Sounds good!I hadn't done it yet, but did it yesterday. The fear feeling arose and eventually it revealed itself as something like a sense of separation... like "armor" keeping the vulnerable-but-authentic-childhood-Geoff safe from the world that could hurt it (and has). The fear feeling moved from my stomach to my heart and then when I saw the above, it dissipated! And then I laughed, it was nice. And then it snapped back around my heart, lol. Talking about it at therapy later that day, my therapist said she thinks I have a deep sense of non-belonging... "alone" in a way. Seems like a thing to continue trying to have "speak to me" via the deep looking, without trying to turn that into a side project, I guess.
Keep tuning in to resistance and fear like this. Find out the reason for the resistance, like 'I have to protect myself' and ask if it is still needed.
And then you can reverse it by saying 'I don't have to protect myself' and then simply feel anything that comes up, and do this until the well is dry, so to speak. Once is rarely enough.
I think most people have something like this. It's rare that someone grows up in an environment where 100% authentic expression is allowed.
It's also common that as children we find refuge in thinking and fantasy, so there can be an attachment to thought. It's like a safe place you can retreat to. In reality, there is no need to retreat, and as adults, this attachment leads to suffering.
It doesn't matter if new thoughts come as you do the inquiry. The thoughts themselves don't matter. For the inquiry, you're looking at if there is validity to the claims.I agree with all of the above, it seems hard to stop believing thoughts, though. Like I can have the thought "I am not believing you" but otherwise it's just sort of like...trying to ignore them? Or accept that they're there but not get pulled farther down the story? I can do the unfindable inquiry to see that a specific thought isn't "it" or "me" or a "doer" but by the time I'm doing the inquiry it's already shifted to the next thing. Like whack-a-mole.
And this is really what it comes down to: Are thoughts worthy of the authority most people give them?
The answer is no. On my journey, there was a natural questioning of thoughts from an early age. It started when, for example, I was working out and a thought would come and say "That's enough. I'm tired."
I'd keep going anyway and eventually realize that thoughts are irrelevant. This then turned into a 'practice' of often doing the opposite of thoughts. This combative stance has since softened :)
But this helped in seeing that thoughts don't really contribute much of anything. Working thoughts are fine for when you are doing things. Narrative thoughts aren't needed.
Here's something to explore:
Label-Reality Correlation
There is a belief that labels have a one-to-one correspondence with ‘reality’. But there isn’t. Just like it is a generally accepted belief that labels like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are inherent characteristics of ‘things’. But actually, they are not.
When you look at the word label ‘GREEN' , what is the actual experience?
Is the color red ‘experienced’, or is the color green ‘experienced’ as the label suggests?
Does the label ‘GREEN’ have a one-to-one correspondence with ‘reality’? Or does the label suggest something else other than what is here now (red colour)?
Is 'green' associated in any way with the experience of the colour red; or is green just a label that overlays the actual experience of red?
If the label ‘GREEN’ is replaced with the label ‘GOOD’ or ‘BAD’ , is the redness affected in any way as the labels suggests?
Does redness become ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or do the labels have no effect whatsoever on ‘reality’?
Let me know what is seen.
