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THE EMOTIONAL CLEARING PROCESS / Re: Avid weight lifter has questions about ECP

« on: August 03, 2014 »

Thanks for the reply John.

I think dropping the weight lifting makes sense. While it's something I do enjoy and hope to get back to in the future I wouldn't mind going without it for some time especially if it's hindering the emotional work. I plan on following the yoga routine on the website and maybe doing some jogging/swimming as well. Thanks for the advice.

As far as acceptance I guess I just need to keep working at it. I think when I was meditating on acceptance maybe I was just allowing myself to be in the moment more and accept whatever I was feeling and that's why the pain shifted. It makes sense that acceptance is more of a 'not doing' rather than a 'doing' but I think it's still on the intellectual level for me. I have to keep at it.

I should have mentioned that I did a 10 day vipassana retreat last October. It was a great experience. It was the first time my pelvic pain actually shifted (on the 10th day of course). All the tension and pain basically balled up into a knot and rose up into my abdomen. It was the first time I could really feel that it was an energy. But I've basically been using that technique with the pain for about 10 months now and no real change. As soon as I cue in on the sensation in my lower abdomen/pelvis the pain knots up and rises. I try to be nonreactive and objective with it but it pretty much always does the same thing. Just knots up and starts to oscillate around my abdomen. The more I concentrate the more intense the tension knot becomes. It's amazing how powerful it is. Anyways, I feel I've been pretty consistent for 10 months with the technique and now I'm at the point where I'm wondering there's something I'm doing or not doing that needs to change. I know even subtle things can be all the difference.

Anyways, thanks again for the reply and all your help with this. I'll keep you updated with any changes, and let me know if you can think of any advice for my vipassana sits and how I might should be working with the pain.

Thanks

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THE EMOTIONAL CLEARING PROCESS / Avid weight lifter has questions about ECP

« on: July 30, 2014 »

I guess I should start off with a brief summary of my background. I've had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Chronic Pelvic Pain for the past 10 years (writing the amount of yrs always takes my breath away slightly). As you can imagine I've bounced around from MD to MD over the years as well as several other medical professionals and didn't see much success. Only in the recent past couple of years was I introduced to suppressed emotions and their impact on your physical health. Fast forward a bit and I just finished reading Emotional Clearing (and really enjoyed it). I have a few questions that I want to post below and hope to get some insight on. Sorry if they range quite a bit in topic. 

I put weight lifter in the subject of this post because I know in the book You talk about exercise, particularly weight lifting, and it's affect on muscle tension and the underlying suppressed emotional energy. I do work out with weights about 3 days a week and do some jogging or swimming about 2-3 days a week as well. Although I have the fatigue I've become pretty good at gauging what's too much and what the right amount is that will actually help me feel a bit better. I use to be an athlete before my health problems and exercise is still an important part of my life albeit reduced quite a bit.  I guess my main question about this is:

- should I be doing weight lifting while trying to do clearing work in the first place?
- will a good amount of stretching and yoga counteract the tension in the muscle from weight lifting?

I have a few other questions aside from exercise:

1.)  Through a lot of introspection and paying attention to my thoughts and emotions for a good bit of time now, I can trace most of my difficulties to an underlying belief that "I'm not worthy" or "I'm not enough". This subtle but powerful belief is the filter that I experience my life through and is the creator of the thoughts and then the subsequent emotions from those thoughts. You put in your book that it's somewhat pointless to go directly at beliefs themselves but that it's the unprocessed emotions surrounding that belief that sort of hold that belief there. This was a lightbulb moment when I read it because pretty early on in journaling and therapy I figured out this underlying belief but I didn't seem to be able to consciously change it. I've now had a couple of instances where the pain/tension in my lower abdomen and pelvis has sort of dissipated a bit for brief moments. Both times I found myself meditating on the idea of total acceptance
and that I am enough and that I don't need to be anything more than I already am at this moment. I tried to concentrate more on the feeling( and both times I was in semi-sleep states in bed in the am and pm) and this is what made it happen I guess. Although I've done this twice over the span of a few months, it's very hard to stay in that place and to get back to it. I guess my question is, is this where affirmations come in? I've tried several times to sit and meditate on these feelings again but haven't had the same success. I also tried constantly being in this frame of mind but I found it left me mostly in my head and I wasn't present at all.


2) In your book you go through the chakras and energy centers. The one I've been focusing on in particular is Significance because of the limiting belief I have in that area. I know you say that you need to clear the corresponding emotions in that have to do with significance but this is where I have trouble. I find myself thinking way too much and trying to catch myself in the act of maybe trying to suppress one of these emotions but it just ends up taking me out of the present. Should I be trying to process and clear emotions as they come up in day to day situations? I know the alternative is to wait until I am in a place where I can work on myself and go back to those emotions but this is what I have a really hard time doing. I find myself in whatever particular situation to just be experiencing anxiety and then it's difficult for me to bring anything up when I am working on myself later on my own.


3) the other thing that tends to happen when I am meditating or just focusing on my body and sensations is that pain and tension in the lower abdomen and pelvis starts to knot up an sort of start moving around my abdomen. I can never seem to sense any sort of emotion attached to it. I feel like it's a ball of emotion basically that needs expression and movement but in someway unconsciously I am self rejecting. I've tried several different approaches but I can never seem to get to a catharsis I guess. I have on a few occasions listened to music that affects me emotionally or be watching a moving movie maybe and paid attention to this knot at the same time and it seems to really want to come out and builds to an unbelievable amount of pressure but I can never seem to get it over the threshold I guess. I've literally stayed with it for hours at a time sometimes. Do you have any tips on what I should do with this?  Should I not be worrying about the knot and physical sensations and just worry about the underlying emotions?

Sorry for the lengthy post and the range in subject on the questions. Thanks for any help you can give.