Last week in insight practice we used the practice of suppressing self generated afflictive emotion – this week we are exploring the energy centers and the somaticized emotion that they contain.
When I first was “initiated” or whatever you want to call it – and felt the urge to meditate all the time and go on retreat and have wild experiences and all that – I felt a fairly consistent pressure (or contractiveness) on the top of my head.
Sometimes if felt like someone was physically pushing down on my head with a thumb or a fist. I also felt this strong pressure in my forehead – there was at least one sit where I actually visualized the sensation as an ice pick, and it threw my whole head backward it was so intense.
Lately those energy centers have subsided a bit – and the lower ones are unfolding. The metta practice has brought more awareness to my heart and solar plexus – but the most interesting one that’s waking up right now is in my throat.
Lately when I’ve gotten quiet, it’s my throat that’s been the most noticeable, even when the practice doesn’t involve the energy centers. Sometimes just during the day I’ll feel it – much like I used to feel the pressure in my head.
In sitting practice we’re working with identifying feeling states that reside in these centers, and I’ve been working with my throat. I feel there’s emotion trapped in there around feeling unheard and unseen. The emotions feels similar to the dream where you scream but no one hears you. I’m not entirely sure what emotion that is – but it should have a name.
As if to validate this thought I had yesterday, last night I had a dream in which S and I were at a theme park, in line to ride one of those standing roller coasters. We all load into the cars and I realize that my safety harness doesn’t come down. Or rather, it comes down but it doesn’t lock snugly into place, it just kind of bounces up. I try and get the attention of one of the attendants but no one hears me or is nearby enough to hear me. I wave my arms and no one seems to notice. The gal comes by to individually check the cars and when she gets to mine she cursorly inspects the person next to me and sees that theirs is fine and kind of skims over mine. I start yelling at her and she hears me
I get out of the car and start yelling at everyone on the platform and they hear me. They yell back, defensive. We fight, I call them all incompetent and storm out.
But I still want to ride the ride so I sneak back in later – which is when I woke up.
(there as another part of this dream in which I had a baby – I felt great love for the baby, but conflict with my partner – a sort of smugness that rubbed me the wrong way. I wanted to go out to an event – a movie or art show or something – and realized that I didn’t want to leave my baby alone. So I was in a position to either leave and feel bad or stay and feel bad for missing the event. It was a terrible feeling, but I was very aware of a “right vs wrong” choice. My partner was a bit smug with an “i told you so” look when he saw I wanted to go out but couldn’t – as if he knew all along this would be my struggle with parenthood. Even in my dreams that smugness drives me crazy.)
the Good Heretic 