A student describes their practice of welcoming fear and processing emotions, and the teacher points out how even acceptance can become a hidden strategy of avoidance.
A student describes their practice of welcoming fear and processing emotions, and the teacher points out how even acceptance can become a hidden strategy of avoidance.
The conditioned response you're describing is the part of me that wants to purge it, that wants to work on it?
Engage with it, solve it, fix it, remove it, process it. The trap here is that in this work, let's call it spiritual work, we can put so many things in that bag. A lot of strategies that are actually avoidant can fall into the bag and then be called honorable spiritual practice. Emotional and psychological work, for example, can become an avoidance mechanism.
Because you're trying to get somewhere else, and what you're pointing to is right here.
The ocean and its waves
What I'm describing is more complex than that, because it's about how not to fall to either side. So in words, I have to describe something more nuanced.
Think of the metaphor I used: fear is the wave appearing. One approach is, "How do we make sure this ocean has no waves? How do I push down on these waves? How do I flatten this all out so that finally tomorrow I will be at peace because there will be no waves?" Said that way, it obviously sounds ridiculous.
It does work at times, in the sense that some of the waves can be calmed, because we are creating them. The waves we create through our own inner storminess, those we can settle. But then there are the waves of life. Those just come up. And the more you try to flatten them out, the more stormy it gets, or you create this perpetual cycle of always trying to settle things. It's never-ending.
The freedom that is possible is this: a wave comes up, and you surf it. You ride it, you savor it, and you also respond in the wisest, deepest way, because there isn't a prior interpretation that the wave should not be there.
Right, because I have this story that I have a fear imprint from my past, and there's a process I need to do to get rid of it. And instead, that's the judgmental side of me that just can't accept that maybe there's no need to reason about anything. It just happened. Just accept it.
The mind creates a new "true way"
You're presenting two sides again. The first thing, yes, that's not it. But then you describe what it is, and that's not it either.
This is what happens. I'm pointing out a belief system, something in which you identify: it's a belief around you and what you are and how you are. As soon as that starts to get shaken a little bit, the mind starts to go, "Well, it's this other way. This is the true way." It creates an alternative and calls it the truth. And that's not it either.
But it is important to just accept whatever wave comes up and not analyze it, not try to do something about it. Just accept that it's part of my present moment.
Yes, but then you said "and not think about it," and that's already a strategy. Because it could be useful to have some thoughts about it.
Okay.
Contemplating the fear
You could contemplate: is this my body and my mind reacting like I'm about to die? The mind is going, "Wow, this feels like I'm walking into a fire pit, and I'm just contemplating speaking in a group." Does this add up? And then thoughts will say, "No, it doesn't. I'm not stepping in front of a bus. It feels like I'm stepping in front of a bus."
I know that experience. When I would contemplate speaking with my teacher, there was just terror coming up. And at first I was trying to control the fear, or I was seeing it as some kind of problem. Or something that's, even if not the fear itself, but the origin of the fear is something wrong: an imprint, a wounding in the past, and so on. That might already be too much.
But then in the moment, there's this fear. It feels like I'm stepping in front of a bus. Is the reality like that? No, it's not. Therefore, why don't I explore moving into that which feels so scary? That is a form of thought process. It can be useful.
So if I can go through that while being aware of my sense of being, that's the ideal? I mean, the idea is to remain present, to be in the knowing of your own self. If I can go through this process while being aware of that...
I lose you a little, because I'm not sure what you mean by "being aware of your sense of being." When we put these things in words, it's hard to communicate.
In guided meditations, like the ones by a certain teacher, there's always this instruction: settle into knowing, put your focus on the one who is existing, beyond thought. When I go for walks, when I wash dishes, I try to be in that knowing state. It feels non-personal, very open.
So when I'm meditating, I'm doing that, and then I notice the energy come up, and I wonder: can I experience both at the same time? But that was when I was still in the idea that I had to process it, that that was the ideal way of looking at it.
So you're saying that for there to be a knowing of your true nature, there needs to not be fear?
No, not like that.
Then why is the fear in some form detracting from the other?
It's not. I recognize that the fear is appearing in this open space of awareness. I don't judge it. I don't go to war with it or resist it, at least not in this moment.
Welcoming with a bat behind your back
We were just saying how you have this strategy. That is going to war with it.
But I do it in a way where I'm accepting it and giving it love.
This reminds me of something Francis Lucille says about welcoming emotions. It's like you're at home. The emotion comes to the door. You welcome it: "Come on in!" And you have a bat behind your back.
I don't know if that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm trying to be... well, maybe a little bit. Maybe just five percent. A small bat.
There's a strategy at work. "I will welcome it so that it leaves. I will welcome it so that it goes away forever. I will welcome it because once I welcome it fully, it will leave and never come back." It's still a strategy.
The feeling of a big jump
This feels like a big jump for me, to really embrace this way of relating to emotions. It feels like it's going to take years.
It feels like that, and it can, but it doesn't have to. It feels that way because what you're doing is helping you cope with something.
Yeah, it's helping me feel like I'm making progress, I guess. And it is helping me feel better. The last seven months I've been through some deep emotional initiations, and I have moved a lot of energy. It's been positive. But maybe you're opening the door to something new.
I'm pointing to something. What you're doing will hit a kind of ceiling where you won't be able to move past it. You'll be chipping away at something forever with diminishing returns. The techniques you're using work for some of what's happening, but not all. They work for an aspect that is more on the surface. That is valuable and valid, but the trap is that it can become a form of avoidance.