Continuing exploration of morning dread

I have been continuing the morning inner work that I wrote about in my last post, several weeks ago. I have discovered some new things.

Despair around a seeming stall in progress
During one session, shortly after my previous post, I felt that I just could not concentrate. Despair arose. This seemed like many other times when I'd tried something new, seemingly made delightful progress, then inexplicably lost the new ability and/or lost the delight. For example, when I was partner dancing in the 1990s I repeatedly would find a partner I resonated with, then, after several evenings, would find that the partner really irritated me. When practicing samadhi meditation intensively, at first I seem to go deep and experience joy, but this is hindered by physical tension after a day or two, even though when I first learned this type of meditation ten years ago I practiced intensively for well over a week and went deeply enough to experience jhana. Finally, also around ten years ago I discovered some instructions in The Anatomy of Yoga that allowed me to easily bend over and grasp my toes, straight-legged, when I hadn't been able to for decades. This seemed magical and I showed off to my physical therapist. The instructions worked for several weeks or months, but then they didn't work anymore, and they still don't work. I can just barely touch my toes, but cannot grasp them.

So despair set in regarding my morning exploration. After some time it occurred to me to be with the despair. This was really hard to do! It seemed 10x as difficult to be with the despair than it had been to be with the initial thoughts and sensations. After a day or two, however, the despair dissipated, and I was once again able to hold my attention on the initial thoughts and sensations.

It only occurs to me now that this is a tremendous success! I only barely noticed it at the time, I think because I have a deeply rooted habit of dismissing success. When the despair arrived, I was quite sure that the ability to explore thoughts and sensations had been lost, if not forever, then at least for some years.

Somewhat of a tangent, but closely related: this morning my initial guide from Liberation Unleashed, Christiane Michelberger, posted a video wherein she gave advice for people who feel they are stalled in the process of awakening (me!) and who have a mental habit of not recognizing personal success (me!). She advised developing a new habit of recognizing success, including small successes such as getting out of bed in the morning. I've been doing this today.

Sadness, anger
I have found that often, beneath the initial layer of thought ("this is a waste of time" "I don't know what I'm doing") there is sadness and/or anger. These typically arise for only a second or two. The sadness manifests as sensation in the throat and chest. The anger manifests as tingling in the right arm and side of the torso, as though I am preparing to fight someone. Both emotions are seen as unacceptable. Thoughts arise that I must not allow others, including my partners E and Z (who are typically in bed beside me), to know that I am experiencing these emotions, and that I must keep my attention on others to be sure they are not reacting badly.

Fear of having been wrong
Over the past several days I have sometimes reached a place where I discover a great fear of adopting a new point of view, because I am afraid of knowing that my old point of view was wrong. When I explore this, I see that the fear is great, seemingly almost untouchable. The idea that my current point of view could be wrong seems just awful. To admit having been wrong seems like death.