Hi Tseme,
THhanks for your reply to my post.
I guess we all have our own problems with feelings and it seems to me that when we try to "get over" these problems we are half way to doing it "right".
I suspect that you should not try to detach one feeling from the bunch because doing so effectively labels it. The important thing here (as you know) being to experience the feeling or feelings without any label or judgement. That way it (or they) become OUR OWN feelings rather than a specific feeling that we have "picked up" from our experiences. And that is what matters.
You can feel the sensations that make up a feeling of anger etc., without the label and this is precisely the point. When you take away the label, with it you take away the judgement. You still feel the tight muscles, heavy breathing, splitting socks, but because you refuse to label it as anger you also refuse to be drawn into the guilt or whatever other judgement you use as a stick to beat yourself with for feeling anger.
Trying to focus in this very moment helps, I find, since many feelings are generated by thoughts of the past or future. If I can feel what I'm feeling at this very instant, that for me clears much of the "feeling fog".
I THINK that going through the motions is good because even if you're not totally happy with what you're doing, the practice can only help.
I find it really useful to do the feeling excercise many times a day and if a really dominant feeling pops up I stop everything and do the excersise. (Could be a problem if I were a brain surgeon, but fortunately I'm not!!).
When I feel a feeling, I scan my body from head to toe, noticing but not dwelling on every sensation as I go. So like you I may have a feeling in my gut. I may also have a possibly unrelated tingling in my leg . I acknowledge that too because tht's part of the way I feel at this moment - so it's valid for inclusion. As for the colour, shape etc., of the feeling, and the vibration... I try to climb "inside" myself and experience the feeling in as many ways as I can. And I think that's all you can do. Try to get as much detail about the feeling as you are able and work with that. If you were an untrained observer viewing a landscape you'd observe far less than someone who had had lots of practice. But your observational skills WOULD grow in time. I think we'll find this to be true with our observation of our feelings.
The foregoing may not have too much merit. I have only been practising this for a very short time and others may be of far more help than I can be with my limited experience. Nevertheless hope it helps. And again, thanks for replying to my post.
Hope it all goes well for you.
Cheers, Atlantis (Real name Ed)
