Meditation: Round 2: Practice 4 & 5

Just to keep track, I skipped Practice 4 because I was ill.

Practice 5 presented an interesting shift for me in several ways.

1) Previously, a day or two before our meeting, I would think about possible Intentions and Heartfelt Desires. This time, I decided to wait and see what "arrived" as I was settling in and getting into the meditation.

2) Another thing that I am more aware of is a "spiraling" of lessons with each new appearance bringing a deeper, more coherent understanding of the idea, emotion, experience, etc that presents itself.

3) During the period of my deepest calm, I became aware of what I would describe as Black (visually) but more An Absence (emotionally & intellectually.) Things would come and go without disrupting my meditation.

At one point a man showed up, I acknowledged him and continued my meditation without needing to know who he was, or what he wanted, or what he represented.

Another time a beautiful, sweet, pink fondant ribbon swirled in my Black, maybe because it was also my birthday and I was thinking of cake but it didn't matter I continued my meditation.

4) At times one needs to pause and enter the moment as it presents itself for lessons to be learned, but other options include setting it aside to deal with at a later time, or deciding that it is not important to deal with the distraction at all and recognizing it for what it is: a distraction.

During Practice 5 Corinne decided to spend a lot of time focusing on the body, energy, and health. While I did "scan" my body and reaffirm my excellent health, I did not end up staying with Corinne's guidance but rather revisited the concept of Essential Self which Corinne had mentioned in her opening comments.

She talked about the difficulty some people have in looking closely at their Essential Self, that self which is closer to being in touch with the universe and away from one's experiences, societal agreements, religious figure and parent pronouncements. In other words free from any biases, real or imagined, true or not, that tend to color who we are, what we think, and how we approach our day to day lives. Our PURE ESSENCE.

In the past I have had trouble focusing on my Essential Self, knowing it exists deep within me but somehow not being able or comfortable enough to dig down for a close look. In relation to the Essential Self, this time I revisited a Triumvirate of Self that I have been aware of, fine tuned it, and added the Essential Self as a fourth level.

I started out with my Public Self which I allow everyone to see, my Private Self which I only allow close loved ones to see, and my Secret Self which only I know about and which I would never share with anyone.

This understanding allowed me to arrive at the fourth self or Essential Self, as defined above. It was easier to look at my Essential Self without fear or difficulty when seeing it on this Continuum of Self from most external and visible to most internal and sacred.

Each time I experience a Mindful Meditation Practice, Yoga Nidra, I seem to arrive at a new place of comfort with myself, my relationship with Gregory, and with my world. Time well spent.

Meditation: Round 2: Practice 3

For this practice (which is what we call the meditation session) there were only two of us with Corinne. The other person and I have been with Corinne previously so she decided, with our permission, to take a different approach. You know the "stress" I am under and the other person had just experienced a health emergency. She had to go through that ordeal herself and mentioned that the use of her Yoga Nidra techniques helped her through the ordeal.

In this practice, we decided to look more closely at emotions in addition to working our way through all 14 steps of the practice (you've seen the diagram previously.) During the Emotions part you observe emotions that are present (now that you are in a comfortable, relaxed state,) inquire about what these emotions are telling you, concentrate on the emotion and then on its opposite. The purpose of looking at an emotion from both sides is that emotions are in flux and one is on a continuum between the positive of the emotion and the negative of the emotion. Often during a practice, you notice the emotion and know that you do not have to deal with it right then. But you must acknowledge it and deal with it later if you do not want it to increase in intensity. This time we were going to concentrate on the emotions.

The emotion that came to me, again, was JOY. Its opposite, SORROW. If you have been following these Yoga BLOGs you will know that this seems to be a recurring theme for me.

When Corinne asked us to look at our Essential Self (that which we are in relation to the universe) vs our Essential Nature (that which we have become based on experiences, expectations, relations to others and society) in relation to this continuum of emotion I felt blocked. My life most of the time is so wrapped up with trying to be the best me I can be to support Gregory, and my guilt at falling short of my expectations for myself that for some reason when trying to look through the vail I am unable to see "the real me."

Then this visualization and verbiage came to me. Yes JOY is all around me (picture me in the center of embracing hands with the hands being JOY, my essential self is in the center of these hands but without Gregory as part of my life, I cannot see through to my essential self. It is as if our souls, our spirits are so closely joined that I cannot tell one apart from the other. It feels, as Gregory continues to disintegrate day by day, that my soul is being CLEAVED in two. Split. Torn. Cleaved as in cleaver.

Corinne proposed a series of images in which we could weigh the emotions we choose and each one was diminished in light of not being able to appreciate them with Gregory: a spring day, a child's toy, a beautiful flower, etc I was so sad and knew that I could return to my Inner Resource (Forest) for protection but I chose to stay with the difficulty of looking at the joy/sorrow emotion.

So most of the time, while I know JOY exists and I do see and celebrate it, I am mostly wrapped up in SORROW and the suffering it brings. Soon after we slowly came back to the witnessing of the experience/practice and slowly returned to the waking state at the end of the practice. As I took the eye cover off, tears streamed out of my eyes and down my face. I was not crying on the outside but my emotions inside had caused the flood. It was a strange feeling. It was as if my eyes were crying but I wasn't.

Am still analyzing the experience but it probably seems obvious that my love for Gregory, our 35+ years together in such a strong, respectful, supportive relationship has united our spirits so strongly into one unique spirit that with the Alzheimer's Journey which we are currently on, and the insidious nature of the disease, the untying of those spirits is no easy task and extremely painful. Yes, JOY but also SORROW.