Working with the superego, a.k.a. The Voice

I am always looking for practices I can do while resting in bed after waking. Vipassana practices such as noting or simply being aware of sensation do not work so well--usually my concentration is weak and I am partially lost in thought.

This morning I put my attention on the critical voice of the superego. I've become increasingly aware of this voice, of its pervasiveness and the subtlety of some of its messages. This morning, when I became aware of a message from the superego, I did the following:

1. Mentally put the message into words. For example, "What you are doing is a waste of time."

2. Mentally imagined who might be saying these words. Did I have a sense for who might be saying them? Usually it was my child self, between 4 and 8 years of age, agitatedly trying to get me to listen to her so that I could be safe. Later in my practice this morning, it sometimes was my mother, extremely agitated and intensely uncomfortable.

3. Welcomed that being. In T's words, I invited her to the party.

4. Dialog with the being. "Oh, really? I am a complete failure and might as well give up? That's interesting. What am I a failure at? How do you know?" Usually this was brief because quickly either another message appeared and/or I relaxed somewhat. Also, it feels kind of boring to do this dialog.

5. Repeat

Often what caught my attention was not a message, but a bad feeling. I would then try to put that feeling into words. The words could be, "If you feel this bad feeling, you are a bad person," Or, "You've really messed up your day now. You've just laid here and you haven't done any of the things I've told you to do."

Toward the end of this session I'd notice the voice be really, really panicky (and this was when it seemed to be the voice of my mother). It couldn't speak fast enough to tell me all the things I'd done wrong. They were all piled up and there was a sense that it was entirely hopeless and a train wreck. "You, you you ... you didn't do your exercises and you didn't do your taxes and you are just lying here and you don't know what you're doing and it's too late because you've used up all the time and you're not listening and you really, really don't know what you're doing and you'd better listen up fast fast fast otherwise it will be really bad!!!!"

Always a lightness appears after some time of doing this work. Today I had an urge to speak to Z, who was dozing in my arms. Fear arose, as always, that she might be irritated with me for disturbing her, but it was much lighter. I said, "Z?" She said, "Hm?" And  because the fear was much lighter I didn't hear irritation in her voice but instead happiness. I immediately experienced delight and quickly squeezed her and said "I love you".

A bright report from the misophonia front

Gineen Roth's book, Women, Food, and God, talks about noticing the sensations in the body. One chapter near the center of the book spoke to me in a way I was particularly receptive to yesterday, and I spent yesterday delving deeply into awareness of body sensations.

Misophonia is a recently coined term to refer to a condition wherein certain noises, usually human-generated and usually bodily, trigger rage in certain people. I've had misophonia since I was 8 or 10. I'd noticed some weeks or months ago that the sounds that trigger anger for me--eating noises in particular--are, at a more fundamental level, triggering very primal body sensations. The sensations are so powerful, so unfamiliar, change so fast, and are so out of my control, that until now they have utterly distracted me from anything else I wanted to do: work, read, talk, think. Thus, anger.

Yesterday, as a result of hard work inspired by Roth's book, I was so in touch with my core bodily sensations that I actually enjoyed and welcomed what arose when my housemates were eating in the kitchen next to me. The sensations didn't seem like an unwelcome intrusion, but rather an extension and intensification of what I'd been focusing on, and directing friendliness toward, all day. In fact, I welcomed these intense sensations, because it was easier to pay attention to bodily sensations when they were so very compelling. Of course, I've been doing body-awareness practices since I began Vipassana meditation 15 years ago, and had not before today found the misophonia-associated sensations welcome. The past 15 years have been a long, slow process of becoming aware of, and friendly with, sensations on a deeper and deeper level. Finally, early in the day yesterday, I had apparently extended friendliness to sensations close to the very primal level of those that arise when I hear eating noises. Then, when those noises happened later in the day, the sensations that arose were, for the first time in decades, tolerable, even enjoyable.

And just now, as I wrote all of the above, Z has been eating noisily behind me, and the sensations it's triggered haven't distracted me from my writing. It seems that, for now anyway, I've developed enough friendliness with these sensations that they are not, at the moment, distracting.

On one of my first meditation retreats, about ten years ago, I struggled mightily with misophonia. At that time I did not allow myself to use earplugs in the meditation hall unless I was utterly miserable. A heavy breather sat near me in the hall and the entire retreat I was working with the rage that arose. I told myself, and told others on retreat, that I was pretty sure my sensitivity to such sounds was a gift that would ultimately be part of my path to freedom.

Several years later, not noticing much of a shift in my ability to tolerate the sounds, I decided the kindest thing to do for myself was to allow myself to use earplugs whenever and wherever I desired, on retreat or off. I think this was a very good decision.

And now, finally, a taste of real freedom in my relationship to these sounds.