Gripping

In the midst of practice, it can be disorienting to feel how to let go. It may be that we have always thought of relaxing and release in a certain way, and the reality of it is quite different.

It may be that when we are still or truly begin to feel into what is happening, instead of feeling things loosen, we grip instead. 

Maybe our system needs to grip right now. And the more we feel into it, we see, our body is kind of half gripping all of the time.  It is trying to resolve something internally.  And we are there, perhaps for 20/30 years, trying to relax that.  We may be constantly trying to make it stop. Or to turn it down by degree. Or shutting down feeling. But it may need the space to grip more. It may need to profoundly grip. And in that gripping, this will be a complete head trip to even learn how to feel it and allow it to happen.  It might be incredibly counterintuitive.  But this counterintuitive process may then resolve some holding pattern trapped in the system. But we are there, with all good intentions, blocking the system from feeling into how it needs to open.  And it is an incredibly creative process opening up to feeling that.

Often when we begin to let go, we think relaxing will turn down the volume of our intensity. Everything will become less.  Finally we'll be able to chill out. But for many of us, when we feel, everything gets louder. The intensity comes full on 

There is a term in Japanese, Shikkari. This means to grasp with all of your might.  To throw all of your intensity into what we are doing. And feeling what is happening, in my experience especially at first, feeling into our process is very much like that.  I realized that I felt this incredible urgency in me all of the time, and I had to just turn into it and let it carry me deeper into what was happening.  This process requires us to pull all of our intensity into one point and feel it.  That internal scream some of you always have happening has somewhere to be directed into.  To be channeled into. This may be very uncomfortable at first as we let go of that omnipresent control. But it does not require force in any way, because it is already there, trying to happen.