Blocking Mechanisms
As an empath you may have different states locked up inside your system from the past. I have found quite a few states that I knew originated from other people in different parts of my system. Simple meditative focus on different parts of the body is usually enough to explore and dissolve these states. But some areas can be difficult to reach if they have been blocked off. A few types of basic blocking mechanisms I have encountered during meditation include the following:
Simple ignoring:
This form of blocking is quite simply ignoring something or someone and will usually produce guilt. The main quality of this state is a watery sleepy feeling. Heavy underwater sensations may be felt as well.
Awareness withdrawal:
This can usually be noticed from the painful physical effects of partially withdrawing your awareness from part of your body. When you restore full awareness to that part of your body you will feel better to some degree. Actually, with total and complete withdrawal of awareness I will feel nothing at all in that area of my body. So pain may be there, but you have blocked it out. Restoring awareness will usually increase the pain initially until moved through to deeper layers at which point the pain will dissipate.
Transparent wallpaper effect:
This is a devious kind of "programming" or form of blocking. Imagine a room with three solid walls all with sunflowers painted all over them. Now imagine that in this room there is a fourth virtual wall that is just a projected image with sunflowers on it -- it looks exactly the same as the others. In reality you can walk through this fourth wall and into a new space, but it will feel like there is nowhere further to go. This same effect can be created inside your own internal space. In my experience instead of a clearly defined wall with sunflowers it is more like the fourth wall feels transparent, but you don't see/feel anything beyond it, so it feels like you can't move your awareness any further, when in fact you can. I suppose that is counter-intuitive -- a transparent wall that you cannot see beyond; that is why it's a blocking mechanism.
Unconscious gap effect:
This is the most difficult form of blocking I have encountered. I was meditating on a tight spot in part of my body that I felt like I couldn't get access to. For weeks, no matter how hard I tried to pull my awareness into that spot it just wouldn't go beyond a certain point. I then accidentally moved my body into a different position and moved my mind away from the meditation into something else entirely for about 2 seconds; then I re-shifted back into my meditation to find I had now gained access to the space I was trying to enter. It was almost as if I had to bridge this gap by becoming unconscious for a moment of that space. Logically it makes sense now since if that spot had become so unconscious then the only way I would be able to move my awareness through it would be in a similarly unaware fashion, i.e., with an unconscious movement.
This unconscious gap effect would seem, to me, to have some striking ramifications. I noticed that I was able to increase my motor control of brushing my teeth with my non-dominant hand by running an unconscious series of thought patterns. In other words, when I used to brush my teeth with my dominant hand I normally wouldn't even pay attention to what I was doing and just be off in some mental space thinking about various things. I suppose that is what most people do. However, when I started running that same inattentive mental process with my non-dominant brushing hand I was able to increase my motor control! This brings up the topics of hooks/anchors, filters, and SAID principle, which I will discuss in my next post.
Non-productive overlays:
An overlay is just what it sounds like. You take one state and overlay another onto it. Now this is not inherently a blocking mechanism or a bad thing at all. If used correctly it can really help you out. In NLP they use an overlay technique called a “swish” to confuse your system into removing negative programming. Hypnotherapy seems to be primarily based in overlays and anchoring as well. There are at least two forms of overlays. There are productive overlays and cover-up overlays. Overlaying states in order to cover up blocks, layers, or systems is counter-productive.
Some guided meditations may instruct you to relax and then bring “peace” to your body, emotions, and mind. In my opinion this is an example of a non productive, and negative, overlay – in this example you would intentionally be overlaying the void level onto your body, emotions, and mind levels. The void level does not belong there. If you want to chill yourself out then go into the void, but do not project or overlay it onto other levels of your system. I noticed that while doing a blockage dissolving technique, layer by layer, that some of the layers were void layers. In my opinion they did not belong there and, like other crap stuck in my system, those void layers disappeared after being worked through with my awareness.
A good metaphor is how you can either visit Disneyland or you could bring a whole cast of people, props, sets, and rides into your neighborhood from the park (assuming you could do that). The problem with the latter form of visitation is that you have all that stuff in your neighborhood when your vacation is over and you want to end the visit.
The purpose of a productive overlay isn’t to cover something up. It is to overlay a state, that you know works for you, into a problematic space so that you can get a new perspective on why you are having trouble in that space. For example, overlaying a pleasant stomach state into a problematic chest area. I would do this by first focusing on my stomach and shifting into that pleasant state. Then I would hold that state while shifting part of my awareness to the problematic space in my chest.
This basic overlay is a form of holding two states, or spaces, in your awareness at once. You need to practice holding multiple objects/states in your awareness to do this. Creating your own awareness splitting exercises is a great idea.
Locating and dissolving blocks:
As an empath your system is most likely so tuned that you can simply tell yourself to auto-focus or locate a blocked area to work on for a meditation session. Then your body and awareness will respond, usually pointing to a painful place. With this information you can get started and go deeper into that area with your awareness. This is a bit easier than manually scanning your whole body all over for painful areas and allows you to locate hidden blocks from areas you might have skipped.
The inner dissolving technique is a great way of working through blocks, states, and energy which may have been overlayed into parts of your system.
Simple ignoring:
This form of blocking is quite simply ignoring something or someone and will usually produce guilt. The main quality of this state is a watery sleepy feeling. Heavy underwater sensations may be felt as well.
Awareness withdrawal:
This can usually be noticed from the painful physical effects of partially withdrawing your awareness from part of your body. When you restore full awareness to that part of your body you will feel better to some degree. Actually, with total and complete withdrawal of awareness I will feel nothing at all in that area of my body. So pain may be there, but you have blocked it out. Restoring awareness will usually increase the pain initially until moved through to deeper layers at which point the pain will dissipate.
Transparent wallpaper effect:
This is a devious kind of "programming" or form of blocking. Imagine a room with three solid walls all with sunflowers painted all over them. Now imagine that in this room there is a fourth virtual wall that is just a projected image with sunflowers on it -- it looks exactly the same as the others. In reality you can walk through this fourth wall and into a new space, but it will feel like there is nowhere further to go. This same effect can be created inside your own internal space. In my experience instead of a clearly defined wall with sunflowers it is more like the fourth wall feels transparent, but you don't see/feel anything beyond it, so it feels like you can't move your awareness any further, when in fact you can. I suppose that is counter-intuitive -- a transparent wall that you cannot see beyond; that is why it's a blocking mechanism.
Unconscious gap effect:
This is the most difficult form of blocking I have encountered. I was meditating on a tight spot in part of my body that I felt like I couldn't get access to. For weeks, no matter how hard I tried to pull my awareness into that spot it just wouldn't go beyond a certain point. I then accidentally moved my body into a different position and moved my mind away from the meditation into something else entirely for about 2 seconds; then I re-shifted back into my meditation to find I had now gained access to the space I was trying to enter. It was almost as if I had to bridge this gap by becoming unconscious for a moment of that space. Logically it makes sense now since if that spot had become so unconscious then the only way I would be able to move my awareness through it would be in a similarly unaware fashion, i.e., with an unconscious movement.
This unconscious gap effect would seem, to me, to have some striking ramifications. I noticed that I was able to increase my motor control of brushing my teeth with my non-dominant hand by running an unconscious series of thought patterns. In other words, when I used to brush my teeth with my dominant hand I normally wouldn't even pay attention to what I was doing and just be off in some mental space thinking about various things. I suppose that is what most people do. However, when I started running that same inattentive mental process with my non-dominant brushing hand I was able to increase my motor control! This brings up the topics of hooks/anchors, filters, and SAID principle, which I will discuss in my next post.
Non-productive overlays:
An overlay is just what it sounds like. You take one state and overlay another onto it. Now this is not inherently a blocking mechanism or a bad thing at all. If used correctly it can really help you out. In NLP they use an overlay technique called a “swish” to confuse your system into removing negative programming. Hypnotherapy seems to be primarily based in overlays and anchoring as well. There are at least two forms of overlays. There are productive overlays and cover-up overlays. Overlaying states in order to cover up blocks, layers, or systems is counter-productive.
Some guided meditations may instruct you to relax and then bring “peace” to your body, emotions, and mind. In my opinion this is an example of a non productive, and negative, overlay – in this example you would intentionally be overlaying the void level onto your body, emotions, and mind levels. The void level does not belong there. If you want to chill yourself out then go into the void, but do not project or overlay it onto other levels of your system. I noticed that while doing a blockage dissolving technique, layer by layer, that some of the layers were void layers. In my opinion they did not belong there and, like other crap stuck in my system, those void layers disappeared after being worked through with my awareness.
A good metaphor is how you can either visit Disneyland or you could bring a whole cast of people, props, sets, and rides into your neighborhood from the park (assuming you could do that). The problem with the latter form of visitation is that you have all that stuff in your neighborhood when your vacation is over and you want to end the visit.
The purpose of a productive overlay isn’t to cover something up. It is to overlay a state, that you know works for you, into a problematic space so that you can get a new perspective on why you are having trouble in that space. For example, overlaying a pleasant stomach state into a problematic chest area. I would do this by first focusing on my stomach and shifting into that pleasant state. Then I would hold that state while shifting part of my awareness to the problematic space in my chest.
This basic overlay is a form of holding two states, or spaces, in your awareness at once. You need to practice holding multiple objects/states in your awareness to do this. Creating your own awareness splitting exercises is a great idea.
Locating and dissolving blocks:
As an empath your system is most likely so tuned that you can simply tell yourself to auto-focus or locate a blocked area to work on for a meditation session. Then your body and awareness will respond, usually pointing to a painful place. With this information you can get started and go deeper into that area with your awareness. This is a bit easier than manually scanning your whole body all over for painful areas and allows you to locate hidden blocks from areas you might have skipped.
The inner dissolving technique is a great way of working through blocks, states, and energy which may have been overlayed into parts of your system.
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