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by Pranada www.spiritualemergence.co.nz
"I grew up in the UK, living a fairly average English life: school, sports, family holidays in Ireland and Greece, visits to the Grandparents at weekends etc. My understanding of life was that you went to school, then university, then got a job, got married, 2.2 kids, white picket fence, worked for 40 years, then retired... Life, however, had other plans.
After leaving university, I found work in the world of tourism, firstly working as a tour guide escorting people around Europe, then a stint in Switzerland as a resort rep, followed by a year as a croupier on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, finally basing myself in London as a marketing manager for a major travel company. By this time I was travelling in style every month visiting luxury hotels in Paris, Frankfurt and Vienna.
In theory I should have been happy (or so I thought): I had a great job, great flat, nice car, lovely friends. I was proud of reading my name and title on my business cards, felt important as I sat in airports every other week with my briefcase full of work, and special as I checked into 5 star hotels week after week.
But unbeknowns to me something was stirring inside. Gradually over a period of time I started to feel unhappy, not even really recognizing it at first. It took my Mother to point out to me that I wasn't happy and I should see a psychiatrist. So off I went. I can't quite remember the details of those meetings, what we spoke about, what I learnt, as looking back I can see I was way too unaware of myself to notice what was really going on. I changed pyschiatrists and started another round of introspection and digging into my past...unhappy childhood due to the strain on my parents of my brother's mental health problems...
I was still working at this time, and I remember clearly dragging myself into work, sitting at my desk not wanting to be there at all, somehow forcing myself to get going for the rest of the day. And this continued day after day. Why wasn't I happy? I had this fantastic job, had realized my dream of jetsetting around the world, and yet I felt so depressed?
The depression continued for a few more months, then insomnia set in, and somehow or other I found myself spinning further of control into a deep, dark vortex of unhappiness and negativity. There just didn't seem to be anything I could do to stop it or make it better. At some point I became too depressed to work and on my psychiatrist's advice took a leave of absence for a month. I remember feeling how extraordinary it was to take a month off work. Me? Take time off work? Don't be ridiculous - I'd worked since I was 16 years old.
Then one day, after 3 days without sleep, I started to experience myself literally 'spiraling out of my mind' and at that moment I knew I had a choice: I could continue and let it happen, or I could stop it. The feeling of letting go was terrifying, and I chose to stop it. I had no idea what was happening. (Now with more experience I feel I was being given the opportunity to 'lose my mind' so that I could merge into Oneness, but at the time I was just not ready to surrender).
When I told my psychiatrist, she recommended I admit myself voluntarily into a mental hospital for proper rest and care. So I did.
Lying in my bed in my private room (I was lucky, I had BUPA coverage!) I just did not want to do anything at all. Nothing. I wanted to feel better but just didn't know how. The doctors wanted to give me anti-depressants - I took them for a day and felt ten times worse, and refused to take anymore. They tried to get to me to go art class, this class, that class, I had to interest whatsover. The most interesting thing was observing the other inmates - there were all sorts: manic-depressives claiming they could see fried eggs on the ceiling, bulemics eating a stick of celery and saying they were full, epileptics throwing fits here and there...it was fascinating. But most of the time, I was in my bed, in my room, spiralling deeper and deeper into an unknown vortex.
One of the things I noticed was I was unable to read anything, I looked at the words but nothing made sense, I could have been looking at Russian or Chinese for all my mind could make of the words on the page. I could hardly talk, speaking was a mammoth effort and seemed quite pointless. And I could not watch television, somehow my eyes were far too sensitive to look at the pictures. So I just lay in bed, hour after hour, feeling very strange as I continued to go down the rabbit hole.
And then at some point, I don’t remember when, I just sort of gave up, surrendered to the process, and let myself go to the bottom. I let go of the resistance of trying to not feel how I was feeling, and sank to the bottom. Strangely, rather than finding myself stuck at the bottom of a pit, lost for eternity, somehow I felt myself rising up again, imperctibly, very slowly. And I even started to feel a smidgen better. How extraordinary! Surrendering doesn't mean the end!
One day I decided to go back to my apartment to collect some clothes, and I distinctly remember sitting on the underground train feeling like I was a new-born baby. It was the strangest feeling. Here I was an adult, feeling like I was literally a baby, a new-born baby. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other and make it to my home. But somehow I did, and made it back to the hospital. I stayed another week, slowly feeling a bit better and stronger each day. Until one day I decided to discharge myself.
I was still far from able to work, and fortunately due to work insurance was able to have more time off. Initially I re-adjusted to being back in my apartment, taking care of the daily essentials, and a few weeks later was given the opportunity to help deliver a yacht from Greece to France. The trip did me the world of good, and I grew stronger every day. And after a few months I felt well enough to return to work ( a new job, however, as I had quite my previous in the meantime). And not long after that I came to New Zealand with my then partner.
It took another 7 years or so to really understand what had happened in that experience. At the time I just classified it, as the doctors had, as a ‘nervous breakdown’. But later I started to discover what that actually meant. What was really taking place was a breakdown of old mental patterning which was no longer serving me.
I had been living a lie without even realizing it. I had been living my life of go to school, go to university, get a job, make your way up the ladder, hopefully meet a nice husband...without even realizing that I was living it out of pure cultural and familial conditioning. I was living what I thought I ‘should’ be doing rather than what my soul really wanted me to be doing. And it took a huge breakdown of that paradigm to show me that this was not my truth.
And what I eventually learnt was that a mental breakdown can actually be a mental breakthrough. A breakthrough to a new level of consciousness, a new world view, a new perception of reality. And in order for that to happen, the old has to be demolished, just like an old building has to be demolished before a new one can be built.
The shame of it is that in our society a mental or nervous breakdown is often perceived as a ‘taboo’ event, a negative thing not to be spoken of. Mostly this comes out of fear and lack of understanding – in other words, we fear what we do not understand. But this is not the case! It can be a great and actually much needed event! What if people had a different understanding of nervous breakdown?
Hence the reason for this website. To give people fresh hope. To know that they will come out the other side and that they are not weird or strange. They are just being upgraded!
Kim Knight - The Art of Health
The art and science of wellbeing
+64 9 833 6553 / +64 21 410 633
www.artofhealth.co.nz
www.taohealth.co.nz
www.mickeltherapy.co.nz
What a refreshing perspective on the positive side of a nervous breakdown! I'm just a bit concerned this post doesn't acknowledge the other folks who suffer nervous breakdowns and never recover because of a chemical imbalance in their brain. Oftentimes medication is helpful for people who are suffering from bi-polar, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses.Interesting take though!
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How do you measure success? Do you measure it in monetary terms, how big your business has grown, how many houses you own or where you can afford to go on holiday? Or is it something else completely?I was brought up to believe that the measure of success was making it to the top in your career, having a perfect house, perfect husband, 2.2 kids and lots of cash in the bank. However, life had other ideas.In my late twenties I experienced a paradigm-shattering experience where I began to question what it was that I was really looking for in life. I realized that what I thought I wanted were actually somebody-else’s ideas of what I should have (ie, the unconscious conditioning from my family and culture). This led me on a 20 year journey of self-discovery to find the answer. And I’m happy to say I’ve made good progress.
If you stop and ask yourself the question ‘WHY’ is it that I want that promotion, that BMW, that house on the beach, the perfect partner and friends etc (and the list is endless), you may find that what you are really after is a FEELING. The feeling of how you think you will feel when you get that thing.
The interesting thing is, we will get that feeling when we get that thing, but then we find it’s only temporary, and we’re onto wanting the next thing (or feeling) etc. And this goes on ad infinitum.
When you take the time to drill down underneath these feelings, you may start to find that what you’re really after is a sense of freedom and peace. So what if this is what you are REALLY after, rather than the car, the house, the job, the partner…What if what you really desire is true, lasting peace? What if finding that was real success?
So, if I ask myself how I am doing in terms of finding true inner peace, I have to happily report that I’m definitely on my way. I now know that it’s possible to have a sense of inner calm and tranquillity no matter what is going on in my life. I know how to look after my own health without relying on outside sources. So whether my bank balance is high or low, whether I am busy with clients or not, real success for me is knowing how to maintain an inner state of good health, equilibrium and joy – no matter what. Now, how would that feel?
By Kim Knight, The Art of Health, Auckland, New Zealand‘Become your own Master’Paramahamsa Prajnanananda, Head of the Kriya Yoga InstituteOne of the things I have noticed working with chronic fatigue clients over the last 4 years are a number of across-the-board similarities. The one I’d like to talk about today is the concept of victimhood.In every case I have met, there is to some degree or other a level of dis-empowerment – or victimhood. Now I know that being called a ‘victim’ is not particularly endearing, but the fact remains it’s true. And I include myself in these statistics, obviously, as a recoverer of chronic fatigue.
So what is this dis-empowerment issue? It seems to run very deep, and often subconsciously. Many years ago I became aware that I was what one could call a ‘covert martyr’ – as opposed to the overt type who are quite obvious in their cries for attention. The covert martyr often ’soldiers on’ with their life, trying to get ahead but constantly being held back by a deep level of inner dis-empowerment and ‘poor me’ mentality. This weakness usually stems from childhood as a result of circumstances such as over-bearing caregivers, being bullied, physical or emotional abuse, feeling unsupported and much more.
For whatever reason (and there are countless reasons) the child grows up feeling weak and unsupported emotionally, which translates into not being able to support and stand up for them self. People with chronic fatigue often allow other’s needs to supersede their own, can’t say no, put work and other people before themselves, and generally feel ‘less than’ anyone else. The feelings of inner loss of power translate into self-defeating behaviour, spiralling down into feelings of despair, hopelessness and depression. And all the while there is still not a recognition of the intense state of victimhood inside.
So what is the solution? Well, as always, to first identify and acknowledge how things are. Recognize and accept that this is how it is. It does not make you a bad person, it just means there are dis-empowerment issues which need to be addressed. As good ol’ Dr Phil says ‘You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge’.
Then start to notice the feelings of dis-empowerment. Notice when you start behaving like a victim. And start to notice what it feels like when you act like a victim. Slowly you will start to recognize that actually it does not feel good at all! Whereas in the past, when the initial behaviour was set up, we felt better by playing the victim, we start to notice that our body does not feel good at all when we play ‘poor me’. And when this happens, ask yourself how you can do it differently. And start doing it differently!
I’ll give you an example. A few years ago when I was on a sickness benefit with chronic fatigue, I went overseas for more than a month which meant my benefit was stopped. On returning I could have re-applied and technically was still able to. However, as I contemplated going back on the benefit, I could feel how heavy and uninspired my body felt at the thought of doing that. So I tuned in and asked myself how my body (not my head) would feel if I didn’t go back on a benefit. And it felt completely different – much lighter and happier. So I decided to listen to my body intelligence (and that’s what Mickel Therapy is all about – listening to your body not your mind) and decided to take a huge risk and not re-apply for benefit.
Was it scary? You bet! Terrifying. But was it the right thing? You bet. And here’s the thing: once we commit to a decision which is life-supporting, life will support us. There is no doubt about that. It doesn’t mean things will be easy, as we will still have to work on those old patterns and beliefs which we have lived with for so long. But slowly, slowly (and sometimes faster than that) things will change. And as we move towards self-mastery, life will get better and better, you will find yourself feeling stronger and stronger, and being a victim will become a thing of the past.
I wish you well on your journey! We are all born to become our own masters.
For the last 20 years I have spent much time and effort in understanding what drives me, my patterns of thinking and emotional reactions, clearing old traumas and non-beneficial beliefs. During that time I have done a whole host of personal development including one-on-one counselling and group workshops covering a wide range of modalities from The Journey, Holotropic Breathwork, Rebirthing, Bodytalk, past life regression, time-line therapy, NLP….the list goes on. Since 2000 however I concentrated more fully on the meditation and Qi Gong practices of the Universal Healing Tao, in particular using the Inner Smile, Six Healing sounds and Fusion of the Five Elements to clear negative emotions from the organs. Most days for 10 years I took the time to do these exercises, which I found particularly useful for clearing emotions on the spot, rather than ’soaking’ in them for hours, days or months.
Then a year or so ago I noticed a difference in my meditations, and I couldn’t put my finger on what was happening. And in November 2009 I attended a two week silent Qi Gong retreat with Master Yuan Tze, Zhineng Qi Gong teacher. It was unexpectedly transformative. During the retreat I understood properly for the first time, from within, how negative emotions damage our internal organs. When the emotional energy rises up from within the particular organ (for example, sadness from the lungs or anger from the liver), it disturbs the delicate pool of Qi from which it comes. The Taoist teachings are always emphasizing how negative emotions drain energy, and I really ‘got it’.
Equally importantly, I understood that our natural state of being is CALM AND RELAXED. In other words, it is natural to be and live in a calm and relaxed state. When we are in such a state, our Shen (mind) is clear and our Jing and Qi (body and energy) are in a healthy state. It is from this state that we are designed to operate on a daily basis. ALL OF THE TIME.
So what does this mean? It means that emotional reactions are not natural or healthy! Now, that is going to push a lot of buttons for people when they read it, and to be quite frank, if someone had told me that 6 months ago I would have told them they were talking a load of cobblers. And even after I recognized the truth of this statement, I still wanted my emotions. I still wanted to feel sad and angry sometimes. I felt like a little kid who has had his toy taken away from him and starts to sulk. It was really quite amusing. But something had shifted dramatically in my understanding and inside my body. I knew from the truth that is only revealed from within that we are not meant to have emotions and how detrimental they really to our health. And then I realized that emotions are a habit! And like any habit, a habit can be changed.
So, I just want to backtrack for a minute, and what I am going to say now may sound like a direct contradiction to what I’ve just said. But as you will see it’s not really.
In my own journey to understand emotions, I have come to realize there are different stages of what I like to call EMOTIONAL MATURITY. And it goes a bit like this:
So, just to recap what I have said in the above points, firstly we train ourselves to not feel, then we become aware that we have a habit of not feeling, and then we start re-training ourselves to feel again. But this is not the end of it. And this is the bit that no-one ever told me! (Well, actually a few people had, I just wasn’t ready to hear it so it didn’t register on my radar).
Once we have reached a certain level of proficiency in feeling, and have cleared a certain amount of emotional baggage, we are then presented with the next step: the truth of the fact that emotional reactions are a habit which can be changed, and that they are extremely damaging to our health. We understand perhaps for the first time ever that it is possible to live without emotions. We realize the inherent truth that our natural state of being is to be in a calm and relaxed state 24 hours a day, and that any time we move from that place of calmness, we know that we have moved from a healthy (life-affirming) to an unhealthy (life-depleting) state. And the number one thing we now have to do, as soon as possible, is bring ourselves back to that natural, calm and healthy state.
Wow. That was a shock. Why? Because I had to give up my ‘emotional habit’, which includes any form of drama or poor me or ’someone else it to blame’ or ‘it’s not ok to be happy’. It’s a 180 degree turnaround in thinking and belief, which at first I wasn’t sure I was ready to accept. It was so spectacularly different, I was in shock for several days. But somehow it felt true, and the internal shift was so real I could not deny it.
And then I also began to experience the state of true joy which arises out of this state of calmness. Joy which has nothing to do with any external circumstance which one would normally associate with happiness, such as ‘I’m in a great relationship’ or ‘I’ve just won lotto’. Just pure, natural joy which arises spontaneously from within.
I do want to emphasize that it seems to me that learning to feel and clear emotions is an essential stage for most of us. How can you transcend emotions if you don’t know what they are? It’s a bit like learning to walk before you can run – you simply have to go through the required stages and skipping a step would be detrimental.
However, things are-a-changing pretty rapidly in terms of consciousness right now, and who knows, maybe that will change too. But for now, I just wanted to share the tremendous realization that living without negative emotions is our birthright. We can “leave emotion and be motionless”.
PS – I’s just like to add, this realization does not mean that emotions never arise in me. Sometimes they do, but the experience is very different, they are much less frequent, much weaker and more quickly dispersed. It’s actually quite hard to put into words the difference inside, but it is a profound shift in both understanding and internal experience.
Kim Knight
The Art of Health
