Everything, that makes us more mature and more confident, flows into the tension-free body and find its right place, thus forming the core of the competence.
4. It usually flows down to the level of the solar plexus (in the stomach, at the level of the elbows)
5. This will help you feel calm and maintain your strength, even in stressful situations. This will help you act precisely and creatively.
6. You may feel how light your head has become and your body has this pleasant feeling of saturation, which makes it more stable and calm. The sensation of pleasant heaviness can reach your fingers and toes. Remain in this state as long as you find necessary. Gradually, this heaviness and warmth will be absorbed, and then you will experience lightness and freshness.
7. A part of your strength can come from your feet, “from your roots’.
8. This feeling of new fullness will support you and protect you in the future.
9. Along with cleansing from the old and filling in with the new, this process can be seen as some sort of initiation into maturity. Now, you will be able to solve any problem like an adult.
10. When you feel that the process is complete, open your eyes.
What you have just done is the most efficient and significant practice for restoring your potential. You might find it useful to repeat this procedure.
What kind of “snake’ am I cherishing in my bosom?
Our attention can be disturbed not only by problems, but also by some useless wishes, empty hopes, and some unfortunate attachments. This is what we can find in the chest, in our “soul’.
Exercise 2: Getting rid of pipe dreams
Stage 1
1. Define what has “sunk deep into your heart’ and what exactly is it that you are cherishing?
2. Decide if it is something useful and has any perspective and if you should really keep nurturing it.
3. Whichever useless object or attachment you discover in your chest will fly away your energy will be released.
Stop cherishing snakes
In this part of the work, you let go of every “snake’ you have been cherishing so far in the depths of your body, and by snake, we mean everything that has been harmful. Letting go in this case is connected with calming down and finding peace, without any fight. There is nothing to fight with. If you have made your mind, you will find your peace. Under such circumstances, “snakes’ dry out and vanish as dust or simply disappear.
These emotions can be connected with some unfortunate infatuation with a person in a relationship or when you are not single. It can also be alcohol addiction: then those bottles of liquor are let go from your internal space which peace of mind fills instead.
In my book “Objects in the Body,” I mentioned observations of the Orthodox monks on how “wicked thoughts’ settle in our mind and how desires unfold: it never happens quickly. Fortunately, the reverse development of the events for these unwelcome conditions is also possible. As a result, “sobering up’ helps a person return from the unnatural state to its natural condition and reconnection with God.
Stage 2
– If you realize that your wishes are natural, and the unnatural part was tying them to the object that you have just let go, then take this thought a little further. Are there better or “legal’ ways of satisfying these wishes? Is not there someone or something on the horizon that would bring you that long-awaited satisfaction without causing you any trouble?
– If you experience something like that, then let this feeling come closer to you.
3. If not, then prepare yourself for attentive scanning of the space around you so that as soon as this realization appears, you will react to it. Meanwhile, you have to be patient.
4. Ability to stay strong through difficult times is a trait of a mature person.
Where am I?
In one of our classes, there was a woman, who, judging by her facial features, was a very gifted person. Such people tend to have very bright awakening moments. All of a sudden, she says: “I have complete silence; there are no images at all.”
Here is a part of our conversation with her:
Surrounded by fir-trees
“Where are you? Are you here or somewhere else?”
She finds herself in the country. Even her picture had something of this sort (the test drawing which you must have already tried doing): in her picture, there was a person surrounded by triangles, which stood for fir-trees. What did we discover in our conversation? 70% of her attention was there, in the woods, and only 30% was present at the seminar.
“While you are there, does that place give you anything?”
People usually gain strength in places like this. However, she didn’t respond, but having spent some time there and gotten what she wanted, she “returned’ to the seminar.
Then she received the image of tranquillity: she was sitting with a butterfly on her hand.
It was highly interesting to observe our work with her. Sometime later, she realized that she was blooming. Her internal sensations revealed themselves. Everything went very well.
In the case of this participant of the seminar, it turned out that “she herself,” or a bigger part of her soul was in a quiet place, far away from the class. In this situation, the question: “Where is my attention? Where am I?” turned out to be very useful. These questions helped her get what she needed “there,” close the Gestalt of rest and return to the working environment21.
Exercise 3: Spend some time in a happy place and then return
– Define where you are.
– Stay there for some time so that you could get what you need: it could be some peace and quiet or emotional support. It can easily be something else.
– Return to “here and now’.
Similar kind of technique is used in such schools of psychotherapy as Ericksonian therapy guided by affective imagery and several other movements: patients are asked to think of something pleasant and spend some time reminiscing. You need to find your happy place where you can recharge.
A little cave
A person might remember that when he or she was a child and went to the seaside to spend holidays, they would dig a little cave in the sand, which felt like a very comfortable and safe place. Everyone has its own unique image of a happy place, which functions as a vitamin in adult life.
Written down in Astrakhan in 2010.
