as: I often have this feeling that something is wrong.

Every body gets that feeling. The Buddhists even have a word for it - dukkha - unsatisfactoriness, suffering.

It may help to remember that feelings don't necessarily mean anything. They aren't rational. That kind of feeling feeds on your attention, fear and dislike of it. This can create a feed back loop making it seem worse than it is.

The traditional method of working with it is to learn to notice it for what it is, a feeling, and thus remove the fear and dislike that feed it; and, to learn to focus your attention so that it dissipates. No though or feeling can maintain without your attention. If you turned around and saw a car coming straight at you, the feeling would instantly disappear because you have more important things to occupy your mind.

However, jumping in front of cars is hard on the driver so people have worked out other methods.

The one I like focuses on the fact that this feeling is really just a distraction. In this case it is a distraction from living your life. So the practice is to create a very boring task. Let that cause the mind to throw up distractions and then practice refocusing on what you are doing.

A traditional task is to just sit and watch a rock. Now, you'll be tempted to examine the rock, but the task is just to watch it. Start some where between 5 and 15 minutes and just sit and watch the rock. If you are like most people it won't be 5 seconds before your brain rebels and starts trying to think about things. As soon as you notice you are distracted, gently go back to the rock. You be distracted again, go back to the rock. You'll remember something important; go back to the rock. You'll feel silly, want to do something else, have an itch, feel sad, feel happy, unfold time and space...as soon as you notice you are distracted, gently go back to the rock.

Just 5-15 minutes every day. The every day bit is more important than how long you do it, but don't get hung up on it. If you miss, realize that is just another distraction and start back in.

After a while you'll notice when some distraction is messing with you and you'll start naturally refocusing on what you are doing and who you really are.

<<< I feel better than I have in a long time, then I start feeling scared again. >>>

it can get to be a habit asch. we think a certain way our whole lives, it wears a pretty well established path in our heads... a friend of mine told me, 'it took you a long ime to walk into the forest, it may take a while to walk out...'
you've been practicing a new way of being for a little while now, a handful of months, and doing amazingly well. sometimes when things do go so well, our old thinking can get bored, or something, and try to start pulling us back into the same old groove... it become a habit, but thats all it is...
and everyone is subjec to it. it happens to the best of us. what changes is 1) frequency, and 2) depth. over time, it happens less often, and we dont have to wander so far into it, give it so much time and energy. we dont have to get lost in it.
i'll tell you a trick that i picked up along the way. may sound goofy but it works for me, almost every time. when i get feeling funky, i imagine seeing myself through the eyes of god... thats it. and that perspective reminds me that im not just what i think, or what i see, or even what i believe, but im something much different than that, something much more, much bigger...
as are you my friend... i promise...

H Aschleigh, are you afraid of being hurt?

N J

From my perspective feelings mean everything. It is my temperament to feel things deeply. I've asked exactly the same hard questions you are asking now because of how I feel. Feelings prompt us to self-reflection so they mean a lot. There is nothing wrong with you. It may just be that your sensitivity and sadness is a clue to what is most lovable about you. Anger, sadness, self-doubt, self-criticism are messages from your deepest self that must be honored, rather than merely symptoms to be gotten rid of. You are asking the right questions. Self knowledge brings healing. It is hard to love someone you don't know very well.

From my perspective feelings mean everything. It is my temperament to feel things deeply. I've asked exactly the same hard questions you are asking now because of how I feel. Feelings prompt us to self-reflection, so they mean a lot. There is nothing wrong with you. Every thing we feel and experience is valid. Your sensitivity and sadness are clues to what is most lovable about you. Anger, sadness, self-doubt, self-criticism are messages from your deepest self that must be honored and really explored, rather than merely symptoms to be gotten rid of. You are asking the right questions. Self knowledge does bring healing. It is hard to love someone you don't know very well.

The perfect parents (and society), if there were such a thing, would raise children to know and value themselves ~ strengths and weaknesses. Usually that is not how it goes. We get messages about who we are that are not very accurate. We internalize them at such a young age that we are barely aware they exist within us. And yet they have tremendous unconscious influence over how we relate to the world and to ourselves. It takes time and effort to figure this stuff out. Its not that you are flawed somehow, you've just got some exploring to do, which can yield a lot of really great things.

Just do it.

Right now.

DON'T THINK ABOUT IT!W
Right now: just love yourself......love love love YOU ARE AWESOME.

...

Wasn't that easy?

Here's a poem I wrote (fyi: we all go through that conflict)

Maps 3/8/08

I stopped at the light and was asked, “Who are you?”

I had no good answer, so I stopped and I spread.


As the light changed, my answer had not.


This continued throughout all of Manhattan.


How many blocks, how many areas, must one traverse,

To find out that one never had an answer.


Only a destination.

Which doesn’t exist except in the future.


Oh beauteous future!

Oh Bright, charming dove!

Oh listful, longing yearning!

Oh day that at once will come!


But it doesn’t, so I don’t…


Just keep longing for the incredible.

And trade favors for maps of lies.

Like anything else it takes practice. A wise person once said "act as if... and eventually you will be...".

I get a lot of my wisdom these days from the Toltec teachings of people like Don Miguel Ruiz. In these teachings they keep things very simple and leave it up to each of us to accept ourselves as perfect beings of love and light energy. If we are perfect then it follows that we can love and trust ourselves.

Sometimes the simplest of concepts can be the most difficult to understand. They also believe that we have parasites living inside us that feed off of our fears and insecurities. These parasites talk to us all the time and can trick us into doubting ourselves if we let them.

I am learning to be aware of my parasites and am working to ignore them when they tell me to be afraid or to hate myself. I have a long way to go but I know I can get there eventually.

Good luck on your journey.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,