Éiriú-Eolas - Breathing Program

[Serendipity]

I began doing regular sessions twice a week recently. The following happened in my last session.

I ended up a lot more relaxed during meditation part and as a result it was easier to let go of association with thought process, and to just be the observer.
During the second round of POTS I experienced sudden zoning out, and then coming back shortly after and seeing on my eyelids wavelike lines of different repeating colours stacked in a row.
I noticed that I skipped only 4-5 lines of POTS so I must have been zoned out only around 30 seconds.
Then after few minutes I've must have zoned out again or simply fell a sleep and had the best 8 hour sleep I've had in a very long time.

Waking up was completely different experience and the feeling of restfullness, elevated energy and mood stayed with me until the evening.
I was also unusually relaxed and at ease and more gentle to myself and others. All of that was because I was more able to recognize and not identify with false 'I' s and personality, due to better connection to my essence and to DCM, OSIT. EE truly does wonders, I love it! :D

Is the way I did meditation exercise the right way to do it? Letting go of thought process and just being observer, and allowing zoning out to take place.

 

[Oxajil]

Sometimes when I do the meditation section I get really nice body sensations. They can be quite intense sometimes, almost overwhelming. So much so that my breathing slows right down. However, I'm still completely "there". There isn't any zoning out or anything.

This has happened with normal meditation as well, although it is a lot less intense than what happens with EE.

Is this normal?

I would think it is normal yes. I get the same too some times (very relaxed feeling), and what I try to do is to just be in the moment and to try to pay attention to the POTS.

Is the way I did meditation exercise the right way to do it? Letting go of thought process and just being observer, and allowing zoning out to take place.

I think that's okay, allowing yourself to just be during meditation and rest so to speak, because that is what you mean right? Laura also says in the audio that when you do the meditation you can try to inhale with one phrase and exhale with the next phrase and so forth. This may feel a tiny bit uncomfortable as it may ask for some focus, but it may a fun thing to try, and it may also be a good exercise to practice a bit of will. While doing this you may notice at some point that you'll become sleepy, and naturally stop breathing in and out according to each phrase, and you may then zone out or fall asleep or feel very well-rested, atleast that has been my experience. So if you'd like, you could keep the focus on the phrases of the Prayer of the Soul, instead of just letting go of your thought processes, and see how that goes?

Hope this helps, fwiw.

 

[Serendipity]

I think that's okay, allowing yourself to just be during meditation and rest so to speak, because that is what you mean right?

Hi Oxajil. Yes, that's what I meant. To be completely at rest and peace, to just be, breathe and listen to the prayer, and letting go of the unnecessary thought process allowing the natural effects of meditation take their course. That's how I see the meditation, but I might be wrong because I didn't have much experience with meditation before.

Laura also says in the audio that when you do the meditation you can try to inhale with one phrase and exhale with the next phrase and so forth. This may feel a tiny bit uncomfortable as it may ask for some focus, but it may a fun thing to try, and it may also be a good exercise to practice a bit of will. While doing this you may notice at some point that you'll become sleepy, and naturally stop breathing in and out according to each phrase, and you may then zone out or fall asleep or feel very well-rested, atleast that has been my experience. So if you'd like, you could keep the focus on the phrases of the Prayer of the Soul, instead of just letting go of your thought processes, and see how that goes?

Hope this helps, fwiw.

I did that in sessions before, and it was a bit uncomfortable but manageable. I only did it the way I described the last time, and that session was the best I had thus far, regarding the effects, IMO.
Also, concentrating on breathing vs phrases takes the focus like you said, and makes it harder for me to go deeper in meditation, and keeps me awake.

Maybe, some times it might be better to be more focused and in body, like when emotions resurface and there is need for crying, while other times it might be more beneficial to completely let go of the control and focus and simply let the restoration and healing to happen OSIT, but I could be wrong, because of lack of experience.
But I will take your advice and practice and also experiment and listen to body and adjust accordingly. And will read the whole thread of course.

Thank you for answer, Oxajil :)

 

[no-mans-land]

I would like to give an update on how things went so far with EE and maybe let some steam off.

Since I started EE some time ago (almost 3 years I think), the first two or three times there was a sensation of a very deep relaxation. It was almost so deep that it felt I am falling or floating in an see of darkness. It was beautiful and I never experienced something similar before. But then, the yawning and the tears showed up and the relaxation was gone, and it never came back...

In fact, the yawning and the tears became a well known companion in every session since then. I stopped doing EE for the last three month or so and started again a week ago because my body demanded to let the tensions out via the three stage breathing. It felt my body doesent suppress the tension anymore but just "store" them right in front of my awareness so that I can feel them growing and growing up to the point when there is no other way to let them out. OK, so my body told me very clear to start EE again and so did I.

I knew that the result of such a long period of storing tensions would not be very nice and the yawing followed by tears will be massive. And so it was. It was so tedious to yawn after every breath, mostly when I breathed out, that it felt like I climbed a mountain while I was crying my eyes out (<-- too much drama?). Anyway, I was far away to be relaxed and also during the whole program yawing showed up occasionally.

After this and after three other sessions, I realized that nothing really improved over the years. The yawning is so distracting that a real meditative state is still not in sight. OK, I learned to handle the yawing, the tears, the urge to punch the air, the energy in my hands and feet and the itching, but all this costs, how should I say, focus, awareness, mind movements or whatever you would call it. It prevents me to reach this beautiful state of relaxation that I experienced at the beginning.

This is so frustrating that I almost begin to hate the yawing. How do I stop it? Should I stop it in the first place? Do I something wrong? How to reach this beautiful sate of relaxation again? Why does the yawing stay? Whats up with that? I always thought that it will pass sometime, just be patient, but now I start to have doubts about that and, did I mentioned it, its frustrating.

 

[Gawan]

This is so frustrating that I almost begin to hate the yawing. How do I stop it? Should I stop it in the first place? Do I something wrong? How to reach this beautiful sate of relaxation again? Why does the yawing stay? Whats up with that? I always thought that it will pass sometime, just be patient, but now I start to have doubts about that and, did I mentioned it, its frustrating.

Eventually your expectation could play a role in this, cause your mind is preoccupied with thoughts of not yawning, which gives it even more energy instead the opposite imo.

This may or may not be related but how is your sleep pattern anyway, does your body get enough sleep?

 

[mnmulchi]

This is so frustrating that I almost begin to hate the yawing. How do I stop it? Should I stop it in the first place? Do I something wrong? How to reach this beautiful sate of relaxation again? Why does the yawing stay? Whats up with that? I always thought that it will pass sometime, just be patient, but now I start to have doubts about that and, did I mentioned it, its frustrating.

I have found that I tend to start yawning some after getting more relaxed during the breathing. I'm pretty sure the yawning isn't caused by a lack of oxygen, due to the EE breathing saturating the body with oxygen. It makes me think of Gurdjieff's claim:

Yawning is the pumping of energy into the small accumulators. When they empty too quickly, that is, when one of them has no time to fill up while the other is being emptied, yawning becomes almost continuous.

 

[Ollie]

This is so frustrating that I almost begin to hate the yawing. How do I stop it? Should I stop it in the first place? Do I something wrong? How to reach this beautiful sate of relaxation again? Why does the yawing stay? Whats up with that? I always thought that it will pass sometime, just be patient, but now I start to have doubts about that and, did I mentioned it, its frustrating.

I have found that I tend to start yawning some after getting more relaxed during the breathing. I'm pretty sure the yawning isn't caused by a lack of oxygen, due to the EE breathing saturating the body with oxygen. It makes me think of Gurdjieff's claim:

Yawning is the pumping of energy into the small accumulators. When they empty too quickly, that is, when one of them has no time to fill up while the other is being emptied, yawning becomes almost continuous.

I have a similar experience everytime I do EE listening to the DVD. Mega-yawns!!! I get a similar experience sometimes when I start meditating too. However, whilst it does stop breathing as recommended, zoning out still occurs and with meditating (in early stages of learning this), it is still possible to get relaxed, by just accepting the yawning as it is, and forgetting about it, accepting it as a fact of life of where I'm at now.

At other times, when relaxing late in the evening, in semi-darkness just listening to classical music and winding down before sleep, tears are often part of this process, as is the case when silently meditating and listening to PotS. The yawning may well be connected to sleep patterns too, and the energy transfers, as I still get up in the night to visit the bathroom quite frequently, especially early in the night. It is as if the tensions of the day are still present, despite taking GABA. Putting the sleep patterns together with rapid transfer of energy into small accumulators when emptied too quickly is my current explanation of this process. My thoughts are that it is almost as if there is so much processing going on that the energy required is rapidly used up and empties one of accumulators. Thank goodness for EE and the effect it has on the system.

 

[no-mans-land]

This is so frustrating that I almost begin to hate the yawing. How do I stop it? Should I stop it in the first place? Do I something wrong? How to reach this beautiful sate of relaxation again? Why does the yawing stay? Whats up with that? I always thought that it will pass sometime, just be patient, but now I start to have doubts about that and, did I mentioned it, its frustrating.

Eventually your expectation could play a role in this, cause your mind is preoccupied with thoughts of not yawning, which gives it even more energy instead the opposite imo.

This may or may not be related but how is your sleep pattern anyway, does your body get enough sleep?

That's a good point. I really do expect it and can even feel the yawning coming up before I start the exercise. From this perspective, it looks like a good portion of anticipation comes in here. Regarding the sleep, yes, mostly I get 8 hours or more sleep, but it depends on how I have to work. I can happen that the sleep pattern gets interupted by sudden changes of the work schedule, but not that often. You can say, 70% of the time it comes down to 8 hours, 20% even more and and only 10% less than 8 hours.

I have found that I tend to start yawning some after getting more relaxed during the breathing. I'm pretty sure the yawning isn't caused by a lack of oxygen, due to the EE breathing saturating the body with oxygen. It makes me think of Gurdjieff's claim:

Yawning is the pumping of energy into the small accumulators. When they empty too quickly, that is, when one of them has no time to fill up while the other is being emptied, yawning becomes almost continuous.

I thought about this quote too and the yawing seems to give back energy, but wheres the old "stuff" gone? It makes me wonder why the yawning becomes so extreme during EE. Something must suck away all the energy to cause the refilling process during the three stage breathing.

The only explanation I have so far is that by stimulating the vagus nerve, my system start to use the energy to neutralize tensions or some kind of chemical imbalance (what could be the same) and because its a never ending cycle, like building up those tensions, followed by the action to neutralize them, then accumulating tensions again and so forth, the yawning also never stops. It seems that the accumulators are either not big enough to deal with the neutralizing process effectively, or the tensions are simply to tight to crack them with one charge or less. Maybe another question to consider is, where do those tensions originate from? But who knows, maybe I touch a can of worms here^^.

Maybe someone here has experiences with this process and observed what kind of development caused the yawing to stop or just lessend it.

 

[Gawan]

I can happen that the sleep pattern gets interupted by sudden changes of the work schedule, but not that often. You can say, 70% of the time it comes down to 8 hours, 20% even more and and only 10% less than 8 hours.

Have you tried doing the program earlier too, maybe on the weekend when you don't have to work or way before evening if possible? Just to rule some things out.

 

[no-mans-land]

Have you tried doing the program earlier too, maybe on the weekend when you don't have to work or way before evening if possible? Just to rule some things out.

Sometimes it happen that I do EE on the weekend so, yes, but there is little difference. But you hit another point here. Usually I do EE in the evening, just before sleep. I certainly did it somewhat earlier too, but not nearly enough and on various times of the day to have a broad enough observation basis to make conclusions and I never did it in the morning.

This will be the next task, switching the time and see how it works in the morning. Sounds interesting. Thank you for your suggestion.

 

[Ollie]

...

I thought about this quote too and the yawing seems to give back energy, but wheres the old "stuff" gone? It makes me wonder why the yawning becomes so extreme during EE. Something must suck away all the energy to cause the refilling process during the three stage breathing.

The only explanation I have so far is that by stimulating the vagus nerve, my system start to use the energy to neutralize tensions or some kind of chemical imbalance (what could be the same) and because its a never ending cycle, like building up those tensions, followed by the action to neutralize them, then accumulating tensions again and so forth, the yawning also never stops. It seems that the accumulators are either not big enough to deal with the neutralizing process effectively, or the tensions are simply to tight to crack them with one charge or less. Maybe another question to consider is, where do those tensions originate from? But who knows, maybe I touch a can of worms here^^.

Maybe someone here has experiences with this process and observed what kind of development caused the yawing to stop or just lessend it.

In my opinion, the old "stuff" is released from the body in some form or other, and there may various ways that this is done: skin, breathing, urine and faeces, etc

Your explanation above is in line with my thoughts on the matter, it is almost as if it takes a period of time (several years in my case) to get to this stage where the action of the vagus nerve is starting to be successful in neutralizing tension, and/or chemical imbalances (the two are related in cases such as trauma - where, post trauma, the body is in a constant tension), and it is an ongoing process in 'cracking the nut'.

 

[cassandra]

I have bought a ton of books over the last 1 and 1/2 years, including a few of Laura's, and have made a couple of donations. but I still use the online EE version, which kept getting stuck today (it does sometimes), but it was just about managable. I feel a real freeloader, so I think my next step will be to buy the CD.
Maybe others have experienced this, but somehow I feel I was personally being given a clear message.
Felt very calm and peaceful, and I must say it's an excellent stomach workout too. :)

 

[Ollie]

My experiences of EE this last week follow what is now becoming a similar pattern: wet-eyes and yawns during three-stage pipe breathing, followed by mega-yawns and tears running down my face during PotS, a restless right foot, and on Thursday an additional clenched gut halfway through.

 

[no-mans-land]

My experiences of EE this last week follow what is now becoming a similar pattern: wet-eyes and yawns during three-stage pipe breathing, followed by mega-yawns and tears running down my face during PotS, a restless right foot, and on Thursday an additional clenched gut halfway through.

Did my words infected you? ;)
Well, at least with the restless legs i can offer you a releasement technique. Either you can kick the air as fast and as hard as you can to get the pressure out. Its a good thing if you have some trapped trauma in your muscles like Peter A. Levine described it in the book "In an Unspoken Voice". Or, as i do it now and for me it works way better, if i feel the restlessness coming, i just scratch the soles of my feet. OK, it makes me want to run up the walls for a moment, but after a while of scratching, the feet become less sensitive and all the restlessness is gone and nothing as a nice and warm prickle is left.

 

[Ollie]

My experiences of EE this last week follow what is now becoming a similar pattern: wet-eyes and yawns during three-stage pipe breathing, followed by mega-yawns and tears running down my face during PotS, a restless right foot, and on Thursday an additional clenched gut halfway through.

Did my words infected you? ;)
Well, at least with the restless legs i can offer you a releasement technique. Either you can kick the air as fast and as hard as you can to get the pressure out. Its a good thing if you have some trapped trauma in your muscles like Peter A. Levine described it in the book "In an Unspoken Voice". Or, as i do it now and for me it works way better, if i feel the restlessness coming, i just scratch the soles of my feet. OK, it makes me want to run up the walls for a moment, but after a while of scratching, the feet become less sensitive and all the restlessness is gone and nothing as a nice and warm prickle is left.

No, you didn't infect me, :) I've been doing this on and off for a while. As bolded above, that is the technique used - for trapped trauma. I just let my leg do what it wants to do. I also get it whilst I meditate. :)