nonmonotonicity:

So, I suspect the way it goes is, there will be something both so bad and so difficult to change that a person tries everything and then becomes a systematic meditator.

And then a person it meditating and all sorts of things start to get better, but, highly disconcertingly, the deepest worst stuff that can barely look at or can’t look at it all seemingly starts to get worse.

And then finally, finally, finally, finally, finally hundreds but likely a thousand or two thousand hours in, or more, that very worst thing uncoils. (With sometimes intermediate mini-uncoilings.)

I think the combination of intermediate very hard things getting better (when nothing else was really touching them) combined with short- and long-range nonmonotonicities. "So much getting better! So much getting worse?!" makes all this very confusing even if you sort of know what’s going on.