Thanks guys, appreciate all the responses, what a lovely forum.
Will the things you have suggested allow me to cleanse my repressed emotions? It feels like I have strongly supressed emotions in my body, but I can’t connect them to a sense of self anymore so they are just sitting there, it’s this horrible dark energy. I suppose Eckhart Tolle would call it the ‘pain body’ but his book did not help me one bit.
Just takes time, bit like the hiatus on the grieving process it doesn’t remain buried.
Agreed - the repressed emotions will eventually come up in the process of purification when you are ready to return to meditation. no rush. This will all pass with time as your experience integrates. Meanwhile I concur with the suggestions made above, that you back off from spiritual practices, except maybe prayer, if you find that helpful, and engage in normal grounding activities of daily life such as walking outdoors. I would certainly forget about self-inquiry for now; whether or not you exist is really a moot point and realizing it has not done you a damn bit of good (digging the dry well and all). When you feel ready to resume spiritual practices I would start over with Deep Meditation, to establish the inner silence, and eventually add Spinal Breathing to address the emotions that are burdening you and do some housecleaning. One step at a time. All the best to you.
Moderator note: Topic moved for better placement
I just feel like meditation would make me feel more detached and more spaced out to be honest. What meditation should I do? What is deep meditation? Sorry for all the questions!
I can’t even begin to explain how I feel really, I just feel like I’m not even here, like I’m going insane. I feel like i’ve lost my mind. I am seriously skeptical when someone says they have felt like this before, because trust me, this is life changing.
EDIT:- SORRY DOUBLE POST
To avoid overwhelming with more direct lesson links, there’s the “Start Lessons Here” found on the left hand side of this page under the red “Key Lessons.” If you want to jump ahead, there’s the “Topic Index” which you can find after going to “AYP Home” in that same top-center menu bar.
Taking it from the top is generally helpful to put everything into context, and you’ll come across deep meditation very early on.
Perej
I have experienced exactly what you are feeling - many times. Where self inquiry, or excessive spiritual practice, takes you to a place where you feel totally “desolate”. A state of bleak, dismal emptiness. When I get like this, I stop practices, the excessive desire to get somewhere else, and I just focus on doing stuff which is fun and pleasurable, and get lots of exercise.
There is one tool I can recommend to you. It is in my mind perhaps the only tool I have ever encountered that has brought real and lasting change into my felt perception of life - i.e. how present I feel in the moment, how free I am from emotional reactivity etc
It’s called the Presence Process, by Michael Brown. It takes you deep into what you call your ‘repressed emotions’ and the emotional body, and teaches you how to deeply embrace and engage these emotions. It’s rather unlike most self-help related to emotions as it has nothing to do with trying to control your emotions, “eliminating” negative emotions, or trying to choose “positive” emotions over negative ones. These are all control strategies of an emotionally immature mental body, which wants to control experiences, lording it over the emotional body, so it “feels good”.
In fact, the process helps restore a neutral relationship with emotional energy (positive and negative emotions, without the mental label, are just energy, neither good or bad) which results in a transformational improvement in the emotional quality of all your experiences. It also brings a loving conclusion to emotional reactivity and suppressed emotions.
Reccomend checking it out - I’ve tried everything, byron katie, AYP, eckhart tolle, just about every self help book on the planet, NLP, energy healing, and so many different modalities.
In my view AYP is the ultimate “ascension/transcendence” practice for awakening to spiritual truth, transforming the neurobiology, bliss, ecstasy and ultimately enlightenment.
The Presence Process is the ultimate counter-practice for “descension/being in the Now/dealing with the immanent” - this is my practice for dealing with the nitty gritty, raw, emotional human issues of day to day life. It’s a very grounding process and may help what you are going through.
Hi Mr_Anderson.
Thanks very much for the recommendation for the presence process. Practicing the conscious breathing within it has made me realize there are some very real physical/emotional/psychological things going on with me at the moment. When breathing deeply and consciously the numbness starts breaking away and I begin to feel sick, tense, anxious, sad, emotional.
This is starting to make me feel human again, though it may be a long and traumatic process. Thank you.
Hi Perej
Stopping meditation and self-inquiry for now is a very sound approach. This is in fact exactly what life is showing you with regards to your symptoms.
We tend to forget that life is always bringing us what we need in order to grow clear. There is no exception to this rule.
Life does not go away and hide - not ever.
So whatever is here at all times, whether we feel detached or attached or sad or glad or whatever - what is being presented is always what we have to be with.
It is very difficult to go through what you are experiencing. Please be kind to yourself and stop any activity that make you feel worse. Go out in nature, or find your way of being in nature. Hug a tree, touch the sea, walk a trail, buy some flowers, visit a pet you like…or get one yourself…see a forest…or whatever does it for you. Grounding will help immensly. Walk. Swim. Sing?
And make sure that you find something …or someone…to laugh with.
Hold a warm cup of tea and enjoy the fact that you can drink it.
I would just like to add that meditation is not the only way to cultivate inner silence.
Inner silence does in fact not need cultivation per se. It is our recognition of the fact that there is something other than our habitual self within us that is important. When that is not felt, it does not mean it is not there. It is well to remember that.
Cultivation of that recognition can come about in many ways. The recognition of inner silence is cultivated when we act as life wants. And it is not always for us to decide, remember? Life decides. Right now - meditation and self inquiry is clearly not what it tells you to do more of. It is wise to not make the tool wiser than the life that applies it, no?
When listening to what life has to say we must start with the very immediate. So - if you feel dead, then this is truth for you. So life is needed. If you cannot feel it inside…go see nature where it is so obvious at all times. Or even the sky outside your home. Or see people you know with warmth, kindness and intelligence. Or do something you know you will like that you have never done before but always wanted to…you know…like when I had cancer, I used to ask myself every day (for years): What would I do today if I knew I was dying tomorrow? It always brought the most surprising …and it was never what I originally thought it would be…
When you ground and find balance again, life will release whatever emotions that need to come to your attention. Emotions are usually tied into all kinds of reactional chains. There is no need to go looking for knots. NO need to force this process. When life is ready, it will happen of its own accord. And then we deal with one knot at the time. The one that is right here. Just like you are now. Be glad not every turmoil there is comes up at once!
Natural is just fine. It is enough.
And thanks to life/you for coming all the way here to share.
All the best, and please keep in touch.
bless fam
Beautiful post Katrine. 
Hello everybody, hello perej,
About 6 months ago I had an experience which is almost word for word described by Perej, with the subsequent feeling of detachment:
In my case the realization that there was no self was a happy one, and I felt like I was letting myself go into this realization, but after a few moments with this knowledge, I had a thought that if I let myself go, this somehow is going to end my marriage. This thought at the moment seemed so important that it was followed by a huge wave of panic, with me trying to escape from this state mentally. Ever since this experience, I feel like I can’t feel, like I can’t be in the moment, fear and anxiety are always with me and sometimes they are unbearable. I was hoping that this would pass, and I have had positive experiences that almost seem to take me over, but then I always hit a mental wall which I feel is impossible to break.
I have tried many things, meditations, yoga, the Presence Process, ayhuaska, but all to no avail. I still feel like I killed a big part of myself and there is nothing I can do to get it back…
And until I saw this perej’s post i thought I may be the only one who has that… It is such a relief to realize that this is not something unique to me…
Perej, your original post is almost 2 years old, could you tell me if you have found something that works? Everybody else, any new ideas?
Thank you all so much in advance,
Andrey
Hi,
I would advise you to not worry much.
I do not know what it is that I experienced, maybe I am nowhere near what you experienced but I definitely think that there are similarities in our experiences.
You say that you have lost a big part of yourself, and that you can not feel… But if you can not feel where is the fear? Where is the anxiety? Where is the problem?
For me, those questions helped me to get a grip back, it took just a little bit of courage and persistence over a couple of days.
Hope this helps…
Hello Derevyan,
Welcome to the forums!!! Stay grounded and this too shall pass. Just do the next thing that needs to be done-grocery shopping, cooking, work, cleaning,meeting up with friends. Don’t think about it too much. Stay away from anything spiritual. Don’t sit by yourself, even though you may prefer to. Make yourself do these things- walking, eating heavy diet, spending time with family, helping people in need, cleaning, laughing at yourself helps too 
I went through this experience when pregnant with my first child (after receiving shaktipat unknowingly). Just stay with the emotions-don’t try to block them or feed them. Nothing works, give it to your Istha (Check out these lessons on Ishta (chosen ideal) - 67, 68, 112, 220, 221, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342). I always visualize myself holding onto the feet of my Isthas with the emotions ( I know, very dramatic 
but always works). I now have two kids and I would say that I feel more integrated. My worldly responsibilities keep me grounded. Nothing more grounding than waking up several times at night and nursing 
, keeping your calm when your toddler throws tantrums. Hope this helps and answers your questions, as I’m not very good at explaining things. Also, sorry if I went on a rant and not really answered your questions .
Have you started AYP? If not, once things settle down, I would highly recommend it. I’ve been practicing AYP for over two years. It has changed my outlook in life.
Love,
Sunyata
Coming in late (I bumped into this thread via a web search). Not sure if you’re still reading, but I think I have an answer for you on this.
Stop trying to peel off the unwanted parts. The problem isn’t in the peeling, per se, it’s in the underlying assumption that beneath that stuff - beneath the “negativity” or whatever - lies some perfect core. There’s no perfect core, it’s a myth. You are nothing but a big mass of resistance to What Is…all the way down.
You’re stuck in the mistaken idea that you need to winnow the bad parts from the good parts. Better to recognize that the whole damned thing needs to unclench. Wind shall blow through unimpeded. Less You, more Everything.
So don’t cannily scheme to drop certain baggage from your burden. Don’t even drop all your baggage. Drop the baggage and the bearer of that baggage. Atlas, it turns out, didn’t need to hold it all up. He never did. It’s all just fine on its own, as-is.
Two ways: 1. self inquiry to reach the conclusion I’ve just described, or else 2. just keep building an awareness of the futility of your effort to expunge this weight, and you may eventually reach a point of utter despondent despair, which naturally and organically leads to surrender (including surrender of the surrenderer). In other words, don’t soothe your feelings of frustration. Anesthetization is not the answer. Stay right there, until you cultivate a lovely absolute despondence over the absolute futility of hoping to shine it all to a high buff or to get this or that spiritual result. The most beneficial declaration is “I give up!!”…preferably wailed while sobbing inconsolably.
If you experience surrender but feel that some Bad Stuff nonetheless remains, then surrendering was partial. That very distinction, and the perspective behind it, is exactly what needs to be let go of. Not the stuff. The stuff can stay. The stuff can always stay.
Added via editing:
Sigh, rereading, I see that the above reply was poorly focused to your actual statement (the part about the issue not connecting to sense of self; you’re talking more about vestiges than struggle). I’ll leave it, because it might be helpful to others…and also because it sets up a more well-targetted reply to you. Here goes: what remains isn’t shreds of this or that, it’s shreds of sense-of-self. Remember: It’s always about perspective, not about stuff. When stuff attracts attention, that’s perspective showing itself.
If this makes sense, then cool. If not, jump back up to the previous part of this posting, which is for you, after all.
love your post Jim 
Yes, it might well be helpful to others. And yes, the whole damned thing needs to unclench Thank you Jim
…including the voice making those sorts of spiritual pronouncements!
(Otherwise, you’re just rebranding the same old clenching with spiritual themes…that’s what the vast majority of us seekers do!)
Then I should be silence. Woops… pronouncements again 
Yup, there’s always another layer of narration, isn’t there? It’s just another sticky wicket to rue while sobbing inconsolably (I’m a big fan of sobbing inconsolably!).