The Gate

Wednesday 22nd May 2024

The Feeling of Wrongness


It is so profound, this feeling that everything I do is wrong. Why do I call it profound? Because it feels like a constant hum in m head, like a contraction, like a filter on everything seen and heard and thought. There is a seemingly passive filter that just makes things look negative - makes the things that I do and say look negative - and there is an active component that constantly looks for something I have done wrong. It is very insistent. Especially if there is some doubt in the system - which there usually is - or there is some anxiety - or some decision to be made - or some decision already made or something already done …. I can feel the hum of it - there’s energy in it - it looks for ways that I might have done something wrong. It looks and looks and looks. It tries to find evidence. It searches through all the things I could have said or done wrong to cause what happened - to justify blaming myself. It often triumphantly announces that I did this or that wrong and so don’t deserve to feel confident - and then I discover that I didn’t do that thing at all. But the searching continues automatically: what did I do wrong; what did I say wrong; what’s going to go wrong (that will be my fault)? Did I fail to do my job properly; did I fail to manage my finances properly; did I say something wrong in this last conversation; did I upset that person but failed to notice the expression on their face or the tone of their voice? Am I just so fundamentally flawed that I have lost all touch with reality and am basically treated like a child or like a remedial student by everyone and I don’t even notice it. Seriously. That’s what’s going on in here in this head. And not just sometimes. All the time. It filters everything I see and hear and think and experience. No wonder I want to dis-identify from whatever self that seems to be here, right?!

I need to do some feeling into this - feeling into the body, or whatever. I don’t have the time today - I have to go to a work thing later. I can just feel it in my head right now - like a ringing sensation. I’ll have to get back to it tomorrow, if I can.

Just in case anyone is wondering: I could cry right now. I don’t know how to live like this. It is such a struggle every day. Just to get to the end of the day. I have to grit my teeth now to go into the office - grit my teeth to tackle a piece of work this afternoon - grit my teeth to prepare for an interview in three weeks - grit my teeth to meet colleagues for a farewell dinner for someone this evening. I don’t want to do any of it. It’s unbelievably hard to do the most ordinary things. Bloody hell.

Sunday 16th June 2024

It’s been a long time since I posted here.

I’m doing Todd and Pernille’s Ten Fetter Embodiment retreat this week - though I am also working - so haven’t got to do many of their exercises and practices. I would like to just stay here in my parents’ quiet, empty house, and continue to do retreat, along with various exercises, for the next one to two years. That’s about as much stress as I can handle!

I feel like a failure.

I feel like I am identified as the one who failed at school at age 14 to 15, and was then told that he was lazy and ungrateful and irresponsible and did not deserve to make decisions for himself like a grown-up - and he would not deserve to make decisions for himself until he proved himself by succeeding at school and then college and then work. And he has spent 40 years trying to prove himself and has failed. And you would think: wow, such a clear realisation; now you can wake up and drop all of that!

No. I can’t drop all of that. It controls me. I can’t get out.

The critic is so driven that it finds every crack where presence or awareness is recognised and it shuts it down again.

It criticises every thing I do at every moment. It looks for what I’m doing wrong continuously. It looks for other things I should be doing apart from this, whatever I am doing now. No matter what I am doing, I should be doing something else. I haven’t tried hard enough. I’m not good enough. It’s not working.

I FEEL like that failure. I AM the one who is wrong. The critic tells me continuously. Not every now and then. Continuously. It’s like a hum. Like a chainsaw in my head. Like a contraction of thought constantly, constantly saying: wrong, wrong, wrong.

And if you could just isolate that one part of my psyche and work with it, that would be good. But it is protected by a bunch of other parts. There’s like a constellation of parts, all collaborating. Get near to one part and start to see through it, and you get distracted by another and another and another, until you don’t know which was is up. And then there’s just plain old confusion and distraction and semi-unconsciousness.

I don’t think I’ll ever get out. I think this system is too screwed up. I think it can successfully prevent awakening. Because it can bring me back to identification with this childhood part over and over.

It’s so confusing. I feel confused in my head right now.

I wanted to write this down as it’s going on in order to see it more clearly. But all I see now is confusion.

What do I do now? I’ve already done my TRE and my breath work and Todd and Pernille’s 35 minute Fetters 1 and 2 exercises and then the Fetter 1 and 2 inquiry. And while doing the inquiry I realised that I am way too confused to see through the thoughts and feelings and sensations that I have.

I had hoped that this would bring a new perspective but it just relies on the same old looking at what’s happening in your experience. Uncontrollable identification; that’s what! That’s what’s happening in my experience.

And even when there’s some kind of presence here, the thoughts don’t calm down. Even with a certain amount of silence or peace, there’s always the fear that thoughts will take over any second. And it will be a massive negative trip again, like it always is.

So, I’m desperate to escape from this.

And I don’t believe that just surrendering will result in a dropping of all of this. My experience tells me that this mechanism of self-criticism, anxiety, shame, fear, and so on - this identification pattern - will continue on and on. It doesn’t believe in presence! It believes in thinking ahead, planning for what might go wrong, and criticising me. And it thinks that my life depends on it. So why would it stop?

I feel desperate. I don’t know what to do.

Vince keeps telling me I don’t need to make so much effort - any effort. Because I am not doing it anyway. What if awakening is impossible for me because I’m too screwed up? I definitely think it’s possible. Unless I see through things in a different way from this. I don’t see things going in the right direction at all. I don’t see progress. I don’t see “travelling lighter” happening, as Paul Hedderman says. I don’t feel like I’m seeing through identification. I feel like I’m having glimpses and understanding things better over time, while at the same time an unstoppable force of identification and self-criticism is continuously in place, and it will never, ever let up.

I don’t think I have made one inch of progress, despite all of my glimpses and better understandings.

I feel like I’m in exactly the same place as I have been for decades.

All that happens is that I circle around and around, with new hopes and optimism and new approaches and new ways of describing it and new practices and new techniques. But the core identification, the core confusion: it just stays exactly put where it is. Exactly. No movement. I’m here trying to be optimistic and looking for progress. But there is just pure stuckness. Stuck, stuck, stuck.

I feel like I don’t move at all. And everyone is very cheerful and optimistic and supportive and nice and tells me about my insights and my clarity and my glimpses, and so on. But they’re all part of the pattern of circling around this immovable core of identification. Things look different every day,

Sunday 16th June 2024 (2)

I should add that later on in the day I was in the chatroom / support room for Todd and Pernille’s retreat and Leona helped me to calm down and do some really useful inquiry into identity, the feeling of me, thoughts, etc. She calmed me down a lot. She sends her love!

Hi Don,

I should add that later on in the day I was in the chatroom / support room for Todd and Pernille’s retreat and Leona helped me to calm down and do some really useful inquiry into identity, the feeling of me, thoughts, etc. She calmed me down a lot. She sends her love!

Oh, this is beautiful. So glad that you interact with Leona and it was possible to relax and feel better. Love back to her and to you :-)

This is a wonderful opportunity to look together that all the worries are circulating about someone, a me, a self.

When you look directly right now in this very moment -

where this one can be found APART from a thought about someone?

Is it real? Or it is a thought based construction with no prove in reality whatsoever?

Sending much love,
Luchana

When you look directly right now in this very moment -

where can this one be found APART from a thought about someone?

Is it real? Or it is a thought based construction with no proof in reality whatsoever?

There is no me apart from a thought about someone. It’s not real. There is no proof of it in reality.

It’s clear and then it disappears again, back into confusion and thinking and stories, over and over. And then it appears as if there is a “me” here again as if I had never seen through it.

And then I see it again. And then it disappears again.

Hi Don,

There is no me apart from a thought about someone. It’s not real. There is no proof of it in reality.

It’s clear and then it disappears again, back into confusion and thinking and stories, over and over. And then it appears as if there is a “me” here again as if I had never seen through it.

And then I see it again. And then it disappears again.

YES! Exactly.
It is clear the moment we look and than it is not. And we look again and it is clear.

just like in the image below - it seems that there are curves, but when the attention is there - it is seen that there are ONLY straight lines.
And than it seems again that there are curves... and again it becomes clear upon looking.

https://images.app.goo.gl/9y226R24PMXUmmZC6

Play with that and share what comes.

Sending love,
Luchana

Monday 24th June 2024

It is clear the moment we look and than it is not. And we look again and it is clear.

Just like in the image below - it seems that there are curves, but when the attention is there - it is seen that there are ONLY straight lines.
And then it seems again that there are curves... and again it becomes clear upon looking.

I’m listening to Heather Ralston again. She mentions another mode of existence underneath thought, which sounds good and clear.

I sit noticing that and the ongoing thoughts about work and my career and my failure in life and my feelings of shame and frustration and stuckness and how am I going to solve those things. It’s so awkward and cringe-worthy to sit here with all those feelings: feeling like a failure, feeling shame and weirdness and failure and powerlessness. It feels like there is identity in all of those things.

And when I come back to the “other mode”, to presence, to “What is Mu?”, and I don’t engage in the thoughts, if I can - it’s like the thoughts coalesce into a contraction in the head, in the torso. And it feels like anxiety and suffocation and weird, awkward energy. And determination to think again. It feels like ignoring real problems that need to be solved. And there is increasing shame and embarrassment and frustration and feeling of failure and powerlessness while I am refusing to think about how to solve these problems that come up.

It still feels like people and events from the practical, day-to-day world - from the thought world as it is now while I’m sitting right here - can reach into this “other mode”, this presence, and pluck me out. “I” can decide to sit here in presence but thoughts or people or events can break in to the silence and affect me, influence me. It seems like that. But that is only thought right now. Those people are not here right now. That is just a memory of a past conversation.

So, now that I’m sitting here asking again whether there is a me here apart from thoughts - because I have had a morning’s work and a number of somewhat stressful interactions over the past few hours, the feeling of me that’s here is quite intense. It’s a very strong contraction in the head, in the throat, in the torso: awkwardness, shame, anxiety, frustration. The really strong feeling of I CAN’T ESCAPE FROM THIS. The feeling of “I” will be created and re-created and re-created again by the people I interact with. They will treat me as a person and trigger me. So it seems right now.

I’m going back to do a meeting now and it feels like the “me” will be created by the interaction and that there is no choice about that.

Back from the meeting. Distracted by all kinds of thoughts. DRAG myself back from them to here. It’s like the thoughts are fighting to get out. There’s an intense contraction right down the centre of me, from my head to my chest. Thoughts about anything an everything that I should be thinking about and worrying about are coming in. Thoughts about practice, figuring out, narration to someone else later, planning for the future, distraction or any kind, sadness, disappointment, anxiety thoughts, and so on. Stay here, here, here!

Sounds, sensations, sights. There’s a fight to get out. Thoughts are fighting to get a look in. They need to be relevant.

Where’s the examination of whether there’s a me here or not gone to?

Back to being “present” again. It feels like I’m holding stories at bay. It feels like I am ignoring real things that I need to pay attention to. It feels like “real life” is what is “out there” and it needs to be managed and planned for and acted on.

If I focus on what is real right now, namely sights and sounds and sensations, it feels like I’m going to suffocate. If I assert that this present moment is real and the thoughts are not about anything real, I get an intense constriction in my chest and it feels like I can’t breathe. I have to breathe really deeply and heavily to get through it.

After a while I get so distracted by random little thoughts about this and that that I can’t even tell where I am anymore. I try to ask the question whether there’s a me here apart from thoughts but I can’t see clearly now. There’s a kind of confusion in my head, a familiar one.

Can I see clearly despite this so-called confusion or dissociation that I always believe stops me from seeing? I look for clarity and I feel a lot of fear in the body.

Can I see clearly despite the so-called distracting thoughts? Can I see clearly that there is only this, and all of those problems being brought up by thought can’t be solved right now. Possibly they can’t be solved at all. I feel very vulnerable and afraid at that thought. If all of this distracting thinking can’t solve anything for the future, then there is a strong expectation of attack, of getting hurt both physically and emotionally. Thinking seems to act as a shield that keeps danger at bay, at a distance, and allows me to predict what might happen, or who might attack, and e ready for it with a defence or a response.

It’s all very well to sit and meditate when everything seems to be going well in your life, but when there are outstanding projects, outstanding responsibilities, many competing projects and activities that need to be scheduled in, various people who seem to want this and that, who seem to want to interact with you as this person … it’s more difficult when there are projects and people that are ongoing and outstanding and unresolved. That’s how it seems.

I have to go back and listen to some non-duality person talking about something again now. It feels like I’m in the horizontal present moment and I need some input to bring back some freshness.

Thursday 27th June 2024

I was doing breathwork, which usually calms me down, and I found the rumination about the day’s work to come - a couple of decisions and conversations that I need to make / have, and I can’t fully decide what to do about them. Well, I couldn’t seem to bring my attention back from this thinking about work-related decisions. I noticed the character of the part that is determined to keep thinking about work. It felt like this intense, determined part. I could feel the feeling of it. It reminded me of a Downs Syndrome child that some friends brought over. He was always off up the stairs, getting away from his parents. It didn’t matter how many times they brought him back or how many times they asked him to stay here. He was just determined to do what he wanted and he was going to do that, no matter what. It also reminded me of an aspect of my Dad where he was belligerently determined to continue to do what he was doing, wilfully ignoring what is asked for by others and ignoring the facts and any evidence presented, just plunging forward doing what he’s decided to do, despite what any others might want.

So, there’s this part that’s like my Dad’s belligerent part that just ploughs on in his chosen direction, no matter what. I said hello to the part. There’s a determination there. It feels like the message is that as long as the world is the way it is for me - namely that I have to go into a job I don’t like and get triggered by people in a hierarchy who have power over me and can get me to do things I don’t want - and where I feel ashamed of my failure every day - then there will be pain and shame that will be brought to a hurt inner child part in my system. So this hard-working part that tried to plan for everything is sort of saying: until you sort out your life so this doesn’t keep happening - so you don’t keep putting yourself into situations where you get triggered and overwhelmed all the time - then I’m going to have to keep planning for how to minimise these events as much as possible.

I also had this feeling over the last few days about my boss. He is quite mild-mannered but also spineless and anxious. A few times I’ve notice that he can be very pushy while being polite. So, in order to make himself feel better, to get himself off the hook, he uses the administrative procedures or the hierarchy to shield himself, and he ignores that I have said No to something and just keeps on politely insisting on doing it until I give in - the implication being that if I continue to say No, I’ll be the one that will be being unreasonable and the situation will escalate until he starts accusing me of being unreasonable and aggressive, and so on - so he will then have no choice but to escalate and bring some administrative procedure to bear and remind me of the rules and regulations and the consequences for me if I don’t comply, and so on. It’s just a feeling, but I’ve had it a good few times with him - where I feel inexplicably uncomfortable and frustrated and angry and resentful for days after a very trivial-seeming interaction with him. Now that Pernille has been talking a lot about boundaries lately, it strikes me that my boss crosses my boundaries even when I say No, and he does it in this passive-aggressive polite way so that you don’t really notice until it’s already done.

This triggers a kind of energy feeling, a kind of imagination of an image of a space of reality where I live - there’s the peace and silence of the present moment and there’s somehow this ability of certain individuals to break into that, even with out permission. It feels like a boundary thing. And I’m probably doing it in my own head as well. While my Dad wasn’t so bad at a lot of boundaries, being quite polite and respectful in many ways - he did trample the most important boundary, namely my capacity to be myself at all. So, I have the same feeling here: when I try to meditate or spent time being present, it feels like these influences - both from my childhood and from my current life - mostly or all work influences, really - can intrude whenever they want to. And it feels weird because there is some knowing that these are different realities. And yet there is this feeling of boundaries being crossed without permission and this feeling that it is impossible to stop this from happening - unless I can get away from this job, and probably get away from any job where I have a boss. So, I wonder how long I can survive doing this. Or I wonder if I can get awakened before my retirement, basically.

Yeah, I still wake up feeling dejected. So many people help me. Breathwork makes me feel relaxed for a few minutes. Therapy and one-to-ones can calm me down for hours, or for the rest of that evening. But I still haven’t seen a reliable upward trajectory in everyday life.

Hi Don,

the forum seems to be working now...
Let's see what comes after our meeting yesterday when you look here;


What can a thought REALLY do?
Is it possible to create something?
Like the sense of a self, me, Don?

Sending love,
Luchana

What can a thought REALLY do?
Is it possible to create something?
Like the sense of a self, me, Don?”

I look in my experience and I see sights, sounds and sensations, and I see confusion and negative thoughts. It’s like a physical sensation in my head. I say that because I’m doubting my experience and saying what I think I’m supposed to say. It is a physical sensation in my head. If I answer what can a thought really do from thought, from theory, then I have to say that it can’t do very much, it can only comment, it can only pretend to know something about reality. If I answer from my experience I will say that a thought can take my attention and hold it. It can hold my attention for minute after minute, for hours and hours of meditation. Not necessarily just one single thought, but a whirlwind of thoughts, a tornado of thought. A feeling of dizziness and confusion that creates a physical sensation in my head and holds my attention. It holds my identity. That’s its job. It’s job is to create an identity: the one who will try to predict what the people around him need and respond to that. Well, the people around him - the people who were around him when he was very young - the person who was around him when he was very young - wanted no spontaneity, no noise, no will, no defiance. He was never satisfied; he was frequently angry; he sometimes flew into a rage that seemed to spell possible death. The upshot is a tornado of thoughts that shout and shout and shout: wrong, wrong, wrong; you’re doing this wrong; you should be doing something else; this isn’t working; you got distracted, you’re identified, you’re doing this wrong; this is a waste of time; do something else; you’re doing this wrong; you got distracted; you’re identified; you’re wasting your time; you’re doing this all wrong; you’re making things worse; you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. This goes on and on and on, second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour. It either generates or resonates with a feeling of being wrong. An intense, uncomfortable feeling in the torso, chest, head, and body - you just don’t want to sit here and feel this; it is really intense and difficult to feel. It is very uncomfortable; the main message is get away from this. And the message of the confusion in the head is: you are distracted and identified right now; you don’t know what you’re thinking, but you are identified right now. If I attempt to ask a self-inquiry question like: who am I, what am I, where am I? - the tornado of thoughts screams: you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong; you’re identified, you don’t know what thoughts you’re having; you have no awareness; you’re only pretending that you can be aware of this; you’re totally identified; you’re doing it wrong, wrong, wrong. And the feeling of confusion feels like identification; it feels like thoughts whizzing around; and it feels like I am believing these thoughts; so the thought that I am identified seems true. I can watch from some kind of presence and see this happening. And it feels so believable. And it doesn’t seem to calm down. It seems determined to keep me from being present and it will keep pushing and distracting and criticising until such time as I get distracted and give up my intention to be present. That’s what thought can really do. That’s what they’re doing this morning.

What can a thought REALLY do?
Is it possible to create something?
Like the sense of a self, me, Don?”

I’ve been listening to one of Angelo’s videos about dis-identifying from thoughts. I managed to focus in on one thought - like the one that says that I don’t know what I’m even thinking, for example - and I looked for what it is made of. Initially, it is very intense and energetic, like a strong contraction in my head. Then I notice that that is mostly the emotional reaction to believing the thought - the reaction is mostly made of fear, contracting the muscles of the head and body. I search for what the thought itself is made of and it has no substance at all. It can’t be found. It is very fast and light. It is made of awareness - some kind of view or opinion or picture or reflection is expressed by a flimsy flicker of awareness. Who knows where it comes from. However, the believing of it results in fear and contraction. The fear and contraction feel like they are about “me”. In some sense, the thought is not about me; it’s the believing of the thought that feels like it is about me. The so-called believing of the thought is an emotional reaction, a sensation in the body - mainly in the head. That feeling, right now, is still very intense and difficult to sit with. But I’m continuing to sit with it and seeing if I can let it go. Initially, I have to allow it to grow and not resist it, such that it becomes more and more intense, and then it eases a bit. So it seems, anyway. Maybe there’s an easier way. I don’t know yet. I’ll keep looking for the thought substance itself.

What can a thought REALLY do?
Is it possible to create something?
Like the sense of a self, me, Don?”

A thought is just a reflection. The mind tries to offer helpful advice; it tries to figure things out based on past experience, and tries to predict what will keep me safe and will help me get the things I need and want. It’s like a reporter or a commentator. So, in some sense, it can’t create anything real.

Ironically, what a thought can create that seems real, at least, is a bunch of emotional reactions, and sensations in the body, that relate to the believing of those thoughts. And then the body / mind / person can interact with the world on the basis of these beliefs and feelings and have real effects. So it seems.

Seeing how the mind and thoughts just reflect what has happened before and tries to predict the most helpful thing for now and the future - seeing that is one thing. It seems like I can see that if I slow things down enough. Or, I don’t know if I can actually slow things down, but sometimes I can see it, at least partially. But to be able to combat live thinking, and the reactions to that, as it happens, I don’t know.

There seem to be way too many thoughts, coming too fast, with intense emotional reactions to them even before I see them happening. The more I look into thoughts today the faster and faster they seem to be. There is hardly any content at all. Not even any words. Just a lightening-fast noticing, reflecting, understanding, viewing - and then an emotional reaction to that, based on whether it is believed or not.

Angelo says something like the belief that there are too many thoughts is the kind of thought to watch out for. Because that one implies a self who can’t handle thoughts, and so on. I think this may be a good direction to look into. I’m going to see what I find. For right now, it does seem that there are too many thoughts, coming too fast, being believed too intensely, etc., etc., for me to be able to see what’s going on.

The very belief that there is too much going on for me to see through it is an important initial block.

What can a thought REALLY do?
Is it possible to create something?
Like the sense of a self, me, Don?”

And the next one is the belief that “I” am not believing these thoughts; they are being believed in the mind, believed by traumatised inner child parts in my system - but so many of them are believed so fast and so intensely that it basically knocks me over. So, whether “I” believe these thoughts or not doesn’t matter, in practice, because there is so much belief and so much emotional reaction, so much fear and shut-down in my system, that I can’t see clearly enough to do self-inquiry.

But maybe that is also a thought? I should look.

I don’t know how to find the “I” in this. Or, like, I could say that it seems to make little difference if I can see no “I” here because all the thoughts are being believed automatically, but not by “me”. Can we look for beliefs about that? How do I do self-inquiry if it appears not to matter whether “I” believe things or not?

It just seems like this sometimes. (Like most times, really.)

Hi Don,

And the next one is the belief that “I” am not believing these thoughts; they are being believed in the mind, believed by traumatised inner child parts in my system - but so many of them are believed so fast and so intensely that it basically knocks me over. So, whether “I” believe these thoughts or not doesn’t matter, in practice, because there is so much belief and so much emotional reaction, so much fear and shut-down in my system, that I can’t see clearly enough to do self-inquiry.

But maybe that is also a thought? I should look.

YES! What do you find when you look here?
Tell me more...

I don’t know how to find the “I” in this. Or, like, I could say that it seems to make little difference if I can see no “I” here because all the thoughts are being believed automatically, but not by “me”. Can we look for beliefs about that? How do I do self-inquiry if it appears not to matter whether “I” believe things or not

Would it be possible if you can't find I, because simply is not there?

Sending love and seeing you later.

Luchana

YES! What do you find when you look here?
Tell me more...

When I am not in the middle of it, it all seems different. For whatever reason, this morning when I was on my way to sitting at my desk to do a couple of hours of work, it struck me, once again, to be as present as possible. And there was some clarity like when I’m doing self-inquiry, but I was able to hold onto it throughout the morning. So, that’s different. There’s the clarity or peace and there’s the usual thoughts and feelings and resistance. But it doesn’t feel like I am the thoughts so much this morning. Now that I’m writing about it, though, I can feel that contraction in my head that I usually call identity. As soon as I notice that, rather than giving myself credit for noticing, I instead feel like I’m getting lost in identification again and being taken over by thoughts. So there’s a kind of fear and confusion that results from that. There’s a strong desire to be able to resist that increasing feeling of identification and come back out of it. It’s possible that trying to do that from the mind is going to be just the thing that will make it worse. I need to step back and notice what’s happening and remind myself that whatever this is, this present moment, is what there is. So, trying to resist it - including trying to get my work over as quickly as possible and promising myself that it will all be much nicer after I’m finished with work - trying to resist it will just energise the identification. What I need to do is surrender to whatever is happening and notice the peace that’s here alongside the thoughts and resistance that habitually try to think of alternatives to this reality and wish for them.