When Practice Feels Like Stalling
March 15, 2023

When Practice Feels Like Stalling

Cuando la práctica se siente como un estancamiento

This session explores the paradox of effort in meditation, examining how the drive to progress can itself become an obstacle. Students share experiences of encountering fear, pain, and self-aggression beneath habitual mental patterns, while the teacher traces these to early coping mechanisms that obscure a deeper sense of being. The dialogue moves through themes of repression, emotional attachment, and the relationship between fear and pain, reframing discomfort in practice as a sign of genuine healing.

effortlessness being self-aggression emotional attachment repression fear and pain racing thoughts meditation obstacles healing process nervous system therapy and meditation loss and love
When Practice Feels Like Stalling
dialogue
When Practice Feels Like Stalling
A student explores a recurring sense of being stuck in meditation, feeling that effort and non-effort both seem to lead nowhere, and the teacher addresses how the very framing of progress can become an obstacle.
The Treasure of Doing Nothing
meditation
The Treasure of Doing Nothing
A gentle invitation to stop striving and notice that what you most deeply long for is already here, overlooked in its simplicity.
Recognizing Self-Aggression in the Push Against What Is
dialogue
Recognizing Self-Aggression in the Push Against What Is
A student describes noticing that any form of rejection toward present experience feels like a lack of self-love, and how releasing that pattern gave rise to a blissful current. The teacher explains the deeper mechanics of emotional attachment and avoidance.
Distraction Settling into Relaxation
dialogue
Distraction Settling into Relaxation
A student shares how a period of intense distraction during meditation gradually gave way to deep physical relaxation and release.
The Urge to Get Through It
dialogue
The Urge to Get Through It
A student notices that while meditation opens up a feeling of space, there also seems to be something repressed underneath, and she wonders whether she needs to push deeper to reach it.
When Feeling Seems Like Too Much
dialogue
When Feeling Seems Like Too Much
A student describes the sense that fully feeling emotions becomes overwhelming, and the teacher suggests examining the belief that it will be "too much."
The First Level of Disturbed
dialogue
The First Level of Disturbed
A student describes feeling unsettled by the discovery of constant racing thoughts during meditation, along with a surprising jumpiness and fear. The teacher explains why this discomfort is actually a sign of healing.
When Fear Surfaces
dialogue
When Fear Surfaces
A student asks whether the anxiety and fear that have arisen through practice will become a permanent state, and the teacher reframes this as a long-hidden reality now coming to light.
The Pain Beneath the Fear
dialogue
The Pain Beneath the Fear
A question about the relationship between fear and pain, and how investigating each one reveals that pain is the deeper layer: the felt sense of losing what we love.
Free Fall Without a Net
dialogue
Free Fall Without a Net
A student shares her experience of traveling alone through a country in crisis, discovering that the hostile world she long inhabited may have been a mind construct, and finding unexpected love and openness in the midst of darkness.