The Presence Process Questions - Has Anyone Here Done It?

[BrianC]

Brian, yesterday I finished reading The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
and if I read it right, he wants everyone to make our life's goal sainthood.

I think I'm a pretty good person and practice the teachings of Jesus and the saints,
but to think about it every minute of every day I would have to live in a monastery.
I need to live in the real world, which is isn't easy.

Even Mother Teresa of Calcutta had a very hard time being a living saint
and I read that she had years of a "dark night of the soul" in which she didn't feel
the faith she worked so hard to achieve.

So how do we live more like Brother Lawrence and not be a monk?

Walt, your replies are always so thoughtful, clear, concise, and well laid out. That's wonderful!

First, I want to reiterate that The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence isn't designed to tell anyone how to get to God. It just shows Brother Lawrence's experience with it. It is meant to show the possibilities of what one might experience once they align with their authentic self, and thereby, God.

Brother Lawrence made connection with God WAY harder than it has to be, by the way. lol There's good reason for that. Brother Lawrence grew up in 17th-Century France with the Catholic church and its ideas of "sainthood" and "religion." The path he took, and the way he saw the world and stated things, was all influenced by those factors. And in my opinion, religion makes it WAY harder to get to God. Jesus even told that to the Pharisees. So, Brother Lawrence had those influences working against him.

Also, he had no training manual for connecting with his authentic self and God. He was flying blind. Had he been writing a How-To book, he would've said, "One must go through the painful emotions. Here's how you do that..." Once I realized that, I knew that Brother Lawrence's experience wouldn't direct me. Instead, it would only show me the product of authentic living.

In all of my years of experience and learning, my opinion is that The Presence Process is one of the best, quickest ways to achieve what Brother Lawrence achieved. It is an instruction manual that leads a person through each week of the experience of connecting with the true self. After that, connection with God is natural and easy. If a person is having trouble connecting with God, they have more emotional work to do.

Here's how I think we're built:

Physical Body
Mental Body
Emotional Body
Spiritual Body

The spiritual body is the deepest part of us--the authentic self. The emotional body is on top of that. The mental body is on top of that. And the physical body is at the very top. We are designed to experience life in that order, but as we grow up, we flip that around and experience life backward: first through the physical, then the mental thoughts, then the emotions that come from that, then the spiritual. And that's okay, because that's how God wanted it for our development.

Now, imagine that we experience the world with our physical body first. Then we process that with our mind. But when we get to the emotions, they've been heavily suppressed--cut off. Well, how do we expect to get down to our spiritual body (our authentic self) if we're missing the emotional level between the mental and spiritual levels? We have a void there, because we're all suppressing our ability to feel emotions, because we're scared to feel the painful ones.

Once a person faces the fear of feeling emotions unconditionally, they start connecting with their emotions. Presence/ God start bringing those painful emotions up, little by little, for us to process them so they start flowing. The more those emotions process and integrate into us, the more we start feeling our authentic joy and peace and love from our spiritual body (authentic self). We basically bridge the great divide between our spirit and our mental and physical bodies. That divide is the emotional body, and it's where we feel joy and peace and everything else. How do we expect to feel happy if we're suppressing our ability to feel? lol

It really is that simple. It's like our spiritual body is a wall outlet, and all we have to do is plug into it with our emotions to get power to come through them, and then through our mental and physical bodies, too. Life becomes energized with love, peace, joy, and laughter. Life becomes beautiful. The ability to feel everything is just awesome. There's so much wisdom underneath the emotions in the spiritual body.

The Presence Process is the best answer to your question of "How do we live more like Brother Lawrence without being a monk?" The question should probably be, "How do we feel more like Brother Lawrence felt without being a monk?" Actions (being a monk) don't matter. The heart will drive the actions by listening to the spiritual body. If I feel happy/joyful/content, I don't need to do anything dysfunctional, like drinking or drugs or sex, to feel better. I already feel good. So life ceases to become all about making myself feel better and turns into sharing my joy with others.

Sorry for the long explanation. Hope that helps! You're more than welcome to email me if you like. I'm not as good at stating things clearly and concisely as you are.

 

[tarala]

Hi Walt-- I remember reading Practice of the Presence of God about 20 years ago, and having the same reaction. I thought, he probably doesn't have three little kids clinging to his leg, lol.

 

[tarala]

My book has arrived. I almost cried when I read the dedication. "This book is for you." This may be a very emotional journey, but I'm ready.

I'm on Week 7 and I've barely stopped crying. I hope it's every bit as useful for you as it is for me, and I'm looking forward to hearing how you go.
Cheers,Terry

 

[tarala]

That was such a hard truth for me to discover and live in, because I love knowledge and the mechanics of things and figuring things out. I made my mind “God,” in a sense, because deep down, my heart was very scared in its immaturity. So my heart hid, like a small child, and my mind (and ego) took over as the protector.

Yes, same here. I've always been very analytical, calm and rational. Except when I was being nuts of course ....

 

[tarala]

For a little while, I believed that I just needed to correct an untrue belief from the past to “fix” my emotions. What I discovered is that I was punishing myself by constantly seeking to “fix” myself.

What I meant about feeling confused is that in the past, my correcting untrue beliefs has seemed really useful. I've trained myself to question whether what I'm thinking is actually true, and to see what emotions it leads to. So sometimes in TPP when I'm just sitting with the emotion, it's hard not to slip into that behavior of checking the thought that preceded the emotion, finding out it's not really true, and feeling the emotion let go. I'm going with the idea that that is a temporary fix, and stuffed emotions from childhood will continually rise if not embraced as in TPP. But it's hard. At least now I'm finding that I'm beginning to switch over to finding more ease and comfort in presence than I have been in my mental world. I guess that sounds obvious, but to me the mental world helped me avoid the discomfort of emotions.

 

[tarala]

It's weird how we start out Week 7 saying "I AM safe now" then double check it and say, "Oh, I mean, I FEEL safe now." lol When I was saying, "I AM safe now," it didn't make sense to me. I "feel" safe now made sense when I corrected myself. It's like our ego wants to physically be safe (a "doing," sort of), but our heart just wants to feel safe (a "being").

Wow, good thing you pointed it out. I was having trouble with it too, now it makes better sense!

 

[tarala]

I'm feeling very guilty about having such long posts. lol I figure people will get upset at having to read so much. That's a stuck emotion I get to deal with now! Yea!

No, no, keep writing, I am getting so much out of them. I'm lucky to have someone a month or so ahead of me doing TPP. Give the guilt a little kiss and keep writing.

 

[tarala]

I'm finishing Week 7 ("I feel safe now") and have found it really hard. I think feeling unsafe, and the accompanying fear and anger is one of the hardest things for me. My meditations have become more scattered, and I've had an awful flare-up of sciatica. I had an alcoholic mother who would go into rages and throw things (physically unsafe); wake up the morning after an alcoholic breakup with a total fantasy story of what had happened the night before (mentally unsafe); and who thought any expression of emotion merited ridicule (emotionally unsafe).

However, I can laugh at the funniest "set-up" of all. Not only has my sciatica gone crazy, leaving me feeling unsafe in my body, but my car has become unsafe. It's a 1983 Mercedes, who lives outside, and is usually the safest car you could imagine. It never ever breaks down, and anything hitting it would crumple like a tin can. But now it has a huge colony of spiders living in the underneath of it. Not just any spiders, but redbacks, which are poisonous (rather like a black widow). I'm having a hard time remembering this is about my fear, and not about the spiders!

 

[BrianC]

Yes, same here. I've always been very analytical, calm and rational. Except when I was being nuts of course ....

LOL Awesome. I've been nuts a few times. You're in good company.

 

[BrianC]

What I meant about feeling confused is that in the past, my correcting untrue beliefs has seemed really useful. I've trained myself to question whether what I'm thinking is actually true, and to see what emotions it leads to. So sometimes in TPP when I'm just sitting with the emotion, it's hard not to slip into that behavior of checking the thought that preceded the emotion, finding out it's not really true, and feeling the emotion let go. I'm going with the idea that that is a temporary fix, and stuffed emotions from childhood will continually rise if not embraced as in TPP. But it's hard. At least now I'm finding that I'm beginning to switch over to finding more ease and comfort in presence than I have been in my mental world. I guess that sounds obvious, but to me the mental world helped me avoid the discomfort of emotions.

Oh, I understand completely. Knowledge was my safe haven for so many years. Some of my knowledge has helped me a little on the heart level...just a little. Mostly, knowledge has guided me in the right direction, and only given me a little bit of relief. I'm not sure if it ever truly helped my emotions any. I've basically experienced what you just described--the childhood emotions continuing to surface no matter how many lies I correct. My heart seems to retain those lies. It's like I've told my heart something logical out of fear of feeling what it feels, and it's an intent to suppress the emotion. It's like telling my heart, "What you feel isn't valid, because logically, that emotion came from a lie." I think it was my unfeeling way of telling my heart not to feel--not to do what it does. The thing about the heart, though, is that it doesn't care about logic. It feels what it feels, and it just needs unconditional love--for us to be with its emotions without condition (no attempts to change them or not feel them). I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, though.

 

[BrianC]

No, no, keep writing, I am getting so much out of them. I'm lucky to have someone a month or so ahead of me doing TPP. Give the guilt a little kiss and keep writing.

Well thanks for that. I appreciate it.

Oh, whoops. I was supposed to start week 2 of my second PP today and I completely forgot to read the text and start the new response. lol Met with a friend this morning and threw my schedule off. Plus, I'm sick. My anger tends to affect a few parts of my body. It affects my gut via shame, which blocks the circuit/meridian my gall bladder is on. My sinuses go crazy because of that circuit being blocked, too. It affects my lungs, too, which wakes me up consistently at 3-4am, and I get unrestful sleep (assuming I can fall asleep) till 6am when I get out of bed. My anger/frustration also resonates in my head at the level of my eyes, ears and nose. So, I feel that resonance while I'm sick like this, too. Sometimes my gut will hurt just a tad, and sometimes my gall bladder. I'm going to let it be for now, but tonight, I plan to take a Benadryl to stop the sinus drainage and get some sleep so I'm not out of commission for another couple of days. The resonance is causing me to get sick, but I don't mind too much. I just know that it's hard on my wife and son when I'm completely out of commission with an illness. Since I finished my first 10-week PP, I've taken Benadryl once, and just as the book says, medications are a lot stronger. That's all I needed.

This time, dealing with my addiction may well make me sick several times. lol That's okay. As long as I'm making progress, I'm okay with that. This 10-weeks will probably be tough. I'm not sure how quickly to reduce my addiction and go completely off of it (it's just porn and masturbation, but you'd be surprised how that can affect a guy mentally and physically). I'll be glad to finally resolve the emotional underlyings of it once and for all.

I took my 3 week break and I just started week 2 of my second PP, so I think I'm 6 weeks ahead of you. I suppose that would be helpful. Your posts are very helpful, too, since your experience is different.

 

[BrianC]

I'm finishing Week 7 ("I feel safe now") and have found it really hard. I think feeling unsafe, and the accompanying fear and anger is one of the hardest things for me. My meditations have become more scattered, and I've had an awful flare-up of sciatica. I had an alcoholic mother who would go into rages and throw things (physically unsafe); wake up the morning after an alcoholic breakup with a total fantasy story of what had happened the night before (mentally unsafe); and who thought any expression of emotion merited ridicule (emotionally unsafe).

However, I can laugh at the funniest "set-up" of all. Not only has my sciatica gone crazy, leaving me feeling unsafe in my body, but my car has become unsafe. It's a 1983 Mercedes, who lives outside, and is usually the safest car you could imagine. It never ever breaks down, and anything hitting it would crumple like a tin can. But now it has a huge colony of spiders living in the underneath of it. Not just any spiders, but redbacks, which are poisonous (rather like a black widow). I'm having a hard time remembering this is about my fear, and not about the spiders!

Yeah, that's a tough upbringing. I've always felt bad for kids who had to endure emotional or physical abuse growing up. That's partly why I helped people with MPD/DID for so long. Their stories are heart breaking and horrific.

My upbringing wasn't too bad. My parents are really nice. But they passed a lot of fear and avoidance on to me, and my dad was always coping by keeping busy with stuff instead of being really involved with the family.

Your fear is understandable, that's for sure. That's a pretty nasty spider nest! That's so interesting that it popped up on this week in particular. Very interesting how this process works isn't it? lol I'm guessing you're starting Week 9 about now. Good luck! Can't wait to hear what all happens!

 

[BrianC]

If I forgot to report, I did the ETT spiritual experience. It was interesting. It gave me almost the same happy, peaceful, funny feeling I had during the week of TPP when I integrated some anger that was resonating in my head. I didn't laugh for 15 minutes like I did during the integration incident, but there was still a lot of peace. I think that means so anger, or some other uncomfortable, stuck emotion integrated.

The ETT therapist said that I will probably have to do it several times to peel back layers. She said what happened during my session was more like one layer had been dealt with. I think she was saying I would have the full on spiritual awakening experience once all of the layers were dealt with properly. It was pretty cool. I take that as good confirmation that TPP works since it mimicked something TPP does.

I'm guessing the full-on spiritual awakening is similar to what I experienced when I was "born again" (when God dropped my shame), but even deeper. That feeling of freedom and peace and joy all the time was awesome. Had that for maybe a year or so. I just have to take it slow with TPP and eventually, everything should integrate and that joy and peace should be natural all the time. I'm okay whether it all integrates or not, because at least I finally know how to deal with emotions. I had no clue before.

Once I was born again, I prayed for wisdom, daily, for at least 2 years, kind of like Solomon in the Bible. Unfortunately, I didn't understand at the time that Solomon was a pretty awful king, made tons of awful decisions, and didn't really learn his lesson until the end of his life. lol In Ecclesiastes 1:18, he says, "Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." That's a multi-layered meaning. The first meaning is this: If a person trusts in wisdom/intellect to get them through life and seeks them fervently, they will go through tons of grief and pain, because that's not how a person gets to God--that's how a person attempts to play God. That's what Ecclesiastes is all about. The second meaning is this, though: If a person wants to learn true wisdom and heart knowing, they will have to go down through their own emotional pain to get to God, and many events in their life will set them up for learning all of that wisdom through experience.

In other words, one will have a rough life, but a lot of maturing and peace eventually if they pursue wisdom through the heart. I can attest to both of those personally. lol Wisdom and intellect are overrated, as I'm sure you know. The heart is where the real jewel of life hides, waiting for us to come discover it. It's such a beautiful and backward way of life than what we think is the real way to peace and the real purpose of life. God's funny like that.

 

[tarala]

I'm not sure how quickly to reduce my addiction and go completely off of it

Since it's not a physical addi ction (I mean like heroin or something, where cold turkey is pretty serious) it seems like even a bit will feed the addiction. That's part of the definition of addiction I think-- can't really do just a little bit. I think addiction experts like AA or NA say cold turkey. On the other hand, whatever works for you is the way to go. The truth is, we are all addicted. Looking for well-being anywhere other than source (as opposed to just enjoying) is pretty much what we do here on this planet.

 

[tarala]

Well Week 9 is proving interesting. It's always been true for me that on holidays my TMS pretty much disappears. I've never been too sure why- there's work, but I enjoy my work, don't work too hard and am well paid. My family is nice and supportive. I live in a beautiful place, with lots of free time. I usually go on holiday by myself, as I can take as much time off as I like, while my husband can't and hates holidays. Sometimes I go with my daughter or my sister, but they can't ever take as much time off as I can. Well, here I am in Hawaii with my husband and (adult) daughter, and still have TMS. I'm suddenly realizing how people pleasing I am around my husband. He's very nice, never critical or judgmental, and not particularly controlling compared to most people, so I don't know if any of it is his, but I am definitely aware of trying to keep him happy. Emotionally it feels like a little kid, trying hard to please and often getting it wrong.

 

[BrianC]

Since it's not a physical addi ction (I mean like heroin or something, where cold turkey is pretty serious) it seems like even a bit will feed the addiction. That's part of the definition of addiction I think-- can't really do just a little bit. I think addiction experts like AA or NA say cold turkey. On the other hand, whatever works for you is the way to go. The truth is, we are all addicted. Looking for well-being anywhere other than source (as opposed to just enjoying) is pretty much what we do here on this planet.

I was in Recovery (12 Step, like AA and NA) for 2 1/2 years. For addictions like this, they always recommend getting off of them cold turkey, which is what I did before. But a few years before Recovery, I used a more natural way. I talked to God as much as I could think to do so, then I changed the way I did my addiction. I noticed that I was doing the addiction less and less. And then, I eventually just didn't do it at all. I kind of just forgot about the addiction, and it stopped. It was interesting. Part of me thinks that I might have been replacing the addiction with talking with God. lol I'm not really sure. I managed to go three months before the addiction came back again.

This time, I'm kind of feeling my way through it. I started by doing my addiction less. And so far, as I do it less, I'm not wanting to do it as much, because I'm dealing with the emotions that cause it at the same time. So, the frequency at which I do it is spacing itself out more than I originally planned. So, it's happening naturally. It's just slipping away slowly, effortlessly.

Now, the tricky part will be with my wife. She's very understanding, though, so she'll have no problem working with me on this one. I'm going to take Michael Brown's advice from one of his interviews regarding sex. He says that to a guy, sex and a woman become like a vehicle to reach orgasm, basically. So the guy just tells his wife, "You'll be the one to initiate sex now. So, whenever you feel you want sex, let me know. I'll make sure you're completely fulfilled in that arena, but I'll restrict myself from having an orgasm." He says when you keep doing this, the mental body says, "Well, if sex isn't to get an orgasm, then what's it for??" And eventually it figures out that sex is to give love to a woman and make her feel safe to express herself fully. That's the best I can recall what he said. So, there's eventually a mental shift during an integration, I'm assuming, so that a guy can then experience sex in a healthy way as it was intended to be experienced. A guy can do with out it at that point, too, because he's not trying to use it to make himself feel better.

Also, he says sex is a tool for integration, because it's a high. The next three days after sex will present some lows that a person can integrate. Interesting concept. But he says intimacy work is the bottom of the barrel--the last thing a person deals with. Unfortunately, it relates to my addiction, so I can't save it for last. That's confusing for me, because I'm wondering if I'm skipping ahead. lol That's okay. It'll all come out in the mix, I'm sure.

 

[BrianC]

Well Week 9 is proving interesting. It's always been true for me that on holidays my TMS pretty much disappears. I've never been too sure why- there's work, but I enjoy my work, don't work too hard and am well paid. My family is nice and supportive. I live in a beautiful place, with lots of free time. I usually go on holiday by myself, as I can take as much time off as I like, while my husband can't and hates holidays. Sometimes I go with my daughter or my sister, but they can't ever take as much time off as I can. Well, here I am in Hawaii with my husband and (adult) daughter, and still have TMS. I'm suddenly realizing how people pleasing I am around my husband. He's very nice, never critical or judgmental, and not particularly controlling compared to most people, so I don't know if any of it is his, but I am definitely aware of trying to keep him happy. Emotionally it feels like a little kid, trying hard to please and often getting it wrong.

That's interesting. Yeah, if home triggers you, and holiday (vacation) is away from home, then I'm guessing that's why you didn't get triggered before. That's awesome that you're getting triggered now! I love that! It means TPP is working properly. It means you're more courageous at letting your emotions come to the surface! Nice. That's a great sign.

When I worked with abuse victims, it was very common for them to be people-pleasers to get love. When a child doesn't know how to love him or her self, then the child will turn to seeking love outside of him or her self. So people-pleasing becomes completely natural. I know that's what I did for most of my life. I recognized it early on, and at times, I would lessen the amount that I did it. But I was playing with a symptom, not the core issue, so if I had any success tinkering with it, other issues probably popped up elsewhere. Heck, when someone I really admired would get upset with me, I would have HUGE shame attacks that would cause me a major meltdown, practically. It rarely happened, of course, but when it did...it sucked. I was avoiding feeling that meltdown of shame toward myself. That self-hate. That feeling of abandonment. It was rough. I'm wondering when and if that feeling will pop up again for integration during this process. I hope it does. That'd be a great one to integrate. I need to put it on my 40-day one-on-one list. Maybe I can dredge up the old emotion and start being with it.

Glad to hear you're making good progress!

 

[BrianC]

I think I'm going to start a new thread called "The Presence Process - Share Experiences & Ask Questions". For those of us going through it, we can share our experiences and ask questions. For those not yet having gone through it, they can ask questions if they're thinking about doing it. It'll be a fresh thread so there's not a ton of reading for them to do to catch up. And if someone's really interested, we can link them to this thread for extracurricular reading.

 

[BrianC]

Okay, I posted up the new thread here: The Presence Process - Share Experiences & Ask Questions

 

[tarala]

Hi Brian, I got confused with the new thread. Should I switch to that one?