ASK ABDI: HOW TO BE GUIDED FORWARD WHEN I THINK I’M BEING HELD IN PLACE?

QUESTION: I have been following your advice of trying to feel my body as I go through my cancer treatment. But this sitting and searching has got me in a bit of a pickle.

As I’m moving into my pelvis more and taking direction/sensing what my body is putting out there (signal wise), I’m realizing my brain is fighting me. The analytical part is saying, "Oh no you don’t - if I’m not in control, you’re going to die from this condition. You need me to sort it all out. Ignoring me is only going to make things worse. And if I’m not in control, you aren’t going to move forward; you’ll just live in stasis".

I realize this deeper more instinctual sensing and knowing is a new way of processing for me. Or rather just an older forgotten way that I need to be reacquainted with. When I’m meditating, I find myself with strong messaging to stay away from third eye/crown chakra guided meditations and get in my sacrum as much as possible. Drumming and lower frequency chants/music work well for me.

I suppose this all leads to a question: How to guide/be guided forward when I’m thinking I’m being held in place? Just give it time and trust in the signals that are coming through from my deeper lower body? Or work with them and my mind in sync?

ANSWER: What you are experiencing is absolutely a part of the path. There is always a time when the intuitive knowingness bumps up against the mind and its myriad of attempts at control. We live fully engrossed in our heads as a way of not feeling our emotions. And the bottom line is the abject terror that you have been feeling. There is nothing to do but just learn to tolerate the terror. Of course, we all attempt to think our way out of thinking, which never works. For someone like you that has both a sharp mind and a deep feeling body, it can take some work to heal through this. Our unconscious root fear is always that of annihilation and death, regardless of external circumstances. Of course dealing with a serious illness just intensifies it all.

The reason you are being guided to stay away from your third eye is that the energy flows where the awareness is. In other words, by focusing on specific parts of the body, we unconsciously guide our energy there. I have come across people over the decades who were avid third eye (or other intense energy directing) practitioners that threw their energetic bodies off. In general, there can be a tendency to get attracted to upper body energy focus as an emotional defense mechanism. To learn to stay in the lower body is difficult because we start feeling emotions that have been repressed over a long period of time.

You do not need to do anything more than just FEEL the sacrum, as you are being guided. Just keep dropping down. You already are getting clear messages of what to do, but of course the mind intervenes with “are you out of your mind?”. Get it? Yes, you are out of your mind and in your body. The statement of “you are out of your mind” has deep significance in our culture because very few of us can actually tolerate being out of our head and in our body. Even people who have decades of body centered practice can be “head heavy” the second they are not doing their practice. And how can we not, when every second of our waking life involves some kind of thinking or visual input?

You are on the right track. Let your mind do its thing like an annoying loud neighbor stomping around upstairs. Keep your peace internally. No need to interact with every thought that comes by. You got attention and time to think? Feel your sacrum instead.

Previous posts on body centered meditation: Guided Meditation, Let's Sit Together and Be Here Now, and Body-Mind Awareness.