The Presence Process - Share Experiences & Ask Questions

[BrianC]

Boston,

Did you meant to reply to Fairmountain or me?

If you were speaking to me, no worries. I don't try too hard. TPP is easy for me and I really don't add hardly anything to it.

Having said that, I figure you were probably talking to Fairmountain rather than me.

 

[Dom]

Nice vids fairmountain. The 'life is a meditation' is of course similar to MB's emotional body awareness and other 'practices', which is basically being with what is.
The video on addiction and compulsions rings a bell, as I notice myself relapsing into food cravings (chocolate, crisps), or spending too much time on the internet, which is soo easy for me to do.
Willpower and mental resolve to quit something doesn't get me very far, before I'm hooked again. I know there's something behind it I need to keep feeling, as these are effects I guess, patterns of sedation. Boredom and loneliness come to mind, as I numbed out a lot as a child with TV, sweets, and later reading.
My mind wants to understand and figure everything out, it's so strong, which leads to confusion. This is control, wanting to feel safe, driven by fear. So hard to trust life, that's it's taking care, that I'm loved and safe and that whatever's happening is 'required' and doesn't need fixing.
I'm on round 2, week 9, loving myself unconditionally. Great stuff about our 'unconscious definition of love' and how I've mostly felt after a relationship has ended, which has been abandonment and betrayal. So this chapters focuses around the emotion of grief, the heartbreak.
One thing I don't get or feel resistant to, is the exercise of feeding ourselves the resonance of the 'thing' we feel we lack. I understand the point behind it, but it seems like a doing, rather than just feeling the lack or what is. I think it's just a little side-dish anyway to try out or not.

 

[Fairmountain]

Thanks for sharing that Dom.

I found this quick practice to help a lot when it comes to separating the story from the sensations. I found that if I am speaking to the sensations it somehow helps removes the context of the story. Anyway yeah hope that helps some - it resonated for me just thought I would share it with the group.

 

[BruceMC]

I notice after doing one cycle of TPP that I can recollect my dreams a lot better. That's enlightening sometimes, rather than being painful.

 

[Boston Redsox]

Boston,

Did you meant to reply to Fairmountain or me?

If you were speaking to me, no worries. I don't try too hard. TPP is easy for me and I really don't add hardly anything to it.

Having said that, I figure you were probably talking to Fairmountain rather than me.

No it was you.

 

[BrianC]

Hey man read a lot of your experiences with TPP over the course of this tread and one around June. I googled it to see if I could find some more information about it.

I think it might help me having an avenue to express and talk about my experiences as well. At the moment I moved in with my parents to do 'inner work' and completed my first 10 weeks. I did not fallow the process specifically and only took aspects of it to combine with some of the other 'teachings' I have been using.

Great to have you in the thread! Can't wait to hear your experiences. And thanks for the videos! I'll check those out.

That's interesting that you're using pieces of multiple methods. You'll have to let us know how that works out for you.

BODY PAINS
So far, my pains haven't been very bad at all. I imagine you've read most of my experiences with pain since you've read my two threads. Sometimes I'm not aware of the emotions integrating and other times I am. The really powerful integrations are when I laugh and cry at the same time and my heart feels like it's burning in my chest. That all feels wonderful. I love those integrations. It sounds like you do about the same thing I do. I just ask how the pain makes me feel emotionally and on the felt resonance level whenever it pops up. Then I allow the pain to be there unconditionally. Sometimes, if the emotion underlying the pain comes up, I'll imagine a little kid in my head who's experiencing that emotion and I'll talk to him lovingly and hug him. That really helps the emotions surface for processing. Sometimes, I imagine a kid with the physical pain and speak to him and for him about how it feels. I pretty much just feel my way through it like anyone else. We can't really go wrong. Whatever happens is required, or course.

WANTING TO GET RID OF EMOTIONS
I know what you mean about wanting to "get rid of these emotions." Part of me wants to get rid of them, too. But now that I know I just have to be with them unconditionally, I just keep up the TPP and be with them as best I can when they surface. That's really all I can do, so that must be what's required right now. It always seems to work out in the end.

I don't much like feeling anger. However, some of the most awesome integrations have been anger integrating. Grief and fear aren't as tough as anger. In fact, sometimes I like grief. Fear, so far, hasn't been difficult. I think I have such a strong knowing that everything's going to be just fine that it makes it hard for me to dislike the fear--if that makes sense. lol I know for certain that God and Presence have everything worked out, so I find myself worrying about things less and less as emotional signatures integrate. Also, it probably doesn't hurt that I race. That requires me to take a car up to its limit, which can bring up fear. I've done that so many times and been with the fear that a lot of it has integrated. I've also put myself in so many situations that are fearful that I just basically got used to feeling fear. One way I trigger my insecurity is to submit parts of my young adult urban fantasy book to a sci-fi writers group. When I take my stuff to other young adult authors, they really like it. But an adult sci-fi group is full of over-analytical, hypercritical people who read super-greeked-out sci-fi. In other words, most of them don't know my genre and don't like it, so they really tear it apart. And it happens in person in front of like 20 other people. lol That seems to really trigger my insecurity, which allows me to be with it unconditionally. I like to trigger emotions for surfacing. Fear doesn't seem to really affect me much. I do some dangerous things. Everyone's different, though. Some people just need to be with the fear for a while until it integrates, then they become more courageous. Everyone will feel it out for their self.

In my opinion, fear is at the base of all grief and anger. So, when I feel fear or grief, I ask, "What's the fear underlying this grief (or anger)?" Then, eventually, the fear will surface. Maybe not immediately, but maybe later that day or in another breathing session. Who knows. But eventually, the fear will surface and integrate. If it doesn't, I just have to wait for the right triggering event to bring that situation about so the fear will surface. It'll work out eventually. Mostly, we have to trust ourselves and Presence.

I can't tell when I'm suppressing sometimes either. I did it so much when I was a baby, it just became natural and instant. I pretty much just destroyed my emotional awareness back then. lol It's slowly resurrecting from the dead now, though, thankfully.

Doing the 0:30-1:00 baths can be very difficult. I've done up to 45 minutes before. Also, I for about four weeks, I did approximately 20-30 minutes a day in a hot bath. I noticed that I really got brought down into a depressed lull. Luckily, even when I'm depressed, I'm fairly happy nowadays. So, it didn't affect me too terribly much, but I will say that it was rough for me because of that. The "roughness" occurred for several weeks. That was my second 10 weeks. After the 10 weeks finished, I was still feeling bad for three more weeks. TPP says that you give yourself three weeks to finish integrating everything before you start another 10-week process. Sure enough, on that third week of rest, I came to the conclusion that spiritual parasites (demons) were attached to me emotionally and to the toxins in my body physically, causing me to hold on to these emotions and behaviors. So I commanded out the demons. Sometimes, it takes a few days for that to take effect--sometimes a week or more. Well, three days later, I had two or three integrations as a result and that ended my depression and my porn and masturbation addiction. Apparently, I needed those baths at that time to really bring out the emotions. Everything worked out eventually to resolve the underlying emotions of those behaviors. We can't go wrong with this stuff. Whatever happens is required.

Yeah, stories and images definitely aren't healthy for addiction. I sort of shut out all stories and addictions once I started TPP and just put my focus strictly on the emotions. I'll have to check out Scott Kiloby's videos and see what his approach is.

If you find that you're not quite getting the results you'd like, you might cut out everything you're doing and just do TPP by itself. TPP recommends doing the bare minimum of TPP and nothing else so we don't accidentally burn ourselves out, get discouraged, and then stop doing TPP altogether. But only you know what you can handle, so you'll be able to gauge what's too much or not enough. I can only really speak for TPP right now since I have a lot of experience with it. But maybe Scott's stuff is good, too. Thanks for sharing the videos. And thanks for sharing your experiences!

So, which parts of TPP are you doing?

 

[Boston Redsox]

I am just reading it cover to cover....not doing the breathing as per the tpp but i am doing mindful mediation without the mantra

 

[BrianC]

I notice after doing one cycle of TPP that I can recollect my dreams a lot better. That's enlightening sometimes, rather than being painful.

That's pretty cool, Bruce. That happened to me with one particular dream that had some insight in it.

 

[BrianC]

I am just reading it cover to cover....not doing the breathing as per the tpp but i am doing mindful mediation without the mantra

Cool.

Hey, you once said you'd been to the PP forums. Could you share the address? I haven't been able to find them.

 

[BrianC]

No it was you.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I do the bare minimum of TPP, but I add just a little to it. I'm having a blast with TPP! Heck, if there were more I could do, I'd do it. Well, I take that back. I could do more bath sessions, but I don't because I don't feel I really need them right now. But I did something like a 45 minute or hour long bath session a few days ago. I love breathing in the bath sessions. I can't say I've ever done too much for me since I've started TPP. I take it really easy in order to be good to myself.

Since I'm not feeling overwhelmed or having a difficult time, you might ask yourself why you got the impression that I was doing too much. Often, people get impressions of other people, but eventually they find out that they were actually just seeing their own issues reflected back to them in the world around them. What I discovered for me, personally, is that when I'm trying to help other people, it's a reaction to a helpless feeling that I'm not aware of. In the past, I've felt helpless, hopeless, and or worthless (like a victim), but I wasn't aware I felt that way. So I suppressed that feeling unconsciously by trying to help others. In some strange way, I thought that would redeem me. Make my life worth something. Make me feel better. But it never did. I helped people for so long that it finally caused my inner child to kick up a royal fuss, because I was neglecting it. It was like, "You can help these other people, but you won't lift a finger to help me? Well, I'll show you!" LOL And thankfully he did that. It got me into 12 Step as a start, and eventually, I left that and moved on to other things and found TPP.

As for you feeling like you were having to try too hard with TPP... Hmmm... That's a tricky one. For me, I'd first cut out everything that I was doing besides TPP that wasn't 100% necessary. This includes running too many errands during the day, or whatever other things I'm doing that aren't necessary to be done quickly. If necessary, I would drop down to the bare minimum of TPP (breathing & reading), and I would ask myself why I feel that I'm "trying" rather than "doing." I should elaborate on that. When I feel I'm "trying" too hard, it means I'm judging my experience, usually, and trying to cover some emotion (usually worthlessness and/or hopelessness and/or helplessness). It means that I think I'm not doing enough, so I'm pushing myself to do more to make up for it and to overcome that feeling. It means I'm expecting more results than I'm getting, too, which is setting myself up for failure and self-sabotage. So, I always continue my TPP work no matter what I'm feeling, because the reason those feelings are coming up is because of the TPP work. If I bail out on TPP when I feel something, then I don't get to process it.

In my opinion, if you felt you were having to try too hard, then you were doing TPP correctly, and it was bringing up that emotion for you to integrate. Once that emotion integrates, then you won't feel like that anymore and TPP will seem much easier. That's just my take on it. I could be wrong. I'm sure you can feel it out for yourself.

I can't say why you got the impression that I was doing too much, but I'm sure you'll figure it out, eventually. I appreciate your concern. Sounds like you're doing well with your reading and meditation! Good luck!

 

[BrianC]

One thing I don't get or feel resistant to, is the exercise of feeding ourselves the resonance of the 'thing' we feel we lack. I understand the point behind it, but it seems like a doing, rather than just feeling the lack or what is. I think it's just a little side-dish anyway to try out or not.

I got the same impression of the "feeding ourselves the feelings we lack." What I understood MB to be saying is that we use that method to decrease emotional drive toward dysfunctional behaviors. In other words, it's just one possible way to help integrate emotions. If someone's already integrated their dysfunctional emotional charges, though, they won't have a use for this feeding technique.

 

[BrianC]

Thanks for sharing that Dom.

I found this quick practice to help a lot when it comes to separating the story from the sensations. I found that if I am speaking to the sensations it somehow helps removes the context of the story. Anyway yeah hope that helps some - it resonated for me just thought I would share it with the group.

Edited:

I responded to your statement about speaking to the emotions earlier, but I hadn't watched the video yet. Now that I've watched it, I see that this is a little bit different method than I thought you were talking about. I can't say I have any experience with this particular method.

Before I started TPP, I was intuitively starting to piece together a method for healing, and it included different pieces of what I had done in the past, as well as some things I was coming up with on my own, sort of. I was evolving methods I'd used on others or used myself. Speaking to my emotions was a big part of that, but I was doing it differently than this lady's doing it. I would imagine the emotions were a little kid, and I would speak to myself from that kid's perspective. Then I'd speak back to the kid, as myself. I'd just have a very loving, compassionate conversation with the emotions, allowing the kid to express his emotions as best he could. This worked great for helping emotions to surface and start processing.

One time, for a few days, my knees were starting to consistently hurt for no apparent reason. I figured out it was guilt, and I laid around and did nothing for a day to build the guilt. LOL Boy, my knees started hurting really bad at that point, and I got incredibly frustrated. That's when I went and talked to those surfacing emotions very lovingly, as if they were a child. And I let them talk to me, as well. Within about 10 minutes, I went from very unhappy and frustrated to crying happy tears and feeling great. My knees immediately stopped hurting. While I did integrate some of my guilt that day, I knew I'd need more to use with that tool if I were going to integrate all of my dysfunctional emotions. Eventually, I found TPP and started it. I still use this method with TPP sometimes to help emotions surface and integrate. In fact, TPP recommends a similar method, but it's just picturing a little kid with those emotions then hugging him or her, and being with him or her unconditionally.

I checked out the other videos too--Scott's videos. He understands awareness, so that's good. And I think his stuff is probably good for an introduction into awareness to help people see that the emotions and felt-resonances are the real issue, not the outer circumstances. For me, when I started TPP, I'd already realized the emotions were the causal point, so I shut out all stories. I went straight to the emotions and sat there. Great place to be. And I sit with my emotions and felt-resonances periodically to feel what's going on in my body, too, as he's suggesting. MB has audio on his website called One on One which is kind of similar to Scott's stuff. It leads a person into feeling the felt-resonances and emotions they contain.

Thanks for the videos!

 

[BrianC]

I am just reading it cover to cover....not doing the breathing as per the tpp but i am doing mindful mediation without the mantra

Oh, I'm sorry for the miscommunication. I was actually asking that question to Fairmountain. That entire post was to him/her.

 

[Dom]

Interesting, all the insights. I've been aware of EFT, but not drawn to it. Whether the tapping or words are crucial elements, what I get is that it's a form of self-soothing, giving oneself some loving attention. I used to have inner child dialogues, not so much now, more just lovingly being together, which is also the heart and the feelings. I have a very large teddy bear though, that feels soothing to hug. I lean towards keeping it simple, just being with whatever's happening, and not add too much complication, which could be a form of resistance. While I'm doing TPP I try to toe the line and do the breathing with the mantra, but my natural inclination would be to 'just be' eventually, but staying present and aware. Or at least drop the mantra and keep my attention on my body...easier said than done! Sadly I haven't been able to do the water sessions (no hot bath) but hope to later. I've done some rebirthing, holotropic and neo-reichian breath work in the past, all very powerful. MB's connected breathing is basically a safe gentler derivative of rebirthing, that you can do at home. I still find movement, release and expression to be great tools, but I'm learning more about containment with TPP, just feeling discomfort rather than letting it out. Both has value, but generally in life there isn't the space to wail or rage, so learning to embrace and softly integrate, is a welcome skill and often goes deeper. I find my emotions can morph both very quickly and very slowly, shifting around from anger to fear to grief. Though like Brian says, I suspect the root demon is fear.
I still wrestle with the idea that every upset is a ghost from the past without exception. Is there no emotion that is a 'rational' response to present circumstances? Say outrage at some kind of abuse? Is everything just an externalized drama of what's unmet inside? Just ideas to explore really.

 

[BrianC]

Yeah, I like to keep it simple, too. I've been really intellectual enough in my life. It's a refreshing change to quiet my mind and just be with what is and run more on intuition. Helps a ton.

I've had a few instances where I had to move when fear manifested itself during a breathing session. But that only happened for a few weeks when I first started TPP. I could've completely contained it if I wanted to, but I felt I needed to be with the fear fully and let my body shake during those surfacing emotions. It integrated eventually. Other than that, I don't do the moving thing, really. I heard one lady talk about how it was really important that she not move during her breathing, because the movement was drama. So she forced herself not to move and a bunch of emotions came up as a result. That's why I typically don't move while I'm breathing. If I start crying, though, then I'll allow myself to move around, but only because I'm shifting into crying mode rather than breathing mode. We all just have to feel it out for ourselves like you're doing, Dom.

And I agree--fear is the root. There really are no other possibilities, at least not that I'm aware of. I can always be wrong, though, of course.

 

[Dom]

To be clear I don't combine movement with TPP breathing, I keep them seperate, but like many things they can complement and enhance eachother. In TPP Ccontext, it would be rightly seen as drama, in the context of free dance or bioenergetics etc it could be seen as self-expression. After all we are trying to get back to a natural state and babies and animals tend to let it all hang out, which our own inner child needs from time to time, as long as it's done in a fun safe way.

 

[Dom]

Funny, I was looking at the 'Temple of the Way of Light' ayahuasca website, and what do I find ? Michael Brown of course, which is what he's been up to recently.
http://templeofthewayoflight.org/shamanism-ayahuasca/causal-healing-and-emotional-integration/
A little intro on the place from bruce parry, if anyone's interested.

 

[Fairmountain]

Really interesting guys.

Dom,

Yeah I only use this technique at times I was not drawn to EFT either as I thought it was new age non sense. But it seems to help clear up emotional energies. I myself am dubious regarding my results with it...it works..but for some reason I still can't accept that it works because its so weird. Yet I continue to use it at times if I am stuck in the story. Like to mentioned its nice to view these things as tools, sometimes they are useful sometimes not. Also, I can totally relate to containment. There is a lot of fear that if I allow myself to be fully angry that I am going to explode on someone else.

Brian,

I can relate to what you have been talking about. Yeah we have basically been doing the same thing. Ultimately I have not been doing anything different really other then absorbing a lot of information about all this kind of work - which has helped but also tripped me up a bit. Simplicity is key regarding this stuff and I think I took on too much. I really like the child stuff you spoke about and I'm going to incorporate more of this into my practice.


Some insights to share,

I've noticed that there are some underlaying emotional states that are in the body all the time. I have cleared several of these in the past but just today I realized that there is an underlaying 'sadness' to everything that I do. Only when I become more present am I aware of this. Its odd because other emotions can come and go but this sadness is always there. There was also something very similar to this in the back of the throat for me several weeks ago. It was this constant feeling of doubt. So odd because this doubt was in layers in the back of the throat all the way up to the back of the nose. The energy seemed to be condensed in these energetic cones. As I sat with them (this took weeks) they disappeared. But I think the most interesting thing about these calcified energies is that they are there till they are not there. What I mean to say is that you might sit with it for a week without changes and then bam! It shifts. Then there is nothing there. Very weird.

Anyway I found these dense energies to be always present its just that I was numbing them out.

 

[BrianC]

To be clear I don't combine movement with TPP breathing, I keep them seperate, but like many things they can complement and enhance eachother. In TPP Ccontext, it would be rightly seen as drama, in the context of free dance or bioenergetics etc it could be seen as self-expression. After all we are trying to get back to a natural state and babies and animals tend to let it all hang out, which our own inner child needs from time to time, as long as it's done in a fun safe way.

Dom,

Oh, I understand now. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[BrianC]

Really interesting guys.

Dom,

Yeah I only use this technique at times I was not drawn to EFT either as I thought it was new age non sense. But it seems to help clear up emotional energies. I myself am dubious regarding my results with it...it works..but for some reason I still can't accept that it works because its so weird. Yet I continue to use it at times if I am stuck in the story. Like to mentioned its nice to view these things as tools, sometimes they are useful sometimes not. Also, I can totally relate to containment. There is a lot of fear that if I allow myself to be fully angry that I am going to explode on someone else.

Brian,

I can relate to what you have been talking about. Yeah we have basically been doing the same thing. Ultimately I have not been doing anything different really other then absorbing a lot of information about all this kind of work - which has helped but also tripped me up a bit. Simplicity is key regarding this stuff and I think I took on too much. I really like the child stuff you spoke about and I'm going to incorporate more of this into my practice.


Some insights to share,

I've noticed that there are some underlaying emotional states that are in the body all the time. I have cleared several of these in the past but just today I realized that there is an underlaying 'sadness' to everything that I do. Only when I become more present am I aware of this. Its odd because other emotions can come and go but this sadness is always there. There was also something very similar to this in the back of the throat for me several weeks ago. It was this constant feeling of doubt. So odd because this doubt was in layers in the back of the throat all the way up to the back of the nose. The energy seemed to be condensed in these energetic cones. As I sat with them (this took weeks) they disappeared. But I think the most interesting thing about these calcified energies is that they are there till they are not there. What I mean to say is that you might sit with it for a week without changes and then bam! It shifts. Then there is nothing there. Very weird.

Anyway I found these dense energies to be always present its just that I was numbing them out.

Fairmountain,

It sounds like you've discovered what TPP teaches--that the dysfunctional emotional charges are always there, but we're simply not aware of them.

As for sadness, there's always a fear beneath sadness. Do I fear I won't be happy again? Do I fear I'll never get something I think I'll need to be happier? Do I fear the feeling I'll have as a result of not being able to gain my parents' love or approval? All kinds of fears can drive sadness. Luckily, we don't have to figure it out. All we have to do is feel and be open to the answer when it comes.