{"id":311,"date":"2007-03-06T13:46:27","date_gmt":"2007-03-06T20:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/2007\/03\/06\/unit-12-kts-ex-44-feel-of-space\/"},"modified":"2019-06-24T11:51:37","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T18:51:37","slug":"unit-12-kts-ex-44-feel-of-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/?p=311","title":{"rendered":"Unit 12 – KTS Ex 44 – FEEL OF SPACE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo courtesy of: Paul Cameron – Pexels
https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/y7fv8t9g
<\/p><\/div>\n

Having recently experienced some physical pain, I had an interesting experience dealing with it, and the healing properties of space. (Note: this is not<\/em> about comparing<\/em> pain, but rather, embodying<\/em> it. No doubt there are others who have experienced comparatively worse pain; for instance, giving birth, etc.)<\/p>\n

I’d torn cartilage in the knee, and was at the hospital for an MRI. I was required to hold my leg in an exceedingly painful position for thirty minutes without moving<\/em>, because each magnetic image built on the previous until they had the composite series of required images.<\/p>\n

The situation went like this: The physical pain in my knee was intense, and there was a growing fear that I would not be able to hold the position for the entire time. I felt pain and wanted to avoid it, however, it confronted me, and filled the entire space of my awareness. I was tensing my body, and holding my breath, and when I released long enough to exhale, whatever spatial awareness there was seemed to fill with the following: more pain, fears of not being able to last, and fear of embarrassment if I gave up on the MRI, fear of not knowing<\/em> what that would mean, and also fear of more pain, both of its intensity and duration. I felt physically tight and trapped, and there was no space.\u00c2\u00a0 I seemed completely locked.<\/p>\n

Each inhale was a lock-and-hold and each exhale was a nano-surrender that soon filled in with the continuous throbbing pain, and fearful thoughts. At one of the exhales the thought came from nowhere to ‘feel the space.’<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0At that point I realized I was trapped in a very narrow perspective, and so decided to unclench and focus on the pain, but instead of trying to avoid it by thinking how I could not<\/em> endure it; I focused directly into<\/em> it, and allowed it to expand<\/em> and occupy my full attention.\u00c2\u00a0I noticed where<\/em> I felt it, how<\/em> it felt, and how the rest of me was tensed up. As I relaxed I felt pain!\u00c2\u00a0Nevertheless, I maintained focus on where it hurt and how pain registered in my awareness as a kind of prevailing atmosphere.\u00c2\u00a0I also noticed as I did this, pain memories<\/em> and fearful projections of future pain <\/em>and embarrassment<\/em> diminished.\u00c2\u00a0As I relaxed into it, pain was still present, but not the way I was previously allowing it.\u00c2\u00a0 It became but one of the elements in the space within which the rest of me resided, and that space opened to a vastness that included areas that did not<\/u><\/strong> hurt<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 While pain was still there, ‘I’<\/em> was not myopic about its presence, there were other things to observe; such as how breathing had become steady and calm, how the body had relaxed as I kept monitoring it (no longer locked and tense), and what this focal setting revealed was more available space, time presentations, and knowing distinctions. I had moved from a limited level of my knowing capacity to a more allowing level.<\/p>\n

As I allowed more of what was available to present itself, the pain was no longer unendurable; it became, manageable,<\/em> at least for the thirty minute time span I was given. I was no longer triangulating<\/em> in a linear fashion from how intense the pain had<\/em> been, to the ‘me-pain’<\/em> now, to the fear of imagined future pain<\/em>, over and over as each moment passed.\u00c2\u00a0 I simply stopped projecting fear. Then, the attendant appeared above my head and said I was finished. It was actually a surprise! I thought there was at least<\/em> another fifteen minutes to go. The structures of time relaxed and no longer confined, but instead, expressed the experience.<\/p>\n

My wider perspective was about what I was feeling<\/em>, and also<\/u><\/em> about what I was making of it, and how closed or open I went about it, and about the feel<\/em> of wideness<\/em>, the knowing space<\/em> of it. While my explanation now<\/em> requires concepts and meanings, the knowing experience then<\/em> had little to do with concepts or meanings, once fear<\/em> was dissolved.<\/p>\n

David<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having recently experienced some physical pain, I had an interesting experience dealing with it, and the healing properties of space. (Note: this is not about comparing pain, but rather, embodying it. No doubt there are others who have experienced comparatively … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01_general","category-tsk-online-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}