Pain (Emo Blog)

Heh. I figured out my back issue. It was due to my chair not being tightly fixed upright. I've never been able to figure out how to get it to stay in one position. It turns out the solution is NOT even close to intuitive. You have to manipulate 2 levers at the same time, rather than just lifting the forward one to move forward or the backward one to move back. Terrible design. It's taken me 3 months to figure it out.

I probably mentioned on here earlier that Taisuke gave me a talk on CD by Pema Chodron, called Getting Unstuck. It's all about working through thoughts with an addictive quality, through meditation techniques. Some of my addictive thoughts are quite pleasant (fantasy, sex, food) and I'm not entirely convinced I want these thoughts to lighten up, but I have plenty of negative thoughts - anxiety, bitchiness, annoyance, anger, self-loathing, addictive urges, etc. The usual spread. This week when these thoughts have happened I've tried to breath through to the underlying emotion that happens first, before the thoughts crowd up. And I've found something strange. The underlying feeling of pain and discomfort is always the same. Sadness and more positive experiences are different, but all that negative stuff is the same root. The black place. I carry a piece of depression with me wherever I go. I thought it was totally gone, but it's everpresent. I've smoothed over it with positive thinking, friends, luxuries, and a healthy lifestyle, but I haven't solved it. It's funny how much we carry our pasts with us. So much pain. My breathing feels thick and heavy when I do this. It's almost too much to handle. I woke up this morning at 6 fretting about asking people for references for my upcoming job search, and imagining getting sucked into temping or the wrong career field again. Mega anxiety and doubt. I slowed down and paid attention to what I was feeling that caused these thoughts. Gradually the thoughts grew shorter and shorter until I was left with pain, and a light background buzz of thought flashes. Pain is a skilled hide and seek player. My intuitions that depression and anxiety are different from sadness were confirmed tenfold with this exercise. Sadness is front pain, light pain. Pain I gladly embrace fully (probably why I'm such a good crier.) This is much less comfortable and comes from the center of my body.

I'll keep practicing and let you know of any further updates to my mental development. This is all very exciting for me.