The Presence Process - Share Experiences & Ask Questions

Brain,

lol yeah I need to keep it much more simple this time around. Going back to what you said in a pervious post about intuition - its really a powerful thing - I want to move in the direction of trusting more. I was to intellectual with everything... not the stories that were arising but the mechanics or how things worked on an emotional level. This time around I am going to stop hoarding spiritual information to feel secure. I always feel like I need to understand something to get something more - and some how I think this is going to help. But this is just rationalizing the felt sensations that are driving the behavior.

I had a 2 week re lapse back into addictive behavior and today was really my first day back into TPP. Its rough getting back into it because its like pealing away from addictions again. But I have to remind myself that it could not have been any other way, and its what I needed at that time. I got tripped up on seem lying conflicting information or wanting all teachers to make sense. There is simply to much out there and we need to trust our own sense of navigation. I have really been learning the hard way that to expect 'teachers' to help you or have answers that you want will only lead to suffering. Sure they can help but they all have different flavors of expression regarding different issues, its like accepting all of them without needing to box them into something.

It will be interesting to see what is under this sadness. I feel it now, as its most likely always been here.

In regard to what I have been doing in TPP I do the breathing as much as I can during the day as well as when I am sitting with an emotion. I don't have selected times that I do it, although I did at first. I think I might do selected times as well again though - just to make sure.

In the past I was playing around with triggering myself while in the hot water. I'll continuously breath in the water and feel into energies as I lay down. Its effective but rather disorienting at times. I don't think I can do this level of intensity at the moment and I'll need to work up to it again. Re lapsing to addictive behavior "set me back a little". Although I'm trying not to see it this way. I don't even really recommend doing really intense hot baths..unless it resonates lol simply because I feel like I can't foul myself up by getting ahead of my natural progression or something. I know I say this but watch me go back to doing it lol....hard to believe MB had people doing 3 hours! or that his first one was 3 hours long! wtf! so insane. I think my body would rip apart. lol

 

Yeah, after just doing one 15-minute breathing cycle yesterday morning, I found I could recall the contents of a dream that I had had earlier that same day and had forgotten when I awoke. In other words, the breathing cycle let me go back into my unconscious and recall the details of a dream I normally would have forgotten. Sounds like TPP does open a corridor between your conscious and unconscious minds that lets you recover deeply repressed material. My dream wasn't very frightening though. I was with a group of climbers on a ridge where we were all camped. I noticed some people climbing a crack on a higher peak and mentioned that I had already been up there. We all went up a gully and stood at the base of the crack, which I remembered had been easy and fun. You can read a lot into it or take it at face value. But the point is, I guess, that TPP helped me recover unconscious material that I normally would have forgotten or repressed.

 

That's cool. I have vivid dreams sometimes, and after I wake up, I think about them for a little bit. That helps me remember them for a while, or permanently, especially if they impact me emotionally. I guess I've kind of done that all of my life, but now, I understand what dreams mean, so they sometimes have more of an impact on me. If a person takes vitamin E, they tend to have much more vivid, memorable dreams. Often, vitamin E is stored in fat cells, but underutilized due to emotional issues blocking the absorbtion. Once the emotional blockage is integrated, the body starts absorbing it from the fat and from food. Then the person's dreams become more vivid. Once, I had a structural block not allowing my body to use the nutrients it needed to counteract candida. My doc fixed it and immediately the candida was gone (my doc can test immediately--he tested before and after). I couldn't believe how quickly the body counteracts things once a correction takes place. Emotional correction causes immediate physical corrections, too, sometimes. Cool stuff.

I think I remember dreams more readily now that I'm doing TPP. Also, I've noticed much more insight into my dreams. And I've noticed that I have more positive dreams where I'm in a situation that normally would be scary, but I feel great and I handle the situation really well. Last night, I dreampt about two guys snatching a kid in a bathroom and trying to harm him in a really awful way. Without a thought, I jumped on one of the guys to help the kid. There was not fear present. I was just being my authentic self. It was interesting. I've had other dreams where I might be the one in danger, and I must fight, but there's no fear involved, and I'm extremely confident in my ability to fight whomever it is I'm fighting, even if they're supernatural and should be able to beat the snot out of me. lol In fact, I have fun fighting them and I'm a little bummed when I get pulled out of the dream, because I was having so much fun! I started having dreams like that after I had done quite a bit of emotional work. My fearful dreams have dropped to nearly none. I can't even remember how long it's been since I had a fearful dream.

 

Sounds like a good plan! Glad you've got some clarity on this. It sucks to get buried in details and information. Information is like dirt. We dig a whole, thinking we're going somewhere better. But once we dig too deep, the dirt we try to toss up just keeps coming back down on us, and we don't realize it. Eventually, we're stuck going nowhere, buried in dirt. If we keep trying too hard at that point, we pile the dirt on our head and we can't breathe anymore. lol Information--especially religious information--can easily turn into a trap we use to try to fix our pain. But once intuition kicks in, usually through some humbling, painful circumstances, we realize what you just realized, and we back off of our information intake. Intuition is a wonderful gift, and takes so much less effort. Really, it takes no effort at all. That's a hard concept for us to grasp.

I think MB was having people do three-hour breathing sessions, once a week, when he was facilitating them. And I think they were doing three-hour bath sessions once a week during weeks 7-10, but I'm not sure exactly. I was doing around 20 minutes a day, seven days a week, which equals 2 1/3 hours a week total. I've noticed that doing it a long stint all at once takes me deeper into the emotions and is pretty effective. I'm not sure how effective my way of doing it was, but I sure got dragged down into a rut for a while. lol And that's apparently exactly what I needed to resolve my addiction to porn and masturbation, because it worked. Heck, I might feel I need to do more bath sessions soon. Who knows? I kind of just go with the flow of how I feel about it, and oddly enough, it always works out perfectly.

RESOLVING MY ADDICTION
I'll give you a rundown of how I handled my addiction. I remember looking for stories from people who'd kicked the porn and masturbation addiction using TPP, but I couldn't find any. In fact, I couldn't find anyone who was forthcoming enough to share their stories, in detail, about addiction and TPP. Everyone was more focused on the emotions in their posts (which I understand completely). I found one lady who gave a little bit of info in a YouTube video as she was going through getting rid of her eating addiction. But she wasn't male, and she didn't have a porn and masturbation addiction, so it didn't relate to my situation the way I'd hoped. I would've liked to read someone's story on this before dealing with my addiction, so I hope this is useful to you.

Each person has to feel it out on their own, of course, and each person handles it differently. This is how it worked for me.

During my first 10-week PP, I didn't try to resolve my addiction. That's something we do in the second 10 weeks. So I masturbated during my first 10 weeks, but for some reason, I didn't look at porn. It wasn't really that I was trying not to look at porn, necessarily. It was more that I was feeling my emotions, and so looking at the porn wasn't a big draw, I guess. Also, I wanted to at least get back to no porn, because I'd done that for a two year period before. At the end of my first 10 weeks, I started feeling great. Sometime around the end of the three-week rest period or the beginning of my second PP, I started looking at porn again. My intent for that second PP was to integrate the emotions causing my addiction. So, I indulged the addiction, but I would slowly decrease the frequency at which I did it. I'd do it every two or three days at first. Then I spaced it to every four days. Then to every five days. I ended up going back to every two or three days, eventually. Then finally, near the end of the 10 weeks, I felt like doing the addiction once a week would be sufficient. Keep in mind, I was feeling this out. I was feeling the emotional trends in my body and feeling out how much time I thought I could easily go without needing to do my addiction again. So, when I was ready for it, the one-week spacing worked great. And the second week of the three-week rest period was the last time I needed my addiction. As those second and third weeks unfolded for me, I got the answers I needed and took the appropriate steps that facilitated the final integrations needed to stop the addictive behaviors. Like I mentioned at one time, I found that I needed to command out parasitic entities, and I did so, because I'd opened myself up to them using me for a good time. LOL A few days later, the emotions integrated. After that, I simply didn't feel much of a drive to do the addictive behaviors anymore. It was all very organic--very natural. There was no forcing that needed to be done. I didn't have sex with my wife for a few weeks during that time, either, just to sort of confirm to myself that the addiction was truly kicked. And when I started having sex with my wife again, it was more enjoyable, because I wasn't driven to get it from her. Instead, it would happen more naturally and more in a giving way.

Once the addiction was resolved, I had no real drive to do it for a while. In the past few weeks, though, I've noticed that I'll have some emotions arise that do drive me to want to do it. Luckily, it's very easy to resist. What this tells me is that I've resolved a huge part of the underlying emotions that drove my addiction, but not all of them. And that's okay. For a few days one week, I had lots of stressors happening that triggered difficult emotions. And one emotion was surfacing really strong in my chest. I got the feeling that I needed to resist stuffing the emotions with masturbation or porn or sex with my wife. Sure enough, that same day, I did my breathing at night and cried quite a bit. I felt much better afterward, and the felt resonance and emotions integrated to some degree. I went right to bed, and the next day, I wasn't driven by the charge anymore. It had resolve. The next time I had emotions surface, I remembered that incident and told myself, "Okay, when I have emotions rise like this, I consciously will not have sex with my wife or do anything like that to suppress them." And sure enough, it worked again. I cried that night and felt better afterward. Breaking the addiction gives a lot of willpower for future surfacing emotions. I won't say that I'll never go back to masturbation or porn again, because I never know what intuition will lead me to do. I may find, in the future, that I need to indulge the addictive behavior one more time to bring out some emotions that can only be triggered by that behavior. I really don't know. But what I do know is that I feel so incredibly confident in my ability to integrate emotions that I wouldn't be scared to indulge the addiction again if necessary. The addiction I experienced is one that didn't hurt me or anyone else physically. That's why I was okay to indulge it to bring up emotions, when necessary. If I had experienced alcohol as an edition, then I wouldn't go back to it at all. I will say that some alcoholics do end up going back to it, at times, and then stop again. It's not really a good idea, though. Lots of dangerous things can happen with alcohol or other drugs. Those have never been risks I wanted to take with my life or other people's lives.

Hope that helps!

 

Brian,

Very interesting... thank you for sharing it does help. There is some information out there regarding full body orgasms and breathing during sex or masturbation. I tried it in the past had have tried to incorporate it into my practice but I am still to addicted to porn. You know that sensation you said you felt in the bath when you started to breath really fast? Its like that same feeling comes up and you can also start to feel the sexual energy. I got really in tune with my emotions while doing this several weeks ago and I felt like my emotional body was saying: why is this happening? I don't understand what is going on? That is my emotional responds to sex...very interesting I thought. Continuous breathing and not allowing orgasm but allowing it to build brings about a very vulnerable state. And ejaculation starts to not even be desirable because the sexual energy is depleted. Really fascinating stuff and I think we have a more in tune sense of these things because of TPP work. It allows a lot of exploration I think.

I was a bit curious about what your experience has been with grief or sadness. It feels like this sinking feeling along with other sensations. Its like I feel as though I am on the tip about to cry but just can't seem to let go into tears. Have you found that integration takes place even when we are not releasing tears? I sit with this feeling and nothing changes but I feel like I am about to cry. Yet never really do. I think I did for like 30 secs today. I know I can't really force anything into happening and that will just take me farther away from release....have you just sat with it and then all of a sudden the tears come? (along with speaking with the child self - I found that this really helps emotional vulnerability after I did it today)

I just can't tell if sitting with this sensation is accomplishing anything and that it feels like I need to surrender to the emotion to reach what is underneath it... I know MB says just feel maybe I am just being to mental about it. I just feel like I am 'wasting time' if I am not feeling into the grief that is at the root of this feeling. What are your thoughts on this? This is how I got so tripped up in the past because I was feeling into anger for a lot of the summer not aware that there was grief under it. So I felt like all that time was wasted because I didn't spend any time with emotional causality. I still feel a bit dis heartened at the moment.

Thoughts?

 

Fairmountain,

No second in this life is wasted by any of us. Absolutely everything we do is required. It's what we need at that moment.

I did lots of work in 12 Step before TPP. I couldn't get the emotions to flow properly, and I didn't know what to do with them. I knew there was more I needed. TPP is what I was looking for and gave me what I needed. I didn't waste one moment in 12 Step. All of it was required. For you, you're just taking a slow path into feeling. There's nothing wron g with that. It's how you have to do it right now. Eventually, the emotions will come. It just takes time and patience.

I used to have that feeling you describe of wanting or feeling I needed to cry, but I couldn't. That's never happened to me in TPP, though, I don't think. TPP gave me the freedom to express and feel my emotions. Truth be told, I was already getting good at letting my emotions come through before TPP. And it started with imagining my child-self and talking to him in an extremely loving and accepting way--telling him I understand why he feels the way he does, and that's okay, and I'll always be here for him no matter how he feels. I had to make all thing allowed for me and him. Zero condemnation. Zero judging. Zero rules. I am allowed to feel anything I need to feel. And I'm allowed to react in an unloving way sometimes or even all the time until I learn to catch and contain those emotions for integration. Reading Summerhill, and then A Free Range Childhood: Self Regulation at Summerhill School helped me quite a bit. I learned that a lot of things I did growing up that I guilted and shamed myself for were actually healthy things. Over time, my heart has slowly dropped rules for itself so it can be free to regulate itself and grow.

Regarding crying, I'll share how I do this. If I get even the slightest idea or sensation that I need to cry, I breathe, and make sure I'm ready to let that cry come out. The breathing is to help bring me, and that emotion, into the present moment. It's also to feel my body and clear my mind so I'm not trying to think about it. As I breathe, it usually doesn't take long at all, and I start crying (assuming I knew a cry was coming).

When I was a baby, I was super-controlled emotionally. I basically chained myself like a rabid dog, as if there was something wrong with me and I'd better not let my emotions out. Also, I'd fenced myself in so I wouldn't embarrass myself in front of others. I was so scared of others rejecting me, because subconsciously, I'd already rejected myself. I wanted to take in other's love and acceptance, because I didn't have my own. TPP is about me giving myself unconditional love through no rules, no judgment. That's why Paul, in the Bible, says, "All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial." In other words, I am free to do as I please so I can find what is beneficial for me and others, and what's not.

We are truly free. We just have to free ourselves without putting ourselves on a time table. We only feel that we've wasted time when we judge our progress against what we think we should have accomplished by now (perfectionism) or if we aren't feeling what we think we should be feeling right now (which usually means we're just not happy with what we're feeling right now). I felt, at times, that I wasn't making much progress in TPP, but I was committed and knew I'd make progress eventually. I evetually realized I was always making progress--I only felt like wasn't.

Keep at it. You're always making progress. Remember that TPP is bringing up your feelings that you're not making progress, which means they'll integrate eventually. It may take a few PPs before they start integrating, but they will eventually. The idea that there's no progress is an illusion and it means you're making progress, as does your confusion. You've got the drive. You're doing great! Keep up the good work.

 

Fairmountain,

Instead of seeing your time as wasted because you weren't sitting in emotional causality, see your time as being spent breaking down your barriers to feeling emotional causality. But also understand that feeling like you've wasted time is still feeling. So, you are feeling exactly what you need to feel, which means you've been working at the emotional cause this whole time, but your emotions were just giving you the illusion you interpreted to mean you weren't feeling. It's all a game. lol We must play the game with consistency and commitment, never giving up. We can't go wrong with that approach. Heck, we can't go wrong period, but that approach is most effective. It takes as long as it takes--don't forget that.

 

Your right it is a game...thank you for all those insights man. I don't feel much like writing at the moment I just wanted to say thank you Brian. I'm going to take some time and feel through this...

 

Living in the present can be hard for most of us.
I've heard real good things about Eckhart Tolle's book, THE POWER OF NOW,
and have ordered a copy. There are postings about it at YouTube and amazon.com books.

 

Fairmountain,

Awesome.

Walt,

Yeah, I've heard good things about The Power of Now. From the tiny little bit I've heard about or read about Eckhart Tolle, he seems to have the right idea. I have no clue if his methods are effective or not since I have no personal experience with them, so I can't really speak to that.

Regarding the present moment, TPP is all I really have for that. It taught me that an inability to be in the moment is caused by dysfunctional emotions, then gave me the tools to integrate those emotions. So, as they integrate, being in the present moment becomes more and more natural. The breathing practice in TPP is for bringing our mind and awareness into the present moment, and for pulling the past emotional issues into the present moment, as well. Otherwise, they sit in the past in our thoughts, but never get pulled into the "now" and dealt with.

At the moment, my plan is to keep my reading down to a minimum, and just experience as much as I can on my own so I can get my own idea about what's going on and how it works. Eventually, I'd be interested in how Eckhart Tolle proposes people get into the "now." Others here might find it helpful right now. Thanks for making people aware of it!

 

UPDATE: WEEK 9 - TPP #3

After I told Fairmountain that stuff last night about porn addiction, I was thinking to myself, "Man, I've been drawn toward masturbation and porn more than usual today. I'd be okay if I decided to go back to it temporarily to bring out the emotions, but I sure hope I don't need to do that." I'd been feeling those emotions pretty strongly that were driving those urges yesterday, but my willpower's pretty strong now, so it wasn't difficult to resist. My son had triggered me too, so I went and did my breathing, experiencing those emotions for a while and cried through most of the breathing. That helped. But then, I went to bed and early in the morning I had this dream that triggered those emotions again--the ones that hadn't integrated yet, I mean. So, I asked myself how that made me feel emotionally and at the felt resonance level. My chest began to burn. I probably dozed a few times, but I laid there with that feeling for 1.5-2 hours maybe. I got up, got ready, and had to skip my breathing this morning. I left the house and put on a song I've been listening to here lately that really evokes emotion from me. It's pulled some emotions to the surface here lately and they integrated. So, I played that song and started laughing and crying (the happy kind) and my heart burned (good burning). That's how integration feels.

So, just because I sat with it for a while, then used the song to bring out the emotions, the integration occurred. It love that I can use music to help integration along. lol I used another song after that one to continue the integration and it worked. Music is great for evoking emotions. But each person has to kind of feel that out for him or herself. Once that integration occurred, no more urges to look at porn or masturbate. So, through natural, organic events that day, the integration occurred, because I didn't give in to the dysfunctional behaviors. Keep in mind, I've built a lot of willpower at this point, and I've resolved lots of the emotions that drive the sexual addiction, so I'm quite a ways along this journey. I had my addiction from age 12-35. That's a long time, so it took me a long time to resolve it (less time than I thought, actually). I expected that it could integrate quickly or that it could integrate over two or three PPs. I wasn't sure and I wasn't worried about it. Luckily, it didn't take long. I think my past emotional work helped me gain courage, which might have sped it along, I don't know.

I've had several integrations here lately, usually in small bits, and usually while I'm driving, listening to music. I love those integrations. Lots of little ups and downs came around these times, too, but I always had peace about it and didn't worry about it. Integrations are slowly coming more naturally and easily to me as I get farther along in TPP. Very cool stuff. Almost done with this 3rd PP. Just 1 1/2 weeks to go.

 

Got the RnA Drops today. I'll report on how these affect me. It takes several weeks to get up to the larger doses, so who knows how long it will take to be effective. Some people say 1 day, others say 2 days. Others say several days or a few weeks. We'll see.

 

Fairmountain,

I think I forgot to answer you about sadness. Sadness is tricky. In some ways it's easy, and in others it's difficult. Sadness saps my energy, sometimes. Or if the sadness hasn't sapped my energy, my energy is quickly sapped by doing some hard physical activity briefly. It's weird how it works. A sluggish feeling can result from that state. I just have to ride it out and try not to react to it. Also, anger is often hanging around, ready to pounce, when I'm like this. I feel fatigued, so I usually am slow to reaction. At least, I try to be. But if something stressful persists, I'm more susceptible to reacting with anger. It's like I push through sadness, so as not to show it, and anger is my defense against showing it, or maybe against showing vulnerability. I'm dealing with insecurity this PP, so all of this ties in nicely with insecurity. It's difficult to be vulnerable, but I do my best to allow myself to be. I don't know if I'm good at it or not, to be honest. lol

When I get fatigued like this, usually I'll take it easy, maybe be a little lazy. That could be a reaction, honestly. I don't know. But I'm very tempted to go to the gym today and work out, because that's exactly the opposite of what I'd usually do in this state. I don't usually work out. I'm a tall, skinny guy. It's difficult for me to build muscle. And I've never had good endurance. I think all of my endurance (energy) is trapped in a holding pattern of anger that I've suppressed. I'm very scared of anger/rage. And when I feel it, it's not easy. I'm doing my best to just let it be, but it's very difficult. I wish I knew which was the loving way to deal with sadness and fatigue--to take it easy or to be active. Oh well... I'll feel my way through it, as usual, and move through to completion, eventually.

 

He, guys, now that we're heating up the posts, Bette Davis said "Growing old is not for sissies."
But she didn't mention one of the worst parts... I'm 84 and can't cum anymore.
That used to be so relaxing.

 

I watch some self-hypnosis videos on YouTube, for relaxation and sleep, and find them helpful.

 

Relaxation--that's what my addiction to masturbation and porn was about. I figured that out eventually, but figuring it out didn't help me any. lol

Simply put, I wasn't happy with my emotional state, so I would change it with masturbation.

Now, I'm okay with whatever emotional state I'm in, but I'm sometimes not sure what's a reaction and what's a response. That can get tricky.

 

If you haven't read The Art of Integration by Michael Brown, you might consider it. I'm only two chapters in and I'm finding things that The Presence Process didn't mention. For instance, it cuts right to the core of the issue of us feeling needy, then wanting to go get attention from the world as a consequence. It talks about a child coming to his parents to tell about what he did, and that the child wants his joy reflected back to him. But when parents can't do this for the child, the child feels needy, because he's still looking for acknowledgement. When he grows up, the need will build and he'll seek that acknowledgement elsewhere in many different seemingly unrelated ways. The solution MB gives is to always tell ourself first when we do something impressive. Praise ourself with loving acknowledgement. This gives us the felt-resonance we were seeking as a child. This calms the desire to gain attention from others, because we're finally giving it to ourself. Our parents could only reflect back to us. They were never meant to give us this sense of wholeness. That's for us to give ourselves. The best they could have done is model it, really. But it's still our responsibility to do this for ourselves. Which is why there's no sense in blaming our parents for anything.

I really enjoyed that insight. I think that will help a ton, especially since I'm dealing with insecurity right now. Great timing. I think I had the idea that it was selfish and self-centered and arrogant to praise myself. So I would try to hide my desire for acknowledgement from others as a means of getting that need met. I feel like I've just given myself permission to be joyful and appreciate myself now. That's pretty cool.

The Art of Integration is described as a companion book to The Presence Process. Here's a link to it: The Art of Integration

 

Thanks Brian, you put out a lot with plenty of insights. Whatever feels right is the way to go, though we might need time and experience to discover if it was a reaction or response. Here's my take on your last post. I think I felt needy, because I grew up lonely. My parents weren't there for me emotionally. The atmosphere at home was that of a war zone, between parents and between siblings. Unless you have conscious parents who are connected to themselves as well as source, it's going to hurt. I don't remember my pre, peri and post natal time or early years. But I was told I was separated from my mother at birth for a while. Anyway grew up quite shy and frightened. I suspect a lot of imprinting happened before much cognitive thinking could kick in, so that the sense of neediness, lack or 'grief', would have been felt energetically first, before talking began. A baby is helpless and vulnerable and therefore depends for life, physically and emotionally, on the quality of it's parents' attention and their connection to each other and God, love, spirit etc. This will all be pre-verbal and just felt, giving a sense of well-being and safety. In other words the search for acknowledgement, 'reflected joy', or love may already be a reaction to early trauma. I think in an ideal world our parents WERE meant to give us a sense of wholeness including holiness, by them being connected to themselves, each other and 'God'. This would have been fed, picked up and internalized by a baby/child. As we grow and become more conscious, life triggers our wounds, and we get the job as adults of re-parenting ourselves. We might also need a phase of 'blaming' our parents for doing a 'bad' job of it. Underneath blame of course there is layers of anger, hurt and fear, which needs to be felt, released, integrated etc. It was their job to be there for us, but they weren't for whatever reasons. Some people use the broken places to grow and heal, others never do. That choice is ours. We may get to a place of acceptance or even gratitude, that lovingly embraces everything that happened to us in our lives, because it was 'required'. There may be no 'sense' in blaming our parents, but if that voice perks up, it may need to be heard, before we can let go of it. I imagine, in any case, it's the baby alarm going off, asking for OUR attention. Not sure I need to praise myself. Praise and blame... two sides of the same coin??, though praise is nice of course. Rather the joy of doing something for it's own sake. Though I do often say to myself, quite spontaneously, "I love you sweetheart", as if I'm talking to my inner child. If insecurity/fear is coming up, I just try to gently be with it. It's hard to know, but sometimes adding more 'techniques' could be 'reactive' as in "this feels too much, I need a fix". Just some thoughts, what do I know? It's all very personal and you have to try things anyway. Whatever works! Lol.

 

Bruce, the Art of Integration is great. Thanks for telling us about the link.

 

Dom,

Thanks for the post. I'll have to respond a little more kindly later. I'm adding this to the beginning of this post after I posted it. I was feeling crappy when I posted before. Sorry about that. Defensiveness was coming up.

I tracked down all of those issues from my past years ago. Regardless of what my parents did or didn't do, I received their emotional imprints, and each of us must deal with those as part of our life's purpose. Blaming may or may not happen, because itks dependent on whether a person is in a victim state or not. Being humbled can move a person out of that state without them needing to go through it. However, it does seem that a lot of people go through that state, probably because the child in them usually blamed his or her parents.

For me, knowing what happened as a child didn't help me, because knowledge couldn't cure my hurt. Feeling is what I needed. Which is why I needed TPP.

Praise can be looked at as a way to give one's self unconditional attention. As a child, I wanted unconditional attention and didn't get it. We all do. If we had gotten it, it still would not teach us how to give ourselves unconditional attention, though. That's something we learn to give ourselves eventually. If I go win a world championship in racing, I don't realize I've done it for attention to feel loved. So the feeling I get fades and I'm again left wanting. Everything I do,or everything my heart manifests for me, is an attempt at me (my heart) getting attention. If I'm giving myself that attention and praise, reflecting my own joy back to myself, then that desire fades and I naturally begin to feel loved. My wanting isn't necessary anymore, because I'm giving myself what I always needed.

Maybe that's a better way to explain it.