The Presence Process - Share Experiences & Ask Questions

Thanks Brian! I definitely don't feel accused, and you bring up some very interesting and surprising points, which, along with this Presence Process, brought up some interesting memories.

Weird, but my first instinct/response was to say I hadn't experienced anything particularly traumatic, but then started to look back over things and was almost surprised to see the 'list' - two of my older siblings were physically/emotionally abused by our father, (my third sibling I and were too young, and were not targets) before our mother left with us; I was born with a kidney/bladder defect that required surgery at the age of three, so was often sick with bladder infections/high fevers before being diagnosed, and underwent a number of uncomfortable and invasive tests before and after that involved being restrained; I was involved in a sexual assault (not rape, just attempted) at the age of 20 that ended up going to trail; later that same year, I got run over by a dump truck that left me with extensive injury and scarring to my leg.

I'm not sure why I hadn't considered these events to be traumatic. I think I assume that because I've dealt with them, and am not actively struggling with them, then they are 'done'. I have always been able to face things and move past them, and I can see that there has been a payoff of praise for being 'strong' and cooperative and a 'good girl'. But I've also always been genuinely optimistic and able to look for and find the good in all situations. I don't feel traumatized by these events, and I've never identified myself as a victim. Outside of these isolated events, my life has been great, and I've had many wonderful, positive experiences.

But there are these niggling traits and behaviours that have kind of followed me all my life (those you described), and I have such a block that I've never been able to understand regarding feeling comfortable in an intimate relationship. I just assumed I was not very good at being vulnerable and loving, and that perhaps it just wasn't in the cards for me. Lately, I've been thinking that I would really like to try having a relationship again, but the thought always comes with a deep resistance/fear - I know I must be holding onto something that I'm not consciously aware of. But it's always felt like such a tangle of events and possible reasons that I couldn't even begin to figure it all out.

That's why this Presence Process really feels right. I don't need to know or revisit or dig up or endlessly journal about old memories of past events in order to process and integrate them - I can just allow the feelings and emotions to arise, love and accept them as they come, and move forward. That makes so much sense. And the body work of Peter Levine seems like it would be a great complement to the process.

Week three has begun with a welcome relief from that weird and intense feeling of loneliness and unidentifiable longing/need - I'm a little apprehensive but also kind of looking forward to seeing what the next opportunity for release will be! It's just like Michael Singer says in his book The Untethered Soul... he calls the pain and heat of the arising emotions the 'cleansing of the heart', and says we will learn to enjoy the feeling because we understand that we are permanently releasing/integrating that pain once and for all. Each little piece of fire and heat we allow and let go of is one less blockage in our hearts.

I say bring it on!

Thanks again for listening, sharing your feedback and observations, and allowing me to dangle all this personal stuff out there.

 

Hey, no problem, Hannah. That's great that you can talk about those issues openly. I'll be interested to see how processing the emotions effects you. It's always a treat to hear about how people are integrating issues.

 

Hi again... question for anyone who's gone through the Presence Process. I'm on Week 4 (I Feel Unconditionally), and I'm wondering what your interpretation is for:
* what interference regarding physical pain extends to - I get the not running to others for treatment/relief, turning to medications/addictions to numb, striving to heal/fix/block pain and discomfort, but do you think using things like herbal home remedies (arnica and a heating pad for sports injuries; herbal teas for colds, herbal supplements for that sort of thing) would qualify as interfering with just feeling and being with the discomfort?
* If indeed it should be with absolutely NO interference (thinking specifically of consciously used natural home remedies), how long to feel the pain and discomfort without any interference as above (i.e. for that week 4, for the entire 10 week process, or is it expected to be an ongoing forever thing?)

Still highly motivated to continue and complete the process, though I do wish the author included a few real life examples and scenarios for the perceptual tool applications.

 

Hi I'm on week 6 at the moment but I just have a couple of questions regarding the process. Hopefully someone can help out.
1) How is TPP different from mindfulness. As I understand in mindfulness you observe your feelings with no judgment, isn't that exactly what we do in TPP?
2) When Michael sais we sit with the feeling unconditionally, can we still show love towards that feeling or does unconditional mean just be there with no feeling at all? I was thinking if I felt a gentle love towards the unpleaseant feeling then that might mean I'm just swapping the feeling of love for the unpleaseant feeling and not actually integrating it.

I know in self compassion mindfulness it's all about feeling love and compassion towards your feelings so I'm sure it must be ok.

And thanks Brian for all your posts I've been slowly reading through all of them since 2009 I think on the other thread. Im on page 15 of this thread at the moment but it's good to see people going through the process.

 

HannahBee,

I apologize, the forum didn't tell me your message had been posted so I had no idea.

You have to decide on your own if you want to remove all herbal remedies to remove all barriers to feeling pain and symptoms. Personally, I believe doing anything about our medical conditions is a form of escaping the pain. However, having said that, sometimes, that's the only viable option a person has. Each person has to decide for their self.

I'd say it's an ongoing thing once you really understand that the pain is your friend and is trying to tell you something. There's another healing method that's Christian and has a few similarities with TPP. The creator of that method says that he's never been able to help a person deal with their underlying issues causing their allergies while the person is taking antihistamines. He said the people always had to get off of those first before he could help them resolve the underlying issues and get rid of the allergies for good. Antihistamines keep the body from attacking itself, so clearly there's some self-hate at play there, which means there's anger. So the antihistamine represses the anger that needs to be expressed so it can be gotten out of the way of the real emotions the person is afraid to deal with: fear and grief.

But again, each person has to decide for their self what's best for them. Each situation is different and the appropriate caution must be taken.

 

Carf,

Thanks for the post! Good to have you hear.

Unfortunately, I don't know much about mindfulness, but from the little I've heard about it, it sounds very similar to TPP but without the programming and intention aspects.

With TPP, we're literally attempting to program our subconscious by saying/thinking certain phrases over and over again. And we're also setting our intention in order to set things in motion. Those would probably be the main differences.

In TPP, we're supposed to have unconditional love and thankfulness for all the emotions we feel, no matter how uncomfortable they are. The hope is that we will end up not preferring one emotion over another, meaning we will enjoy uncomfortable emotions just as much as comfortable emotions. And a more ultimate goal is that those uncomfortable emotions will integrate, eventually, changing into comfortable emotions that help us push on rather than hold us back. Though when you're happy with even the uncomfortable emotions, those won't hold you back at all. In fact, they're quite exhilarating once you really understand they're there to help you.

I'm not that great at TPP, honestly, but I keep up the practice of being thankful for all of my emotions and loving them unconditionally without judgment. That's been the most valuable thing I've learned to do in TPP. It's made it to where I'm no longer afraid of any emotions anymore, which means I don't have emotional breakdowns anymore. Pretty cool stuff.

Good luck! I look forward to hearing more of your experiences with TPP.

 

i'm in my second round of TPP. and at the moment i am stymied.. and i thought Michael Brown had a forum re his book. i found this forum.. here's my quandary;
in wk 9, 'i love myself unconditionally'; pg 222, nxt to last paragraph it says, re; parents/ family/ loved ones from our past; "we perceive them "in the light" of what they authentically are: the ones who loved us enough to take on the painful roles of reflecting our unintegrated charge so we have the opportunity to perceive, unconditionally feel, and integrate it." my confounded-ness here is this; is he saying my family of origin only reflected pre-existing un-integrated charges? all along before this it seems clear that Michael is saying that we received imprints of un-integrated feeling resonances.. to me, receiving an imprint and having one reflected are very different.. can anyone here clarify/reflect on this?

 

Dragonwing,

Thanks for the question, and good to have you here.

Think of it like this: we are born to our parents and get all of their unintegrated charges/issues passed down to us. So these are all pre-existing. Generally, that's what they're going to reflect back to us.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean that we can't pick up new issues. And it doesn't mean they can't reflect those back to us either. Anyone can reflect things back to us.

It doesn't really matter, either way, though, because all we care about is that we see what's reflected back to u and we deal with it. We're not concerned about other people's charges. That's their business and has nothing to do with us. And who knows if we get all of our parents' charges or not. We just deal with whatever comes our way.

Hope that helps!

 

UPDATE

I just realized something very important yesterday that I've been missing with TPP. I don't think the book ever says to do this, but it should have. When you're doing the daily meditations, you should bring up the feeling of love/thankfulness. This will condition you to constantly sit in that resonance. Even if an uncomfortable emotion or feeling surfaces, you keep that feeling of thankfulness and love and just direct it toward the uncomfortable feeling.

TPP says to forget about your body and do nothing if any of the uncomfortable emotions or feelings arise, besides the normal breathing and saying "I am here now in this" in your head. But it should have said to also keep that feeling if thankfulness and love surfaced and direct it toward anything uncomfortable.

Throughout the day, TPP says to do that when uncomfortable emotions arise, but you also want to focus on keeping that thankfulness and love surfaced as much as you can during the day so that eventually you feel it all day long. That's part of what the breathing practice is for...to condition yourself into holding that resonance perpetually. It has amazing benefits for us emotionally and physically (health). It will speed integration for certain. And it'll keep you engaged in the present moment a lot better, too. So try to do it as much as possible.

If you don't know how to make that feeling surface, just think of a person (or people) that you truly love and are thankful for. Personally, I picture hugging God in the form of Jesus, and/or my son, my wife, my inner self (inner child, the child-of-God me, the real me). When you do this with the intent to feel thankful for them and loving toward them, you'll feel the emotion surface that's thankful and loving. Those feelings feel the same to me. It's especially important to direct that love/thankfulness toward your inner self when you don't feel well, as well as just randomly thoughtout the day.

Being in that resonance as much as possible is a game changer. If you forget a lot, just put an alarm reminder in your phone to go off several times a day to remind you.

You know, it's weird how you can do something for so long and miss something so important about it. I'm thankful it occurred to me finally.

 

Excellant idea Brian! Thanks

 

Hey, good to see you, Hardwired!

You know, it's funny...I've been working at this stuff for years and I'm finally getting down to some of the main issues of unconditional love with myself. It's taking for freakin' ever with me. lol But that's to be expected with my personality type. I'm just glad I'm finally making progress in that area.

Get ready for some potential world-changing stuff October 3rd. Looks like things are about to change for the better. I won't say anything right now--just have to wait and see.

 

That's awesome buddy!!! I'm happy to hear you're working things out. I'm much older than you and feel I still have a good bit of work to do. lol Now you've really got my interested with this Oct 3 post!!! If the anticipation kills me that's on you man! lol
Care to give any hints? ha ha

 

Well, here is not the place to discuss it, honestly. Best to just wait and see if something big happens on Oct 3rd. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but it's coming soon. And ya can't miss it once it happens. The anticipation is killing me, too, so you're not alone.

 

Ok then. I’ll be a good sport and practice my patience. Thx for the heads up.

 

Deleted to stay on-topic. Peace out.

 

I am so tempted to dig deeper, but I won't for reasons I already stated
Something is brewing, that's for sure. Let us just hope that whatever happens, the world becomes brighter from it.

 

I deleted some of my comments because this isn't the forum for them, like I mentioned before, and because the one person here who has a past issue with me is trying to use those posts to get me banned. So I won't be posting off-topic like that again.

 

Wish I had copied what you had written. I wanted to review it. Email it perhaps?