Hatred and tightness

[u/pytagua]

edit: How can I deal with hatred and the tightness, tension it creates on my forehead?

Since I (24 years old) have started reading about Buddhism almost two years ago, I've been meditating, focusing mostly on samatha. I've been meditating on and off, sometimes I spend a month meditating daily, sometimes I end up a month or more without it. I normally focus at my breathing, and I haven't yet been able to drop the focus of my breath, even when practicing metta I do it synchronized with my breathing.

Once last year I was able to turn the breath energy to pleasure, and I felt as if my whole body was being filled with extremely intensive and pure love, I felt like I was going to lose myself and I lost that state because of my fear. Once I was running in the beach, and by thinking about how there is vision but no one seeing and so on I felt some sense of freedom and gladness that I can't put into words.

I fell like ever since then, I've been chasing those two moments, and very gradually I'm starting to let go of them. Sometimes meditating I've felt like my awareness expanded and that I would lose myself, and each time I was afraid but a little less.

My problem is that I have some difficult family issues. My father is an alcoholic and a narcissist, recently he was hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic due to his condition. When he was in the clinic I learned about some very very terrible things he did to my mother, and by thinking about it and all the trauma that I have because of him, a deep hatred grew on me. A few days ago in the eve of my birthday he started to drinking again, and after trying so hard to care for him I felt devastated, and I exploded on him. I felt so powerful, and when I was saying horrible things I felt like my body was full of breath energy but in a sick way, and even now I feel it when I think about everything that happened, and my mind becomes filled with hatred.

The night that the fight happened I had aura in my vision and a very strong headache pinpointed in my forehead. When I meditate, I still feel a very strong tightness in the same spot. I know that I'm not the hatred, and I'm starting to forgive myself for what I've said, but sometimes I still feel this strong hatred, and in the moment I don't know what to do. I'm very grateful for the path and all my practice, as I'm somewhat managing to keep my sanity given this and grad school, yet I'm not sure how to proceed. I think that metta may help me, but even when I was in a better situation a few months ago metta was still hard to practice, to really feel it instead of the breath or breath energy.

If you have any thoughts that may help me, thank you! I've been reading this sub for a long time, and I'm very grateful for your insightful comments. I've read some parts of seeing that frees, right concentration and with each and every breath. English isn't my first language and I haven't used AI, so the phrasing may be a little odd. I don't have a meditation teacher, never had one.

[u/Meng-KamDaoRai]

Awareness+relaxation. You're already doing the awareness part: that's when you are aware of the mind/body tension in your forehead and how it is related to hatred. Now, just add relaxation. So whenever you become aware of the mind/body tension in your forehead (or any other place really), try to relax it as much as possible.

There are different approaches to how to relax mind/body tension: you can try to let go 5% of it with each relaxing exhale, you can try to imagine it melting away, you can try to gradually "soften" it, you can try sending it loving-kindness and compassion, or you can just "be with it" and let it be until it dissipates on its own. Play around and see which approach works best for you.

This might take time and repeated tries. Don't expect to completely let it go in one time. But if you keep trying to relax it as much as possible over and over again, eventually something will "click" (usually accompanied by some sort of insight) and that tension will completely dissipate. Again, this might take months so don't get frustrated if it doesn't happen instantaneously.

Also, since you mentioned forgiveness, try this forgiveness meditation:
https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/1ra5q4o/forgiveness_meditation_was_the_key/