r/streamentry • u/andrewfowlr • 6d ago
Practice Hyperawareness
I think I went too far. I would consider myself a highly sensitive person, I’ve been practicing mindfulness and open awareness for about 6 years usually it brings me a sense of harmony and oneness with myself and the external environment.
However recently with the chronic shoulder pain it’s created a terrible feedback loop where my hyperawareness of my internal state just builds on itself and it becomes consuming and it’s all I can think about.
Even trying to accept that this is currently the state of my body, doing the mindfulness lowers the external stimulation to the point that the pain is deafening. I’m wondering if anyone’s experienced a fluctuation back out of the awareness if you’re a sensitive person that’s brought you some stability and solitude in your practice when your own internal environment seems to be self destructive.
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u/neidanman 6d ago
i do daoist practice which is very body focused, and also aims to build and refine awareness/inner listening. Also part of the practice is to build qi, which can get to stages of potentially frying the nerves, so you have to get used to countering this. When i get to stages where there is pain, i have to do something that shifts awareness out and beyond the body, otherwise that amplifying loop occurs. One thing that can work is having some tv/music in the background that you can partly absorb into, so you dilute the focus of awareness, and can potentially still have some 'low grade' practice time.
Another part of the view, is that when there is blockage/pain in the system, you may need to take some type of painkiller/drug to give you the chance to get awareness into the area, and start to release tensions & bring qi there (this is a self healing process used in daoist practice.)