Listening To Ourselves -Part 2
In Part -1, http://tovveyafe.blogspot.com/2012/04/listening-to-ourselves-part-1.html
I talked about how difficult it is to be aware of our conflicts and insecurities. Our mind spends a lot of energy putting up walls that keep us from even being aware of the things that bother us. Despite the fact that we are not consciously aware of these conflicts, they drain a lot of our energy and take away from our happiness.
But if we train to listen to ourselves, to overcome our instinct to cover our conflicts, and instead we become aware of how we are feeling, then those very conflicts will bother us much less.
As I wrote before, the first step in the training process is listening to our bodies through meditation.
Q: Someone may wonder why can't he just force himself to think about his conflicts? He can just sit down and really focus, and not let his mind wander, and figure out what are his insecurities that he his hiding. Why does he need to start by meditating on the way his body is feeling?
Mark Epstein, in his writings, gives an insight to this question :
The second benefit of first working on listening to our bodies is that when we listen to our bodies we naturally become more aware of how we are feeling. If we try to "force" ourselves to introspect and to figure out what our conflicts really are, then the whole process becomes forced and much less successful. The process of introspection itself becomes an object of conflict between our desire to know ourselves and our desire to cover ourselves up. However, when we become mindful of how we are physically feeling we naturally become more aware of our sensations. The process is much more effective because we are naturally coming to realizations instead of fighting to get them.
Awareness of our sensations is not really the end goal though. In the coming post I hope to explain how mindfulness of our feelings can lead to awareness of our psyche. Stay tuned!
I talked about how difficult it is to be aware of our conflicts and insecurities. Our mind spends a lot of energy putting up walls that keep us from even being aware of the things that bother us. Despite the fact that we are not consciously aware of these conflicts, they drain a lot of our energy and take away from our happiness.
But if we train to listen to ourselves, to overcome our instinct to cover our conflicts, and instead we become aware of how we are feeling, then those very conflicts will bother us much less.
As I wrote before, the first step in the training process is listening to our bodies through meditation.
Q: Someone may wonder why can't he just force himself to think about his conflicts? He can just sit down and really focus, and not let his mind wander, and figure out what are his insecurities that he his hiding. Why does he need to start by meditating on the way his body is feeling?
Mark Epstein, in his writings, gives an insight to this question :
"Contact with the body gives the ability to be with feelings...by focusing on how our body is feeling we are able to meditate on the pleasant and unpleasant aspects of bodily experience...Because mindfulness of feelings involves the careful attention to the flow of pleasant and unpleasant sensation in the body, there is none of the usual picking and choosing that otherwise colors our experience. When I was instructed in this method, I was taught to simply note whatever I was feeling pleasant unpleasant or neutral. My observing mind functioned almost as another person, watching the flow of sensations with relative ease"When introspecting, it is very difficult to remain objective. When you are introspecting, you are still being affected by the many conflicts and insecurities in you that may very well lead you astray. The ability to be introspective requires you to become a complete observer, never deciding or thinking about how you are feeling but rather feeling it. You must become grounded to the reality of how your psyche is actually operating and not how you want it to operate. To do this you should first become grounded to the sensations of your body which is a much easier task. By meditating and taking careful note of your sensations, you trains yourself to become an impartial observer to your feelings.
The second benefit of first working on listening to our bodies is that when we listen to our bodies we naturally become more aware of how we are feeling. If we try to "force" ourselves to introspect and to figure out what our conflicts really are, then the whole process becomes forced and much less successful. The process of introspection itself becomes an object of conflict between our desire to know ourselves and our desire to cover ourselves up. However, when we become mindful of how we are physically feeling we naturally become more aware of our sensations. The process is much more effective because we are naturally coming to realizations instead of fighting to get them.
Awareness of our sensations is not really the end goal though. In the coming post I hope to explain how mindfulness of our feelings can lead to awareness of our psyche. Stay tuned!
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