6:30 am Sat for one hour doing a combination of psychotherapeutic attention (for lack of a better term) and metta. As yesterday or the day before, I felt inclined to give gentle, loving attention to the tensions on the right side of my body, hoping that they would soften under this kind of attention. I did a kind of light noting--sadness, craving, anxiety, ambivalence--while trying to physically dance with the sensations and accommodate the associated desires. I noticed that my body was inclined to lean to the right (very familiar) but that I didn't want to lean to the right because it was physically uncomfortable, and this brought up anxiety.
After about 20 minutes, the tensions hadn't appreciably softened. I switched to metta. Pleasure comes up so quickly and easily for me when I practice mettta! Yet there is an associated anxiety: pleasure is dangerous. I noted the obstacles to accepting pleasure.
There was a lot of wandering mind during this session.
Work day was relatively low in anxiety. I stopped occasionally to notice what I was feeling. But, certainly, nowhere near all of the times that my every-20-minutes "it's time" timer went off. I want to be more diligent about that.
5pm session with Gene. Experienced despair over difficulties with Eric.
Fun evening socializing with Eric, Zarina, and Jeremy. Got a letter from Rosemary at camp.
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