Sunday, July 14, 2013

Alternating

This month I'm working on my feelings as objects of meditation. In this practice the idea is to alternate from the intensity of a feeling to the release of open awareness. Almost like a toggle. As I practice this, eventually the feeling begins to diminish on its own.

One of the things I have a tendency to forget when I'm doing this is to alternate. I'm good at staying with the feeling.  I stay with it until the feeling passes on its own accord, or something distracts me.

This is okay with small feelings.  But bigger feelings--angers, anxieties in times of crisis, deep sadnesses I've been avoiding--still seem to have a lot of power over me, and it's easy to end up back on the ratwheel of bad habit that I've developed to deal with them.

So this month I want to work on divide and conquer.  When I'm feeling the big emotions this month (and life is really good at presenting you with big situations for this practice, which I won't go into now) I'm going to do formal practice.  Open awareness.  Feeling. Open awareness. Diminished feeling. Open Awareness. Whisp of a feeling.

And then move on to some constructive action or work that is improving my world and the world around me.