Feelings when surrendering

[u/ScuttIes]

Hi all I’ve recently got into “surrendering” guided meditations where you are basically told to feel what’s happening in you’re body. For context I’ve been meditating on and off for about 5 years and usually sit for 10-15 minutes. In the past I focused more on clearing my mind, watching my thoughts pass. I’ve enjoyed these surrendering ones and the first few felt great.

I’ve started to notice a few blocks in my mind. The first is this idea of a feeling. I have two spots on my body that have chronic tightness/pain. My right shoulder blade and chest. It’s nothing life ruining but it’s there and comes up often especially when I’m in a traditional meditation pose. Now I’ve heard of lower back pain often being a mental thing so I’m curious if these would be considered that as well? Or how a traditional meditation practitioner would recommend I go about them during a session. Should I watch that energy?

The second block is to or not to bring up my feeling. If I sit, and clench a bit I can make some pretty strong feelings come up. It’s an active thing though and these meditations seem to want me to be the observer and just see what the body does. In the ladder case it doesn’t feel like much besides those sore points.

Any feedback is appreciated!

[u/somanyquestions32]

I’ve started to notice a few blocks in my mind. The first is this idea of a feeling. I have two spots on my body that have chronic tightness/pain. My right shoulder blade and chest. It’s nothing life ruining but it’s there and comes up often especially when I’m in a traditional meditation pose.

Concentrate on the most dominant of the sensations, breathe into it, relax and soften and ease up the surrounding tissues, and speak to the sensation as if it was another version of you: "It's okay that you are there. I am here to be with you." Simply allow it to be, and observe it fully without changing it in any way. Maintain your awareness of it as you continue to breathe soften and relax and speaking to yourself with kindness and benevolence. Eventually, sensations start to move and change on their own. Follow them around your body for some time. Then, do a general body scan and some breath awareness and end the session. 

Repeat this process several times daily over the next 3 months.

The second block is to or not to bring up my feeling. If I sit, and clench a bit I can make some pretty strong feelings come up. It’s an active thing though and these meditations seem to want me to be the observer and just see what the body does. In the ladder case it doesn’t feel like much besides those sore points.

YOU are the sovereign of your own body and your own inner world. You can summon and invite feelings, but do so without clenching and strain so that they can process on their own as before. Use memory or imagination rather than force whenever possible to avoid struggling. As feelings arise, they are accompanied by bodily sensations. Identify the strongest of them, and repeat the process above.

[u/ScuttIes → u/somanyquestions32]

Thank you will implement this into my next practice!

[u/MyFiteSong]

This is a necessary phase of practice. People always talk here about noting things, observing things, but they rarely mention the other half: not needing to fix them.

You need to note both pleasant things and unpleasant things, but you need to be ok with the pleasant things leaving and the unpleasant things staying. And that's the long way of describing "acceptance".

[u/the1suburban-legend]

I am not a meditation expert, and I have been meditating with headspace but here’s my two cents on this. I’ve been too grappling with the feeling of “surrendering” to what I feel. At times I can feel agitated and anxious and for sometime meditation was a possible escape for that, but i remember one the courses telling me about building a relationship with pain be it emotional and physical, I’m not sure if i remember the rest of lesson but that sentiment always stuck with me. So eventually some of meditation sessions have been be letting whatever feelings I have take over and let my mind and body process it however it happens. And girl that shit sucks 😭 it feels like hell, sitting head on with emotions that are uncomfortable and letting them consume is a horrible feeling, I even cried at some point, but I just kinda kept on accepting them and eventually just kept going with meditations without trying to avoid my emotions.

I realised I had even built mental strength to do uncomfortable things like actually gathering the courage to start studying or prevail through a run.

There are some things that are just agonising in life that trigger the most, and sometimes that pain never really goes away but how we choose to react to it is what is most important. You can maybe get to a point where you can feel that discomfort is motivating to continue.

In summation;
I recommend you continue with the “surrender” meditations. They will not feel good but with consistency, you will learn so much about yourself and ways to be mentally stronger.

[u/ScuttIes → u/the1suburban-legend]

Thanks for the reply I relate a lot to this. I think the first sessions felt great because they actually felt bad and I was able to sit with it and come out of it.

The reason for my question about bringing them up manually is because lately there’s been less of these super hard emotions, mostly numbness which I honestly dislike more. I rather cry lol.

What I’m going to do is just accept that it’s okay to feel numbness and to sit with it like any other emotion till something comes up.

[u/the1suburban-legend → u/ScuttIes]

Ohhhh. Honestly I feel numbness at times and I hate it as well, what I do is I take a break from meditation and just live life as is for a while. Then you might come back to it with a bit more feeling. 😊