Éiriú-Eolas - Breathing Program

[Mikey]

This is my first report about 6 months of EE practice. I admit that I read this thread only until page 66 and hope that I will find the time to catch up soon. This thread is huge!

Since the beginning of this program in July 2009 I have been practising regularly and faithfully twice a week -- Mondays and Thursdays as suggested. If I don't have time, I shift it around. I do the simple body exercises at the beginning and then sit down in a half-lotus position on my yoga meditation cushion. I light a candle besides me and I think of the group, who is doing this program too.

Results: Until now the EE pratice went very smooth for me, and I haven't had 'dramatic' results. Only once or twice I became teary or angry. Maybe the reason why it is so smooth for me is, that I practised a different breathing programme and worked on issues with help of my Applied Kinesiology therapist some years ago. Back then, I released at least one major trauma, from when my baby brother nearly died from febrile seizures.

One thing changed since EE though: The world I live in 'feels' different than before. Connected with this is my impression that I am able to see more clearly the personality of friends and relatives of mine. This was not only a 'passive' observing, but I had the impression that some of them actively showed their true personality or standpoints to me -- and it was so extreme in one case that I asked myself if I had heard right. Because I see lots of old friends differently, I feel also a bit alienated, and more alone.

On a positive note, the time I began the EE program was also the time I became self-employed. I planned to be a programmer/trainer/consulter. This was a huge step for me, and I was very excited and anxious beforehand. The EE helped definitely to calm me down and make the best from the situations I was in. I got a job for teaching English in an Nurses School and teaching College Computer Science in English; my native language is German. I tell you, a few years ago I thought I am the LAST person to stand before lots of people, talking English!!! I cannot say that the reason is EE, but both developments started at the exactly same time.

Difficulties: What I find difficult during EE is, that I can't seem to stop my inner dialogue. I dissociate easily into past/current/possible situations while doing the Roundbreathing and also while Bioenergetic breathing. Sometimes also during the prayer. I really want to improve this. Maybe the solution is to let the images fly by.

Detox: Besides doing EE I try to detox myself as is laid out in other forum threads. In the last months I worked mainly towards eating Gluten-free. And with some exceptions (when I am invited somewhere) I manage to do it. Buckwheat flour, Quinoa, Amaranth, Beans, Rice, vegetables in every combination is the key. I am also dairy free with exception of butter and pure cream. I don't drink alcohol. If I smoke, I smoke organic, additive-free tobacco. At home I drink distilled water.

I have bought a FIR-Sauna (do it once every two weeks) and take anti-oxidative supplements: Glutathione, Lipoic Acid, Proanthocyanidin, Resveratrol, Magnesium, Zinc, Selen, Vitamin C+A+E, Omega-3 oil, etc.

Improvements: I could intensify my whole program. And sometimes I get sugar cravings and eat chocolate or other 'goodies'. This I must reduce!

Books: I read "Detoxify or die". And I read currently "The fat resistance diet" and "Nourishing Traditions" from Sally Fannon.

Thank you again for this great Detox and EE-program. I will keep and increase this pace as best as I can!

 

[Jeremy F Kreuz]

Hi all,

Last night, after doing the full program, I had a nice dream, where for the first time a member of the forum appeared in. The strange thing was that I was much younger in the dream, around 20, and I still lived at home with my parents and sisters. The dream started with me making a phonecall to a member of the forum (don't know who - no names were given) and we chatted about me. It felt like this person knew me very well and that I considered her as some sort of mentor with whom I was in contact regularly to discuss issues. During this phonecall she advices me to get out of my isolation and mingle a bit more with the external world (hence this post that took some struggle to get me going). At the end of the call I said I would go out of the door that night and that seemed the end of it. But before I could do so, the same person (I recognised her: the voice, but especially the way she acted so firmly, compassionate and patient) paid a surprise visit to my house. In her presence I could feel how I behaved in my family, at the age of 20: like a trapped scared bird too afraid to move a wing. The member of the forum had brought a very nice basket full of healthy food and without much ado she started preparing some food for the whole family. My elder sister looked at her with a weary eye and my mother (in the dream I knew she was already very sick, about to die) left the room in disgust, never to appear again. (in reality my mother died when I was 20). My father welcomed the chance to be a bit more social and joined at the table. My little sister remained and her husband joined the meal too. There was also a good friend of my father who joined the table also. The strange thing about it is that the husband of my little sister and that friend of my father where not around at the time when I was twenty. (neither was this forum). so in this dream there is a mixture of persons past and persons present. At that time I woke up and started sobbing a bit, a kind of mixture of joy and sadness.

 

[kenlee]

Difficulties: What I find difficult during EE is, that I can't seem to stop my inner dialogue. I dissociate easily into past/current/possible situations while doing the Roundbreathing and also while Bioenergetic breathing. Sometimes also during the prayer. I really want to improve this. Maybe the solution is to let the images fly by.

I think that’s a good idea Data, to just let those images go by. If the inner dialogue gets too intense and it begins to interfere with your everyday functioning in life then it might be a good idea to cut back on the Round breathing (or pace it as you say) since you don’t want the intensity of the experience to too greatly interfere with what you have to do day to day.

What I make an effort to do is to relax my body as best as I’m able and just use those muscles that are required to do the breathing properly (which applies to POTS as well) as described in the EE video/audio. It seems that as my body relaxes more then, from the release of tension, images and feelings that are associated with this tension (from things that have happened in my past and from things that are now happening in the present) also get released and then projected onto a kind of living, reactive, screen in my mind. But if I make an effort to just let those images and associative feelings go as they will, without fighting them with my thoughts, then I don’t react to them as much and the screen becomes more quiet and clear and my body relaxes more. I just try to let the whole “mechanism” do its thing so to speak. All the while I’ll continue to focus on being relaxed while doing the breathing program. As my body continues to relax then these images, tensions and thoughts quiet down more and along with that the automatic chatter quiets down.

At some point, when my mind and body quiet down (along with my emotional reactions connected to them) then, often spontaneously, other images may get projected onto this ‘quiet’ screen and which (seemingly) comes from somewhere “higher,” in the sense that the images and feelings that now come into my mind are coming from some place within myself that connects things, such as ideas, feelings and thoughts in my mind that often may be associated with problems in my everyday life and which helps me solve these problems. A higher quality kind of energy seems to be at work here. This “seeing more connections between things” helps to see more clearly the inner dynamics of the situations.

 

[seek10]

Difficulties: What I find difficult during EE is, that I can't seem to stop my inner dialogue. I dissociate easily into past/current/possible situations while doing the Roundbreathing and also while Bioenergetic breathing. Sometimes also during the prayer. I really want to improve this. Maybe the solution is to let the images fly by.

I think that’s a good idea Data, to just let those images go by. If the inner dialogue gets too intense and it begins to interfere with your everyday functioning in life then it might be a good idea to cut back on the Round breathing (or pace it as you say) since you don’t want the intensity of the experience to too greatly interfere with what you have to do day to day.

What I make an effort to do is to relax my body as best as I’m able and just use those muscles that are required to do the breathing properly (which applies to POTS as well) as described in the EE video/audio. It seems that as my body relaxes more then, from the release of tension, images and feelings that are associated with this tension (from things that have happened in my past and from things that are now happening in the present) also get released and then projected onto a kind of living, reactive, screen in my mind. But if I make an effort to just let those images and associative feelings go as they will, without fighting them with my thoughts, then I don’t react to them as much and the screen becomes more quiet and clear and my body relaxes more. I just try to let the whole “mechanism” do its thing so to speak. All the while I’ll continue to focus on being relaxed while doing the breathing program. As my body continues to relax then these images, tensions and thoughts quiet down more and along with that the automatic chatter quiets down.

At some point, when my mind and body quiet down (along with my emotional reactions connected to them) then, often spontaneously, other images may get projected onto this ‘quiet’ screen and which (seemingly) comes from somewhere “higher,” in the sense that the images and feelings that now come into my mind are coming from some place within myself that connects things, such as ideas, feelings and thoughts in my mind that often may be associated with problems in my everyday life and which helps me solve these problems. A higher quality kind of energy seems to be at work here. This “seeing more connections between things” helps to see more clearly the inner dynamics of the situations.

thank you kenlee for sharing your experience. that is useful. this is some thing I am also going through.-trick is relaxing and let it go. mental effort to not to interfere with the images

 

[Mountain Crown]

Maybe the solution is to let the images fly by

While doing this you may try slowing down the pace of your breathing and see if it helps. Also, switching to pipe breathing for a few rounds of the prayer may have a calming effect on thought loops. Fwiw.

 

[Laura]

Data, are you doing just the POTS every night before sleeping? I found that first concentrating on the counting and then concentrating on the words mentally WHILE going into the meditative state via the breathing, can help with mastering the control of the mind. Doing it repeatedly, patiently, starting over when you find that your mind has drifted, but not being upset by it, is cumulative. It's like exercising a mental muscle. It gets stronger and more well-developed each time you use it.

 

[Rich]

Maybe the solution is to let the images fly by.

But if I make an effort to just let those images and associative feelings go as they will, without fighting them with my thoughts, then I don’t react to them as much and the screen becomes more quiet and clear and my body relaxes more.

thank you kenlee for sharing your experience. that is useful. this is some thing I am also going through.-trick is relaxing and let it go. mental effort to not to interfere with the images

Along similar lines one thing you can try is to imagine that the state you want your mind to be in is like a clear sky - ruminations, images and unwanted thoughts can be likened to clouds floating into 'your' sky, recognise them as such and let them float away. Or, along with Laura's suggestion of focusing on counting, as you breathe out toxins also 'breathe out' the unwanted thoughts and dialogue.

One technique that I find aides relaxation is to consciously relax specific muscles. Especially those of the face. e.g the muscles around the eyes, cheeks and jaw - dropping it slightly.

Doing it repeatedly, patiently, starting over when you find that your mind has drifted, but not being upset by it, is cumulative.

It can also be helpful to think of actually being pleased when you recognise your mind has drifted, taking pleasure and seeing humor in the fact that you've become really relaxed. Then regain focus.

 

[Ollie]

One technique that I find aides relaxation is to consciously relax specific muscles. Especially those of the face. e.g the muscles around the eyes, cheeks and jaw - dropping it slightly.

In addition to this excellent advice, you may, or may not, wish to especially relax the long muscles at the side of the neck, as well as the sides of the nose, and around the mouth, feeling and visualising each set of muscles (all of those mentioned) on each side of the face relaxing. Relaxing the face muscles is a powerful way of relaxing the whole body, as it is the one set of muscles that people tend to keep tense most, if not all, of the time.

 

[forge]

Well i feel like a very stupid and stubborn child who despite best advices from everyone can't have what i want. I followed through a thread that i found important. That took time being a slow reader (being a foreigner), has also plus side of grokking the gist with better chance. Anyway that felt important. Felt the crying coming up, thought finally a chance to effect release. Two weird dreams immediately injected something into my processes. The first was about a stranger student, who suddenly moved into our house and started acquiring my things for his use - i was trying to be externally considerate and compliant toward him. He listened to the radio at such a volume that i had to shout when speaking to him: lot of weird "my place is getting intruded, my things taken, in my life there is a stranger" thoughts in that dream. The second dream related to my attachment from what i would very much like get rid of, any time, if there was a red eject button available i could hit.

Today i arrived to a desperate "no more" ultimatum, angrily doing my test work which should be at finishing up phase. Anguish and some "i ate too much ice cream that's why my throat is sore now i must sing enduring pain" weird depressive feeling, snickering at my stupidity of falling into another temptation.

Am i so weak that i have to acknowledge that the Predator is a greater power? The Predators creators i should accept as necessary component to everyday life, everybody should respect them as super-powerful opponents? Because i thought if i have a plan, i just need to hold the door, so that the monster can't come in, like a protagonist in a horror-movie and according to my plan the monster just gives up, gets bored kicking the door down and goes away.

Never in my plans anywhere was that i push the door weakly and accept a tiny candy from the monster offering the archetypal "gold of the lizards" and the snake bites me, and i feel angry stupid desperate, lost. Wondering about: is this defeat? Am i never going to get rid of this attachment? Will i have to respect it's power? Am i that weak, when i thought, i was rather a superhero, also had victory-plans? I got angry about this.

After EE, somehow again there was relief. As if i poisoned myself and hearing Laura's voice cleared the poison and poured balm onto my mind.

What the heck will i do if i can't follow my defensive strategy? I don't know....

 

[RedFox]

Am i so weak that i have to acknowledge that the Predator is a greater power? The Predators creators i should accept as necessary component to everyday life, everybody should respect them as super-powerful opponents? Because i thought if i have a plan, i just need to hold the door, so that the monster can't come in, like a protagonist in a horror-movie and according to my plan the monster just gives up, gets bored kicking the door down and goes away.

Never in my plans anywhere was that i push the door weakly and accept a tiny candy from the monster offering the archetypal "gold of the lizards" and the snake bites me, and i feel angry stupid desperate, lost. Wondering about: is this defeat? Am i never going to get rid of this attachment? Will i have to respect it's power? Am i that weak, when i thought, i was rather a superhero, also had victory-plans? I got angry about this.

After EE, somehow again there was relief. As if i poisoned myself and hearing Laura's voice cleared the poison and poured balm onto my mind.

What the heck will i do if i can't follow my defensive strategy? I don't know....

Hi forge
I'm still processing similar things to yourself, so I'm probably not the best person to offer advice on this. But will try and offer what I can.
These feelings of worthlessness, or uselessness.....feelings of failure, of being a failure or of having failed somehow seem to be pretty common when it comes to the E-E program. The trick is to try and not get tangled up in them. Let them pass.
To me their is no defeat and you have not lost if you are still doing the program.
Rather than focusing on a defensive strategy, try observing the predators mind instead. Learn its movements and strategies, its likes and dislikes. Put it in the spotlight.
I have tried to keep this in my mind as much as possible. I've had many programs running my life recently, and if I didn't know better it'd look like I was slipping backwards with them all running my life at the moment.....this is where the predator sets the trap of 'dispair' or 'failure', in the hope of keeping you in your place.
For me the difference is I'm not falling into that trap so much (their are other traps such as 'comfortable sleep' you have to watch out for) and observing the predators minds actions through me more and more. This has opened up a gap between 'me' and 'it'. And the gap is getting bigger...and as it gets bigger the predator looses its power. It then moves to another area...a different program and a different trap...and if I hold my observations a gap forms there too and the predator looses its power.
It may seem to 'win' by running different programs....but if I really See it (clear my eyes, that I may see) for what it is...a gap forms and its really just loosing its power over me.

Their is no need to have a defensive strategy such as yours when all you need to do is just observe the predators mind and see it for what it is.
The gap that forms is the line between you (the real you) and it. The clearer you see the line, the less power it has over you until it has none left.
This is my current understanding and I may be mistaken.

Hang on in there forge, your doing fine :)

*edit* spelling and clarity

 

[Aiming]

A little update.

As suggested by Laura, I've only been doing the POTS in these last few weeks. Well, actually she suggested to only skip the round breathing, but after having felt so innerly devastated/worn out, there was a fear in me of doing anything but the POTS. I'll slowly start with the breathing techniques again and see how it will go.


I have a very irrational fear of spiders. In my mind, I have no problem with them, but when a big spider is in my room, a panic creeps into me, although my mind at the same time starts explaining to me in a very neutral way that there is no reason to be afraid of them, and I believe my mind, but still, the feeling is there. My boyfriend used to have a great fear of sharks when he was a kid. So he decided to learn everything about sharks, read books, watch documentaries. So I thought I'd do the same, told him about it and when he asked what I wanted as a birthday gift I told him a book on spiders. I've been reading the book, learning about spiders and looking at the spider images real close, so as to accomodate myself with their appearance. But I still couldn't bare having a big spider in my room.

I remember a scene from my childhood, where I was lying in my dark room at night and was seeing in my mental vision that my room was full of huge spiders and I was afraid. So, there weren't real spiders just a mental sight of them. Apart from that I have no clue where my fear of spiders might come from.

The thing I want to share is one time when I was doing the POTS I was suddenly seeing spiders in my mental vision. Huge spiders, many spiders, spiders from all angles, also magnified (as if seen through a microscope). I was being bombarded with images of spiders and also the very obscure looking ones from the book on spiders my boyfriend had given to me.
When lying there seeing all these spiders in my mental vision I had no problems with them at all, no feeling of fear or panic, it was a detached way of looking at them, neutral.

As for effects in real life, this POTS experience hasn't wiped away those feelings, but has shown me that there is a part in me I can access which enables me to see the matter in a neutral way.
And there's some little progress now: at the time being I have at least three spiders in my rooms! :) Before I would've either carried them out and some of them I even killed. :(
But now I just try to let them be, and I've seen that they are mostly not visible, they hide somewhere and they don't disturb me in any way. They just do their job of existing and feeding and do not attack me or crawl over me. I'm just surprised they're finding enough food in my rooms.

 

[Windmill knight]

I have tried to keep this in my mind as much as possible. I've had many programs running my life recently, and if I didn't know better it'd look like I was slipping backwards with them all running my life at the moment.....this is where the predator sets the trap of 'dispair' or 'failure', in the hope of keeping you in your place.
For me the difference is I'm not falling into that trap so much (their are other traps such as 'comfortable sleep' you have to watch out for) and observing the predators minds actions through me more and more. This has opened up a gap between 'me' and 'it'. And the gap is getting bigger...and as it gets bigger the predator looses its power. It then moves to another area...a different program and a different trap...and if I hold my observations a gap forms there too and the predator looses its power.
It may seem to 'win' by running different programs....but if I really See it (clear my eyes, that I may see) for what it is...a gap forms and its really just loosing its power over me.

These comments reminded me of an analogy when dealing with programs, which I found useful, as presented by the psychoanalyst in Rachel Reiland's book Get Me Out of Here. At this point, Rachel was dealing with anorexia.

[...] [Dr. Padgett] didn't tell me that I, of all people, should know better and demand that I "better snap to reality and start eating."

Instead he saw the re-emergence of anorexia as evidence that I was, indeed, repressing a child within. And that the child was reacting vehemently. The solution to this most recent problem was not to give lectures on eating habits, but to explore the emotions of my inner child. This anorexic episode was not a coincidence, but just the latest form of defense. Not wanting to eat was linked to now wanting to feel. "Think of your buried fears and irrational feelings as being like those little roly-poly bugs," he said. "You know, the ones that crawl around under rocks. When you turn a rock over and expose them to light, they quickly form a little hard-shell ball. When the threat of exposure is gone, they quickly run under the closest rock.

"You have painful and frightening feelings within you, so frightening that you'd rather suffer indefinitely, sometimes rather die, than look at them in the light of day. Your defenses are the rocks you hide under. Therapy is a process that seeks to put your worst fears, the roly-poly bugs, into the light, which is exactly what a part of you wants to do. The part you've been displaying here recently.

"But it isn't the only part of you. The other part is so desperately afraid that she'll do nearly anything to avoid the scrutiny. So she finds more rocks the bugs can hide under. The rock of rage. The rock of I-don't-give-a-sh*t-about-anything. The 'f*ck you, Dr. Padgett, I hate you' rock. The rock of suicidal ideation. And now the latest one, the rock of anorexia. This isn't a separate illness, Rachel; it's just one more rock to hide under, one more place to avoid facing the same feelings." [...]

"I never said therapy was going to be easy," Dr. Padgett continued. "I never said it wasn't going to be frustrating, stopping and starting, and that sometimes one step forward will be followed by two steps back. Each time we turn over a rock and expose those bugs, those feelings - the bugs - are going to run to another rock and hide.

"But one day, Rachel, there won't be any rocks left. One day we'll turn over the last rock. With no place left to hide, the bugs, the feelings, will scamper away for good. And you'll experience a life you've never believed you could have."

"The rock of anorexia is a big one, very intense. It might seem as if all is lost and things are getting worse. The fewer rocks there are, the more bugs will be found under the ones that remain. But we're getting closer to those feelings, Rachel. Much closer. Together, the two of us are going to lift up this rock too, like we have all the others so far. This isn't a time to run; it's a time to feel."

If the rocks are our programs and the bugs are the feelings that fuel the programs, it makes perfect sense that dealing with the feelings is the key to get rid of the programs. This is why breathing and meditating is such a blessing, as we are able to see the stones and uncover the bugs more easily, without years of therapy. "Cleanse my heart, that I may know and love..." :)

 

[RedFox]

If the rocks are our programs and the bugs are the feelings that fuel the programs, it makes perfect sense that dealing with the feelings is the key to get rid of the programs. This is why breathing and meditating is such a blessing, as we are able to see the stones and uncover the bugs more easily, without years of therapy. "Cleanse my heart, that I may know and love..." :)

Thanks for that quote Windmill Knight, its a really good one! Strangely it actually helps me more than you think....I've been looking at my weight loss (I was looking slightly anorexic despite eating well), and trying to track down its causes....I think the above may well fit the emotional one.
Perhaps its possible one of the rocks is the physical draining of my body?
I've started asking for help with things in general, but also with specific things (like figuring this weight thing out) before doing the POTS at night.....and as long as I keep searching and interacting here it seems the answer are being put in front of me...I just have to put the effort into following the data...its pretty amazing to see unfold :)

 

[Gawan]

I had about a couple of weeks ago a dream, that went like the following:

I dreamed of a shadow creature/a vampire. And that I had to go in the cellar. And in this cellar this creature lived. And it wanted to attack us. But I don't know anymore who -us- were. There have been dead people in the cellar and we looked for them, because some are still alive and not dead. We found two or three laying there in a room (like a mortuary of a hospital), alive, nasty looking, but we took them with us. And had to run away with them, because this shadow creature didn't want that we are taking something with us. We ran up the stairs again to the ground floor. Somehow back into daylight.

Then the next day during the EE program, there have been pictures occurring of shadow creatures and I remembered this dream again. Maybe this could have something to do with shamans, because they are also going -underground-?

I get the now the impression, that work needs to be done on buried stuff, stuff that is still alive and unresolved, unconscious.

Like buried anger, sorrow. For example, where I talked in this chapter: People pleasing and is everything a projection?.

Also many attacks came up, issues (or at least this is just my interpretation on it), on the one hand on my work, where things get triggered almost everyday and also small incidences (for example I've been looking for a new flat, and I found one pretty fast (with all the stuff I've been looking for) and I got a consent on my application, so to speak. Couple of days later I got a cancellation of that same offer). Where I already wondered, has this been all too easy?

This added up more and more, where thoughts of giving up arose, tiny, but they have been there non theless.

All in all it's also funny, that all this is happening and to read at the same time Wave Book 6 "Facing the Unknown", where Laura is writing about similar issues. It is interesting to have a look into this process, to get a glimpse, when maybe STS forces try to do something against me, or any person, there is always the chance to learn something from it and it doesn't matter what is happening. It's like an endless battle, endless opportunities to make a difference, overcome, watch programmes, simply to learn from every second. It's like an art form to apply this knowledge into daily life.


For the EE program itself, I try to take every day time to meditate on the prayer. And doing the program Mondays and Thursdays, also when I sometimes fall asleep in the 3 Stage-Breathing or in the prayer.

 

[forge]

[...] "I never said therapy was going to be easy," Dr. Padgett continued. "I never said it wasn't going to be frustrating, stopping and starting, and that sometimes one step forward will be followed by two steps back. Each time we turn over a rock and expose those bugs, those feelings - the bugs - are going to run to another rock and hide.

Windmill knight, this part gave me a lot of hope and strength to continue, thank you.

"But one day, Rachel, there won't be any rocks left. One day we'll turn over the last rock. With no place left to hide, the bugs, the feelings, will scamper away for good. And you'll experience a life you've never believed you could have."

"[..] It might seem as if all is lost and things are getting worse. The fewer rocks there are, the more bugs will be found under the ones that remain. But we're getting closer to those feelings, Rachel. Much closer. Together, the two of us are going to lift up this rock too, like we have all the others so far. This isn't a time to run; it's a time to feel."

Wow! I am amazed that people can post so healthy thoughts, which really helps healing. A string of normality to cling to, see proven that sanity and healthy thinking exists in this world, when i become so desperate that i can't see much.

Earlier i often declared myself helpless that i better not touch a post, because i couldn't find loving words, i was unable to give compassionate solution, i could not handle it, because i lack life experience of child rearing as a loving father and life experience as a loving husband. Basically i lack life experience as a loving human toward others.