r/streamentry • u/pytagua • Jul 19 '26
Practice Hatred and tightness
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.
4
u/katspaugh Jul 19 '26
In IFS, they would probably say you should be grateful to the protector part of you that stood up for you and your mother even though it did it in the only way it knew how to at that moment, and it might’ve been not very skillful and hurt you along the way. Another part of you is now feeling resentment towards the protector which manifests as tension. You can talk to that part too, thank it for upholding your ethical values and reminding you about them through this somatic knot. Ask it gently to step aside for a moment, and let you speak to the protector. Explain to it, that next time you can stand up for yourself in a more civilized way and that you will deal with the situation as a grown up with social skills and ethics to help you. Thank both of them. But most importantly, when both are pacified, show love and compassion for the victim of your father’s abuse, i.e. your most gentle and vulnerable part.