways of course. Watch what kind of images come to the surface when you feel these sensations. This crying infant could be something left deep within your childhood that is screaming to be released. The crying infant is You trying to tell you something. ❤️ That's just my take. ❤️

 

Edited November 25, 2018 by VioletFlame

[Joseph Maynor]

Watch which thoughts and visualizations are preceding and causing those emotions.  The second thing is stop identifying with the thoughts and emotions as mine or me.   The thoughts and visualizations precede and cause the emotions.  I guess sometimes the emotions cause the thoughts and visualizations too, so there’s a back and forth.  But fear, as I learned from Leo, is basically visualizing some outcome and then getting an emotional reaction from that.  If you visualize yourself being weak, pathetic, incapable — you can imagine what kinds of emotions are gonna flow from that kind of outcome expectation!  Horrible emotions, right?  Painful emotions.  Emotions that we might label Fear.  You’re unreasonably foreseeing your own suffering basically.  And what that’s gonna do following the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy effect is actualize that Fear — it’s gonna turn that Fear into reality.  

Edited November 24, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Hellspeed]

Relax in the Hippo and Leviathan. Job chap. 40 and 41.

The hippo is the Thymus and Leviathan the Lungs and Heart. Put the Thymus on the forehead with visualization, and relax all the being in the chest. 

Find the "purple rain". the Spleen, is the starting point. 

[Angelite]

4 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

You’re unreasonably foreseeing your own suffering basically.  And what that’s gonna do following the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy effect is actualize that Fear — it’s gonna turn that Fear into reality.

Nooo~ Don't say that or else it will become a reality. But okay

 

4 hours ago, VioletFlame said:

This is a time to release, the anger and pain wants to be released. I wouldn't let it linger in your body for too long. Something's telling you to let it out I think, in healthy ways of course.

Nicely said.

 @kieranperez hey i thought you're a runner? that's the best & most fun way to release all that's suppressing internally. When i'm tired of life & get stuck with my creativity, I'll stop everything and go running/skating like crazy & it works almost instantaneously every single time(runners high haha).

Maybe after that you can think more clearly on how to go about your plans? 

Whether you want to settle things with your father directly, or if that's currently not possible then don't think of those that makes you angry. Instead, focus on your goals and personal development. Avoid those toxic environment as much as you can. 

 

Don't take the little things in life for granted...... you have a home to sleep in tonight, you're healthy, you're still young, you live in a beautiful country......someone out there barely able to fight for their life, living in fear of getting killed......

 

It's okay to worry about the future& how to go about your financial plans/self actualization etc, but don't be too serious that you're not able to feel peace in the current moment, For both are equally important.....

 

@VioletFlame That's beautiful. To embrace the little you who have been through a lot

 

 

 

[kieranperez]

@Hellspeed I have no idea what that meant at all. Please provide some context.

@Joseph Maynor what do you recommend then personally?

@VioletFlame wow that a awesome! Happy for you! Most of my thoughts when I feel this stuff involve this screaming rage and negative thoughts about my future which I know have been projected onto by my parents of being this incompetent loser that has no skills, always fucks things up and has really become a very disempowering and crippling self image. I don’t really like talking about it too much but to be honest my main “thought response” to these thoughts are images of me beating someone’s face in. There’s a lot of anger I have inside but I don’t have a place I can really express it. If I were REALLY honest with my dad about what I feel I’d be thrown out of the house and have the locks changed on me with nowhere to go (I’ve had this threatened to me multiple times) and I’m very berated and shamed because of my anger. He projects to me that I’m the same as my deluded mentally ill mother who he contributed to her fragmention of her own psyche which lead to the collapse of our entire family. Not to say he’s some evil devil he’s just one of those moralistic dogmatic new age materialistic atheists who says “either it’s mental illness or you’re a bad person” and if it’s “mental illness” I’m not in control I’m supposedly sick and I can’t trust myself and all this stuff. He means well but he’s ignorant through no fault of his own I guess. I do have a lot of anger and I’m tired of it. It’s like this ingrained groove of operating and I’m tired of it. My only mode of motivating myself even is this aggressive “fuck all you I’ll show you” but that doesn’t even last more than a few minutes and I know it’s bullshit. 

@Angelite “better” is relative. Also most people including most runners have never felt a real runners high. If you’re talking feeling good flow states, that comes with mastery. It’d take me too long to explain the whole thing but running has been my life for the last 11 years and that drive is my close to dead. Running is not some effortless thing. People who say that haven’t actually put in the time and investment in the sport. 

Running comes easier to me than most people because I have the body for it and aways have but at this point I don’t necessarily feel better on a run. I’m also not in a space geographically where I enjoy it at all 

[VioletFlame]

@Angelite Thank you so much. ❤️

[Joseph Maynor]

@kieranperez Become mindful of the thoughts and visualizations that are preceding and causing your emotions.  Trace the emotions to the thoughts and visualizations you are Experiencing.  Also, stop identifying with these thoughts, visualizations, emotions as mine or me.

[ValiantSalvatore]

@kieranperez Hey Shinzen had a theme which focused on this subject. Last weekend the theme was called "The Black Hole of Primordial Unfulfillment" or smth. similar. Via the home practice programme or online retreat. During the 4 hour segment of this theme, he talked about, how yes all of this is normal and he quoted some Spanish poem .. in Spanish. During the meditation exercise, we sat down and felt into this feeling noting it and feeling it's intensity in pain and it's size and giving it levels of intensity 3 , 2 , 1 - strong, mediocre, mild. 

I can send you the recordings from that retreat.

I also have the same experience at the same spot with anger or an intense burst of emotions. For me, it tends to dissipate/disperse into a flow, so I feel in and then the feel in immediately goes into feel flow which dissipates or disperses through parts of my body/torso mostly. After that, I feel a sense of equanimity for as long as that flow traverses through my body. Also, this pain stems from below my sternum. If I recall correctly, you are also into psychedelics. I had a trip during this years April or May where I felt very warm and happy, extremely strong and somehow felt an unstoppable resolve.

After that trip I worked out a couple of days later and it felt like that spot in my body ( I was doing dips) was starting to burst open and I could not handle it very well. But it felt so good, but way to intense. At the same time for me, it currently feels like all of this stems from a deep-seated feeling of shame, hatred, resentment, anger mostly and frustration. Also during a different trip, I imagined I was a yogi testing his inner system ... and at one point I could not handle it anymore ( I was breathing into this spot constantly feeling it's pain) and I felt I am torturing my body because I was feeling into it heavily.

Also, during the zen retreat in September there was a guy who was quite odd, I was the only one who talked to him besides the nun there and he was in my room. He had to leave the retreat because he was extremely angry and he could not stop to wheeze, he collapsed during meditation and they called the fire brigade who talk care of him.( I walked passed him as he was talking to the zen master we meditated outside)  He was quite introverted like myself to a degree, I asked the others but they did this not very seriously and they were a little bit excited that something happened( He was more or less a regular guy he was a teacher of mathematics and physics for kids but who knows what he says was true ? I don't understand why people lie at retreats) . So, I am going to be careful with this, but I also talked with one guy there at the retreat he lived with a yogi in India, he told me that you can break through with a psychedelic and his heart seemed extremely open, similar to what I see ... with Leo especially if I compare older videos. That is insane, but at the same time quite inspiring. So, potentially yoga can be more effective in dealing with this. Yet, obviously meditation helps IMO.

Edited November 26, 2018 by ValiantSalvatore

[Hellspeed]

On 25.11.2018 at 4:36 AM, kieranperez said:

@Hellspeed I have no idea what that meant at all. Please provide some context.

 

 

 

The Bible, Job chap. 40 & 41.