hi there I am new to meditation and new to this forum. I have been practising meditation for a few months now and I have not so far been able to get to a very deep meditative state. The biggest difficulty I always encounter is this (it might sound funny but it's not a joke Many times during meditation, I start to feel a kind of pleasant vertigo, a nice falling sensation that seems to be the opening to another state of mind. But whenever this starts to happen, by some automatic instinctive reaction of my body, my sphincter muscle contracts in such a way that it causes the nice falling sensation to cease at once. I have been calling this the "tightass block" for the lack of a better name, and I think of it a lot, since it happens basically since I started practising. Not only during meditation, but also in other times of the day, when I start to feel relaxed and at ease, like listening to music for instance or in the movies, part of my body/mind seems to want to drift to that vertigo-like state of conscience, but the tightass block never fails to work, and my sphincter always contracts to make the sensation cease. No matter how much I try to relax the muscle (and I can't relax it much, I gotta say :-( I can never prevent the muscle from instinctively contracting when the nice vertigo comes. I have been trying a sphincter muscle relaxation exercise I found on a website, it consists basically of tightening the sphincter and then gradually letting it go, just focusing your mind on the task, but it hasn't been very effective since I can't seem to bring this specific muscle to be relaxed. Has anyone experienced anything similar? why would my sphincter react in such a way when I seem to be beginning to get into a meditative state? And do you know any other such relaxation exercises? And how much is it related to the "power lock" which some kundalini yoga material talks about? In one kundalini book, I learned an exercise where you should contract your sphincter and let it go, in order to "pump" some sort of prana up your spine, or something like it. Could that be related to my block? I would really like to learn how to make it let go. The thing is, it's some sort of instinctive reaction, I just can't bring myself to stop doing it, and this bothers me not only because it's unpleasant but because I feel it's stopping me from going into a deeper level of meditation. Please let me know if you've experienced something similar or if you have I clue how I could help overcome this peculiar kind of block. Kind regards to all, and love
Maybe you need to do some yoga before meditation to open up and relax the muscles. I've had a similar problem. Went to a physiotherapist recommended by my fav yoga studio. She diagnosed the problem, prescribed some Pilates type of exercises specifically for my condition, I followed them and have not had the problem since. She fixed it with only 2 appointments, she was no scammer.
thanks for the reply, liguana. Actually I've been meditating mostly on my own so far, I have no access to a real yoga teacher yet. can you describe me what these exercises are like? is there one that is devoted specifically to the sphincter muscle?
Oooh I'm not qualified to give advice on this one. My problem was not a sphincter muscle of which there are many, but with the glutes and pelvis. You could try some light yoga on your own by following some ideas on this forum or even googling on the net.
Try this: Observe the physical sensation of this tension objectively. As you observe it try to distinguish the various degrees of tension that exist here. Look for the most "relaxed" aspects of this area and move your mind here. You should feel the tension dissolving. If you do not just hold your mind here objectively and in stillness, in time the tension will move.
Well, i am more into self-hypnosis, which is like meditating, but instead of expanding your mind and what not, you just focus on completely and totally relaxing yourself. A common technique i have used for this sort of thing is to tell yourself to pretend that there is a blanket slowly creeping up from your toes to your head. You start at the feet and tell yourself that every muscle, tendon, and joint are totally completely relaxed, almost like they have vanished completely. Now do this for the different body segments, EX. feet, calfs, thighs, abdomen, arms, chest, mouth, eyes, and neck. It has worked for me countless times, but then again everyone is diferent.
