Category: The Peak Project

Oh lordy, there is so, so much unwinding to be done! I have made a start this weekend. It really does feel like sitting on a swing when you’ve wound the ropes round and round and round, and then you let go… It’s a whirlwind once the unwinding begins. No wonder we tend to keep on going in a wound up state… the unwinding is not a graceful process…

From contraction to decontraction. It can feel juddery can’t it? 

Sure can. It’s so physical.

I’m very happy. It’s Saturday midday, and I’ve spent the morning lying about on the lawn in the sun, consciously feeling my body unwind. I even did some stretching and blessed my stressed-out innards with a TRE session. Heavens above, if there were ever a miracle unwinding tool which gets straight to the gathered stress and trauma held in the body, it is TRE. It’s been a tough couple of weeks, without a stop and with a great deal of accumulated tension from teaching and studying mental ill-health. But all for good reason. And now learning to process out tension is part of what will make me a better practitioner in mental health.

I’ve been enjoying the ‘clean language, clean questions, clean thinking’ approach, and today came across this video which models it and also describes someone relaxing into stillness. I like it.

http://youtu.be/uCX8VpPgs2A%5D

Furthermore, I liked this video on learning to ‘hustle smart’ to work well and yet avoid burnout:

So I am am indeed unwinding… What should I bear in mind as I go?

Flushing out. Decontracting. Unwinding. They are all in the ‘motion: outward’ mode. Remind you of anything?

Emotion = E-motion = via the Latin: {Ex = out. Movere = move.}

Indeed. So, while this unwinding can be seen as a physiological process, it is helpful to remember that it is the emotional body which causes the contraction and the holding on. In contrast, the wild animal experiences a frightening moment, after which it lies down to tremble out (move out) the stress, and then gets up and skips on with its day. Only the human traps the experienced trauma/shock, causing it later to emerge as ‘e-motions’ whose messages are often ignored, so shocked is the person by (unexpected/unwelcome) outward manifestation of the escaping emotion!  

So, the message here is to remember to honour the out-marching emotions that might arise as you unwind – and to heed their messages. 

Yes! As I did the TRE on the lawn this morning, I didn’t feel much emotion come up… until I finally noticed that what was popping up was a sense of ‘meanness‘. This is classic because one of my major plumptons (preintentional speech phrases) is ‘Everyone’s so kind!’ Here in the TRE I was watching the arising of a sense of ‘Everyone’s so MEAN!‘ – unkind, ungenerous, miserly, spiteful, unfair. Ha, good to get it out! Simultaneously I was wondering about my own meanness. Have I been repressing or denying it?

Ask yourself: what is this meanness for?

Meanness is for defending ourselves when we feel vulnerable, fearful or impoverished.

Ok. Good. So meanness is about self-defence, though it can be experienced  by the receiver as active aggression. Right? 

So true. In that sense, the meanness of another can be considered less of a threat to me.

And it can be seen with compassion. 

As in: the politicians are mean because they are afraid their toys will be taken away.

If you like. Or: people are mean when they fear they will be reduced to nothing, because that is what their inner ego is threatening them with – devastation. 

This is why we have to ‘hustle smart’, isn’t it? So as not to be mean to ourselves on account of the same voice that makes us mean to others.

Right. Scarcity-thinking is the ego’s M.O. and it makes us mean to ourselves and to others. It makes us contracted so we feel we have to ‘hold on to’ that which we have. 

Whereas conversely an abundant mindset allows us to unwind, to let our emotions flow out of our systems, to give away the goodies, to be generous to the next person, to be kind to ourselves.

Spot on. So let’s unwind, in the spirit of abundance. 

I am unwinding – abundantly

This living cleanly and thinking cleanly, with ‘no junk added’ is such a good exercise in developing attention to the choices I make. What I consume, via eating/drinking or via listening/watching has a profound and subtle effect on my state. I really need to admit that I can’t hope to experience a consistently settled state of recovery, wellbeing and noiseless peace if I’m going to continue putting junk in the system. Just watching this phenomenon in me helps. And then building a list of junk and non-junk sources reminds me that I can flick from one to the either if I simply remember that I have the choice.

‘No Junk Added’- sources:

Thinking Cleanly:

• Waking up app, by Sam Harris (meditation and lessons)
• Insight Timer app (ditto)
• Books which uplift the soulCarefully-curated blogs/feeds (eg HD/Brainpickings/TED)

Living Cleanly:

• Nature
• Riverford boxes / organic food
• GF vegan cleanse
• More green and clean food
• Early nights

‘Junk Added’- my ‘preferred’ sources:

Thinking:

• News in general
• Twitter
• BBC Radio4 news
• Facebook/YouTube videos

Living:

• Processed food
• Alcohol
• Excess carbs and meat
• Skipping exercise

Your further thoughts on this? How can I increase my non-junk choosing?

By relaxing more, dear soul. It’s easier to shimmy towards high-frequency sources when you’re already in the relaxed, open, receptive mode. The taut, stressed, pointed, executive mode is mirrored in, for example, a non-specific spin through Twitter. Start soft.

Is this my route to moderation? I feel these days that my Aspie brain is sometimes become more turbo-charged, more like an impulsive creature, than less so.

You can be reassured, you are simply becoming more conscious of the impulses.

Sometimes, no, often… I simply bear witness ‘too late’ to my hand darting out, to take food, or pick up my phone. Where is my self-control? My self-regulation? I don’t enjoy the consequences of my impulsiveness. I have plenty of plans and intentions around self-moderation. Why the continued over-eating, over-distracting, numbing of thoughts by junk sources? Why do my emotions or impulses govern my weight and state?

You have been paddling at the shoreline of relaxation, stillness, collectedness, inner peace. It is not until you experience full immersion in the sea of deep peace that your spontaneous impulses start to ebb away. After full immersion in deep peace, not once but several times, your nervous system experiences full non-stimulation, full unravelling, full calm… and it recalibrates at last, replacing impulsiveness with steady, considered choice.

The impulsiveness is learnt behaviour borne out of a long-term experience of an ‘overstimulated nervous system’ (see Whatever Arises Love That by Matt Kahn). It’s hard simply to locate an internal ‘override’ button to press when knee-jerk reaction has (for good reason, precious soul) been the default response behaviour for a long time.

Full, deep, regular unwinding is what it takes to retrain the nervous system.

Oh heavens. How?!

Ha! What sweet lamentation! It is as if you’d been asked to climb a mountain, instead of stop climbing mountains! You have all the means at your disposal, dear friend. It’s about little and often at first, and planning some real stoppage time intermittently.

Retreat?

If you like.

‘Little and often’ unwinding, I think I know:

• Daily meditation
• QT (and this writing)
• Qigong
• TRE
• Nature walks
• Nothing days at home with my love
• Making a list and resting in it
• Early nights (without social media)

‘Real stoppage time’ – some ideas:

• Visits to the sea / hills
• Guided retreats
• Alpine holidays
• Quarterly holiday weeks
• Annual fortnight holiday

Let it come to you. The key is this: to make a commitment to learning how to unwind completely. Imagine a week of 8 hour sleeps. Imagine! How restorative for your body and mind! What would it take for that to happen? What amount of bodywork and breath work and meditation would you be looking at to discombobulate the body and mind?

I definitely want to start by booking some TRE retreat days with Deborah Maddison / Healing Space. Ooh, what about the Secret Garden?

Poco a poco, tia.

Ok, but, this: I hereby commit to discovering how to unwind and get immersion in the sea of deep peace. I commit to making a regular practice of this, and to allowing my working life and personal lifestyle to be informed and moulded by these practices. I release all old stress-dependent practices and habits, acknowledging that they foment my impulsiveness and an automatic, self-sabotaging, self-soothing response pattern. I invite deep inner peace to rise up in me and in my life, for the benefit of all. I commit here, now, to inviting deep, settled, balanced, harmonious, relaxed, receptive, unwound Inner Peace into my life.

Lovely.

I am inviting inner peace into my life

PS. Key word: ‘unwind’

The focus on being replenished by good energy has given me the benefit of resting my attention on ‘Good Energy Sources’ (sights, people, moments, conversation styles, inner states) and on the feeling of incoming energy. It’s been uplifting.

Simultaneously, I have felt ready to let go of some of my inner heaviness. I am ready to flush out the tension, the heaviness, the blockages, the held energy, the gripped feelings.

I am ready to flush myself out physically too. I’ve decided to try to give myself 5 days of Low-Carb Gluten-Free Vegan eating (from Sun evening to Friday evening), and just see what happens. My period’s due, so I feel bloated to bursting anyway, so hopefully I can just run with a good sensation of ‘letting go’ of the old.

What do you mean by ‘the old’?

The used up and depleted, but also the old paradigm energy stuff. For example, I’m now nearly 5 months sober, and I know (having just been present for a very boozy house party weekend) that the old version of me would have been swept away by the alcohol.

And the new paradigm you? 

Hm, I’m not sure I’m quite owning her yet… I am half way there with the things I’ve ‘given up’… but not fully, so maybe I’m not getting the full experience of…

Clean living? 

Maybe… What do you see going on in me?

Clean living. Clean living in various respects. We see you tidying up your thoughts (less negative, judging, ‘short-changing’, reductive or reactive thinking). We see you spring-cleaning old, chugged-up cupboards, habits and practices. That simplifying you were after for many months – it’s starting to happen. The streamlining of your life is looking more possible. 

I’m still not financially stable for the year ahead…

But you did only come off means-tested benefits (UC) this month, let’s note! That’s four years of illness and non-/under-employment, and you’ve cracked the conundrum only just now – by diligence, faith and courage! Can you appreciate what you’ve achieved?! 

Ha! Yes, I can do that.

‘Clean living’ includes ‘clean thinking’ – which includes appreciating what you’ve achieved, and leading with that ‘optimising’ mental state. Just like the ‘Clean Questions‘ approach to asking questions, we aim to avoid adding any extra noise, doubt, dissonance, provocation of the spirit… 

gtg. Is it about cleaning living today?

It’s about taking a ‘clean questions’ approach to living and thinking. With no extra noise, or ‘junk’ being added. 

I am living cleanly and thinking cleanly – no junk added

Awesome. Thanks.

Neither grasping for fleeing

Neither craving nor rejecting

Neither attraction nor aversion

Neither for nor against

… but rather calm, poised and observing in all situations. Equanimous.

Tiara Kumara talks about expanding into that ‘vaster self’ which recognises itself as part of the one unified consciousness in which All exists. This, as opposed to the ’emoting self’ which constantly rejects this, that and the other… Your thoughts?

To be free of the eternal need to judge (good/bad, right/wrong, acceptable/unacceptable) is to be able to access greater sources of clean energy than ever before. It is not that judgement itself is bad (how ironic would that be), but rather that it is an energy drain. With renewed energy levels attained from switching off the Judgement systems, the ‘vaster field’ becomes more accessible.

What is the ‘vaster field’?

The full range of experiences available to us on a ‘resonance’ level.

Please explain.

First, know that non-judgement is not the same as ‘shrugging indifference’. It is a very conscious, active practice. And extremely delicate.

Take the case of the senate ruling in Alabama this week, banning abortion in virtually all cases. Consider two paths of response.

Our emoting self raises up, like a warrior, in indignance, disgust and righteous anger to defend our fellow women from the extraordinary ability of ’25 white men’ to believe themselves capable and competent of making such an eye-watering decision, over the heads of women, and doctors.

(Breathe, sweetheart.)

Our vaster self recognises that the emoting self has, in an instant, fed the frequency field that these 25 individuals occupy – furthermore, they have not been damaged by our ire, but nourished by it. The pinpoint centre of a tight, furious, low-frequency tornado of heavy consciousness has been made stronger.

Our vaster self takes that long breath, and opens up the well of immense softness inside, from which she ushers forth a whole firmament of compassion for All That Is (including manifest error) and she focuses her attention on her LOVE for the women, for their children born and unborn, for the men who will step forward to instigate unwanted pregnancies, for the 25 senators who somehow believed themselves the rightful arbiters and gatekeepers of others’ morality and welfare…

And in that instant, a finer, purer, healing frequency has been accessed, fed, nourished, awakened, by our heartfelt state. And the collective resonance of ‘upwardness and openness’ has been contributed to. The pinpoint centre of the tornado has been loosened by the upper reaches of the collective consciousness expanding outwards in love.

Heavens…

Exactly.

I am neither ‘for’ nor ‘against’

PS. This morning I woke up at 5.55am on the 15th of the 5th, with (apparently) 5 steps on my Fitbit. I’ve looked up the meaning of 555: ‘be open to positive change; evolution; conscious choices.’ Nice. I’m up for all of that.

Eckhart Tolle describes the ego’s signature as being “not enough” and applies that to all times when we crave more – bingeing in any form included.

“The ego lives from this sense of insufficiency, of not enough, of needing more.” Eckhart Tolle (Ref)

This notion of the ego representing ‘not enough’ feels like a good balancer to the notion of the heart welcoming ‘everything’ as AOK. The wise part of us can also invite in a sense of satisfaction, satiation and the ability to self-moderate.

An apt reminder might be the saying, “Enough is as good as a feast”

I recognise that I can bring myself some new awareness here. I can potentially more readily say, at the right moment, “Yes, that’s enough…

• Screentime
• Work
• Lunch
• Efforting
• Amending
• Worrying
• Procrastinating
• Pudding
• Qualifications

If I could nail this Enough thing, I could potentially expect positive outcomes such as an increased ability to…

• Market my business comfortably
• Spend less adrenaline on preparing courses
• Drink moderately
• Sleep on time
• Get out and exercise on demand

*****

I notice that when I say to myself softly, “That’s enough now” I get access to some equanimity. It’s as if just this little phrase reels in my brain’s tendency to turbo charge… or to crave ‘more’. It also feels like gentle self-parenting – and it’s never too late for that. The result of my responding to “That’s enough now” is not a sense of deprivation or disappointment as anticipated… but increased mental balance. Who would have guessed?

Furthermore, when I gently say, “That’s enough now” and break some distracted or rabbit-holey behaviour by bringing this compassionate awareness to bear, I’m often able immediately to catch a fresh Wave of Executive Function. Sweet.

It’s almost like you’re greasing up the seesaw of “relax” and “do”, so that it’s ever easier to switch state… and return in due course to homeostasis. 

Reminds me of this description of the autonomic nervous system:

And the gentle work of self-parenting seems to loosen the ego’s grip that says “more, more!”. The ego is the childish aspect of us in this regard…

Maturing certainly involves taming the ego. Plenty of adults adopt an apparently ‘mature’ style which belies a highly ego-driven state.

Like the non-stop executive… The ‘committed’ politician…. The ‘juggling it all’ parent…

It looks pretty ‘grown up’, eh? Something to aspire too? It’s a really tricksy one to detach from, this idea that a good ‘adulthood’ is about doing / acquiring / achieving / seeing / consuming / experiencing more and yet more. 

When, in reality, ‘enough is as good as a feast’ – right?

Right.

I am learning that enough is as good as a feast.

So this ‘gathering attention and listening to my heart’ has been a great experiment because the results are so consistent and so positive.

When really, deeply listened to, the Heart constantly says:

{Everything is A.O.K! It’s just that your Mind believes that…}

And then you can easily fill in the rest of the statement (which is often fairly daffy), and deal with it, and then Everything really is AOK again.

eg. The Mind believes that:

• “I’m going to get into trouble” -> give that a reality check -> Everything’s AOK
• “We’re going to be late” -> make a Plan B just in case -> Everything’s AOK
• “Everyone’s going to hate me” -> decide to make peace with that possibility -> Everything’s AOK
• “That person is angry with me” -> accept that possibility and work with the feelings arising -> Everything’s AOK

So you are learning to trust that Everything is AOK. You are learning to trust the knowledge of your heart. Your heart is so finely tuned to the creative source that it is fearless – which is unnerving to the mind, no? The mind works by flagging sources of fear. The heart is different. It knows better. Over time, the person shifts allegiance from the mind to the heart. And being in the heart-centred state, the person then comes back to pick up the dear mind, dust it off, reassure it, and bring it along for the journey as an equal partner. The mind can never make an equal partner of the heart – for it mistrusts the heart’s apparent naivety. The heart however knows better. 

Who is this ‘person’ which apparently shifts allegiance from Mind to Heart?

The Person, the Mind and the Heart are the triumvirate parts of the Soul manifested on the physical plane. 

Cool. I love that. Is the Person like the ‘self’? The id? The observer? What is it?

The Person is the downloading mechanism that controls the floodgates of the Soul into the body. 

So that’s why it can decide whether the mind or the heart ‘rules’?

Yes. You can consider it like a water directing mechanism. Imagine a river with a great big alternator in it, controlling whether the flow goes down channel A or channel B at any time, according to present conditions of flow magnitude and riverbed stability. The Person is the alternator, getting more and more agile and refined at timing when Head or Mind needs to lead, as the life progresses. This is the purpose of spiritual growth, to be a deft alternator controller. 

Does the Person tend to follow the Mind channel more as a younger person – sitting with logic, fear, ego etc, in order to grow a personality and a place on the planet?

You might think so, but actually the young Person is very heart-orientated. It’s true that Mind then enters in to lead after a few knocks to the Heart. The Mind likes to sell the story that the Heart can not be trusted to keep a Person safe. The Return to the Heart, the return to love, is the highlight of the human life. 

Like the addicted person who overcomes loneliness-induced addiction in mid-life and finds that love, friendship and support were available to her all the time.

Like the ambitious career high-flyer who suddenly gives it all up to apply his leadership skills to a charity.

Like the parent who never had time for their children, but suddenly understands deep paternal love second time round with the birth of their first grandchild.

Eventually, we give in and trust the Heart’s call to Love, right?

Sounds like it. But first, we give in and trust the Heart’s first clear message: “Hey sister, guess what? Everything, yes, e v e r y t h i n g is A O K.” Relish that, dear one. 

I am trusting my Heart when it says ‘Everything is AOK’