Freedom

[Debtfree]

1 A tangerine...my thumb pierces the skin, it’s a bit hard to get into it, it doesn’t give way easily, feint smell emerges. As I peel it I am aware of the tactile feelings under my fingers which add to the smell. I open it up and see where the segments are. I separate one and put it in my mouth but before I sense a slight salivation ahead of tasting. As I bite into it my teeth break the skin and juice and taste come out and I chew with my teeth and more juice emerges as there’s some resistance from the flesh and pith. Although I sense a memory of how it tastes it’s not really a nourishing experience as it’s distanced by it being imagination.

2. As I peel it immediately I am assailed by the strong smell which emits, really powerful; as I chew it there’s so many sensations, all at once, smell, juice, taste, the skin which is rough on the tongue, chewing, tasting, sensing, smelling all going on simultaneously. It’s a rather dry tangerine so as I eat it there’s a lack of full pleasaure so a sense of disappointment arising, stinging on my tongue and lips and a taste and sensations linger in the empty mouth with bits of the flesh stuck in the teeth.

3 As I begin to want to describe it...the experience of eating it now recedes into the background a bit so it’s more like when I was imagining it in 1 and although I can still taste it and smell it, it’s finished with and I feel to go back to describing it is boring and pointless after actually eating it.

The difference between the three is that first and third lack the immediacy and realness of the eating which wasn’t a linear experience or taken in separate stages...the eating was more like a firework as it all happens at once, all the different factors that make up eating a tangerine happen simultaneously. It’s all one of a thing happening, tasting, chewing, feeling, remembering, disappointing, tingling, smelling...

[Seamist]

Great answers, Deborah, thank you. I especially liked the point about actual experience being non-linear. That's interesting.

What would you say the difference is between the imagined and the real in these exercises?

We'll go on to another exercise shortly, but I'd like to hear your observations on that first.
Xx

[Debtfree]

Hiya, the imagined was open to giving more descriptive adjectives but it seemed more flat and contained, like I was doing an exercise at school, more like a black and white photograph and with less aliveness. More pictorial or visual. It was more descriptive and from memory whereas the real had more energy and aliveness and an immediacy, it was all of whole and all happening simultaneously, not broken up into stages. It was a more seamless experience.

[Seamist]

Great! Another note, or in the morning?

[Debtfree]

Speak in the morning, thank you, thank you!x

[Seamist]

Morning, Deborah

Here this morning's exercise:

Sit quietly and relax, take your time just looking at what is in front of you for a while.
Observe how the mind is dividing and labelling every thing into objects and is embellishing them with stories about what they are.

Give it some time.

Then stop watching the objects as labelled one. Just look at the seeing itself. Observe the or process of seeing. This is "do experience"..

Let me know how you get on with that.
X

[Debtfree]

I think from this exercise I realise that most of life I am just seeing and there’s just spaciousness seeing without picking out objects and labelling. So for instance in my bedroom there’s lots of objects but in the just being aware and just seeing I might find myself picking up ‘something ‘ or opening a drawer or dressing, brushing hair but in doing all that it’s just something happening, seeing, using, and as I do this there’s an awareness of everything being there without labelling. Everything is just shapes, colours without consciously separating them in thought into things. It’s only when I think about one of the things that there’s a story about them or a problem. All of everything I see is just there and is one with seeing or consciousness . However I am aware that every so often the I breaks through with a thought that is pressing, unsettling and interrupts the plain awareness e.g unpleasant feelings, sensations, needing to walk the dog but not wanting to. Ownership is taken by Deborah or the I of thoughts thereby interfering with the plain awareness or seeing. I recognise that the feeling of I or Deborah comes with a slight ‘gripe’ or contraction which creates a hiatus, often uncomfortable, in the simple seeing or being, plain awareness and then the mind can really jump in with embellishing thoughts of a story.

[Debtfree]

Hi Sianed
Hope you got my morning’s return exercise as I’m still not entirely sure how the website works (eg I want to change my password to an easier one but don’t know where to go to on profile to do this!). I’m not entirely sure you get all my chat! I realise it’s the weekend so likely you may be busy and that’s totally fine but just hoped mine had got to you. I’m so grateful to you. 🙏🏻X

[Seamist]

Hi Deborah,
Yes, a busier day today!
You seem to be doing fine with the technology from my end...
That's great noticing, I'm impressed.

I'd like you to continue with exploring thinking and labelling.
I suggest not starting this next one till the morning, but I'm sending it you now so that you don't need to wait for me to get started:
Here it is:
Do it as many times throughout the day as you can.

Label daily activities simply colour/image, sound, smell, taste, sensation, thought.

So for example, when having breakfast, become aware of:-

Seeing a cup, simply= image/colour

Smelling coffee, simply = smell

Feeling the warmth of the coffee cup, simply = sensation

Tasting the coffee, simply = taste

Hearing the spoon stirring the coffee, simply = sound

Thought about drinking the coffee, simply = thought

Just break down daily activities into these categories (which are all actual/direct experience) and report back how you go.

xx

[Debtfree]

Thanks tons, Sineod, and, yes, morning will be good. Chat tomorrow.x

[Debtfree]

Hiya Sineod
I’ve been doing this exercise although not easy but I have been noticing I go more slowly and have been seeing how I’m more aware of feelings,sounds, sensations and thoughts and sometimes they are happening simultaneously, all of a piece even though the awareness is going onto each thing one at a time but strangely all at the the same time, they’re all contained in the one. Normally I tend to rush actions to get them done and then I can rest once done but I see that’s a fear thought as there’s, in truth, only life just seamlessly living itself and it’s a thought of I with thoughts of now and then and future all making an increasingly stronger crystallised cluster of seeming Deborah ness. Intellectually I am getting it but not feeling or living it. I also have a lot of bodily sensations and feelings which instead of making light of, they too add to the metaphorical fat ball (as in what you put out for the birds!) of ‘me’. I just give up...if only....

However, I feel I’ve got to be honest about the way I am with ‘myself ‘. A lot of time I just want to sit and be with myself, alone and not ‘doing’ anything. I feel safe just being but the sense of I has thoughts of being inadequate and a hopeless case as I should be doing. Although I look and see there is no one there this is clearly not felt viscerally as if it was I don’t think all these thoughts of shoulds and shouldn’ts would’ve died down. It’s almost as if I’m scared of getting up and doing something. I don’t need to do anything or want to but I cannot just sit doing nothing. Of course I then bring up the future and past which I know are just thoughts which say ‘well where’s this going to lead you?’. Somewhere I do see and I know I am not the doer but whatever is the agent seems to be leaving me in a very scary place of nothingness which is ok and peaceful if I don’t then question it and judge it. Everyone around, it seems, are busy doing but I just sit in a heap! I’ve always felt myself to be more of a human being but this is crazy. Nothing inspires or excites me except to realise the truth. All the activities, interests, people, friends are still there but..... I feel sad but not exactly lonely as I am becoming my own friend. The fantasy would be to hole myself up alone with no one living with me for a while and no dog so that I couldn completely live whatever life I wanted. Without others I could lead my secret, strange life! I know this is all a story about Deborah whose not anyone anyway but the sense of shame would not be so tangible. Deborah basically wants to disappear along with all the erroneous conditioning but of course there’s no Deb and so cannot be any conditioning so just thoughts . It’s like she’s scared of being seen as the fraud she is....which is ironic as that’s exact what ‘she’ is. I hope, Sineod, you don’t mind me blurting this all out but I promised honesty and I really have to be so. I really need help with this.
I’ll carry on doing the exercise today and see if anything else emerges.
Many many thanks, it’s such a blessing you offering to do the amazing work you do. Xx

[Seamist]

Great work, Deborah, keep looking and I will comment more fully this evening

[Seamist]

Hi, sorry, my evening had been taken up with a sick cat... I'll get back to you in the morning x

[Seamist]

Hi, sorry, my evening had been taken up with a sick cat... I'll get back to you in the morning x

[Debtfree]

Oh dear so sorry to hear that. Hope they’re better tomorrow. Not sure if I’m going to tennis in the morning but will let you know ASAP.x