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Canari
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Have a look at the sleep and stress forum! I posted a lot of resources.
Of course psychotherapy cannot work.... The problem is not in the head and not even that much in emotions but in the autonomic nervous system keeping some FFF responses that were not completed fully. This is what creates excessive metabolic reactions, overwhelming or excessive emotions and recurring thoughts.
The real thing that works is Somatic Experiencing... and the best online resource is Irene Lyon. Educativo oneself about how it works, how we function, is key, because our culture has too little clues about it! When you know it, you can favor and help the natural process...
Of course psychotherapy cannot work.... The problem is not in the head and not even that much in emotions but in the autonomic nervous system keeping some FFF responses that were not completed fully. This is what creates excessive metabolic reactions, overwhelming or excessive emotions and recurring thoughts.
The real thing that works is Somatic Experiencing... and the best online resource is Irene Lyon. Educativo oneself about how it works, how we function, is key, because our culture has too little clues about it! When you know it, you can favor and help the natural process...
Canari
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Yes....
I know why you have no practical result.... first you are not doing it really because it is difficult when not starting with exterior support, and then there is some resistance about the activation.
We just spoke about it in a group as somebody mentionned having interest for all the course theory but getting asleep when listening to exercices!
lol as it happened to me I know this is a reality!
I know why you have no practical result.... first you are not doing it really because it is difficult when not starting with exterior support, and then there is some resistance about the activation.
We just spoke about it in a group as somebody mentionned having interest for all the course theory but getting asleep when listening to exercices!
lol as it happened to me I know this is a reality!
SwaZ
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Anything you think might have triggered that?
Are you physicaly active?
Had a simmilar problem, read somewhere on here about exercising while fasted was good for something, tried it just for the heck of it, was able to snap out of it about 90% after doing a 3 day water fast and exercising while fasting.
Dont have a clue what happened but it fixed me 90% permanently.
Are you physicaly active?
Had a simmilar problem, read somewhere on here about exercising while fasted was good for something, tried it just for the heck of it, was able to snap out of it about 90% after doing a 3 day water fast and exercising while fasting.
Dont have a clue what happened but it fixed me 90% permanently.
Canari
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I think it can be interesting for others.... I am more a freeze type, the Lucky one with quite even temperament ... the other 2 Fs are nevertheless always under a freeze patern.
And I have "only" prebirth poisonning, no bad family.
What have you tried? Can you explain the exercices you chose? Actually the aim is to learn regulate until it becomes natural, and it needs no effort if you want it works. Yes you have to insist and look for why they seem to do nothing. It is not easy to get the point from the beginning.
The main exercises are finding resources that sustain the body processing, and learning to orient to exterior and interior sensations.
Examples?
How do you feel when it is sunny or cloudy? With which do you need less effort to feel optimist or happy? Now if cloudy but you can see some bits of blue and focus on it and appreciate that the blue looks even more blue, you make the conscious choice to look for resourcing yourself. Or a bath etc. But YOUR make it a resource only when you use it consciously. And when it helps you FEEL.
If not, if you get your dosis of not feeling through TV or a dulling substance, this resource becomes a coping mecanism.
The use is the difference. Then if you get better when you just imagine the resource, it becomes an internal resource, thus always available!
According to the state of your ANS, you have more or less facility to use resources effectively.
Orienteering is what happens naturaly when after being very focussed, you know you are relaxing because you suddenly hear again and notice the birds or the clock.
But you can orient voluntarily many times a day, so build the habit. Better break than a cigarette! How often do you lift your head from your computer? Very important to orient often even if short.
But again, FEEL. Just looking around as an exercise means nothing if you do not take the time to notice how you felt and how orienting modifies what you feel inside!
FFF is anyway about the ANS and you have no other choice than regulating this system and be more conected to the felt-sense so that it can sustain the normal process of the body. It does it alone if we let it do.
But but.... we failed at it and we have to do more than regulating, because we are late! Compare a daily cleaning and having to remove long time dirt...
Due to our culture, we have an accumulated charge, and when you try to open the door to let it go, it all wants to go and break the dam. Thus the resistance and thus the absolute need to work first on resource and orienting. If you do not, your instinct will make you avoid all exercise that is trigering, because you just risk to freeze or dissociate! I mean that this is more than having activations kept in stock but a real state of shock. Avoidance or like what happens to me with some exercises - I simply fall asleep as if a lulaby - is an interesting sign of where is what we need to work!
And I have "only" prebirth poisonning, no bad family.
What have you tried? Can you explain the exercices you chose? Actually the aim is to learn regulate until it becomes natural, and it needs no effort if you want it works. Yes you have to insist and look for why they seem to do nothing. It is not easy to get the point from the beginning.
The main exercises are finding resources that sustain the body processing, and learning to orient to exterior and interior sensations.
Examples?
How do you feel when it is sunny or cloudy? With which do you need less effort to feel optimist or happy? Now if cloudy but you can see some bits of blue and focus on it and appreciate that the blue looks even more blue, you make the conscious choice to look for resourcing yourself. Or a bath etc. But YOUR make it a resource only when you use it consciously. And when it helps you FEEL.
If not, if you get your dosis of not feeling through TV or a dulling substance, this resource becomes a coping mecanism.
The use is the difference. Then if you get better when you just imagine the resource, it becomes an internal resource, thus always available!
According to the state of your ANS, you have more or less facility to use resources effectively.
Orienteering is what happens naturaly when after being very focussed, you know you are relaxing because you suddenly hear again and notice the birds or the clock.
But you can orient voluntarily many times a day, so build the habit. Better break than a cigarette! How often do you lift your head from your computer? Very important to orient often even if short.
But again, FEEL. Just looking around as an exercise means nothing if you do not take the time to notice how you felt and how orienting modifies what you feel inside!
FFF is anyway about the ANS and you have no other choice than regulating this system and be more conected to the felt-sense so that it can sustain the normal process of the body. It does it alone if we let it do.
But but.... we failed at it and we have to do more than regulating, because we are late! Compare a daily cleaning and having to remove long time dirt...
Due to our culture, we have an accumulated charge, and when you try to open the door to let it go, it all wants to go and break the dam. Thus the resistance and thus the absolute need to work first on resource and orienting. If you do not, your instinct will make you avoid all exercise that is trigering, because you just risk to freeze or dissociate! I mean that this is more than having activations kept in stock but a real state of shock. Avoidance or like what happens to me with some exercises - I simply fall asleep as if a lulaby - is an interesting sign of where is what we need to work!
SwaZ
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@Canari Holy shit man great explanation, also how is it like to freeze, im more of a fight or flight response?
@Brute Yeah leanish muscular, shouldnt cause you any troubles.
I just said fuck it and went with it, it always felt like my fff response was in a cycle that was repeating itself, like i was missing something to stop it.
I GUESS by fasting and exercising (nothing too heavy, like canari said you should go by how you feel) i forced something and it broke that cycle.
After i was done with it i felt amazing, i wanted to cry because of happines, i said Holy SHIT this acutally worked and soon after i signed up on this site because i knew this was the place that was gonna fix me.
@Brute Yeah leanish muscular, shouldnt cause you any troubles.
I just said fuck it and went with it, it always felt like my fff response was in a cycle that was repeating itself, like i was missing something to stop it.
I GUESS by fasting and exercising (nothing too heavy, like canari said you should go by how you feel) i forced something and it broke that cycle.
After i was done with it i felt amazing, i wanted to cry because of happines, i said Holy SHIT this acutally worked and soon after i signed up on this site because i knew this was the place that was gonna fix me.
Canari
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Thanks! lol I need more likes to write more!
Freeze has different levels too, but it is when your fight and flight was too high for your body to stand it, thus putting the fuses off for the necessary time, which can last when we do not know how to come out of it properly!
And the truth is we don't. Most of us. Also, when it accumulates, and when there is no support - and we do not get the right support because we do not know we need it - then we have it difficult. You CANNOT come out of freeze without passing through the door you entered it! Which is a high state of fight and flight! We should be able to, just because we do it when the danger is gone, and with support to pass through those very unconfortable minutes.
So you can spend your life with just managing inside you the panick you think you have forgotten about being tightened at hospital for the doctor to do you those fucking stitches! And if you have had bad childhood experiences, then you had to shut down too often, and unless you had a super grandma or grandpa etc who gave you hope and was soothing you, you just had to make your ANS run anyway even if you were damaging it!
But it repairs, this I assure you. The comparison with a car is about what happens when you have to drive it with the exploded tyre and damage the iron because you cnnot stay where you are with the car and repair. The good news is we not made of iron...
I have a scar on my leg, and when I look at the trousers... well I smile and ask it why it did not repair itself!
Take care, suppress the stressors, I agree, but also repair your ANS! It has lost resilience while we are in problems for too long too intense or too often! When we do, we get better and stronger persons because we get the benefit of a rebound effect! It might happen by itself, ANS means autonomic, but we all too often keep some part less supple and we do not notice, so it is much better to help the process consciously! Also, when you have not finished the healing, it will happen better and faster if you heal the ANS at the same time.
Anyway, being in freeze looks better from the outside, it is the shy child compared to the over active who is still in fight response, but it means we have got too far and have shut down. Freeze is when you see life as if through a screen, it can have many points of comparison. You can feel too much inside yourself as if a prisonner inside. The other aspect is dissociation, when you go out of your body, or when you feel in bliss because you do not feel yourself anymore but in harmony with the everthing. It is a natural anesthesia, the one that prevents feeling pain for some minutes after an accident. A blessing to let you time to put yourself in a safe place before pain arrives. So this is not a bad thing, it is meant to save us, but we have to learn to come back!
There are 2 different things to consider. We ALL have some frozen past reactions, lets say memories. But there is also the present experience, and we can go into some other freeze responses and come out of it, many times, slight or intense, that we notice or do not.
What we fuck up is the resilience, which is the capacity to move well between sympathetic and parasympathetic. We become like cracked rubber that do not expand well anymore, and we want to get this back.
fight or flight is more about people who need adrenaline activities, or when there is panic attacks.
Freeze has different levels too, but it is when your fight and flight was too high for your body to stand it, thus putting the fuses off for the necessary time, which can last when we do not know how to come out of it properly!
And the truth is we don't. Most of us. Also, when it accumulates, and when there is no support - and we do not get the right support because we do not know we need it - then we have it difficult. You CANNOT come out of freeze without passing through the door you entered it! Which is a high state of fight and flight! We should be able to, just because we do it when the danger is gone, and with support to pass through those very unconfortable minutes.
So you can spend your life with just managing inside you the panick you think you have forgotten about being tightened at hospital for the doctor to do you those fucking stitches! And if you have had bad childhood experiences, then you had to shut down too often, and unless you had a super grandma or grandpa etc who gave you hope and was soothing you, you just had to make your ANS run anyway even if you were damaging it!
But it repairs, this I assure you. The comparison with a car is about what happens when you have to drive it with the exploded tyre and damage the iron because you cnnot stay where you are with the car and repair. The good news is we not made of iron...
I have a scar on my leg, and when I look at the trousers... well I smile and ask it why it did not repair itself!
Take care, suppress the stressors, I agree, but also repair your ANS! It has lost resilience while we are in problems for too long too intense or too often! When we do, we get better and stronger persons because we get the benefit of a rebound effect! It might happen by itself, ANS means autonomic, but we all too often keep some part less supple and we do not notice, so it is much better to help the process consciously! Also, when you have not finished the healing, it will happen better and faster if you heal the ANS at the same time.
Anyway, being in freeze looks better from the outside, it is the shy child compared to the over active who is still in fight response, but it means we have got too far and have shut down. Freeze is when you see life as if through a screen, it can have many points of comparison. You can feel too much inside yourself as if a prisonner inside. The other aspect is dissociation, when you go out of your body, or when you feel in bliss because you do not feel yourself anymore but in harmony with the everthing. It is a natural anesthesia, the one that prevents feeling pain for some minutes after an accident. A blessing to let you time to put yourself in a safe place before pain arrives. So this is not a bad thing, it is meant to save us, but we have to learn to come back!
There are 2 different things to consider. We ALL have some frozen past reactions, lets say memories. But there is also the present experience, and we can go into some other freeze responses and come out of it, many times, slight or intense, that we notice or do not.
What we fuck up is the resilience, which is the capacity to move well between sympathetic and parasympathetic. We become like cracked rubber that do not expand well anymore, and we want to get this back.
Canari
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Like me last time at the dentist when I felt the anestesia!
You wanted to cry... but did you let it happen? If not, or if you stopped it as soon as you could, you lost an opportunity, because it was your ANS releasing part of the charge! You can still try to work with memory and imagination and see how you feel inside if you connect to this past moment.... If you feel anything moving, and it can take a few minutes of imagining, though doing no effort to imagine, just do it, then take some time and see what happens. A tip is to be aware of the sensations that are in 2 directions, either contraction or expansion, also cold and warm.
Whatever shift in the system needs to be processed, and we can do it any time, it is never lost. I have personaly discovered how much I had lacked the capacity to celebrate victory, because it was never done in my family. When people celebrate like after a goal, I feel ackward because it is not natural for me. Now Iet it happen when I can and it gets better! Well I still have some way to go lol....
By the way, when I was at the dentist, and felt the ANS dischrage come, I let it happen and it was a big laugh! lol I have no problem with shame, and then I was crying like a child and it did not matter! The dentist thought it was from pain and that the anestesia was still not enough but I told her no, that I was so releaved after passing the night with an ice bottle on my cheek! Let happen what happen, please this is the essential part of the work with our inner system! It is free cure!
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Have you tested your Copper levels? Copper is involved in Fight-or-Flight [1] and too much stimulates Excessive Conversion of Dopamine --> Norepinephrine [2].
Although studies have indicated Copper is a "dependency" factor for DBH (dopamine-beta-hydroxylase) and thus the debate is, does a higher concentration of Copper equate to MORE DBH - the obvious answer is - one way or another it does...if not by direct actions then by Copper Excess induced Zinc Deficiency; which will lead to CNS-Overstimulation by itself [3].
As we have outlined in our article - 5-HT5A Receptors increase the "Startle" effects.
If you are overly jumpy or show signs of motor nervousness - then you probably have too much Serotonin, its only marginally related to Adrenaline.
Most importantly, its the Cortisol and ACTH responses you have to get under control.
Have you tried Cyproheptadine rather than "Peat" methods to lower Serotonin.
I know Cypro is 'technically' a Peat method but using it at higher doses (>8mg) may help more.
Although...be prepared for "NEXT DAY SEDATION" as it hits you HARD [4].
Studies show that DAY FOLLOWING Cyproheptadine usage (without re-dosing) is the Day you get the Sedative effects.
+ I don't get ANY sedation on even 12 MG of Cyproheptadine...until the next day, that is.
nah more like i push my finger tips together and i can feel pulse strongly beating between my fingertips.
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Life Extension Tests bro. They offer all those tests and more. I think they have one that measures Adrenaline, too.
As far as Cyproheptadine, that's true...it generally is an anti-stress hormone agent, however, it also helps with excessive natural (endogenous) opioid-activity, due to
lowering of Beta-Endorphin and Dynorphin [1] and it can protect against Bacterial infections, including "multi-drug-resistant" bacteria [2] and possibly Pesticide exposure (organophosphates) (due to anticholinergic effects) [3]. Cyproheptadine protected against chemical warfare agents like Soman, even.
Canari
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This I have, sensing my heart beats, it is in my belly, between sternum and navel. Docs had sent me to a vein and arteries specialist, and they said many people would like to have my circulatory blood system!
Then I noticed it was also one of the symtoms I had after my surgery, when I got angry at the stupid anestesist, and made an abdominal effort to sit, and opened my mouth to scowl him, but he sent the injection to shut me up! So I am sure I still have the activation that comes up sometimes! Just to share that even if I know how it works, and guess this is the cause, it is still not that easy to work on big stuffs, which does not mean I give up... A slow process does not speed up by stopping it!
Canari
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Taking supps with no test can end up more expansive.....
I suspect also copper for me, but I have it low in the hair test! I have also taken zinc until it did not had any good effect at all... Toxicities show in hair test only when the body is strong enough to make it come out of the cells, so you can need more than one test, which ends up more expensive for sure...
Of course when I speak about the importance of a fogotten system, I do not mean to forget all other systems! For me it is about liver and pancreas, well all digestion, as my low P shows bad protein assimilation. So, bitters and HCl for me! And for zinc, well the only food that has more than the recommended copper is meat! I am on high terrestrial and aquatic animal food...
I think we overlook grounding, light and cold stimulation, all having to be in harmony with the seasons, and our food in harmony with it! Lard in winter and coconut only in summer, and some nuts to prepare winter, aka only in autumn! And no carb when they do not grow where you live. I enquire this, since I became cold sensitive by moving to the subtropics!
Canari
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Ok, I understand what happens, I think.... Your reactions fit in the general pattern of the normal nervous system, though anybody has ones specificities too!
Freeze is very demanding in energy, and sport is a copping mecanism, to use the energy you feel underneath the freeze. But you feel better only when you do it, and not after, or not long, because it is like removing the steam from the cooker, the pressure is still there and you have to go on removing what builds up! The image speaks to you?
Video games or some other activities are part of what we can call "distractions". You do not feel, because the body can focus on one thing only! So yes, I understand that you need something that is attractive enough to take you out of anyting like vigilance or other activation of the ANS. Not bad to do what you do, and find the best for you short term, but please work on the awareness of what it does to you, and what they are, so you can differenciate when doing something different....
Now, a bit more about "doing".... re-read you and notice where you used do and activity... ANS work will need to relate doing to feeling the sensation. And that's where you have to go slow and understand what you do so that you can monitor the intensity. Too intense and you freeze, that is the rule of the body. Up the threshhold that makes you freeze is the goal. What is great and good news for you, is that you are aware that beneath your freeze, you have sympathetic activation! Because some people do not! The more you go into awareness of the body feeling, the more you will be on the right way to get some natural shifts! No kidding, this simple makes the difference in all exercices!
I think I can give some first steps advices...
- Do not expect results, when they come you will see them anyway! Expecting is from the mind and imply some ...fear! Replace it by curiosity!
- Re-read the docs from Irene or re-watch, as you will regularly notice a bit you did not before, a detail that modifies your perception. No kidding, even after years I still notice this with this sort of informations! Even all I wrote in this forum is super concentrated, and if you re-read some, and note where you are puzzled, or if something does not fit, seems illogical or contradictory, note it, and make me replies with what makes you scratch your head! And add more felt-sense to your reading. Track your body reactions following the understanding, or emotions, but body feeling is always under emotion feeling... When you read sensitive informations about the nervous system, you always react, the body does. A freeze person will often react by feeling bored and asleep with what is the needed informations!!!!!!!!!! Haha, avoidance and resistance signs!
Thus I do not mean to force it at all, the reverse. But note, notice, and come back to it later. You cannot push the river, and you have to observe your reactions with respect and care, so that your body starts to speak more to you through the felt-sense.
- Have a quick look at your past and the shock events you had, including accidents and surgery. You can even write it, but with not detail, as memories bring back too much! Writing coldly as informations creates some distance and writing slows the thinking too. Then just recognize, even if only intellectually, that some activations from this could still be there, not the story but the activation. The story is past and gone, only memories are there, and know that you can process this without passing through the story again. It just cannot come out without what is called titration = drop by drop, to not create freeze/dissociation. Only a good felt-sense allows this! Not forcing is key, or else your mind will want to discharge and your body will refuse to do it. Supplements and life style can help, but what people refuse to considere is that it helps their body to do the exact "job" I am talking about! It is just that they do not notice! Of course, as it is a natural process! But doing it consciously and noticing what happens helps the process REALLY. And for some guys, if it is not done deeply, well they will crash again too easily with the next life event... Until this, they will feel cured. We need to know how our bodies process all new life events, so that we stop accumulating sympathetic activations! We need to discharge on the go, like cleaning the house every day instead of having to scrub old dirt!
- Start noticing the permanent work of your nervous system and feel thankfulness for it. It will give you trust, and also a practice of feeling little things before wanting to feel the intense ones!
Examples: an object escape your hand and you catch it before it falls. Take some time to feel how it went into your body, and that you did not need to think, and even did not have time to think! Notice the feeling of activation you had, and that it settles in you. You will notice that the settling is slower than the activation, because there is no need to bequick for this, and thus the body does it slow, to save precious energy.
Feeling the settling is key, and this is what we do not do... If you learn through small things, you cannot imagine how it will help later!
Other examples... you walk and your hands and arms help the balance. You nearly fall but do not, because your body knows how to move for re-establishing balance. You can use trampoline or walking on something narrow but safe, and feel this. Track the feeling inside yourself. Can you feel the gratefulness? We take things for granted, but let's remember or watch babies, what a journey it has been, and still go on! I want to feel not only all that my body knows, and do for me, but remember to be grateful, and this will create some inner good sensation.
If a feeling exercise and noticing the effect inside, creates any discomfort, it means that there is an old activation still there. It is called over-coupling, when something good brings a memory of the same sort of event that went wrong. The best example is about being immobile. It should feel nice and a relaxed state, and be as nice as a good rest can be! But... We are veeeery immobile in anestesia, in fainting or after any shock. Not being good at resting immobile is a sure sign of activation under a freeze response. That is why some people get mad at doing the 10 days vipassana, or cannot meditate still. And insisting brings dissociation, and the belief that it was good to insist, when it is the reverse!
Also noticing startling reactions. You cross the road and you step back when seeing a car. You play football and you change direction quick, or protect yourself from the ball that was going to hit you...
- Notice autonomic signs from the body. Are you able to notice that you yawn or sigh when you do? Do you pay attention to your garglings or ignore them? Do you notice the shiverings on your skin? As you mention video games, well at least you can use them to bring awareness to your reactions! If you can put the video on pause sometimes and listen to the body, all the best... It happens anyway, it is just about stopping a little all day and nnotie all those normal waves going up fast and down slow. And learn to accompagny the slow, because this we were not given enough time to do, and this is what fucks up humans more than animals.
So let's take time to notice the effect of all the autonomic shifts. How do you feel after laughing? Comics are a good resource, comic films! So why we do not watch them everyday instead of bad news? And lets stop to increase freeze by being able to watch too active or violent stuff. It is not good to say "I know it is not real", because for your mind it is not, but for your ANS, it is. So it reinforces freeze responses...
Let's feel that bad stuff feel as contraction, and good stuffs feel like expansion in the body. It does not mean to block the contraction, as the important is to be able to have an ample movement from one state to the other. But we can favor chosing to DO what we know will help the SPONTANEOUS expantion. And we need to take time to notice the expansion. Important tip: notice small changes and not big, because all works like a pendulum. Too sudden relaxation makes the body say "good, I can send some of this stuff I want to discharge". This is what happens in vipassana when people feel bad, and are not helped but left alone to go on and insists, telling them it will go, because usually it brings dissociation as people are left alone. Increase pendulations at the pace we can handle is personal and key.
Canari
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Maybe with the precedent post you guess that yes and no? Yes but more easily said then done!
- Completely is not necessary, as the system auto-regulates by removing only part of the stocked sympathetic activations. Also, we have not kept activtions from all our bad stories, we have yet discharged part of it, and it is impossible to know what was kept or not. This is why SE does not work on stories but on present activations that show up in the body in the present.
- Completely is even impossible, because we get new stuffs every day. What we need is the capacity to stand more and self-regulate, which implies to discharge all the little things on the go. This is the main learning. But I agree that the excessive charge from the past is what limits us in the present. Then it becomes a self-reinforcing loop, as we all know...
- But yes, we want to discharge some of this activation, same as we want some people to go down from the metro when it is packed like sardines in the tin can! Activation is like feeling overcrowded inside!
- Discharging too much can bring refreezing if done too much at a time. If the body is not ready and does not feel it has enough resources, we can stay in between. And this feel like when you want to puke but cannot.
So when we cannot discharge sefely, we need to use resourcing and orienting, which are the basics in Irene course, and she chose this for a reason... Maybe some used the link to the orienting video I had put when she gave it for free as advertising for her 21 days course?
- Having better control might not be the right words... We do not want to control but contain. Culturally it has become meaning almost the same! But no, contain is having container: When can you feel quiet about boiling milk? When you have a bigger saucepan! Really, this work is also about increasing our container. Thus we need less attention about watching the borders, and need less control!
- As the meaning of control is also about knowing what to do consciously, in order to be able to let happen what is autonomic in our body, yes we can say that we have some global better control! It is just that we need to give back its role to every part of our NS, and make the difference between what is the role of the brain and what is the role of the ANS. ANS is the master chief, and our beloved cortex is merely the servant, for facilitating life. Evolution gave us a very sophisticated tool, and we just have to take care that it does not put itself in the way of the spontaneous life. You can decide with your cortex to chose some supps, and even understand part of the reactions and pathways of your body, but your ANS laugh at this and started to do its job very early!
Mainly our cortex is not able to stop the autonomic activation of the sympathetic system, because it is very quick. BUT our cortex is strong enough to interphere in the parasympathetic activation that is meant to settle the system after the up part of the "waves"! This is the human problem we want to avoid. That is why I said we all have to work on the conscious feeling of disactivation after any small activation, and we have this opportunity maaaany times a day. We are not patient enough to take this time, and we pay it. If you want to discharge your ANS, and this is one of the goals, then your first goal should be to learn how to follow and accompagny the spontaneous seettling. This has to be helped consciously. And as we all know, we have to do nothing to be activated, it just comes. Just touch something hot, and you will see that your hand moves. But do we stay with the feeling of our skin until we do not feel at all the slight burning? Or look at sunset when not dangerous anymore, and then do the palming over the eyes. It is difficult to do it until really there is zero little hint of light anymore. Use a tibetan bowl and stay with the noise until you hear nothing, same tendency to go away from the listening. That is why sungazing and using singing bowls is part of tibetan tradition. We need to exercise this with as many things as possible. I also think that using the cold, just read about the studies made on sherpas, is very good for the body and ANS. We talked about Wim Hof in this forum and maybe we should use this more...
Ho, and when people speak about mental problems and things "in the head", just answer, or even only think for your self "Yes but the head is in the body!". The ANS has been reduced to some instincts and to the autonomic functioning of the organs, when it is much more!