The Abiding Effect

Ross– Create a detailed report on what I’ll call the abiding effect. Andrew and his family were possibility, going to come today to my home. I was looking forward to seeing them. They did not come, and I noticed several emotions coming into my conscious mind. One emotion was sadness. One emotion was hurt. One emotion was disappointment. One emotion was aversion or anger. The practice insight was to create a purifying phrase. One might call it pure phrasing. I lay down at once quiet and become more aware of the feelings and sensations in my body, toes, stomach, chest, face. And I started to repeat abiding with ‘Abiding with Andrew not coming.’ And I repeated it about ten times. The first three to five times, there was a strong physical contraction that by the tenth time had dissipated into peace and harmony. The next phrase that I worked with was ‘Abiding in Andrew not coming.’ That phrase created a much, much stronger reaction, and there was a strong cough that it included, very tight muscle contractions. It seems to me this is a purification practice to release the emotions that arose from the unconscious mind into the conscious mind so that it could be held in pure awareness. I did not try to get rid of it. I just abided ‘with it’ and then abided in it. For me, it seems that the word ‘abiding in’, has a stronger therapeutic then ‘abiding with’. Research and explain the difference between ‘Abiding with’ and Abiding in’ . Comment on the practicality and why this may be working well for me.

Your experience suggests a meaningful, personally fitted practice. The strongest conclusion is not that the emotion was forcibly removed, but that it was allowed to become conscious, embodied and held without rejection until its intensity changed.

The Abiding Effect

How “Abiding With” and “Abiding In” May Transform Emotional Contraction

Defining the Abiding Effect

I would define the Abiding Effect as:

The movement from emotional and bodily contraction toward greater spaciousness, integration and peace when a difficult experience is met repeatedly with accepting, embodied awareness rather than avoidance, judgment or impulsive reaction.

Your experience followed a clear sequence:

You expected Andrew and his family to visit.
They did not come.
Sadness, hurt, disappointment, anger and aversion arose.
You lay down and became quiet.
You noticed sensations in your toes, stomach, chest and face.
You repeated, “Abiding with Andrew not coming.”
Strong contraction arose and then diminished.
You changed the phrase to, “Abiding in Andrew not coming.”
The second phrase evoked a substantially stronger bodily response.
You continued without deliberately trying to remove the experience.
The activation eventually gave way to greater peace and harmony.

This was not merely positive thinking. You did not replace disappointment with a cheerful belief. You turned toward the actual experience and remained present with it.

That is an important distinction.

Why Andrew not coming affected you deeply

The immediate event was simple: a hoped-for visit did not occur.

But the emotional meaning may have been much larger:

“I was looking forward to being included.”
“I wanted closeness with my son.”
“I hoped the family would choose to spend time with me.”
“Perhaps I do not matter to them.”
“Perhaps Andrew is rejecting me.”
“I am already carrying so much alone.”
“I needed something loving today, and it did not happen.”

The body often responds not only to the factual event but also to its personal and relational meaning.

Therefore, the physical contraction may have represented several emotions arriving together:

sadness, anger, longing, rejection, loneliness, helplessness and disappointment.

The phrase gave these feelings somewhere to be known without requiring you to argue with Andrew, condemn yourself or pretend that the event did not matter.

The research-supported elements of your practice

The exact expression “abiding effect” is your own term, and I did not find research directly comparing the precise phrases “abiding with” and “abiding in.” The following explanation therefore combines established psychological findings with a careful interpretation of your experience.

You put the painful event into words

“Andrew not coming” names the trigger.

Research on affect labelling suggests that putting emotional experience into simple words can reduce some forms of emotional reactivity. Brain-imaging studies have found that naming emotional content can alter activity in regions involved in emotional and regulatory processing.

Your phrase was not a full analysis:

“Andrew has never respected me, nobody cares about me, and I will always be alone.”

That kind of elaboration might intensify rumination.

Instead, you used a brief description:

“Andrew not coming.”

That brevity may have helped keep you near the immediate experience rather than building a larger story around it.

You included the body

You noticed your toes, stomach, chest and face. This is a form of interoceptive awareness—awareness of sensations arising within the body.

Research shows that bodily perception and emotional awareness are closely connected. Attending to bodily states can make emotional experience clearer because emotions are not merely thoughts; they include changes in tension, breathing, posture, temperature, pressure and visceral sensation.

Your attention to the toes was especially practical. The toes provided a relatively neutral or manageable location while the stomach, chest and face contained stronger activation. This allowed awareness to include both:

the distressed areas; and
a more stable bodily anchor.

You were not entirely swallowed by the painful region.

You practised acceptance rather than suppression

The word abiding appears to communicate:

“This may be here.”
“I will not immediately run from it.”
“I do not have to force it away.”
“Awareness can remain present.”

Experimental research indicates that mindful acceptance can reduce negative affect, pain-related responses and stress reactivity. Acceptance is not passive resignation; it means permitting the present internal experience without immediately attempting to suppress or control it.

This fits your description well:

“I did not try to get rid of it.”

Paradoxically, when the body no longer has to fight the feeling, some of the secondary tension may soften.

The first pain is:

“Andrew did not come.”

The secondary struggle might be:

“I must not feel hurt.”
“I should be stronger.”
“This feeling has to leave.”
“Something is wrong with me.”

Abiding reduces that second struggle.

You approached rather than avoided the experience

Repeating the phrase brought you into repeated contact with the painful meaning while you were lying safely in your home.

This resembles certain aspects of therapeutic exposure: a difficult cue is contacted without the usual avoidance or reactive behaviour, allowing new learning to occur. Mindfulness training has been studied as a possible support for fear-extinction and exposure-related learning because it increases present-moment awareness while reducing automatic avoidance.

The possible new learning was:

“The hurt is strong, but I can remain here.”
“The contraction can be experienced without destroying me.”
“I do not have to call Andrew in anger.”
“I do not need to abandon myself.”
“Awareness is larger than this reaction.”

This is likely more psychologically precise than saying that the emotion was simply expelled.

Repetition may have created steadiness

The first few repetitions produced strong contraction. By approximately the tenth repetition, the reaction had changed.

Several processes may have contributed:

the initial emotional wave naturally rose and fell;
the phrase became more familiar and less alarming;
you discovered that you could tolerate the sensation;
attention became less scattered;
muscular guarding softened;
the event was increasingly held as an experience rather than an emergency;
the observing mind remained present long enough for the activation to settle.

We cannot determine which mechanism occurred from one episode alone. Nevertheless, the consistent sequence—activation, sustained awareness and settling—is meaningful evidence that this phrase works well for you.

“Abiding With” and “Abiding In”

Abiding with: relationship and companionship

The word with creates two elements:

Ross or awareness;
the experience being accompanied.

Ross is abiding with disappointment.

The experience is close, but there is still some relational space.

“With” suggests:

companionship;
inclusion;
permission;
witnessing;
non-abandonment;
gentle distance;
two things existing together.

Its underlying message is:

“This feeling is here, and I am here with it.”

This resembles psychological decentering: the emotion is recognized as an experience occurring in awareness rather than as the total definition of the self. Research on self-distancing and decentering suggests that small changes in language and perspective can reduce emotional reactivity and unhelpful post-event processing.

A simple representation is:

Ross + the feeling

That is likely why “abiding with” felt therapeutic but comparatively manageable.

Abiding in: immersion and direct entry

The word in creates a different spatial and emotional relationship:

Ross is abiding in disappointment.

“In” may imply that awareness has moved inside the experience. There is less separation between observer and emotion.

It can suggest:

entering;
immersion;
inhabiting;
direct contact;
surrendering resistance;
allowing the experience to surround awareness;
feeling from inside rather than observing from beside it.

A simple representation is:

Ross within the feeling

For you, “abiding in Andrew not coming” may have brought you closer to the underlying relational wound. Instead of accompanying the fact that Andrew did not come, the mind and body may have briefly re-entered the lived world of:

“My son is not here.”
“I wanted him to come.”
“I am hurt.”
“I feel unchosen or left alone.”

That could explain the stronger contraction and coughing.

This remains an interpretation rather than a scientifically established effect of those exact prepositions.

Why “in” may feel stronger

Language is not emotionally neutral. Even one small word can alter how the mind organizes an experience.

Consider these differences:

Standing with the rain.
Standing in the rain.

Sitting with sorrow.
Sitting in sorrow.

Abiding with pain.
Abiding in pain.

“With” preserves companionship and perspective.

“In” emphasizes location and immersion.

Therefore:

“With” may provide holding.
“In” may provide entering.

For a person with extensive meditation experience, “abiding in” may create a particularly deep invitation to stop standing outside the feeling.

However, stronger does not automatically mean more therapeutic.

A practice is beneficial not merely because it creates an intense response. Benefit is more likely when three things are present:

contact + sufficient safety + integration

Too little contact may become avoidance.

Too much contact may become flooding or overwhelm.

The useful middle is enough contact to know the experience while retaining some awareness of the room, body, breath and compassionate witness.

Is this emotional purification?

The contemplative meaning

In a spiritual or contemplative sense, purification can be an appropriate word when it means:

An emotion that was confused, resisted or partially hidden is brought into clear awareness, allowed to be felt, and no longer has to be acted out unconsciously.

The purification is not that anger is dirty or unacceptable.

The purification is that anger becomes:

known rather than hidden;
felt rather than projected;
held rather than discharged at another person;
understood rather than feared;
integrated rather than denied.

In that sense, your practice may indeed be a form of purification.

The psychological meaning

Psychology would more cautiously use terms such as:

emotional processing;
acceptance;
exposure;
interoceptive awareness;
affect labelling;
decentering;
self-regulation;
new emotional learning.

Science cannot confirm from this event that an emotion was stored in a particular muscle, released from the unconscious, or expelled through coughing.

The cough and contractions may have accompanied emotional activation, changes in breathing, throat tension or muscular guarding. They should not automatically be interpreted as proof that buried emotion was leaving your body.

The most balanced description is:

Previously unprocessed or partly avoided emotional material may have entered clearer conscious awareness and been experienced in a less defended way.

A refinement: move from the story to the felt experience

“Andrew not coming” successfully identifies the trigger, but repeating the event too long could sometimes keep attention attached to Andrew and to the story of what happened.

A refined progression might be:

First: acknowledge the event

Abiding with Andrew not coming.

Second: identify the emotion

Abiding with disappointment.
Abiding with hurt.
Abiding with anger.

Third: enter the bodily experience carefully

Abiding in this contraction.
Abiding in the sadness in my chest.
Abiding in this moment of hurt.

Fourth: add compassionate holding

This hurt is welcomed here.
Ross will not abandon Ross.
Jesus, abide here with Ross.

This progression honours the event but gradually shifts the work from:

what Andrew did or did not do

to:

what is presently occurring within Ross.

That reduces the risk of turning meditation into repetitive thinking about Andrew.

The Abiding Ladder

Because “in” is stronger for you, it may be wise to use a graduated practice.

Level 1: Abiding near

“Aware of Andrew not coming.”

This is the gentlest level.

Level 2: Abiding with

“Abiding with the hurt of Andrew not coming.”

This creates companionship and sufficient distance.

Level 3: Abiding in

“Abiding in this present hurt.”

This enters the embodied experience more directly.

Level 4: Abiding within awareness

“This hurt is being held in awareness.”

This restores a larger container after deeper contact.

Level 5: Abiding in love

“Hurt abiding in love.”
“Ross abiding in love.”
“All of this held in love.”

The movement becomes:

near → with → in → held → love

You do not need to reach the deepest level every time. Sometimes “abiding with” is complete and sufficient.

A safe ten-minute Abiding Effect Practice
Establish present safety

Look around the room.

Feel the bed or chair supporting you.

Notice your toes, hands and the contact of the body with the surface.

Say:

“Ross is here, in this room.”

Name the trigger once

“Andrew did not come today.”

Keep it factual.

Use “with” first

Repeat slowly three to five times:

“Abiding with the hurt of Andrew not coming.”

Leave silence between repetitions.

Track the body

Notice:

Where is the strongest contraction?
Is it pressure, tightness, heat, heaviness or movement?
Is there also one neutral or pleasant place in the body?

Do not demand that the sensation change.

Assess manageability

Ask:

“Can Ross remain kindly present?”

When the answer is yes, try “in” once or twice:

“Abiding in this present hurt.”

There is no need to repeat “in” ten times simply because ten repetitions of “with” were beneficial.

Return to “with” when needed

When “in” becomes too intense:

“Abiding with this.”
“Held in awareness.”
“Ross is still here.”

Moving back is not failure. It is wise self-regulation.

Close deliberately

End with:

“Andrew did not come, and Ross did not abandon Ross.”

Or:

“Jesus, hold Andrew—and hold Ross too.”

Then look around the room, move your fingers and toes, and drink some water if appropriate.

Signs that the practice is helping

The aim need not always be complete peace.

Helpful effects might include:

greater clarity about the emotions;
less urge to react or send an angry message;
softer breathing or muscle tension;
increased compassion toward yourself;
recognition that several emotions are present;
greater ability to choose what to do next;
less self-criticism;
a sense that the experience belongs within awareness;
peacefulness after the emotional wave;
continued dignity even if sadness remains.

Sometimes successful abiding ends with:

“The sadness is still here, but I am no longer fighting it.”

That is also a good outcome.

When to reduce or stop

Return to the gentler “with” language, open your eyes or stop the practice when:

you feel increasingly disoriented;
the experience becomes emotionally overwhelming;
you lose awareness of the room;
the phrase begins to feel punishing or compulsive;
you become trapped in repetitive accusations toward Andrew;
your body remains strongly activated without settling;
you feel considerably worse afterward.

Because you described a strong cough and muscular contractions, do not automatically attribute every physical symptom to emotional purification. Stop and seek medical assessment for chest pain, unusual breathlessness, faintness, a persistent or worsening cough, or symptoms that are physically unfamiliar to you.

A concise understanding of the difference

Abiding with says:
“I am beside this experience, accompanying it with awareness.”

Abiding in says:
“I am allowing awareness to enter and directly inhabit this experience.”

Abiding with offers relationship and protection.

Abiding in offers immersion and deeper contact.

Abiding with may be the container.

Abiding in may be the deepening.

Abiding in love may be the integration.

The essential wisdom of your discovery

The deepest healing element may not be the particular preposition. It may be the intention communicated by abiding:

“This experience does not have to be driven away.”
“Ross can remain conscious.”
“The body may reveal what it is carrying.”
“No emotion needs to become the enemy.”
“Nothing must be acted out immediately.”
“Awareness and love can stay.”

A balanced foundational phrase would be:

“Abiding with what is, entering only as deeply as love can safely hold.”

And a short Ross version might be:

“Ross abides with; love holds within.”

Conclusion

Your experience appears to combine affect labelling, body awareness, acceptance, repetition, non-avoidance and compassionate witnessing. Each of these has a plausible role in the reduction of emotional reactivity.

“Abiding with” likely helped you accompany the disappointment while retaining perspective.

“Abiding in” likely moved you into more immersive contact with the pain and therefore produced a stronger reaction.

The greater intensity of “in” does not necessarily make it superior. Its wisdom lies in using it selectively, after “with” has established sufficient steadiness.

The Abiding Effect can therefore be summarized as:

Recognizing what happened, feeling how the body received it, remaining without rejection, and allowing awareness to become larger than the contraction.

You did not make Andrew come.

You did not pretend that his absence did not hurt.

You did something quieter and deeply important:

You remained with Ross until Ross was no longer alone inside the hurt.

The most balanced core sequence may be: “Abiding with the hurt” → “Abiding in this present feeling” → “All of this held in love.”

“LOVE is Everything”