Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Emotions

What are My Emotions?
 
Emotions are a measure of how much I sense my life, right now.

Allowing your body, to express emotions it is a ability which take you to discover the richness of your personal experience. The richness of your life lays into how you are allowing emotions, moment to moment.

Take the observer position. Take a step back and look at life around you are observe. What is out there?
  • Life is abundant.
  • In your environment, every hour, around you, something new is happening.
  • Every day is a new day, a new opportunity to experience something new.
  • Get in contact with your environment take some risk, and see what happens.
Every day is another day for excitement, new stories to share, music to listen and fun and love to spread around. How else will you know what is out there without emotions.

What are the Core emotions?

Maybe you allow yourself to experience all your emotions. Maybe the happiness, sadness, anger and excitement are all a measure of how you experience life. Decide for yourself what emotions do you allow yourself to experience and what emotions you avoid experiencing.
The goal of your emotional training is to develop new skills so when you get in contact with your emotions, you could welcome them and allow your body to express them. This is not a logical process and it does not need to be, it is just part of your emotional life.

What is a Experience?
 
A experience is a new beginning, it is the unknown of what will it happen, and you don't know it yet. It is the excitement, the surprise of what is about to happen.

What is a Past Life Event?
 
It is 'a memory' of a past experience. It is not the experience itself. It is what your body remembers what the experience was.

Today you might have points of reference of what you choose to remember about a past experience. This point of reference might be how you perceive a part of your life. You might use that point of reference to create what you think is real, and you compare, judge, evaluate, expect by using that point of reference.

Let's take one example here: You go today and have a conversation with someone you know. In the richness of that conversation if you would video tape the conversation the recording shows: gestures, touches, words, sounds, background, foreground, colors, movement. And you feel many feelings.
How much of all that would you choose to remember of that experience? What about 20 years later?
That's right. You remember 'a memory' of that experience. 

How much do I live in the Now?
(do you live in the past? do you live in the future?)

Do you hear yourself talking more about what happen rather then experience what is happening right now? or ... Do you find yourself talking more about what will happen rather then experience what is happening right  now?

Take a moment and become a observer from time to time. Become aware of what patterns do you notice of yourself. Let's choose one example ...
Say I start a new job .... do I compare the new job to previous one. Do I make decisions based on things I assume. Do I have a need to ask and validate what I think. Do I ask to gather information and take it in. Do I have a set of beliefs sculpted in stone? Do you have déjà vu's within this new environment?

Do I find myself thinking like:
  • He is the boss and as a boss he should be such and such ...
  • I deserve the current position but I am only asking for a promotion when I will fulfill a) b) c) ....
  • I need specific conditions to be met so I can share my ideas with my boss
  • I am not tall enough to be the first one ...
  • I am not funny enough to speak in front of others ....
  • I am more of a introvert then a extrovert ...
  • I am making enough money right now and I will not ask for more ...
  • This is my space, and I should stay within this boundaries ...
  • etc, etc, etc ....
It might be none of the above. Take time and find your own patterns. "Words are just words" the ones that matter are the one you believe in them.

Emotions from the past, Feelings in the present. 

Become curios of what is your past and learn how you live your present.

Our body remembers what happen in the past.
From a emotion or a sensation a person can recall details from a past event. These details could be: who was there, what voices were speaking, what things are around, what colors of clothing, what feelings are experienced. Some of these emotions could reveal happiness, fear, sadness, anger. One emotion could cover other emotion.These emotions are coming up in many ways. People, places, and things could be buttons that once pushed the emotion will become present, and could take all the space, and will to let you know of its existence.

Acknowledge your emotion with kindness, express it if it is possible let-go. You could do more then one time, a person learns this process. 

How is a Emotion Released?
 
Think of a emotion as energy, and during a experience your body builds up energy by experiencing these emotions. Depending on your learning your body learns a pattern(s) to express or suppress emotions.

One way or another, the emotion will find a way out and release the energy accumulated, it is only a matter of time when.

For example:
  • When you are scared ... scream it out. (your body shows how scared you were)
  • When you are sad .... cry it out. (tell the story to a friend and cry it out)
  • When you are angry .... voice it out, move it out. (express it with your body)

Where are the Emotions Stored?

The body stores these emotions in areas where you feel more weight, pressure, and temperature variations. The body uses active energy to keep them alive.

You can look at a person's body and get a sense of where the weight is: is he carry on his back, is it on his right foot, is she clenching her jaw, is he holding protecting his chest. The emotions will live within the body until the day I choose to acknowledge it, and with kindness deal with it. 

What can I do when I Choose to Deal with My Emotion?
 
Accept it and stop 'doing something else'. Acknowledge the part responsible for that emotion as is a part of you. (Just like you accept you name, or the fact you are human). This is the first step.

When will I know I accept my emotion?
  • You become aware of 'what is it's purpose'
  • You find out 'where is it coming from'
  • You remember 'when was the first time you experience it'
  • You know 'how does it want to be expressed'
  • You know 'when does it want to be expressed and with whom'

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

What is Awareness?

Awareness is it how much of your life you live it consciously and you take responsibility of everything that happens to you. Awareness or 'conscious awareness' is what you know NOW of what is going on with you physically, emotionally and mentally, from moment to moment.

What is the Gestalt Awareness Training?

It is not a cure to something, and it is not intended to fix something. (This is a reminder)
Gestalt Awareness Training is a practice just like any other experimental practice such as: yoga, meditation, etc.
In Gestalt Awareness practice you have a initiator (the person that directs his/her awareness towards the participants in the group) and a group (the group participants enrolled to develop individual awareness)
In Gestalt Awareness practice you are supporting yourself. You are willing to do what it takes and participate in the process doing the work. The initiator is just another group member which act as a guide in the process.

What exactly do I do within the Gestalt Awareness Group Training?

Through simple exercises you let-go towards individual expression using body movement, body energy, voice, sight during a personal experience. During the exercise it is encouraged to listen to your own instinctual openings, let-go and express your self. It is encouraged to be who you are, and not what you are not. All the exercises performed during the awareness training are experimental tasks. Their meaning is to expand your experience by expanding your senses. The initiator can support you in your experience.

A awareness exercises is a teaching tool to lead a person to questions:
  •   What do you need now?
  •   What do you want now?
  •   What do you do now?
  •   What do you think now?
  •   What do you feel now?

What benefits could I get by participating in a group practice?
  • I become more conscious of personal and group patterns (feelings, sensations, environment, boundaries)
  • I take ownership of all what happens to me
  • I learn what my needs are, and I know how to satisfy them
  • My open my senses (see, hear, feel, taste and smell)
  • I direct my energy towards how to support my self instead
  • I know how to develop boundaries with clarity
  • I make distinctions between what is in my mind and what is in my body
  • I know my resources, and I have many choices to create new resources
  • And I learn much more from the group
What techniques will I learn during awareness practice?
  • Reporting and Observations
  • Encouraging and Supporting Awareness
  • Interrupting Outside Awareness Loops
  • Intensification
  • Role Playing
  • Visualization
  • Experimenting with 'what-if'
  • Body Work techniques
  • Dream Work

What is the awareness-excitement-contact-cycle? 



According the Gestalt Awareness Training here is what could happen in your body:

1. You start having a sensation
2. You become aware of your sensation
3. You accumulate energy to satisfy the need of your sensation
4. You are excited and ready to act towards satisfying the need
5. You take action and make contact with the environment
6. You going back to beginning rest and withdraw