Alana said:
Hi chaps23.
We might be able to help you if you give us a little more information. For example, at which part of the exercises do you fall asleep? And you say that "it is not resonating with you yet", what do you mean? Are you referring specifically to the falling asleep part? What kinds of emotions/associations you experience when you practice the program? How many times have you practiced it so far?
The issue of concentration takes a bit of practice to get better. I had a hard time concentrating too at the beginning, but like Laura says often, it is like a muscle that need to be worked again and again to get stronger. That's also why we say that the effects of the program are cumulative: they appear after regular practice. It also happens that the days that I am inflamed (I ate something that does not agree with my body) my levels of concentration are lower still. So diet plays a part in it too. How is your diet like?
But if you are falling asleep, it means that the relaxation response gets activated in you, no? ;)
I agree that it would be helpful if you could describe your experiences a little more. Are you maybe the restless type who just want to "get it done and over with"? I'm not saying that you are, but in today's society many people are finding it hard to give things time, they want things/problems fixed quickly so they can "move on". For example, I've heard many stories from my teacher in body work of clients who come for the first treatment to "fix it", and when they realize that it's a long process and you have to have patience and determination in order to heal your self, they never come back. Another example: I have a relative who suffered for insomnia for years. I suggested that she would try and do some breathing and relaxation (this was before the EE program was introduced) before she'd try to sleep. Okay, so she tried this a couple of evenings, but then she announced to me that it doesn't work because it's too hard, she can't concentrate. I asked more details about her experience, and it turned out that she had to READ something during breathing, because doing JUST breathing was too damn scary!
I too had problems in the beginning, it was hard to concentrate and I wanted to stop the breathing after just a few minutes. I think that this is quite normal, because many of us are not used to just stay put, breathe and meditate - there are parts in us that want to fight this. But in a sense, that's what it's all about I think, cleaning your machine is hard work and it's a battle! In my experience this fighting can manifest just as you say, either by falling asleep/shutting down (maybe the body-mind just can't handle it so it "takes a break") or by loosing concentration. Then there can happen this beneficial thing called 'zoning out', in which you just sort of black out, loosing all sense of time. It is said, that in this zoning out moment you are connecting with your higher self (you can use the search function to read about it in this thread).
It takes time to remove the first layers of resistance. I'm sure that with practicing the EE-program regularly (you don't have to do the whole program every time) you'll "break through". Don't focus on getting immediate results, the accumulated stuff needs to be processed gently and with time, and EE is absolutely the best tool for this. That is at least my experience.