I practice meditation in many different ways, most of which I completely made up. That’s right – I make up practices that I think will give my attention “muscles” a good workout, then I try those out for a while and see what happens. I tweak the practices, change things up a bit, until doing them gives my brain a good, hard workout. (if my anterior mid-cingulate cortex is sore the next day, I know for sure it was a good workout! 😂)

One practice in particular that I developed for myself is one that I call “Zoom out, zoom in”. It involves sitting perfectly still and opening the field of awareness to sensations that come up in the body. When a fairly strong sensation comes up, for example, an itch, I then focus all of my attention on the exact spot where the sensation is coming from, and I try to feel what it actually really feels like. Once I know that I’ve felt what it actually feels like, I zoom back out and wait for the next sensation to come up.

Those are the “mechanics” of the practice but what I want to write about today is the mind state that one has to get into when waiting for sensations to appear. I was practicing this with a friend recently and he reported back that no sensations were coming up for him, so he “went looking for them”. He admitted that he wasn’t very good at just sitting there patiently waiting for the sensations to come to him. He had to do something.

Why is it hard for some people to just sit and observe, without making any attempts to control the outcome, I wondered. The instruction isn’t complicated: “sit there and wait for sensations to come up”.

After reflecting on this, I came to realize the important difference between “letting come” and “letting go”.

I’ll write about “letting go” next week. This week I want to explore the idea of “letting come” and why that might be challenging for some people.

Letting come is wide open, in the sense that ANYTHING can come up. This kind of mindful awareness is, in some ways, vulnerable. You don’t know what’s going to come up, and that can feel a bit scary. It’s much easier to focus than to open. Opening means you’re not in control.

“Letting come” entails the possibility that something you’ve been actively avoiding or refusing to acknowledge will make its presence known. Your Shadow might reveal itself at that moment. (indeed, it often does)

Far easier to “go looking” for safe, familiar sensations than to open yourself up to the possibility of seeing what you don’t want to see, feeling what you don’t want to feel. In a focused attention practice, you’re in control and your “demons” don’t get to wander into your awareness. You get to lock the front door.

In an open awareness practice like the one I described, the front door is wide open. Anyone or anything can metaphorically just waltz in and sit on your living room couch. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

Doing a mindful awareness practice forces you to acknowledge that you’re NOT always in control. That reality isn’t always going to conform to your expectations. And despite your best efforts, there are always aspects of your personality that you’d rather just ignore.

If ignorance is bliss, then mindfulness practice opens up the possibility of blowing up that bliss. If you’re really “letting come”, then you’re allowing any aspect of reality to show its face. And that’s why open awareness is tricky for some people. The ego defences have to come down. It’s a moment of truth and you might not like what you see. It might not be congruent with the way you like to see yourself or the image you like to project.

On the other hand, “the truth will set you free”. Once you start practicing open, mindful awareness, and get better at letting come, you free up energy and resources that were devoted to keeping unwanted aspects of reality at bay. It can be exhausting to not see, to refuse to look, to take detours around the dark street. Practicing “letting come” allows you to let down your guard. To be just exactly as you are, until you become some better version of you.

If you struggle with “letting come”, know that you’re not alone. I recommended to my friend that he practice letting come with sounds instead of sensations. He liked that idea. The muscle will get stronger, until he can open up to more truth, more reality. In time, all the energy that’s devoted to pushing away the uncomfortable bits of reality will be freed up to engage with life, to create, and to be present to all that is.