The strengthening aspect is super important. I ignored it for a while when my practice lapsed, and went completely batshit bananas for a while.
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When your breathing practice is strong enough to just chill out, you enter the body work. You let those sensations just be, but you listen.
Then you evaluate how to respond. It's OK to get really emotional here. You want to *unblock* stuff. Best practiced in temporary seclusion!
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If it bleeds into everyday stuff, that's fine. But the correct work then is to focus on the breathing work.
With time, you'll feel ready to feel stuff out in real time. That takes a bit of courage, but it's sooo rewarding!
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This is all cutting work, and a bit risky to just about anyone if not done in conjunction w/therapy.
Basically everyone has some level of embodied trauma. This cuts into that.
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I am so radically disinhibited compared with how I used to be that I am constantly shocked at what I can do compared w/before.
But it has also pulled me away many parts of my life, toxic-ish friends & family, and sensitized me in very strange ways.
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E.g. I used to only cry or get angry under servere duress. Now both are common occurrences, but they tend to be much more immediate.
Crying releases sadness, anger releases any number of things produced by having boundaries violated. But they also have real consequences.
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So the kind of practice I am advocating is definitely not 100% safe, and I've seen others with less positive outcomes.
I am also continually surprised by the capabilities of my body, and I am fairly sure I am very lucky in terms of overall emotional resilience. Probably genetic.
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That said, AFAICT it is also very close to the newer therapeutic modalities used for trauma, and is also more flexible than those.
It doesn't stop at "how to cope w/really awful past experiences", but goes all the way through to shredding bad conditioning.
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...which does not go well with raising kids, and is a terrible mix with my personality in particular (v. sensitive and communicative).
People in my family have always told me to mend fences, show understanding etc.
Work he has never really done, I think, for anyone.
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So I just stopped treating requests for me to fix our shit as relevant.
This is not per se a psychological development. Body says no. Other things to do w/that metabolic energy.
If he works on things, OK, but I have no obligation to meet family's expectations by hurting myself.
This is all very typical of e.g. grandparents. They can see they fucked up with their kids, and want their grandkids who turned out better to somehow heal that rift.
Well-intentioned, but all it really does is strengthen intergenerational trauma by displacing responsibility.
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