Meditation: Round 2: Practice 2

Sometimes, in advance I think about what my intent for a practice might be or sometimes an idea just comes to me before or on the day of a practice. This time, mid-week, I decided to have my intent be: "What ever comes!" I wanted to be open to whatever thoughts might show up during the practice.

I was able quickly to get to a deep meditative state and reaffirmed my intent of "whatever." 

Next, in thinking about my heartfelt desires, which you may remember is a larger, more encompassing view of what I hope for in my life, I "felt" that at least for today, my desire was to be more centered, to be more in control of my ups and downs my sorrows and my joys.

I won't go into detail again here, but I visited my Inner Resource and felt great joy at knowing my departed pets and parents could visit me there.

At a certain point in my deep state, after visiting my Inner Resource, and doing the breathing exercises and the body awareness exercises, I realized that my daily world had disappeared. I wasn't "carrying" Gregory around, or the activities and noise which usually ride with me on a day to day basis. The room around me was gone and Corinne's voice, while there and guiding me, was gone as well.

When we got to the feelings/emotions exercise in which one picks an emotion to focus on and then changes the focus to the opposite of that emotion, I experienced a presence in the room. Lying on my back I would say it hovered over my left shoulder.

In focusing on the presence, it became a woman whose face I could clearly see, with her bright shining eyes, her glowing golden hair, in fact everything about her glowing golden with a lightness of being. She was so full of love and contentment and embracing.

My mind (meditative subconscious not alert active) identified her as an "Angel." I realized that the emotion she carried was Joy.

As I shifted my focus to the opposite emotion, her opposite, I experienced the presence of a man over my right shoulder. He was also an "Angel" but he was Sorrow. He was shadowy, incomplete, blurry, heavy, sad.

With these awarenesses, I connected their presence to my heartfelt desire of being more centered. Here I was lying on my mat, joy on my left, sorrow on my right, me in the center.

Next, Corinne had us focus on our Inner Strength and to acknowledge it. This was very difficult for me to do. I actually said to myself, "No, I cannot do this." I am aware that during a practice one might run into some conflict of thought and part of the practice is that one can take it off in whatever direction one needs to. I found it interesting that I could not focus on my Inner Strength. I know that I am strong, I know that my Inner Strength exists, but I could not bring it to the front for a closer look. I could not acknowledge it.

I decided that the conflict had to do with my situation, living being between Joy and Sorrow all of the time. It seemed to me that the way I deal with my inner strength is to just do it, not to contemplate it. I realized that at least for now, Sorrow plays the dominant role over Joy. While sometimes Joy does exist and I can hold onto it without feeling the Sorrow, and while there is a lot of Joy in my life, most of the time Sorrow holds the cards and I just need to go forward and ignore both to survive my days.

Looking forward to Practice #3.