12 - Why Meditation Works - Coherence Therapy

We explore the basic principle behind successful therapies and, more importantly, awakening meditation as found in Coherence Therapy. When we stay as who we are, Being, we can let everything else burn away leaving just Us. That's awakening and Happiness. Pure Being is pure Happiness and Love. Though I am a psychotherapist, none of my podcasts are psychotherapy. Please reach out to a psychotherapist if you feel they would be helpful.

Transcript

Hello,

I trust you're doing well.

This is William Cooper.

Welcome to Awakening Together.

Today let's look at coherence therapy and how it relates to awakening,

Meditation,

And so many therapies that experientially have proven to help people feel better.

So what are the underpinnings of coherence therapy?

It used to be called depth-oriented brief therapy.

Well,

Basic principle is the mind cannot hold two opposite truths at the same time.

Let me give you an example.

We'll go back to India,

And you're at that Indian guest house.

It's dark.

You see a cobra in the corner,

Deadly.

You're afraid to sleep.

You're having panic attacks.

Slowly,

Daylight comes,

And you see it's a rope.

Very clearly,

It's a rope.

All of your fear disappears.

Why?

Because you can't hold both views simultaneously.

You can't believe that it's a snake and a rope at the same time.

Once you see that it's a rope,

All of the trouble that was created in your life when you believed it was a snake disappear.

Now,

How does that relate to other kinds of therapy?

Well,

Perhaps you've heard of EMDR.

In EMDR,

The therapist will have you relive or recall a traumatic event.

As you're describing the traumatic event,

You start to feel it because it's stuck in your body.

At that point,

The therapist will have you watch a moving row of lights or move a pencil back and forth,

But just have your eyes go back and forth,

Back and forth.

As your eyes start going back and forth,

You are doing two things simultaneously.

The first is you've connected to the old trauma as you've been describing it to the therapist and you're feeling it.

But the second thing is you're connecting to the here and now because your eyes are looking at something that is going on right now,

That pencil moving back and forth.

You can't hold both things at the same time,

So very quickly,

You'll release the trauma.

It'll just pop out of your body oftentimes.

Other therapies,

How do they work?

You describe to the therapist the thing that's troubling you,

But there the therapist is right in the here and now.

So you're both accessing the old thing and connecting to a here and now dialogue with the therapist.

And so you can't hold both things simultaneously.

Here and now in the therapist's office,

You're just fine.

The story you're telling and the trauma you've been holding is sort of stuck in time and it's saying you're not fine.

But which is true?

Well,

You're here today,

So you are fine.

So slowly or maybe quickly,

The trauma starts to release as you talk to the therapist.

There are many,

Many examples of this.

How does it work in meditation?

This is why awakening meditation works.

Because you're accessing two things at the same time.

There are only two things.

There's the part of you that's aware of everything and it's just fine.

It has no problems.

And you're aware of everything else.

That's the second thing.

Everything else,

That which you're aware of.

You're aware of your problems.

You're aware of your thoughts.

You're aware of your emotions.

So as you access these two things simultaneously in meditation,

Very quietly,

Without being involved,

You watch your thoughts,

You feel your emotions.

You watch your problems go by.

You feel your problems.

You feel your tensions.

But you're doing it from your center.

Awareness.

So you can't hold both things at the same time.

You,

Your awareness,

Is completely free of all these troubles.

So they melt out of your system.

What's important to know here?

The important thing is that you are fully connected to everything.

Just like in the therapy,

You tell the therapist about your traumas and you feel your traumas.

In meditation,

You feel your emotions.

You just don't get involved in them.

But you feel them fully.

You don't jump on the bandwagon and add to them.

You don't jump into them.

You feel them.

You're aware of your thoughts.

Vivid thoughts.

You don't block them out.

Whatever comes,

Comes.

So you're very connected.

That's so important.

But even more important,

Or minimally equally important,

Is that you're centered in yourself.

That's awareness.

That you feel,

You experience awareness,

The light of who you are,

The power of who you are.

It might be very subtle.

It might be very clear.

How do you experience light?

Well,

You'll know once you've experienced it.

That's not even a good word for who you are.

Light,

Peace,

Well-being,

Happiness.

As you rest there more and more,

You'll feel more distinctly what you feel like.

The key here is,

You can't hold both postures at the same time.

Your true self is just doing great.

Everything that you're watching may be doing well,

Or it may not be doing well.

Either way,

It's not who you are,

And it begins to dissolve and let go.

Once it's dissolved and let go,

Then you have a choice to pick it up in the future or not.

But you're not addicted and tied to it.

So there's a decoupling in meditation.

Nothing that you wrestle with,

Nothing that happens by willpower,

But simply something that unfolds.

It's very natural.

So as in the therapy,

It's the same in meditation.

It's very important that you experience the greater truth.

It's very important that you see clearly that it's only a rope,

And then your fear leaves,

Dissipates.

And the same in meditation.

It's very important that you experience clearly who you are as you're observing and feeling all that you're not.

The lesser of the two truths will disappear,

And that's why in Eastern thought they talk about life as an illusion,

Because that will disappear.

Thoughts can disappear,

Emotions can disappear,

And then yes,

They can reform into other experiences in life,

And that's fine.

But the fact is that they're not fixed.

You're not stuck with them.

They're pliable,

And they flow from your being,

Which is important.

They're flexible and creative.

So make sure that you truly are centered in who you are.

The quick sketch of meditation is that you as a radiant light go deeper and become brighter and brighter,

And everything that's blocking you,

All thought forms,

Emotions,

Maladaptive actions,

They dissolve away.

They just melt away.

They disappear as you watch them.

And so that's all that's left is the pure you.

That's what happens in meditation.

The pure you remains,

And from that core of pure you,

New and clear actions flow.

New and clear thoughts are used and formed.

New and clear emotions are formed and utilized and enjoyed.

One time,

New meditators are so used to being involved in their thoughts and their emotions and sucked into their personalities that they don't really experience who they truly are.

So it's a learning process.

Give yourself time.

Believe it or not,

Many time,

Longer term meditators don't even know what they feel like because they're doing kinds of meditations that work and wrestle with emotions and thoughts.

They're trying to calm the thoughts or work with the emotions or visualize things,

Which is creating more thoughts.

So they're lost in that side of the equation.

They're lost in the things that they're not.

Rather than staying with awareness of those things and stopping getting involved,

Therefore creating more illusions,

Therefore creating visualizations and this and that.

Now visualizations are helpful and they have a place and they can open things up,

But we're looking for awakening and so we're going way beyond that.

At some point,

Even the long time meditators need to step back and get used to who they are and let everything else go.

And that's what we're suggesting in this series of podcasts.

So we'll work a little bit more with this in another podcast,

But I think that's enough to reflect on in this podcast.

So I look forward to talking to you next time.

Take care.

Reviews

Okay, Wiiiam, I get the drift—I was just a bit put off with the introductory remarks in the previous podcast. I agree meditation is a gradual process for bringing about greater clarity of perception. The comments about hypnosis were confusing to me, for sure!
Donna

The explanation really clicked! Can’t hold to thoughts at once. Thank you!🙏🏼😊

Thank you! This was such a helpful way to explain the concept of EMDR! I know that it works but often had a difficult time explaining how.

i hear what you’re saying about the brain can’t have two opposing thoughts- but there’s a wonderful Ted talk on grief and the brain where Mary Frances O’Connor phd talks about that. and ponders these questions: Why does it take so long to learn our loved one is really gone and what does this mean for our own lives? Learning is hard in part because our brains can listen to two conflicting streams of information at the same time..

give it a listen and let me know what you think. 💛🙏🌙💛🙏🌙💛🙏🌙💛

Getting down to "Who am I? And nothing else"
Moving past visualizations to AWAKENING!
I was in an anxiety ridden situation and the awareness that washed over me had me doing things in the moment with love something bigger than me. I thank this introspection for giving me those moments. Thank you 🌌

I really connected with the concept of being in the present and looking at past troubles or trauma at the same time as healing. Meditation allows us to fully connect to everything.
Very helpful! This is my third time through. 🙏
Peace and love!
~ Jennifer Lea

Thank you very much 🙏