I've mentioned, I think, in several previous posts, the dread I feel upon waking up in the morning, pretty much every single day. When I wake up, the mind tends strongly toward seeking things to be afraid of and problems to be addressed. I've discovered that behind these thoughts are a set of sensations.
Lately I've tried keeping attention on the sensations. I'd tried that many times before, and observed that it was hard to keep attention on the sensations, that the mind was still active. I'd previously thought that this was because the posture of lying down made it difficult to focus attention. I've been trying harder lately, though, and looking more closely at what's going on. And this is what I've been seeing lately: that when attention is on these sensations, there is a sense of being lost, of not knowing who I am or why I am doing this practice. And every 1/2 second or so, one of the following thoughts arises: I don't know what I'm doing. This is dangerous. There is nothing here. I should be doing something or thinking about something. These are familiar thoughts from other contexts, but they arise much more strongly and convincingly when I am lying in bed right after waking up.
The sense of being lost, in a void, when attention is on sensation, is extremely compelling. It's as though the mind turns to thought as an anchor. While in the thought world, I coach myself: "go back to sensation. Staying in the thought world is a dead end. Strengthen the neural pathways that allow you to be with sensation. It is safe to be there; there is nothing else you need to do right now. True, no authority is guiding you to do this practice, but remember, part of your particular path is to rely on your own authority. And your own authority is guiding you to do this. Remember what Maitri said: that for Enneatype 6, the utmost courage is required to live an authentic life and to meet one's true self. This is what courage looks like: to return again and again, every 1/2 second, to sensation." A subset of these self-coaching thoughts occurs over the time span of a fraction of a second, then attention is returned to sensation.
The sensations are not unpleasant! They are not painful. They are the sensations I've written about frequently in this blog: tingling and aliveness in the right side of the body; the releasing of tension in the right jaw; tingling in the right arm accompanied by images of pushing or punching with that arm; quiverings in the throat accompanied by the word, "Mommy"; slight nausea. Sometimes I coach myself by saying, "You are an explorer in a terrifying, unfamiliar world. Keep looking. You don't yet have a framework for this world and so you feel uneasy. Keep trying."
