FPIAFW - Week 5: Turning Towards Difficulties

[FeeHutch]

I guess if the sensations aren't there maybe just keep sitting. No two sessions are the same so maybe today you will experience difficulty bodily but equally maybe not. Turning towards difficulties can be a real challenge whatever stage of your practice so there's nothing 'wrong' if it feels tough going.

[mark_cdf]

I've just started week 5 and it's the first time I haven't "enjoyed" mindfulness. I know you don't have to enjoy it, just do it. Nothing came when I did the meditation so i thought back to a difficult work situation in the past, I just found it left me quite tense and feeling a bit rubbish (even though the situation itself worked out just fine at the time, I thought back to the anxiousness and sleepless night leading up to it).

I'm struggling a bit with the acceptance side of things, the book says it is not passive acceptance but I can't help feeling that it is if I'm saying to myself "it's ok to feel like this". I feel a bit like I'm saying it's ok to be anxious and loose sleep?

Any advice?

[Niloc]

I am afraid I can't give you any advice as I am also finding it very difficult. We are asked to think of past difficulties and the sensations they have produced and then accept them.
I find this rather unpleasant as I don 't particularly want to think about unpleasant events. The less you think about certain things, the better you feel. I'm on holiday at the moment so Mindfulness has slipped a bit, but I'll start again when I get back. Finding time is not easy and you have to be in the right mood to do it!!!
Niloc.

[JonW]

I haven't got the book to hand at the minute. Does it actually say that we should deliberately think of a difficult situation and then examine our physical reaction to it? That's not my memory of this chapter.
Anyone?
Cheers, Jon

[piedwagtail91]

I am afraid I can't give you any advice as I am also finding it very difficult. We are asked to think of past difficulties and the sensations they have produced and then accept them.
I find this rather unpleasant as I don 't particularly want to think about unpleasant events. The less you think about certain things, the better you feel. I'm on holiday at the moment so Mindfulness has slipped a bit, but I'll start again when I get back. Finding time is not easy and you have to be in the right mood to do it!!!
Niloc.

mindfulness seems to be a lot about playing with words.
you really don't have to like the cause of the difficulty, that may happen , it may not.
it's the emotions stirred up in the body by this difficulty that you gradually learn to accept not the reason they're there.
blocking things out and pushing them away is really only a temporary fix.
they keep coming back, usually more unpleasant and painful.
then you just tend to try even harder to block them out.

learning through meditation to bring the difficulty to mind, let go of the thoughts about this difficulty as best you can, name the emotion or emotions that you're experiencing ( people can and often do hide the 'softer' emotions that they're really feeling behind 'harder' ones such as anger mainly for protection) then take your awareness to the sensations in the body and breath into them,work with them and experience them.
letting go of the wish for things to be different, sometimes it can be different and change sometimes it can't.
not giving yourself a hard time or criticising yourself when you do this.

we've just done session 5 in sessions, some people were ok with it and some were maybe less so. it may and probably will take several practices to see it differently.
the working with difficulty practice we use is 20 minutes long and takes you very gently through the whole process, guiding and supporting the whole way.
it is difficult and unpleasant , but usually only for a short time.
naming the emotions and then taking your awareness to them in the body to explore and experience them can take away a lot of the sting or power that they can hold over us.
kristin neff quoted something along the lines of "the burden doesn't get any smaller or lighter but your ability to bear it gets stronger".
i hope this may help explain it and i wasn't singling you out by quoting you, sorry if it appears that way.
good luck, stay with the practice.
mick

[mark_cdf]

Hi, thanks all.

Yes, it suggests that if a difficulty doesn't come to mind you can think back to a past one, which is what I've found myself doing as nothing just appears for me when doing the meditation.

I'll try naming the emotions when I do it next, thanks Mick.

Mark

[James123]

Hi Guys, I got in to about day 5 of Week 5 but was then poorly for 3 or 4 days and couldn't continue the practice. Do I just go back and start the week 5 again?

[mark_cdf]

Hi Nice Fish,

I think earlier in the book it says that you can choose to go back a repeat a week if you feel this would be useful for you, or just move on to week 6 if you feel happy to. So I guess it's whatever you feel best doing.

Hope you are back to 100% soon.

Thanks,
Mark

[James123]

Thanks Mark. Being a stickler I'll start it again.

[piedwagtail91]

whatever you do don't skip any of week 5 , it's essential to the practice.
you could possibly just do week four and carry on again without going back to week one, but don't skip 5.
starting again won't do any harm either. practice is good