alt Hacker NewsThis is remarkable! I arrived at a very similar place in the last few days. I've been working with painful negative beliefs and memories.
This evolved from my meditation practice, I simply observe sensations in my body. (I tried meditating "normally" (focus on breath) but all this pain kept coming up!)
One of the techniques I arrived on through trial and error is simply asking the energy if it wants/needs to release itself. And then just allowing it to do so. Giving it permission as you say!
So far in every case I have tested, every bundle of pain in my body, the answer has been yes.
The hardest part is just being willing to let it do whatever it needs to do, which can be very odd and a little overwhelming sometimes. But you get used to it very quickly!
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Could you describe what it might "need to do" and why or how it becomes overwhelming?
In more formal traditions the focus on breath (or similar) is to develop concentration/samatha/samadhi. The focus on sensations is the insight/vipassana component, and often this is where the tension bubbles up to the surface. Keeping calm (equanimous) during this process can indeed be non-trivial!
It sounds like you have come to a practice very similar to a lot of the Burmese traditions of insight meditation, which is quite fascinating.