Self Manipulation Necessarily Bad?

[Sprinkles]

Hello all,

I'm fairly new to Actualized.org and all the paradigms therein, and was just watching Leo's "Meditation for Beginners" video when he stated that when meditating, one should stop manipulating themselves towards feeling either good or 'safe' emotions, and instead let oneself fully experience whatever your body wants to express.  

HOWEVER, I perceive self-manipulation to be a very powerful technique in terms of getting things done that you really don't want to do (eg homework/studying/boring work tasks) or making them pleasurable, or pushing yourself towards feeling more positive moods, or improving self image, things of that nature.  My main question, then, is that if we CAN drive ourselves towards more positive feelings, why shouldn't we?  Is there something inherently wrong with these practices, manipulating ourselves to feel 'better'? 

 

Thanks for any insight you may provide you wonderful people. Cheers.

[Martin123]

@Sprinkles This will lead to surpression and will probably have a massive backlash in the long-run. (Been there, done that =D)

If you deny negative emotion by "thinking positively", the emotion won't run its course, and won't leave your system, it will become a part of your surpressed emotional body. Same with thought patterns. If they get denied, they get stuck in the subconscious (along with the emotions, thoughts and emotions are working basically in a circle, one causes the other, and the other way around.)

Edited November 8, 2016 by Martin123

[David1]

@Sprinkles Imo, the when meditating part is important here. Improving the self image, changing your belief system and other conscious work is done with affirmations, vizualization, self inquiry, shadow work etc. To me, this is not meditation. Meditation is quieting your monkey mind, not having thoughts at all, just being. This can sometimes cause emotions to surface, 'good' or 'bad' emotions. The point is not to resist this, not even the 'bad' ones. Just let them flow and be aware of them.

[Bizarre]

@Sprinkles Yeah, it's fine in meditation to just relax and flow with the process.  

Conscious manipulation of feelings are done indirectly without force or effort by using your intellect and common sense.  Negative feelings and states are mainly the product of your behaviour.  If you want to feel good you need to do certain things, change your lifestyle a little so that your brain starts serving you better thoughts.  All your emotions start as thoughts.  So make a list of all the things in your life you think are holding you back (not sleeping properly, not eating the right foods, drugs, alcohol, poor morals, seeking, blaming, identification with thoughts and your circumstances).  Conduct a fearless moral inventory on your lifestyle and your mind will benefit greatly from it.  And dont swallow any dodgy beliefs if they dont make airtight logical sense.

[Leo Gura]

It's bad when you do it unwittingly to escape reality or your emotions (which is almost always the case for you). You pay for it 100 fold in ways you don't even know yet.

[Sprinkles]

Thank you all for your input!

I think this here (quoted) is an important distinction I wasn't making previously, so I will be sure to separate meditating time (for direct experience) from time spent on self-improvement mental techniques, such as visualizations, affirmations, etc.  

21 hours ago, David1 said:

@Sprinkles Imo, the when meditating part is important here. Improving the self image, changing your belief system and other conscious work is done with affirmations, vizualization, self inquiry, shadow work etc. To me, this is not meditation. Meditation is quieting your monkey mind, not having thoughts at all, just being. This can sometimes cause emotions to surface, 'good' or 'bad' emotions. The point is not to resist this, not even the 'bad' ones. Just let them flow and be aware of them.