Headaches & Head Imbalances

[mr_anderson]

Hi,

Just sharing a solution to a common problem. Often spiritual practices cause me to get overloads of energy in the head area. This can be quite unpleasant and cause headaches. I also find it can sometimes even affect my speech, taking away the easy natural flow of communication, and making it hard for me to speak. Finally, it can stop thought in a way that is uncomfortable - I feel completely blank and unable to use thought.

When overloading, breath meditation as an alternative to "I Am" mantra meditation is nothing new, and an alternative I regularly employ, but specifically, when doing the breath meditation, I breath deeply into the abdomen, so I can practically feel my breath going below the level of the navel.

I also rest my attention during the meditation in the abdomen, lower waist, and even around the digestive organs.

In this way, the bliss meditation building up in the head gets breathed down into the lower parts of the body, and no overload ensues.

For me it's often the only solution, because being pretty sensitive even doing something like reading some advaita can cause me to overload in the head.

Best,

J

[jeff]

Sounds like a great idea. Thanks.

[AumNaturel]

Do you also use solar centering otherwise when not overloading, and does it also help?

The techniques you describe is the way I eventually settled into meditation prior to AYP, after first starting with no method or external guidance other than just sitting in silence, and then added full yogic breathing with focus on lower abdomen which I found as the common instruction among a few books. I've always been stable, and as a beginner not sensitive enough to see any effects, though I do enjoy attention at the plexus since it is easy to feel feedback from higher centers and muladhara while abdomen has always felt completely numb. There were also inconsistencies in the exact focus point, and more speculation one would not expect coming from sources claiming to know and truly wanting to teach (real vs false points) that made me recognize a few things about bhakti, teaching styles, and approaches.

Appreciate the insight from your experience, Mr. Anderson.

[mr_anderson]

Hey Aum,

I've found solar centering is not too helpful for me. I still get energy overload in the head when I do solar centering, but not quite as badly as if I was just doing the mantra regular style (where attention tends to naturally rest in the head or throat).

I'm resting attention way down below the plexus, almost inside the lower intestine. The attention seems to like to come inside the body, in the center of it, as opposed to resting attention on the outside.

It's hard to know what is really going on, on the energetic level. But overload in the head just spells headaches, irritability, and the overall intuitive sense is that there's no progress being made when all the energy is blocked up in the head. The experience has a shallow feeling. If I don't follow my intuition to lead the energy deep into the lower half of the torso, I just get into a weirdly detached state, with a headache, and eventually I lose interest in spiritual practice.

However, pulling the energy down, down, down, almost into the rectum, and the whole body resonates with a profound silence. In this way, the body is experienced more as an illusory appearance in consciousness, transparent, fluid, free, a little wave of bliss upon the ocean of bliss. It doesn't feel so much that "I am this heavy, solid entity". Feels more like light cotton wool like sensations passing in awareness. It's pretty hard to describe this feeling as you might imagine, and I'm probably not doing it justice. And I'm sure this just a somewhat personal thing. Everyone's network of obstructions is different.

At least that is how it has been recently. If I don't consciously direct the energy down out of the head, not much will be happening other than headaches that last for the entire day and being a little crabby with my girlfriend

[JimProfit]

Hi Mr Anderson,

I have been reading the forum for three or four years now, and have enjoyed your contributions a lot.
I have discovered the presence process when you first posted it on the forum some time ago...i am now in my third time and going for a forth time []but still doing AYP between each ten weeks of TPP.

Your experiences about abdominal breathing and insight on the energetics have reminded me of one of my readings about Master Hakuin. Hakuin suffered of "zen sickness" (energetic problems )and with the help of a Taoist hermit cured himself with abdominal breathing and the "so cream meditation" .
http://fr.scribd.com/doc/60202616/Yasenkanna-Compare   

[mr_anderson]

Hi Jimprofit,

Glad you picked up on TPP and went through the full course. How were your experiences? I've been through 3 times.

Thanks for the document link, I just read through.

[JimProfit]

quote:How were your experiences?

Awful, kidding
   
It had been difficult, in particular when i hit the seven week mark (i had to stop for 2 weeks with flu the 2nd time and for 2 days the third) and i hated (a lot) the hot baths but it was easier than what i was expecting.
Presence seems to have been very gentle with me, i still feel that there is more to work through.
The effects of the process are still unfolding here but i have been having some explosive insights on the nature of the ego ... the last one was yesterday and i laughed for a good five minutes .

[mr_anderson]

Yeah actually during my third time thru the Presence Process I had my first real experience of totally waking up out of identification with form. It's funny, because it's essentially a very simple teaching of learning how to just be in the moment without resistance. And all "resistance to the moment" is just a constriction on an energetic/felt level, so TPP dives right into the core of those constrictions. And by simply learning to recognize constriction and unpleasant emotion when it occurs, then breath calmly, close one's eyes, and fix attention in the moment, and stop running from the constrictions and unpleasant feelings, they naturally lose their momentum and dissolve.

Good luck with your present journey!

[Parallax]

Hey Josh!

How goes it my brother? Your experience with the head imbalances is pretty similar to what I'd experienced for about 18 months off and on...some headaches, spaciness, difficulty in thinking...and on retreats the energy would be so intense that it would make it difficult to communicate, there just simply wouldn't be much in the way of thoughts arising to speak.

The energy follows the attention so focusing on the lower chakras would help, although when I would take my attention off of that area the energy tended to pull back to the head...almost like a window shade that you can't keep down, every time you let go it shoots back to the top

Visualizing the energy traveling down through the root and anchoring in the earth would help, as would walking barefoot in the grass and visualizing the energy grounding into the dirt. Chin pump did help for me as well, bringing the energy down into the chest, but a little too much of it would intensify the head energy as well, so I had to very carefully self pace on that

I've also used some grounding stones black onyx, tourmeline, apache tears...I keep one or two in my pocket at work and it does seem to help a bit.

Over the past couple of months I've had some blockages in the throat and heart areas dissapate, and It has been a big relief for the energy pooling in the head. So much more grounded and much greater clarity in thinking.

TPP has been helping as well...for me--currently--I have tended to feel energy constrictioning as an unconscious tightening of the abdomen...and the noticing of the constriction and bringing unconditional awareness to it release the contraction and the energy flows more freely to that area. As this happens the energy is naturally pulled down into the body resulting in feeling more grounded.

Thanks for all of your posts Josh...they have all been super helpful for me.

[mr_anderson]

Hey!

Good to hear from you man.

quote:The energy follows the attention so focusing on the lower chakras would help, although when I would take my attention off of that area the energy tended to pull back to the head...almost like a window shade that you can't keep down, every time you let go it shoots back to the top

lol. this describes my issue exactly.

quote:I have tended to feel energy constrictioning as an unconscious tightening of the abdomen

Yes, it's often the same here.

I find that ultimately, on becoming more and more deeply established in the witness/choiceless awareness, the more immediately resistance to the moment (in its energetic form of constrictions and so on in the body) is noticed as an object in awareness, instead of unconsciously identified with, and the more easily it is let go

Feels good. TPP is a nice tool for zapping sticky patterns.

[lalow33]

Hello Mr. Anderson,

Do you think this technique could help with facial tension/face freezing up during DM?

[mr_anderson]

Hi Lalow,

I have often experienced facial tension and face freezing up from DM.

I consider it a symptom of overload. What is your practice routine and in what context do you experience it ?

[JimProfit]

quote:Good luck with your present journey!

Thanks Mr Anderson

[lalow33]

Mr. Anderson,

I'm just coming off my first overload.  I had to skip some days then went to 5 min of DM.  Feeling much better so I did 10min of DM and had the facial freezing both sessions.  I had a lot of this in the past; I think it started during lots of third eye activity, experienced during meditation and Savasana.  I can't remember the type of meditation because I was experimenting.

I read your post and thought it may be helpful.  Probably for future use since I'm only 3mo in to AYP.  I don't want to switch meditation styles now unless I absolutely have to.

Oh yeah, I dropped sbp 2 weeks ago , and I'm still doing asanas daily but decreased the amt. substantially .

[mr_anderson]

Sounds like you are very sensitive like me. Facial freezing was a common side effect I often experienced.

See how you go, but eventually DM just became interminable for me, due to that and many other side effects, and I had to stick with breath watching.

Self pace carefully and be very careful not to get a build up of overload or you might end up having to stop practices for a considerable amount of time.