Jen seeking guidance

[Jenness]

Sorry late response! Back from travels and should be better now.

What is “self-compassion” in direct experience?

It’s a warmth feeling and less judgment (“resistance”) towards my emotional sensations. Heart loosening that feels like sadness? Makes me wonder if opening the heart literally gets labeled as sadness in me. Fear and anxiety (heart rate increase, energy runs upwards chest, arms, head), feels vulnerable. Belief is there’s no protection if no resisting “negative” emotions, nothing to keep me in check and avoid behaviors that could leads to negative outcomes

There’s a huge difference between compulsive pleasure-seeking to escape discomfort and no longer worshipping suffering. :)

I like this! Seems like i was clinging onto suffering on top to get away from fear underneath. Like rather not have love from self than to be afraid of rejection from others

Is it possible to feel good all the time?

This was the hope.. definitely not physically possible, but was hopeful emotionally emotions could stop feeling uncomfortable. But as i think about it, it’s probably not that possible because they’re there for survival purposes

It is THE illusion. Has there EVER been a separate controller?

Cool! Feels narrowed down. No there hasn’t, it just brings up fear to see it, but I don’t consciously believe it anymore and it’s easier than before to keep that perception that things are just happening on their own. So much fear still though

[graceabounds]

Belief is there’s no protection if no resisting “negative” emotions, nothing to keep me in check and avoid behaviors that could leads to negative outcomes

Protection from what? Look directly.
Thoughts are spinning an elaborate tale of ‘outcomes’. Yet what is the experience of these emotions? are they inherently dangerous?

Like rather not have love from self than to be afraid of rejection from others

So is it a construction? An illusion that can now be seen through?

was hopeful emotionally emotions could stop feeling uncomfortable

Is the suffering coming from emotion itself?
Or from “This emotion should not be here.”
Take a look directly.

Without the thought-story, what is fear actually made of?

[Jenness]

Protection from what? Look directly.
Thoughts are spinning an elaborate tale of ‘outcomes’. Yet what is the experience of these emotions? are they inherently dangerous?

The emotions don’t feel inherently dangerous. They feel like they’re pointing to an outcome that is tagged as “not acceptable” which is something like that I’m so bad at my work because of emotional issues and people are a little appalled and disgusted. And then I would be shunned in my work community and i hadn’t believed i could be really incompetent and it not impact whether people care about me, because i don’t know what i offer if I’m incompetent due to emotional issues and those emotional issues also impact personal relationship. Just a not knowing what I offer as a self. Feels good to say okay, i don’t offer anything, if you want to be around me, great, if not, I’ll take that over trying to earn your company through providing something. Having these things to lean on (socially pleasant persona, competencies, emotionally well adjusted persona) was creating the sense i could control whether people will like me, but it was also unclear, and even more so if I’m out the system of trying to give people what they want. Don’t know if they’ll stay but if they do, then it means more. At the core, it’s protecting from a feeling of aloneness, a core sadness, but once i’m there and look again, I’m not alone and love is always there. How nice :)

Like rather not have love from self than to be afraid of rejection from others

So is it a construction? An illusion that can now be seen through?

It’s a lack of trust that seeing it as an illusion would mean I’m okay, which seems to correspond to seeing, for the self in illusion, that the love it actually wants is already here. It kept batting it away like no you’re fake and not as good as the real thing (in the relative world). Now it’s like okay you are equally good and much more accessible

Is the suffering coming from emotion itself?
Or from “This emotion should not be here.”
Take a look directly.

It’s both seems to come from the “emotion should not be here” and also seems really hard to actually stay with that perspective, and I’ve heard that “negative” emotions will always be uncomfortable as long as we’re in a human body, but seeing what you said I’m more hopeful

Without the thought-story, what is fear actually made of?

Rhythmic pulsing (heart), density (tension bracing), foggy gassy stuff moving around

[graceabounds]

Good, Jen.

Just a not knowing what I offer as a self. Feels good to say okay, i don’t offer anything

Do ‘you’ need to have value or no value in this equation?
Is there any deficient entity actually here?

I’ve heard that “negative” emotions will always be uncomfortable

Is discomfort itself suffering?

Or is suffering: resistance + ownership + narrative?

also seems really hard to actually stay with that perspective

Because the system keeps trying to make it a maintained state. But no state needs to be held. Seeing happens freshly each moment.

love is always there

Does that love belong to someone?
Is there a “you” generating it? And/or a “you” receiving it?

Big love,
Becca

[Jenness]

Do ‘you’ need to have value or no value in this equation?
Is there any deficient entity actually here?

Fear of what happens if no value, nothing that gives it a bit of a safety guardrail when approaching interpersonal situations. Nothing other than it just feels safer to have value, because it was believed that having value is what made things not worse so far. It’s not actually clear it’s helped though. Most likely hindered becuase the system naturally knows what’s okay socially and this clinging makes it go above that level. Might lose some things that relied on going above that, but willing to let those go. There’s a perfectionistic mechanism that doesn’t know if it’s okay to let go of anything and “win some and lose some.” It’s helped by seeing this, that it’ll probably be fine, and it’s not as if I haven’t lost stuff before from my own actions and been fine.

there is no deficient entity here here, just a belief that there’s an entity here, and the belief there needs to be something guiding it towards “good things” and away from “bad things,” otherwise it’ll just be a floating jellyfish, which actually sounds quite nice as well..

Is discomfort itself suffering?

I thought it was because i thought if there was no resistance then it wouldn’t be uncomfortable, but that was just hard to ever get to. But looking again, it’s not discomfort or comfort, it’s some belief that doesn’t have any corresponding sensation. But i can’t find the corresponding sensation for discomfort either.. so i’m back to emotional sensations don’t inherently feel uncomfortable technically but is super difficult in a human body to “stay” there

Or is suffering: resistance + ownership + narrative?

I got to memorize those. Resistance i know when it’s there as a felt sense of tension, or maybe it’s just the idea that tension is there and is resisting.. or the idea of there’s something to resist and that leads to tensing as a response, so like tension itself isn’t able to resist anything but it’s a marker that there’s a belief that there’s something that needs to be resisted.
Ownership is trickier for me. I feel like it’s almost always there, and if it wasn’t there, there’d be no following resistance. Or if there’s ownership. Then maybe resistance and narrative still happen but they don’t cause suffering.. but once there’s ownership, as because resistance and narrative continue to happen either way most of the time, then there’s suffering unless it’s during a gap Iike when there’s samadhi

Because the system keeps trying to make it a maintained state. But no state needs to be held. Seeing happens freshly each moment.

Maintained state.. it shifts back to whatever there’s the least resistance to it seems like. No state needs to be held, freshly see just whatever is here. A watcher is here thinking it’s doing the inquiry. Fear when that’s seen. Doesn’t make sense to it that there can be all this happening without someone here. Feels uprooting.

Does that love belong to someone?
Is there a “you” generating it? And/or a “you” receiving it?

It doesn’t belong to anyone. Had the thought different part of me was receiving it, but it’s more like the warmth mixes with the other emotional sensations or just both are there at the same time, kind of like how sight and sound are here at the same time

[graceabounds]

Hi Jen.

i’m back to emotional sensations don’t inherently feel uncomfortable technically but is super difficult in a human body to “stay” there

What if ‘stay’ is reframed as ‘explore’ or ‘meet’? What does that do?

A watcher is here thinking it’s doing the inquiry. Fear when that’s seen. Doesn’t make sense to it that there can be all this happening without someone here. Feels uprooting.

There never was a watcher. Like there never was a unicorn or Santa Claus. It was all always fiction.


Ownership

Put both hands on a table.
Both will be labelled “my hand.”
The table will not.

Close the eyes.

Without visual story:

What makes one sensation “me” and another “table”?
Is ownership found in sensation itself?
Or only in mental labeling afterward?

The moment a thought appears, look immediately
Before the content matters…
before the story starts…
How is it known to be “your” thought?

Can ownership be found outside thought?

-Becca

[Jenness]

What if ‘stay’ is reframed as ‘explore’ or ‘meet’? What does that do?

Better! It feels doable. Less concern about whether able to stay. Some sadness from letting go of the idea of staying as a goal. Some sense of it’s too much work to explore or meet but there’s a natural meeting already there if relaxed

There never was a watcher. Like there never was a unicorn or Santa Claus. It was all always fiction.
Ownership

Put both hands on a table.
Both will be labelled “my hand.”
The table will not.

Close the eyes.

Without visual story:

What makes one sensation “me” and another “table”?
Is ownership found in sensation itself?
Or only in mental labeling afterward?

The moment a thought appears, look immediately
Before the content matters…
before the story starts…
How is it known to be “your” thought?

Can ownership be found outside thought?

These were helpful! Ownership isn’t found in the sensation itself, but just the mental labeling. Thoughts are just there as well, and if i can see the thought claiming ownership , then it feels like I’m not viewing through a belief in them, and i can come in and out of that perspective, but the default is to bounce back to listening from that perspective because i have a harder time capturing thoughts than say sensations and they keep slipping by me. Making them louder helps, if I repeat “ me , me, me, me” to see what’s being tagged since the labels are happening at every moment anyway. It feels like identifying each one is too tedious and the identification also becomes a sneaky doer. When i see through or if I just relax, there’s lots of intense sensations that come up, and i assume those are the ones making this illusion habit so sticky, but trying to let those sensations move out also is a doer action. Instead of letting them move through, it seems the only way to not be trying to do something is complete comfort with the sensations being there without trying to do anything with it at all

[graceabounds]

Yes. Don’t impose ‘moving out’ as a goal for the sensations. ‘complete comfort’ also sounds like it may have an agenda.

Just be with them. Give them room to breathe and freedom and space to express fully in whatever way they wish.

And after that take a look behind them… what are they there to protect?

[Jenness]

Yes. Don’t impose ‘moving out’ as a goal for the sensations. ‘complete comfort’ also sounds like it may have an agenda.

Just be with them. Give them room to breathe and freedom and space to express fully in whatever way they wish.

I see, almost like a do nothing - not trying to hold them tight or distance from them, but that then is also a goal.. so just really letting it do whatever, and let it loosen on it’s own when ready?

And after that take a look behind them… what are they there to protect?

Wants to avoid a sense of not knowing what’s going to happen and not having control over outcomes. Belief that if I’m letting things be, then I’m not working towards decreasing chances of “negative” outcomes, as identified by this self/future prediction mechanism. The self seems to be a kind of identify problems and prevent problems mechanism. If it’s not following its plan, then there’s thought that negative stuff is more likely to happen, or my future will be more negative than if i were following the plan, and fear that some feared outcome is going to happen, perhaps decreased survival chances. Seems I’d have to get comfortable with the idea of dying. Feeling the fear around different components of death. Going into nothingness, which doesn’t seem as bad as initially thought. Grieve over missed experiences.. but unclear that there’s something I can identify that i want to make sure I’ve experienced..it’s more the idea that there’ll be something amazing and needed that i didn’t know and i could’ve experienced if still alive. Also doens’t seem as awful as i would’ve thought. Shame over how I’m dying, like people finding me in a very messy room for eg., which links to how people think about me in general and leads to fear to think about people thinking negatively of me. Letting that energy be there and move, with less agenda and labeling of them. They weren’t shifting out nad appeared to have lots of layers. Tried the idea of letting them do whatever they want and not every watching them, almost like a perspective of even if they harm me or lead to something awful ,it’s okay, like letting go of the thought that it mattered what they were doing, and with that kind of relaxing, they started shifting out body through twitches and squeezes. With death the other piece is some kind of meaning. Like would feel like my life has been meaningless, that i haven’t done anything that feels meaningful, which feels like a failure, like a failure to have become anything useful or worthwhile. Feeling into that sinking ache, relates to thought of then what was the point of me being here? And then trying on “there was no point.” Still agenda of feeling something more deeply so that it doesn’t run my life and cause daily anxiety, when see the agenda, then what’s happening is more just this current freeze frame. But it also does appear good to contact previously unfelt thought/sesnation combos. Maybe like it’s a good and helpful action for life and it’s also equally part of just what’s here on another level..

[graceabounds]

The self seems to be a kind of identify problems and prevent problems mechanism

Precisely. That’s much closer to what you’re actually finding than “a person.”

This mechanism (not you) predicts and projects images of death, failure, rejection, meaninglessness etc NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE HAPPENING, but because it is how it operates.

The mind assumes meaning must come from a future achievement. But those are all story-structures.

Can experience itself fail?
This immediate experiencing. Can it fail at being what it is?

Suppose some people misunderstood you, some people disliked you, your career was not what you hoped, your life story looked ordinary and death came sooner than expected.

What exactly would be lost?

Not the story!
What would be lost HERE?

When you LOOK from direct experience rather than from this character’s perspective, see what you actually find.

[Jenness]

Can experience itself fail?
This immediate experiencing. Can it fail at being what it is?

No, it’s just what it is. But in what it is, there isn’t a reality of a story of me..it really is like we’re in a dream.. or at least something that I can’t distinguish from a dream. Not sure what that means though.. can’t really grasp it and mind is wondering about what that means about direction in life, or how to make this perspective stay when i can’t really figure it out, etc.

Suppose some people misunderstood you, some people disliked you, your career was not what you hoped, your life story looked ordinary and death came sooner than expected.

What exactly would be lost?

Not the story!
What would be lost HERE?

Nothing can be lost here. It doesn’t make sense, the idea of losing something

When you LOOK from direct experience rather than from this character’s perspective, see what you actually find.

I can’t quite see it clearly yet. There’s fear of letting go of this idea of life. Just relaxing the holding and being with the fear underneath , but it’s just waves of energy and doesn’t seem to stop. Trying to contact the fear in more detail as opposed to “closing my eyes” at it passes. Keep grabbing back something as let go though. Trying to understand what it could even grab at though.. seems to be of concepts, including the idea that there’s something to let go of..? But it does feel like as long as tensing, it’s hard to let go of the concept so it’s a good proxy. Will just keep meeting the sensations and stay with a curiosity about them. And keep seeing the concepts coming in, that it’s fear, that its my fear, that this is my body, that there’s a human or a being here. Get little glimpses of knowing that I’m not human, but can’t get to it cleanly and don’t know how. Can’t get out of self perspective. No matter what i do, it’s from the self perspective of wanting something from it

[graceabounds]

Nothing can be lost here

Beautiful!

just waves of energy and doesn’t seem to stop

Can you tell me more about where these are located and where they arise and move to and the quality of them?

mind is wondering about what that means about direction in life, or how to make this perspective stay when i can’t really figure it out

Who needs to figure it out? Who needs direction?

Get little glimpses of knowing that I’m not human

Careful here that ‘not human’ doesn’t just swap in with ‘human’ as the self.

Right now can you find a separate self?
That’s enough.

Can’t get out of self perspective.

Who would get out?
Look carefully. This is the same structure appearing again. It doesn’t exist and never has.

[Jenness]

just waves of energy and doesn’t seem to stop

Can you tell me more about where these are located and where they arise and move to and the quality of them?

They seem to originate below the belly button and release a wave of gas like energy down through the top/front of the legs and get to around the knee and also at the same goes up through the center of the back to the upper back . They release when I “loosen my hold” on something, when i imagine seomthing loosening as i using the imaginary of a fist loosening. There appears some tension and tightening in the head trying to keep the energy from going anywhere it wants to , some kind of control and fear underneath, and a feeling in the legs also of resistance but feels more like something scrapping the inside of my legs with little grains of sand or something but isn’t a super unpleasant feeling, maybe like a 3/10. If i let them just float around without trying to loosen anything or have anything move, then energy releases when i breath and loosen the muscles usually tight around abdominal and side of chest and if i let breathing open center of chest too then it feels like opening my heart and the energy released there has the sadness label; the head tensions are there to keep the energies from moving much but if i take the perspective the tension can’t hold anything, or that tensions ae just a label, then that releases a wave from center of chest (front side of body) out like a circular ripple or also sometimes from the center of chest towards the back of body and up spine to neck. If i let the out breath fully leave and relax then there’s also an energy release at the end of the breath and that one is similar to the first one, starts from lower belly and goes both down legs and up torso.

mind is wondering about what that means about direction in life, or how to make this perspective stay when i can’t really figure it out

Who needs to figure it out? Who needs direction?

The part of me that doesn’t want to accept the possibility that it actually believes in already that I’m not good enough and just not a likable person and have nothing to offer. Letting that belief be brings up fear, heart pounds and a gaseous energy rises up through front of torso from chest up through shoulders, up through front of face , and then also goes through body to the back and seems to evaporate out the back. Can’t find an entity but the fear mechanism is being listened to so there’s still a thought that there’s someone here who is in danger if not likable. Trying to find the belief and it’s something around not being able to survive on its own. Not enough capacity/ability to hack it in the world without others just happening to like me. Worst case scenario seems to be homeless, physical suffering, life throw away metaphorically and then literally. So the same as what happens when I see what’s here and it doesn’t involve a reality with a self’s story being real, the same I’m losing my life except one is losing my life in the relative world I still believe to be real and one is a reality where it’s lost. I feel like i believe reality is real out of a “Just in case,” as opposed to something like we could be in a dream and i wouldn’t be to tell the difference. I always lean towards taking something too seriously than not seriously enough, because i used to not take it seriously enough and a lot of things slip through the cracks that way. I’m lazy and adhd enough to just let everything get neglected. Can’t find that middle way.. can only find that nihilistic perspective or overcontrolled perspective. Maybe if i get comfortable living out of the nihilistic one it’ll self adjust

Right now can you find a separate self?
That’s enough.

I cannot but it snaps right back in as soon I’m out of inquiry because those fear and sadness patterns seem to automatically catch me.. I see, it’s just enough to keep asking this as i’m doing things and getting caught. But.. that’s still that same structure as the one you’re talking about below..

Can’t get out of self perspective.

Who would get out?
Look carefully. This is the same structure appearing again. It doesn’t exist and never has.

If there’s no one that can get out, there’s nothing I can do about any of these habits that keep grabbing and these emotional sensations that are still uncomfortable. Then it feels like there’s no getting out, and that brings up sadness and frustration. And then look again, it’s sadness and frustration with the idea of an owner , and then it’s sensations in the body with labels of sadness and frustration. But looking to see sensations as not the same as their labels in order to feel better also seems like the same mechanism. It just feels like there’s no way to do anything without it being the same mechanism. So then trying strategy of letting it do whatever it wants, which brings up fear as lack of sense of control. But that’s still a doing with a goal..To bring back, is there a separate self right now/ no there isn’t. And then it’s calm for a brief moment. And then it’s back to sensations and grabbing. And then i ask again.. but now it’s being used as a tool to get somewhere and no longer fresh so it doesn’t do the same thing.. my brain is like this is never going to end.. it’s too subtle, I’m never going to be able to live from this place, and then mind also thoguht, well that seems good, that’s close to giving up..

[graceabounds]

What you’re describing is actually very consistent. Notice the pattern:
1. Fear/sadness arises.
2. The system gets grabbed, or activated.
3. Inquiry happens.
4. No self is found.
5. Brief relief/calm.
6. Grabbing resumes.
7. The thought occurs: “This isn’t working. I’ll never stabilize this.”

And then another layer of suffering appears, and on and on.

But look carefully at what changed compared to a year ago!

Before, it was believed completely, there was no distinction between the story and reality.

Now grabbing happens, it is SEEN, and ownership is questioned. The mechanism is becoming visible

The mind keeps calling this failure because it is comparing what is happening to an imagined future where “I will finally stop getting caught.”
That’s another story.

Now did ‘you’ consciously decide for these fear patterns to soften over the last months? Did you consciously decide for compassion to become more available? Did you consciously manufacture all the insights you’ve been reporting?

…Or did they emerge through seeing, feeling, experience, life unfolding?

Similarly, can you find an owner of these waves of energy or the body movements?
Do “you” choose where it moves? Or is it appearing exactly the way clouds, weather, or digestion appear?

can only find that nihilistic perspective or overcontrolled perspective

Come back to direct experience. Who makes this assessment?
What you are describing as nihilism sounds less like nothing matters and more like a controller cannot be found… and then the thoughts spiral. Keep observing.

my brain is like this is never going to end

Never going to end… what?

[Jenness]

What you’re describing is actually very consistent. Notice the pattern:
1. Fear/sadness arises.
2. The system gets grabbed, or activated.
3. Inquiry happens.
4. No self is found.
5. Brief relief/calm.
6. Grabbing resumes.
7. The thought occurs: “This isn’t working. I’ll never stabilize this.”

Oh I somehow hadn’t realized it got caught because it was caught on the emotions. I don’t know how that hadn’t sunk in but it makes it feel simpler, like as the resistance to fear and sadness decreases, the system will be less caught. There’s still that movement to want to optimize so I can sort it out asap and decrease negative outcomes in life in the meantime, the perfectionism drive is strong. I/this system just hasn’t learned that the world doesn’t fall apart just because life doesn’t go how I’d like it to. Or it has a lot of future scenarios of what it thinks could happen if things don’t go well. That I’ll have to work in areas or amounts that I don’t want to, and then I won’t be happy, etc. There’s thoughts that it would probably still be okay, I’d figure out a way to still be happy, it might just take longer to access that level of less conditional happiness than if i were doing what i want. On another level, I can also see the perspective of it seems fine even if my life didn’t work out how I’d like it to. Like, oh well then, lots of people’s life doesn’t. The world goes on. That perspective makes my life feel kind of meaningless, which seems kind of nihilistic. Feeling that kind of sadness along with it seems good. The sadness that was propping up the idea that my life was uniquely special in some way and needed to go well. Sadness seems to be an energy that starts from around the chest and moves downwards through the torso. Then realizing thinking that feeling the sadness will help remove clinging is another self-agenda..

But look carefully at what changed compared to a year ago!

Before, it was believed completely, there was no distinction between the story and reality.

Now grabbing happens, it is SEEN, and ownership is questioned. The mechanism is becoming visible

That’s true! I remember not being able to see how a story wasn’t exactly reality and circling around for a while there. Thank you for all the inquiry and support and time you spent helping me throughout the year :)
I still do feel stories have some sort of reality in it though, like there’s a belief that the story is meaningful and having a certain kind of life is still important and scenarios in the future like lack of financial security is to be prevented if possible. But that’s not happening right now. It’s an imagined story that I can use the self/planning mechanism to take steps that can decrease that possibility, but without having to link it so tightly to every single work situation. Reminded of your question of is there anything here to lose? And then it just feels like a paradox of what’s here is just what’s here and without labels, it’s just stuff moving around but there also definitely appears to be a life lived with certain things in the life preferred as outcomes over other. Doesn’t make sense how it can be both

Now did ‘you’ consciously decide for these fear patterns to soften over the last months? Did you consciously decide for compassion to become more available? Did you consciously manufacture all the insights you’ve been reporting?

…Or did they emerge through seeing, feeling, experience, life unfolding?

No they just luckily happened on their own with time. I wanted it to happen, and there appeared to be a sense of: if i felt the fear, it would soften over time, but I still wasn’t the one doing the softening itself. Any insights felt clearly unrelated to me. They pop out out of nowhere, and i didn’t know the next insight that was going to come before it came.

Similarly, can you find an owner of these waves of energy or the body movements?
Do “you” choose where it moves? Or is it appearing exactly the way clouds, weather, or digestion appear?

If there’s a thought of resisting it or directing it, they change movements, and i can also appear to move them where i want or to see what they do when i leave them.. but the thought of moving them in a certain way and then “deciding” to do that, I didn’t choose those

Come back to direct experience. Who makes this assessment?

Hmm right, there’s no one. It’s just a thought that references other thoughts.

Never going to end… what?

Suffering, was what the thought was referring to, but from another perspective, there’s just in this “moment,” suffering from resistance or no suffering because no resistance. Seems choosable, but that’s still from the perspective as if there’s a self that wants something.. and trying to figure out another way to approach it is the same issue. It seems.. just let the thoughts happen but just see what they are, that they are just thoughts without a thinker. And even wanting to see they are thoughts without a thinker is the same loop…okay so that’s what i didn’t think would end. But suffering can end if i let it happen without adding ownership, which is another loop. Pretty much stuck on the problem-solving level. No where to go with it. So just let it be