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Hey, everyone. I know we have discussed this before, and several people seem to have the same problem that I do, and it was quite encouraging to know I wasn’t the only one! I still seem to have problems finding any distinguishable emotions to work with, either in my inner dissolving practice, or these preliminary practices. I can feel the area I’m working on (like the liver since I’m in Month 7 now), but the things that I feel in that area are mostly physical, or just kind of nebulous and indescribable. Having spent a great deal of time poking around in my body over the years, I can’t help kind of feeling that something more dramatic should have presented itself by now! I’m feeling much more than I ever did when I dissolve – it’s kind of like this landscape, and almost like shifting sand feeling. I’ve even hit spots of deep stillness. But discernable emotions continue to allude me. I know I have them. Sometimes they pop up at inopportune times. But hardly ever when I’m actually meditating, or trying to work on them. I figure that personality figures in to some degree, and I’m a generally even-tempered person. I know people who have emotions flying all over the place, and assume that they would have an easier time than me finding material to work with if they were doing exercises like these.
The second recording in Month 7 was especially helpful, when Bruce described how emotions can be deep and subconscious, and other various ways that they can hide and be difficult to get at. That was great, because sometimes I feel the instructions are more aimed at people with more easy to find, “on-demand” emotions. Right now I am taking some time to analyse my approach, and at least try to reasses and see if there is anything else I should be doing. For instance, maybe I should try to pay more attention when an emotion does come up, even if it’s not at a time when I can sit and meditate. Or maybe I just need to be patient and let my sensitivity grow, assuming that in time, I will be able to identify more emotional energy.
If anyone has any experiences or suggestions they can share, I would appreciate it!
Hi, Catherine. It took me a long time to really feel what Bruce it talking about when he mentions subliminal emotions. It’s really just been through the recent work with this TMC that I’ve started to figure it out. And that’s after almost 10 years of working with Bruce’s system. I’ve found that I can call up an emotion, usually by imagining or remembering a situation where that emotion was present in my response, and then noticing what I feel. The emotions are still very weak, but I can feel something. I think I wrote this same comment before, but I had to let go of any expectation about what I thought it would feel like and just really see what’s in there. And it wasn’t what I expected to feel. Part of it for me is that for a long time I was repressing or damping down my emotional responses (long boring story about my childhood I will skip) and so I had years of successfully feeling nothing to get over. I’ve been doing some dissolving with these emotions and it really is a different feeling than working with the body and/or chi. It also really cleared up for me what he means about “imploding the released energy inward.” Again, can’t really explain it, but it’s been eye-opening. I hope this is at least marginally helpful. One thing for me: it’s nice to know I’m on the right track.
Best wishes, Matthew
Hi Catherine, Thanks for starting this thread. In this second half of Month 10 with the emphasis back on finding subtle emotions, I feel like I have no idea how to proceed. I was quite content with what I was doing in Months 8 and 9 since they were focused on something very concrete like balancing the liver and spleen energy. It was easy to follow the routines and I could stay present and focused. So far in the second half of Month 10 I’m getting totally distracted while working on matched pairs of yin/yang emotions. It’s hard for me to imagine scenarios for how I’m feeling. I might be thinking about the situation instead of feeling it.
Thanks for the responses, guys! I know I have made some progress in my practice, so I have to remember to remember that. The problem is that sometimes on top of not finding any subtle emotions, sometimes I don’t find any gross emotions, either! What you said about not having any expectations about what something feels like is very important, Matthew. That’s something I’ve found as well. I think I do my fair share of repressing/suppressing sometimes, too. I guess I am just used to going back and forth between slightly encouraged and totally confused. I feel like it might help me to pay more attention in daily life when emotions start arising, maybe even if I can’t sit down and meditate just then, I can at least maybe take a step towards noticing more. Sometimes I think my mind is very sneaky, and may avoid things without actually being aware that something has been avoided! Usually the best approach is to keep practicing, and see what opens up to me. Good luck everyone!
Joan, I was thinking about your comment and it started me thinking about my patterns of learning. I find that my learning can be roughly divided into four levels. They are:
Level 0 – There’s a reason these start with level zero. For some instructions/exercise, that’s what I’ve got. Nothing. I can’t comprehend what’s being taught, and can’t even imagine how to get there.
Level 1: My first tai chi teacher told me the biggest step we will take is from “nothing” to “something”. I think she may be right. At this level, I am still far from “getting it”, but there is some little trickle of hope. It’s like smelling a pie baking. You can’t see it, you can’t taste it, but there’s this little whiff in the air that lets you know that it exists.
Level 2: At this level I am still unclear, but I can at least feel like I can get something going that’s close to what the instructions are. I guess this is like the level when you can actually see the pie. This level is sometimes confusing because I can feel enough to doubt whether what I’m feeling is actually what I’m supposed to be feeling.
Level 3: When I arrive at this level, usually the doubt is gone. I can more clearly make the connection between what I am feeling and the instructions. I know what I’m feeling is what I’m supposed to be feeling. And of course at this level, the work is still just beginning, a part of an ongoing process.
I could probably add more levels and make it more complex, but this is it in a nutshell. I find that each level is important, and in each level you develop the capacity for the next level. Even Level 0 is important, although often discouraging, but I’ve found that after a couple of level 0 experiences, or sometimes even one, the next time the material comes around I have the capacity to move to another level.
Thanks Catherine,
I loved your description of the levels of learning something. I can relate it to relearning piano after a 42 year layoff. There is nothing harder than learning to play the piano and it helped me see that this meditation even at the level I’m at is far easier. I should take some satisfaction and energy from that and keep on meditating until I get closer to feeling those subtle emotions.
Hi All, and many thanks for a really helpful, informative and reassuring thread. I’ve previously commented about my struggle to sense/feel emotions/emotional energy – a challenge that continues with month 10 part 2 – although during this iteration I’m sensing ‘something’ rather than nothing – although remembering past emotions is a challenge as I rember being ‘angry’, ‘sad’ ‘moved’ etc., but not a lot of how it actually felt, so it’s not easy to conjour up ‘the real thing’ during my practice. I assume that part of our challenge is moving from a level of sensitivity that is primarily via our nerves feeling our physical body and our physical body’s response to chi flow. Presumably, as emotions are in-part physiological (hormones etc.) and in-part mental (‘feelings’) they are a more rarified expression of chi and thus are more subtle, and therefore require a higher level of sensitivity. I’ll try being more ‘observer’ aware of gross emotions duing my work-a-day life and see if that helps sense the more subtle manifestations during meditation.
HI Catherine,
A couple of years ago when Bruce did the breathing instructor training he said something that stayed with me: ‘If you can’t feel something, open your mind.’
I would compare it to the act of listening (versus the act of doing.) It’s rather tempting to want to feel (which is an active, intent driven activity); however, it’s always been more productive for me to listen (a more passive, softer activity), to set the agenda at the beginning of the practice and notice where feelings and thoughts tend to go. Most of the time, the mere fact that they set out in a particular direction is a sign that something is being avoided, a subtle something. It almost feels like the needle of my conscious perception skips over something; once I notice the skip, I go back to investigate and use a more diffuse type of attention and a wider scope… At that point, invariably, what was ‘sort of, kind of’ becomes more obvious…
Hope this helps. Happy practicing!
Hey, Ana!! Yes, that was actually quite helpful! I’ve been finding more and more lately that it helps to both open, and also slow down the mind. It gets a certain “feel” to it when it’s searching for something, like trying to find emotional energy. Like you said, it’s more active than passive, and my ability to open diminishes, and I don’t feel as much. So I know exactly what you mean, and it was really helpful to hear it. Thanks! I’m going to continue to play with this.
Hi Ana,
This makes a lot of sense to me. I think when I meditated in the past I would listen, as you call it, but with month 10 I changed to being more active and doing, since Bruce said to think of some time when the emotion came up. So when I thought of something that made me angry in the first session, I lost it. I got into the emotion or the emotion took over and it was very difficult to observe. I did this a number of times and the more I did it the more frustrated I became, sort of defeating the purpose of meditating. I also became aware of how complex any one emotion is and that when you bring it up by thinking of an incident where it occurred it is never a “clean” emotion but rather a complex of different emotions all mixed together. I finally changed back to observing and after a short time I could sense that the feeling of negative emotions basically cause me to shut down at every level and that the positive emotions cause me to open up and expand. When this realization came through, I then felt like I can now go on to month 11.
This has been my experience. I finally realized that I can’t hold an emotion, after trying unsuccessfully many times. There seems now to me to always be an emotion inside, whether attached to a thought or not. Some are very subtle,light, and disappear quickly. Others are heavier and slower like a small stone. As soon as I try to grasp one and focus on it, it is gone. Sometimes there are several all at once. Like trying to catch butterflies.
Today I got angry. Swearing, spitting angry. I tried to stay present with the energy. The energy comes from everywhere, I couldn’t find the energy source, my whole body was involved. Did it originate in my lizard brain? It comes on so fast I was unable to locate a seat. I’m still pissed but once it passes maybe I will find a blockage.
Yeah. This sounds very familiar. It’s really hard when the anger is at it’s peak, maybe even impossible, to locate any source, blockage, or anything that can actually be worked with. I remember asking Bruce about this once. I told him when I’m angry, it just seems to permeate everything. He just shrugged and said, “That’s okay.”
I usually try to do my sitting/dissolving a little past the peak of the anger, like when it’s reduced to a slow boil. And I just try to work with what’s there, I know for me personally, when I actually go in with a mission to “find the blockage”, I usually am disappointed.
This is a little off-topic I guess, because it’s from another tradition, but it’s been helping me a lot lately so I’ll just toss it out in case it helps anyone. This Buddhist teacher was talking about how to meet experience/emotions. I realized that when I am experiencing strong emotions, like anger, I still try to get away from that emotion. Whether I’m trying to dissolve it, let my mind settle and be present, in the background there’s always this intention to “get rid of it”. So I’ve been going back a few steps lately, and when I feel something like anger coming on, I just try to open to it and really FEEL it, and be with it without any notion of getting rid of it. It seems kind of obvious in a way, but it was an oddly different experience. A lot of these times, like Kevin said, it’s not practical to find a chair and sit with it on the spot. But this I can do anytime.
I’d be interested to hear how your experience with this progresses, Kevin. Good luck!
I really like this ; thanks for sharing ana!
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