there are parts of my process or my practice or w/e you wanna call it that are actually pretty important but idk how to talk about them. one is a move that is like “allowing the body to do what it wants” and that’s where all the shaking and hyperventilating come from
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i learned how to do this fairly suddenly, iirc around 2018 and inspired by impro but i might be misremembering, and actually trotted it out as a party trick a few times b/c the results were so funny to me. shaking, almost-crying, insane laughing. i have no idea how to teach it
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i used to call it “releasing” but i think “allowing” is more accurate. it’s something like taking my feet off the brakes of an inhibition process i was running all the time and am hopefully running a bit less now
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also i recognize now that there are safety considerations around this sort of practice. in some people it could surface emotional and/or trauma material that isn’t ready to be looked at yet. so uh you’ve been warned. needs to be paired with some kind of grounding?
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nevertheless it has actually been important for me, in the background as a muscle i have access to and don’t need to think about much anymore. there’s a lot of subtle things like this i think, tricky to talk about or teach, that some people don’t need and others desperately do
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this is perhaps only the kind of thing you need if you were punished as a child by being forced to hold your body still in an uncomfortable position for long periods of time, or similar 🙃🙃🙃
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finally this tweet is topical again, it’s been awhile old friend
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hey remember how we went to school where we spent 8 hours a day for over a decade having what our bodies could do completely under the control of authority figures
boy i wonder if that had any lasting effects
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funnily enough it is impossible for me to go straight to crying using just “allowing” and nothing else even if i am very sad, i have no idea why. the tears don’t quite come unless i either name some feelings or wail loudly, depending. both is even better
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lol someone just reminded me what the actual origin story is, i learned how to do this from a practice a tantra guy suggested to me of masturbating without orgasm every day. sexual energy kept building up until it was unbearable and i could “release” it into shaking
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i learned how to do this fairly suddenly, iirc around 2018 and inspired by impro but i might be misremembering, and actually trotted it out as a party trick a few times b/c the results were so funny to me. shaking, almost-crying, insane laughing. i have no idea how to teach it
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another modality that calls it "discharging," that's a pretty good name too. and this chart is *so* interesting. i get laughter a lot so seeing that it can indicate boredom, light anger, or light fear is... interesting 😅
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan
do you know RC / co-counseling? it calls what you're describing (laughing/shaking/crying) "discharge" & it's viewed as a central part of processing emotions
rc.org/publication/bo (website is awful but the practice is super interesting)
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followup thread about the sexual practice
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okay so i've been asked for more details about the sexual practice i mentioned the other day. in short, the practice is to masturbate for ~20m without porn and without allowing yourself to ejaculate, just paying attention to sensation twitter.com/desirepaths_/s…
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also wow the co-counseling link above has some good stuff, here's a few choice quotes. interesting claim here that "discharges" happen in a specific order: grief (tears), then fears (trembling, shivering, laughter), anger (loud words, movement), boredom (talking, laughter)
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very interesting, very interesting. roughly consistent with my experience i think? although i often find i want to move back and forth frequently, maybe that's because new stuff keeps coming up. hmm. hmmmmmm
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