Balancing and processing repulsion

[Night Owl]

I know his will sound like a very weird post, but I believe confronting the things I experience the most repulsion towards the most is a necessary evil. And it is a mean to become more balanced in less positive situations.

How would you go about balancing, processing, integrating things that triggers immense amount of repulsion within?

I wish to heal and balance the seperation it creates and the negative emotions that gets triggered. It seems simultaneously impossible and also absolutely necessary.

I believe most humans and animals will experience that at some point. It is a physical reaction that the body does when reacting to to things that are experienced in an excessively negative way.

For exemple certain foods cannot enter my mouth without me puking instantly. Sometimes the feeling of disgust is so intense that I'm almost about to puke even if the food has not yet entered my mouth yet, just the scent is enough to feel completely grossed out. I have been like that ever since I'm born and it is most likely very normal for certain kind of things. I was a very difficult child growing up. Now I recognize this pattern as having an energical connection with other things.

Another exemple is hearing pop music. Some people would just think it's either good or bad. I cannot hear it without feeling headaches, being dizzy and honestly the feeling I have when hearing it feels like I'm being raped by the bass and numbing repetitions. I am simply put unable to function socially around it. And even more so emotionally.

Sometimes people who display strong amount of anger in social situations can also trigger this feeling even though I can contain myself and understand why they do it, I'm still left with a feeling of disgust about the emotions that have spread within.

I understand that I most likely have a difficult time processing certain emotions but I don't know how to go about processing them. I'm not even sure what they are. It seems it triggers the most animalistic part of the brain. It's almost like asking someone getting raped to find the compassion for how they feel in the moment while it's happening, yet it's not so litteral. It's hard to actually do in the moment and it's not very rational. I can't see myself just stuffing my mouth with fish and tomatoes until my body stops reacting or have myself an intense blitz of pop music just so I become emotionally numb or just get as much people angry until their anger doesn't reach me anymore.

Is there a more delicate way to find these things within and integrate them so they stop activating a physical response? It most likely can become a framework for facing anything that one is experiencing negatively if extrapolated.

[sjel]

I used to have a very intense aversion to pop music as well. Until I took an arrow to the knee. Sorry I've been playing Skyrim all day.

Actually what changed is just perceiving that the universe brings the pop music into your life for whatever lesson it brings. You don't have to seek it out. Also the fact that other people are dancing and nodding their heads to these sounds I considered trash, and I want to help those people. To help people deeply I have to understand them deeply. So I made a mental effort to join with their vibration, which doesn't necessarily mean enjoy the music, just appreciate its existence from the cosmic perspective.

I still don't enjoy pop music. But now I'm starting to see that people listen to whatever music compels them forward on their evolutionary path. And some people just wanna have fun bein' asleep. Have fun alongside them bein' awake (but it's sometimes too hard when the depth of their asleepness exceeds the depth of your awakeness, or the depth of your willingness to release control-ness)

grraawwwrrr roarrrer grrrrrwwoorrwarrrr rrrrrumbleeee growwwwwlll

[Night Owl]

Yeah I understand intellectually. My problem however is not that I don't like it, it's how horrible it makes me feel. I feel like a torrent of pain. It can't be normal to be that much disturbed by such a benign thing, even more something that makes other people happy. I do am excessively sensitive to sounds though.

And I definitely think it relates to the food I cannot put in my mouth. The music is something that I realized over time but the food is going back to as far as I remember. Surely there is an unconscious emotional trigger related to that that I am not aware of. I wish to be free of such emotional turmoil when it arises.

Sure we don't all like the same food but I have grown up not liking an absurd quantity of stuff. Some of them I have overcome over the years, but how can I feel so bad about some of them instead of just them not being my favorite? I don't wish to hate the taste of something or the sound of something, it just happen, what's the emotional connection that tie them together?

[sjel]

Well no, I think it IS normal. There are very deep spiritual associations corresponding to your likes and dislikes, going back lives upon lives. One practice I do is entering a complete meditative focus upon a pain or discomfort, and increasing its severity in my mind until I must, I WANT to accept it. Only way this works is if you are comfortable in all your other aspects of your being. Don't take on several uncomfortable things at once. Clear the passage to the discomfortable thing until it is the only thing blocking your path, like a jumble of rocks right in front of you. Then you can face it with your whole force.

I actually made a track that I realized afterwards was centered around disgust. "Disgust" It took me a few days and lots of weed. It purged me of a certain kind of repulsion, and led me to that meditative technique.

Also this: ""Because the wise always confront their difficulties, they do not experience them." Tao Te Ching

[Night Owl]

The thing is it has nothing to do with what the mind associate with negative connotation. Perhaps the word disgust is not the right word. Maybe repulsion would be more adequate of a term. I'm sure most people would have experienced that with very bitter food. Some might even experience that with sex or death. Like some people who faint at the sight of a dissection or at the sight of blood. Some might be repulsed by cruelty towards men or animals etc. But it's not about dislike, it's about the emotional repulsion that's subconsciously triggered. Why do some people experience that with certain things that most people would most likely not even care or react. Maybe it is normal, but it doesn't seem balanced.

My supposition is that it relates with deep emotions that are not able to be processed. Obviously the things that trigger that for me are not the same as others. For me it's just that I'm very sensible to stimulis of the senses like flavours and textures of sound or taste. But there's no rational reason why I wouldn't be able to put something that's meant to be eaten in my mouth without puking or listening to something that's meant to be listened to without feeling dizzy. But maybe some would relate to that raw feeling of repulsion that's more common among different things? Is there a way to understand the root and balance that?

[Minyatur]

You could meditate on the rememberance of the reaction it causes to inspect the areas of your emotional body that are energized by the food and hold it in that state to distill what it is about more deeply.

About music, I thought it might be because you're unable to not focus on it and have certain expactations of quality for what is your greatest passion. Could unconsciously feel like an insult to the art you are devoted I'd say. Once again, to get at the bottom of things is to dive into your reaction to become just that. Not become something that rejects it and want to be otherwise, but become a moment of total focus upon the reaction. Again, meditating on the rememberance of a moment of trigger might be more helpful than figuring it out in the actual event.

[Night Owl]

Once again that's not what I'm talking about. The subject is not relevant. I'm talking about the kind of traumas that can cause a physical reaction. If it was that simplistic I would not have made a thread about that. You can't tell someone who faint at the sight of blood: maybe you just don't like it. Well very most likely but that's not the point. I'm talking about the specific maybe very early traumas that something that creates a very intense trigger like that can be activating. Something the mind has not any memories to associate with. I'm not looking for reasons why I don't like stuff. Obviously we all just like and dislike certain things, and that's perfectly fine.

The physical emotion of such repulsion seems almost like something that triggers the most primitive part of the brain. Something even my dog has done at times. It's not something reasonable or rational. It's something that the body is fighting. It's a physical "get the f*** out of the system" kind of thing. When I focus on this feeling, it is impossible to meditate in fact it is the opposite state of meditation. Yet some people might be enduring tortures without moving an inch. I only stated my exemple in case it helps someone relate. In the case of sound I guess many people might have experienced when hearing something like black metal or something like that. For me it's more the fat bass and repetition that makes me dizzy. Someone might for exemple be very sensible to spicy food and almost vomit for touching a little bit of tabasco. I don't have that problem but I'll have it for other things. An even more common exemple might be smoking. Some people cannot smoke any amount without their body severely fighting it while others are completely immune to it. I'm seeking the emotional connection that is more basic and general that we can all experience given that we compare the symptoms rather than the subject. In your case how do you feel if you ingest vinegar for exemple or get yourself into cold water? Would you find a rational cause to your aversion?

[Diana]

I don't think your post is weird at all. I identify with the general idea, though "disgust" is not the word I use. "Repulsed" is closer.

Certainly I am repulsed by pop music, and very closely related, popular culture and broadcast media. It's not just the insipidness or the dumbed-down nature of it, or any number of aspects relating to quality—there is a visceral reaction that agitates me. My guess is that it has something to do with the underlying indications of control, limitations, and programming that I think are inherent in popular media.

If I am at someone's house and their TV is on, I get a visceral reaction. Sometimes I get so agitated I have to stand up and pace. It's not just the content, which can in itself be upsetting. I think it may have something to do with the energy waves, intentions behind the content, and subliminal programming. Commercials really feel agitating. An example regarding food happened before I became vegetarian. It was around 1991. I was in Rocky Point with some people and we were going to a seaside shack for oysters. I started getting nauseated on the way and didn't know why. I began thinking of swallowing them alive after they were cut from their shells, and the sickness I felt over that was intense. I stayed in the car while the others went to the oyster shack. Another example is when I'm in a public place and I'm around parents yelling at their children or treating them without compassion. It feels sickening to me.

My reasons for being repulsed may not be the same as yours. But for me I can say it's a level of sensitivity to what is going on in this world. I personally do not have great ways to handle it. I think it's cavalier to say just love and accept suffering, for example. It's an intellectual statement. Though I realize it's possible there are beings here and on this planet so advanced they could actually, with an open heart and full empathy and sensitivity, gaze on horrible suffering with equanimity and love. There is that famous photo of the starving African child (very young) who died just before reaching the food relief station, walking alone, then crawling and collapsing, to get to the food. The photo journalist who took the photo committed suicide after that event after witnessing so much suffering. I am certainly not evolved enough to see that and not feel devastated.

There is the concept of resonance. You mentioned the primitive brain (the oldest part of the human brain, the reptilian brain stem), possibly being involved in these sorts of reactions, which makes sense because that part of the brain is totally reactive and based on the elements of the environment and survival. If this were the case, then there would presumably be some logic in your reactions. My guess is that your reactions are due to a conflict in resonance, creating disharmonies, cacophonies that "rub you the wrong way" because they are so counter to your inner being.

I have no answers as to how to resolve this conflict. What I do to deal with it is limit my exposure to this world, remain mindful and present in each situation as much as possible, and remember to breathe and stay centered in order to continue in a state of (compassionate) detachment. I just keep wrenching my focus, my inner dialogue, and my thoughts back to where I want them to be, which takes constant vigilance.  

[Minyatur]

Once again that's not what I'm talking about. The subject is not relevant. I'm talking about the kind of traumas that can cause a physical reaction. If it was that simplistic I would not have made a thread about that. You can't tell someone who faint at the sight of blood: maybe you just don't like it. Well very most likely but that's not the point. I'm talking about the specific maybe very early traumas that something that creates a very intense trigger like that can be activating. Something the mind has not any memories to associate with. I'm not looking for reasons why I don't like stuff. Obviously we all just like and dislike certain things, and that's perfectly fine.

You can't tell them that but you can tell them what I told you, to dive into it to find the root of it within their emotional body. The root is clearly there as otherwise there would be no reaction and you won't gain awareness of what it is nor work with it unless you touch upon it.

It will relate to something as it is a cause and effect of something like everything else in existence. In the example of blood, the person can have past lifetimes deaths which are triggered by the sight of blood and this would change only once the traumatic energies are distilled. The person will either achieve this through being triggered by its outer reality enough times for the energies to be distilled or by  willingly diving into them itself.

As a reminder you are a mind/body/spirit complex, so certain distortions relate to the mind, others the body and yet again others the spirit. The nature of this reality is to make you blind to the roots of these things and confusion make things appear complex when they are in fact quite simply if seen clearly without confusion. This is where meditation has importance to transmute these things, otherwise you are much like trying to alter the deep flows of an ocean by altering its most upper surface.

The physical emotion of such repulsion seems almost like something that triggers the most primitive part of the brain. Something even my dog has done at times. It's not something reasonable or rational. It's something that the body is fighting. It's a physical "get the f*** out of the system" kind of thing. When I focus on this feeling, it is impossible to meditate in fact it is the opposite state of meditation. Yet some people might be enduring tortures without moving an inch. I only stated my exemple in case it helps someone relate. In the case of sound I guess many people might have experienced when hearing something like black metal or something like that. For me it's more the fat bass and repetition that makes me dizzy. Someone might for exemple be very sensible to spicy food and almost vomit for touching a little bit of tabasco. I don't have that problem but I'll have it for other things. An even more common exemple might be smoking. Some people cannot smoke any amount without their body severely fighting it while others are completely immune to it. I'm seeking the emotional connection that is more basic and general that we can all experience given that we compare the symptoms rather than the subject. In your case how do you feel if you ingest vinegar for exemple or get yourself into cold water? Would you find a rational cause to your aversion?

Seems like you have resistance to centering yourself within those energies, seems like that is a good area of work to begin with. You can see either a dead end or the beginning of a path of work.

I wasn't really talking about finding rational reasons but everything hold and happen for reasons. Each thing could be contemplated symbolically to provide more guidance. In the case of taste there is also a very good reason people's sense of taste can change over time, because they work with themselves and transform and release the energies they contained. Your body even almost entirely reform itself with new matter over a not so long period of time, so it's much always about the entertained patterns your mind identifies with that shape the body.

I think in your case the root of what you seek is not so much in what you can find aversion for but the intensity with which you are hit when you have aversion for anything which is also of a symbolic nature of itself. All symbolic.

[Night Owl]

I don't think your post is weird at all. I identify with the general idea, though "disgust" is not the word I use. "Repulsed" is closer.

Certainly I am repulsed by pop music, and very closely related, popular culture and broadcast media. It's not just the insipidness or the dumbed-down nature of it, or any number of aspects relating to quality—there is a visceral reaction that agitates me. My guess is that it has something to do with the underlying indications of control, limitations, and programming that I think are inherent in popular media.

If I am at someone's house and their TV is on, I get a visceral reaction. Sometimes I get so agitated I have to stand up and pace. It's not just the content, which can in itself be upsetting. I think it may have something to do with the energy waves, intentions behind the content, and subliminal programming. Commercials really feel agitating. An example regarding food happened before I became vegetarian. It was around 1991. I was in Rocky Point with some people and we were going to a seaside shack for oysters. I started getting nauseated on the way and didn't know why. I began thinking of swallowing them alive after they were cut from their shells, and the sickness I felt over that was intense. I stayed in the car while the others went to the oyster shack. Another example is when I'm in a public place and I'm around parents yelling at their children or treating them without compassion. It feels sickening to me.

My reasons for being repulsed may not be the same as yours. But for me I can say it's a level of sensitivity to what is going on in this world. I personally do not have great ways to handle it. I think it's cavalier to say just love and accept suffering, for example. It's an intellectual statement. Though I realize it's possible there are beings here and on this planet so advanced they could actually, with an open heart and full empathy and sensitivity, gaze on horrible suffering with equanimity and love. There is that famous photo of the starving African child (very young) who died just before reaching the food relief station, walking alone, then crawling and collapsing, to get to the food. The photo journalist who took the photo committed suicide after that event after witnessing so much suffering. I am certainly not evolved enough to see that and not feel devastated.

There is the concept of resonance. You mentioned the primitive brain (the oldest part of the human brain, the reptilian brain stem), possibly being involved in these sorts of reactions, which makes sense because that part of the brain is totally reactive and based on the elements of the environment and survival. If this were the case, then there would presumably be some logic in your reactions. My guess is that your reactions are due to a conflict in resonance, creating disharmonies, cacophonies that "rub you the wrong way" because they are so counter to your inner being.

I have no answers as to how to resolve this conflict. What I do to deal with it is limit my exposure to this world, remain mindful and present in each situation as much as possible, and remember to breathe and stay centered in order to continue in a state of (compassionate) detachment. I just keep wrenching my focus, my inner dialogue, and my thoughts back to where I want them to be, which takes constant vigilance.  

Yeah I totally relate to the sensitivity of the world. You mentioned one thing I forgot was also very repulsing to me: comercial ads. I don't know why but after I quit watching TV around 10 years ago I started being very visceraly disturbed by them. I just can't take them in anymore I have to either just remove myself from the situation or meditate on putting all my focus on something else. But I suppose the work of balancing involves working toward having a positive experience under all circumstances, not in a way that we necessarily enjoy suffering but in a way that we are not so triggered on first degree.

I too don't think it has to do with the content especially with pop music as I can certainly tolerate certain kinds of them. Iit's not about what I think about it, t's certain specific vibrations that trigger a trauma like feeling.

I have put lots of effort in the last few years trying to overcome my repulsion for so many foods, especially fruits and vedgetables in an attempt to get closer to a vegetarian diet and I have been successful to a certain degree, but there are certain things I still can't even get close to. If someone wanted to torture me, just cook some fish or any seafood right next to me and I'll tell you everything you want to hear. Just the smell is enough that I would puke after maybe 30sec of intense proximity. How silly that is when I think about it.

[Night Owl]

Once again that's not what I'm talking about. The subject is not relevant. I'm talking about the kind of traumas that can cause a physical reaction. If it was that simplistic I would not have made a thread about that. You can't tell someone who faint at the sight of blood: maybe you just don't like it. Well very most likely but that's not the point. I'm talking about the specific maybe very early traumas that something that creates a very intense trigger like that can be activating. Something the mind has not any memories to associate with. I'm not looking for reasons why I don't like stuff. Obviously we all just like and dislike certain things, and that's perfectly fine.

You can't tell them that but you can tell them what I told you, to dive into it to find the root of it within their emotional body. The root is clearly there as otherwise there would be no reaction and you won't gain awareness of what it is nor work with it unless you touch upon it.

It will relate to something as it is a cause and effect of something like everything else in existence. In the example of blood, the person can have past lifetimes deaths which are triggered by the sight of blood and this would change only once the traumatic energies are distilled. The person will either achieve this through being triggered by its outer reality enough times for the energies to be distilled or by  willingly diving into them itself.

As a reminder you are a mind/body/spirit complex, so certain distortions relate to the mind, others the body and yet again others the spirit. The nature of this reality is to make you blind to the roots of these things and confusion make things appear complex when they are in fact quite simply if seen clearly without confusion. This is where meditation has importance to transmute these things, otherwise you are much like trying to alter the deep flows of an ocean by altering its most upper surface.

The physical emotion of such repulsion seems almost like something that triggers the most primitive part of the brain. Something even my dog has done at times. It's not something reasonable or rational. It's something that the body is fighting. It's a physical "get the f*** out of the system" kind of thing. When I focus on this feeling, it is impossible to meditate in fact it is the opposite state of meditation. Yet some people might be enduring tortures without moving an inch. I only stated my exemple in case it helps someone relate. In the case of sound I guess many people might have experienced when hearing something like black metal or something like that. For me it's more the fat bass and repetition that makes me dizzy. Someone might for exemple be very sensible to spicy food and almost vomit for touching a little bit of tabasco. I don't have that problem but I'll have it for other things. An even more common exemple might be smoking. Some people cannot smoke any amount without their body severely fighting it while others are completely immune to it. I'm seeking the emotional connection that is more basic and general that we can all experience given that we compare the symptoms rather than the subject. In your case how do you feel if you ingest vinegar for exemple or get yourself into cold water? Would you find a rational cause to your aversion?

Seems like you have resistance to centering yourself within those energies, seems like that is a good area of work to begin with. You can see either a dead end or the beginning of a path of work.

I wasn't really talking about finding rational reasons but everything hold and happen for reasons. Each thing could be contemplated symbolically to provide more guidance. In the case of taste there is also a very good reason people's sense of taste can change over time, because they work with themselves and transform and release the energies they contained. Your body even almost entirely reform itself with new matter over a not so long period of time, so it's much always about the entertained patterns your mind identifies with that shape the body.

I think in your case the root of what you seek is not so much in what you can find aversion for but the intensity with which you are hit when you have aversion for anything which is also of a symbolic nature of itself. All symbolic.

Well the point is exactly that focusing on this feeling I have been able to create a connection between different repulsive things. Beyond that, just try and drink a cup of vinegar and mustard and see how well you will successfully meditate. The feeling of repulsion is completely incompatible with the peace of mind required to meditate.

[Raz]

after diving in to the wide world of essential oils and bathing in heavenly fragrance as a norm. I have started to find smells I had no problem with in my home before, repulsive. Had this realization just a few hours ago when I was vacuuming and realized I was repulsed by the "vacuum smell". Took some Clove oil around the main air intake and suddenly the vacuum cleaner was transformed in to an air fresher, score!

Being repulsed by some things gives more power to the things we love. The bad smell from my vacuum just made the good fragrance better in the end. I feel like it´s about contrast and energetic orientation on the life long journey in geting to know our self.

[Minyatur]

Well the point is exactly that focusing on this feeling I have been able to create a connection between different repulsive things. Beyond that, just try and drink a cup of vinegar and mustard and see how well you will successfully meditate. The feeling of repulsion is completely incompatible with the peace of mind required to meditate.

In term of food I think they can be seen as crystals of some sort, having a qualitative nature in their vibration.

When I say to medidate on the feeling, I don't mean just the feeling but the area of the emotional body the food creates resonance with. On the surface it might seem confusing because of the veil between mind and body, but as one attune his understanding and ability to scan the emotional body, one can connect to deepest aspects of the self.  This is not inherent because this place is an experiment of creating a wall hiding the deeper aspects of the self, its personality and catalysts.

I never contemplated my repulsion to vinegar before but I did a short test earlier when I wrote my last post to contemplate rememberance of the feeling and I did feel areas of the emotional body be triggered by the exercise. I haven't done further work but I know those are the areas requiring balancing. My taste in food changed on a few things I came to stop disliking and like instead over time, this did not require work and was an after effect of transformation over the years.

[sjel]

I have no answers as to how to resolve this conflict. What I do to deal with it is limit my exposure to this world, remain mindful and present in each situation as much as possible, and remember to breathe and stay centered in order to continue in a state of (compassionate) detachment. I just keep wrenching my focus, my inner dialogue, and my thoughts back to where I want them to be, which takes constant vigilance.  

Man, Diana, this whole post makes me feel especially secure in my tendency towards aversion to the world. I guess I do not have answers Night Owl, I spoke from a place that lacked in clarity. I pretty much echo what Diana says. Limit exposure to the abrasive energies of the world, but do face them.

For me personally it takes several days of meditation and mindful exercise to integrate and recover from events such as a baseball game with the family. The sheer quantity of minds congregated in one place, and with such lack of unity, is absolutely overwhelming. It took me a deep depression and all of last week to recover from a music festival that I went to with my dad. This world is effing intense. Really, really intense. Like I am surprised there aren't more people breaking down left and right. These energies are just too, too much sometimes. Just too much.

It just seems sometimes like we as entities just get hit over and over by increasingly difficult spiritual catalysts, until the breaking point. Then we recover, and heal, and integrate... only so that we might be strong enough to get slammed with another catalytic cement truck. And there is only a 1% part of you that is really supporting your whole being, that is telling you to carry on, be strong. This world is excruciatingly intense. I think it's time I can fully admit that.

Diana, your post sends a deep feeling of security through my weakened mind right now. ...Are we destined to be calloused and hardened creatures? I leave my house significantly less than any definition of normal, and still I am overwhelmed by the intensity of the world. I do not understand, do not understand at all, how people continue. And I am a people. Should I completely just allow myself to break down in public? Complete vulnerability at the grocery store? Is that what people need to start seeing? That we are all breaking down inside? I'm feeling less and less that I need to pretend.

[Glow]

Yeah I understand intellectually. My problem however is not that I don't like it, it's how horrible it makes me feel. I feel like a torrent of pain. It can't be normal to be that much disturbed by such a benign thing, even more something that makes other people happy. I do am excessively sensitive to sounds though.

And I definitely think it relates to the food I cannot put in my mouth. The music is something that I realized over time but the food is going back to as far as I remember. Surely there is an unconscious emotional trigger related to that that I am not aware of. I wish to be free of such emotional turmoil when it arises.

Sure we don't all like the same food but I have grown up not liking an absurd quantity of stuff. Some of them I have overcome over the years, but how can I feel so bad about some of them instead of just them not being my favorite? I don't wish to hate the taste of something or the sound of something, it just happen, what's the emotional connection that tie them together?

Sounds like it is triggering old energy loops or energy patterns. The more you reinforce these loops when triggered the stronger they get hence increased aversion. You have many ways to master these patterns usually discovering the original experience or emotional cause of the aversion and healing it in some fashion will allow you to release the charge you get when exposed to it.

edited to say I am taking a recapitulation course and the healing I am experiencing through the recap process is nothing short of miraculous. I would certainly recommend it.
Things that have triggered me, or set me off emotionally in some way are becoming healed very quickly. We actually had a class on recapitulating through the senses so taste for sure and it leads you back to memories quite quickly, then it is very easy to no longer be triggered.

[Aion]

Aha Funny how people talk about needing to be peaceful to meditate. If you are peaceful, then the meditation is done! It is to find peace that you meditate.

Maybe the technique isn't what you think it is for?

[Jeremy]

Aha Funny how people talk about needing to be peaceful to meditate. If you are peaceful, then the meditation is done! It is to find peace that you meditate.

Maybe the technique isn't what you think it is for?

Totally agree! My most amazing and productive meditations were in times of crisis. When all hell is breaking loose either internally or externally, meditation has been quite fascinating 

[Nau7ik]

Aha Funny how people talk about needing to be peaceful to meditate. If you are peaceful, then the meditation is done! It is to find peace that you meditate.

Maybe the technique isn't what you think it is for?

This reminds me of Ra explaining the balancing expertise to Don. Ra had said that the goal is to become unswayed. One intensifies , accentuates the feeling, then allows the opposite to arise in fullness. From my experience, this takes practice. It's not done instantly, one needs to work at it. Which one wouldn't say is "peaceful." But peace is what ensues from this intensive work in meditation.

[Night Owl]

I have stopped any belief that meditation is anything else than silent awareness. There are hundreds of techniques, ways of describing or defining meditation, and all of them are true, but the underlying principle that is common to all of them is silent awareness. I am quite skilled in being unswayed in lots of different very challenging situations. These things however trigger emotional repulsion that are much stronger than the peace I am cultivating each days, and that is because they have no intellectual relation, just thinking of appreciating these things is really not successful. I have been thinking actually that since I am peaceful these days that it was the perfect timing to face them, because I am not bothered by other different catalysts.