PainfreeB,
Sounds like you're doing really well if you're feeling like crap. Congratulations!
That's what you're shooting for. Feeling crap means you're feeling authentically some of what's always been going on below the surface. Excellent!
REACTION & RESPONSE
It's completely normal to react to virtually every situation that arises. Remember that you have 56 years of training in reacting, and only a few weeks of learning that your goal is not to react. So you're right on track with everyone else that does this process. Never expect anything of yourself. Expectations turn into resentments, and there's no incorrect way to do this process. What I mean by that is that you can't screw up what Presence has laid out for you. No matter what you do, as TPP says, is required. When that truth is integrated, it'll drop all kinds of shame and fear and resentment toward yourself. You'll realize you've done exactly what you were supposed to your entire life and all of it was required for you to learn what you need to learn. So, there's no need to worry about doing something "right" or "wrong." There really is no right or wrong. There is only your experience as it unfolds and the lessons unfolding in it. Our goal is just to experience it as it happens--nothing more. Eventually, you'll start to see that you don't react sometimes. Then you'll see it happen a little more often, and a little more often. One day, you'll realize that you don't react nearly as often as you used to. But this takes a lot of time and integrations. When you sit in your breathing practice, the insights that come are useful. And the integrations will help bring parts of your hardened heart back into function. This builds willpower and strength and awareness. As you become more aware and have more strength to resist reaction, you'll start catching yourself more frequently. This is not a quick process so there's no rush and no expectations upon you. Just let it be and know that it's exactly as it should be. If you have any concerns, ask like you just did so some of us can let you know that we've been through basically the same thing.
FIGURING THINGS OUT
In my opinion, tracking things back is unnecessary. It seems that Michael Brown put that part of TPP into the process because he wanted people to see that the seven-year cycle and repeated triggering is real. Sure, tracking things back can have its uses, but keep something in mind--Michael Brown says to forget the story and just feel the emotions. In other words, the story doesn't matter. All that matters is the emotions you feel that are associated with the story. We actually have to break the association of the story with the emotions, because the emotions did not actually come from the story. The emotions were passed to us in the womb and installed during our first seven years of life. We got those from our parents, and they got them from their parents and so on. Our job is now to integrate those emotional dysfunctions to make them functional again. We integrate them into the whole of our heart so our heart can be whole again, which gives us tons of energy to use for productive things with loving value. I stopped trying to figure things out a long time ago. As the emotions integrate, the insight about the "why" usually comes. I also found out that I've been pretty much correct about most of the "whys" I concluded when searching them out over the years. That means that all of the mental effort I put into figuring these things out was unnecessary. All I needed to do was feel the emotions and upon integration, I would've gotten the insight instantly. lol It's not that I wasted my time before--I simply learned that thinking is the very slow route to obtaining information that insight could give me very quickly with little to no effort. And insight is always correct where as thinking about it can easily lead me to false information. But all of us go through that phase of trying to figure things out with our mind, so that's yet another one of those things we do so that we can learn it's not necessary.
You're on the right track. It's impossible not to be on the right track, really.
INSIGHTS
You'll get many insights throughout this process. There isn't just one. There is one very important one, and that is our unconscious definition of love. That insight is a feeling, just like all other insights, and it's what we feel when our romantic partner rejects us or when that relationship starts to sour and get stale. Our mate is designed to trigger our issues. In this way, they're one of the most important people for our inner development, so we're to be extremely thankful for them and their triggering. However, that's way easier said than done, especially in the moment. I still react to my wife and child sometimes instead of responding and I'm on my 4th PP. lol MB says there's this trend of people feeling like they've been reborn once they hit the 1 year mark from the time they started (he actually says the 9 month mark from when their first PP ended, but it's the same time period as I stated). So when this PP ends and the three-week integration period after it ends, I'll be at that one-year mark. I can't wait to see what shifts in me. It's like a 9-month birthing process when you think about it. Brings a whole new meaning to Jesus' saying "born again."
It's like we're going through a birthing process as we condition ourselves into this new way of living.
ANGER
Oh, and one more thing--anger is the hardest emotion to deal with. Makes this process very difficult. Ride it out. You'll be glad you did. Each time you ride out anger and do your best not to respond, you'll gain a little bit of ground on it and some of it will eventually integrate. It'll get easier. Eventually, you'll be pretty good at containing and integrating anger. Takes time, though. The goal here is to love yourself unconditionally, which means loving your emotions completely through total acceptance without any avoiding or repressing any of them with the reactions. It'll come to you eventually if you keep at it. It'll happen fairly naturally as it all unfolds.
So, no matter what you encounter, don't sweat it. It's completely normal and exactly what you require. You cannot go wrong. Let us know if you have questions. What we can do for you is show you different techniques we've tried so that you can better hone the way you do your PPs. That will make them more effective for you now and in the future.
Thanks for the share! Looking forward to hearing more of your experiences!
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