The Aggression Hidden in Rejection
La agresión oculta en el rechazo
A student describes noticing that any form of rejection toward present experience feels like a lack of self-love, and how recognizing this opened into a current of well-being.
The Aggression Hidden in Rejection
A student describes noticing that any form of rejection toward present experience feels like a lack of self-love, and how recognizing this opened into a current of well-being.
Something I noticed just now is that any type of rejection of what is happening, any thought, any feeling, any sense of "this shouldn't be happening" or "something yet has to happen," I started to recognize as a lack of love toward myself, or toward what is. That recognition is itself a form of knowing, and it's directly related to attachment. I don't have the words perfectly, but I'm trying to describe something I was feeling in the meditation. As I watched that, something shifted, and I started feeling a very blissful current. Maybe I'll have it clearer after some time, but perhaps you can say something about what I'm describing.
It sounds very clear to me. Usually the attachment is to a certain emotional state. We create stories that direct our attention, our mind, and our emotions into that state. At a deeper level, this doesn't feel good. We like those emotions, we attach to them because they help us, in the deepest sense, maintain a certain identity. But more than that, they help us not feel something else. They help us not feel pain or fear in ways that, from a very young age, we learned to avoid because those feelings were too disruptive.
The side effect of self-protection
What I think you're getting in touch with is that the side effect of putting energy into those emotions and stories feels like self-aggression, which is what you're describing. It has to start from a position that what is happening now is not okay. But what you are, at the deepest level, is now. So by creating this conflict with what is happening, you are in conflict with yourself.
Usually we're not aware of what that does. It's like being sad or stressed and having the habit of drinking in order to not feel the sadness. We learn to prefer the sensation of intoxication over the sadness, even though doing it over and over again habitually starts to become a form of self-harm. At a more subtle level, it's the same with what you're describing.
Noticing the mechanism
In a sense, you're starting to become aware that it doesn't feel right. What I relate to in what you're saying is that there's a lack of self-love. You're starting to notice this mechanism, and you can, in a sense, bypass it, or not engage with it, not energize it. Then you start to experience a sense of space, a current, a well-being. That usually begins to happen when we are able to meet the deeper feelings we have been trying to avoid. I always say it's going to be some form of fear or pain. It could be shame, it could be all kinds of things, but at root it's a form of fear or pain. As we learn to be present with those feelings, we are able to disengage from the habits that create the emotions we're attached to. That sounds really good.
It's amazing to see. It's as if any form of knowing, any form of "this should happen, this shouldn't happen," is an aggression. A lack of love.
Exactly. And from that place, you can then choose ways to navigate. You can choose to go in a certain direction, but it's not because you're trying to avoid what is happening now.
That's nice.
Good to hear.