u/Mithic_Music

Intro:
I have been playing with a new practice that I call Feel and Drop and thought I might share it here. This could be considered a clarification of u/duffstoic ‘s Feel It All practice by combining it with “Do Nothing” / Shikantaza. Another reference for Feeling practice is Surrender Meditation as described by Charles Berner and Lawrence Noyes.

Practice:
The psychologist and Buddhist teacher Tucker Peck often says the proper balance of psychology and meditation should be to work with “Content when you have to and process when you can”. Similarly, in this practice, one Feels when they have to and Drops when they can.

Feeling is well described by u/duffstoic in their Feel It All meditation post. I will add that Feeling is made stronger by allowing your body to move as it wants, vocalizing if it comes up, etc. Surrender Meditation describes this in its rawest form. Although not everyone has access to a place where they can scream without someone being pretty bothered and concerned, the more you can do to allow yourself to experience your body in an unrestricted way, the more effective this practice will be.

Dropping is simply allowing spaciousness and rest. Shinzen Young describes the single practice in Do Nothing as, ‘Whenever an intention arises, drop that intention’.

The recurring intention in one’s mind should be to ask “Can I Drop this?” If the answer is no, then the skillful move is to Feel.

Rationale:
Imagine stored emotional content as a massive iceberg weighing down your naturally buoyant spirit. Your awareness is everything above the surface. The goal is to melt visible pieces of the iceberg (Feel) and then allow new pieces to surface (Drop). It isn’t particularly efficient to seek out every last tiny visible piece to melt, rather you want to balance melting with allowing the biggest, most potent chunks to surface.

The process should feel intuitive and natural. Not forcing yourself to Drop things you aren’t ready to and not forcing yourself to hunt for more things thing to Feel.

As u/duffstoic did in their post, I’ll also caveat that this may be a very challenging practice if you are carrying a particularly significant amount of trauma and may want to be avoided.

I’m aware some people have mentioned this not being uncommon among meditators but I’m hoping to get more details.

I’ve been aware of tensions in my head and the constant release of them, almost like bubbles popping, since my first major meditative milestone which I believe was insight into dukkha around a year ago.

Some folks have implied that this is me simply realizing something that’s always been there and becoming aware of it, but that doesn’t sit right with me because it was such a ‘switch flipping’ occurrence. No tensions, then after that, constant tension and release 24/7 whenever I’m not actively focused on something else.

It’s not uncomfortable per se. The releasing can actually be kind of pleasant and I usually feel better after a long period of releasing tensions, say via meditating or any kind of relaxation. But it can be a little annoying to be constantly aware of it. It feels like something that should go on the “advanced meditation warning label”.