No, I don't
mean aerobic exercises, though that is happening, and there is a physical
component.
In this
time of self-examination, I had mentioned having various exercises to get
through, though I did not write about them in detail. They came about through a
combination of intuition, internet searches, and sometimes they were even
things that professionals wrote to do in books.
The
exercises in Dennis Rozema's Behind the Mask: Adolescents in Hiding did
not do a lot for me. Reading about his patients was more
interesting, and I felt like I might be missing something if I did not go
through the questions, but it's been a while since I have been a secretive
teenager. His patients tended to be more self-destructive than I ever was, so
even when I was fourteen it might not have been as revelatory as it could have
been. Now, almost three decades later, and a lot of time and effort put into
openness, it loses some of the impact.
That
doesn't mean it might not be helpful for another adult; these things are
context dependent. There were things I did that might not be helpful for anyone
else. Some of them did not seem like they would be helpful to me, or they
worked differently than I thought they would.
I guess one
important point in that is that you need to be open to feeling your way. That
means a willingness to listen to subtle things, but also it means being open to
various kinds of discomfort. You may think that something sounds stupid, but it
still feels necessary. That means you need to be open to being silly, and
vulnerable. You will not always be confident.
(But
actually, those things are kind of necessary for dealing with your issues
anyway, so it is not remarkable that they would be helpful in finding ways to
identify and deal with the issues.)
My "silliest"
thing was trying to clear out my chakras.
I knew that
I was disconnected from my body. I did a Google search on "getting in
touch with your body" and before I could finish typing it out, one of the
suggestions was "getting in touch with your chakras". I was drawn to
that.
I did my
regular search too, and it led me to http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-14660/20-ways-to-get-in-touch-with-your-body.html.
I have tried many of those, and many have been useful. Some I will try when I
get a chance. Some felt silly. Notice that theme.
Anyway, the
chakras search led me to http://www.eclecticenergies.com/chakras/open.php.
I decided I
would do this. I planned on it several times, and then didn't get to it. I
finally did do it, and felt nothing.
That wasn't
too surprising. I really hate yoga. (Judge me however you want.) Many of my
friends love it, and the things that they tell me that they get from it, I get
from different sources, so I don't worry about it too much. However, having
felt nothing with this particular exercise, I had still felt that it was
important to do. I tried to figure out why.
I think I
found it toward the bottom of the page:
"Warning:
don't use this meditation for the Crown chakra while you don't have a strong
Root chakra (you need a strong foundation first)."
Looking at
it a little more, there are two things that I am taking away from that. One is
that I have areas where I am strong, but they are built on areas where I am
weak. I am not going to reach my full potential without going back and
strengthening that foundation. What I have done despite being weak in the first
three chakras is great, and I am happy that I could do it, but it is time to
stop neglecting them.
I also got a
visual image of all of the different areas being connected, and that it is best
for everything to be balanced. That is merely a flash of a mental image, and
yet it conveys connectedness and progression, and other thoughts may be added
to that later. These are images I will go back to.
So even
thought it felt like nothing, it was something. You need to pay attention to
that.
I know this
is very late. I am quite busy now, but part of that busyness is that Family
Ghosts will be out there tomorrow, so I would say one great thing that you
can do for yourself is buy a new book.
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