Week 2 - Day 2

I'm starting to really experience some amazing things.

Times were 2:03, 2:55, 2:00. Again, I think my tight chest and back is restricting my airflow.

Then came entering the cold shower. I stood there focusing on it before entering, every so often touching the water to remind myself how cold it was.

After a few minutes I just entered and it was awful... but once I got used to it to the point where I was completely covered, it put me into an extremely high meditation.

This might sound a bit 'far out' to someone with a bit more judgmental mind, but this is how I would describe it;

The cold didn't feel 'cold' anymore. It didn't feel like anything. My body's receptors of what was pleasurable and un-pleasurable had fallen by the wayside. I felt for maybe the first time in my life that I was in sync with my body. I entered a deep meditation trance where my mind was completely calm and I was extremely present. Even when I had a daily meditation practice I had never felt this present before.

The experience is what I imagine people experience in the last moments of their life when they are about to die of hypothermia or trapped under ice. Just blissful awareness, complete presence without the pestering mind. The self or any inclination of selfishness is gone. It just 'is'.

When I switched back to the hot shower, which I normally enjoy or experience pleasure from, there was no pleasure. It was literally like my body and mind could not perform a connection between good or bad, pleasurable and un-pleasurable. Surprisingly to myself, I wanted back in the cold as quickly as I could.

I went back into the cold and it didn't affect me at all. I felt like a 'master' of the cold, my body and my mind. It was a liberating experience.