This is Gonna be Convoluted

Let's talk meditation.

I never really understood how to do it, though I often tried, until one time when I was kid and my mind just suddenly opened up. That's the only way I can describe it, opening up. Once it happened, it was easy to do and got easier and easier with practice.

It helped when I took Fr. Bulatao's class on Hypnosis in college for ACP (Alternative Class Program) and he introduced us to things like automatic writing (2 ACP's and a summer class for my MA later and this one still eludes me), astral travel, asking questions of his copper rods, etc. When I took his summer elective on Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy for my Counseling Psychology MA though, I was very open and then one day it just stopped and I could do very little anymore. It was as if there was a block in my mind.

I realized that it was my expectations. Somehow, the more successful I had become at doing these things, the more I expected of it and my mind. But the more I expected, the less I could do. I found that Yoga helped and I was more open again, but then the expectations came and now I've shut down again.

Fr. Bu says not to think and "just do it".

How do you be confident enough to do these things and yet have no expectations of yourself? I tell myself to just take things as they come, but I know that I was able to do them before so I should be able to do them again. This trying to do them again stops me from doing them...and on and on I go in a very convoluted cycle.

How do you just be?