Chained to the floor?

Friday morning, a little after 11 am. I open my eyes, I feel my body but I can’t move. My arms are stuck to the ground, they feel like concrete and I can’t even move them an inch. My legs are in a similar state, am I chained to the floor? What is this? My face feels like if somebody put a mask on my face and the sounds that come out of my mouth don’t even come close to form words. What the fuck happened………….?

A few days earlier…
In my conversations with Martin, when I told him my questions, getting rid of all the hurt from the past, he said it is all quite simple. He explained me his approach and the techniques he uses. During the next weeks I will write about these things more in depth but for this story, you only need to know that it is all about three questions. The question of the mind, the question of the body and the question of intimacy. To live life fully is to find answers to these questions, your answers. To find these answers there are several techniques. For the mind there is meditation, for the body yoga, for intimacy Tantra.  The plan is to go step by step, first the mind. We plan an active breathing meditation on Friday. Nice, I think, this is an easy one. I’ve been meditating for years. Tried many meditation techniques to find what’s best for me and nothing makes me more relaxed and gets me closer to myself than meditation. Looking forward to it :).

Friday morning, 9.50am
We are with the four of us and just prepared the meditation room. We all have our yoga mats covered with a towel, a pillow and a blanket by our side just in case it gets cold. I sit on my mat next to my 2 co-participants and we are all facing Maria who will lead this active breathing meditation. Maria is a professional Tantra teacher and has lead many of these sessions before. She is also a very warm, loving, caring and fun person so I am very calm and relaxed. She starts explaining what the goal for today is. For the next hour I have to breathe actively only through my mouth. I have to breathe with my belly so every inhale my belly should go up, expanding. Then exhale with sound, like aah. With no stop between the inhale and the exhale. She also explains that I should just let every thing happen. If I have to cry then cry, laugh then laugh, scream then scream etc. …… Ok, I think……. where is this going? Then she says not to worry when I don’t feel my hands for example, it will be okay and the feeling will come back. And as an example what can happen she lays down on the floor and starts to actively breathe, then scream, tremble shake, cry…………… and I was thinking…. yeah right? Not gonna happen with this guy, funny people here……but let’s give it a try.

I lay myself on my back on the yoga mat, I close my eyes and I do what I was instructed. I start to actively breathe through my mouth, expanding my belly and actively exhale making a little ‘aah’ sound. For the first maybe 5 minutes all is going well no weird stuff. Except for my neighbor (who attended these sessions before) who screams very loudly. All around me sounds become louder. I feel the tension in my body starts to intensify. Especially in my legs, arms and face. Maria comes so now and then and touches me on the belly to assist in getting the right rhythm of the breathing. At this point I don’t know how long we are already in the session, but little by little my exhales become louder…. aaah……aaaaaaahhh…..aaaaaahhhh…..aaaaaahhh….. until the point that I just scream aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh……

I am completely aware of what is happening, Maria coaches me to keep focusing on my breathing. And after the first real big scream automatically I slowly calm down and with the help of Maria I keep focusing on my breathing and breathe calmly again. This cycle happened two times during my first session. During the whole session I am completely aware of what is happening around me and inside of me. It is hard to explain in words but during the whole experience I could actually see me. See the whole energy cloud that is in me. An energy cloud within my body with all sorts of intensity. I could see the negative energy blocking the positive. I saw the neutral and calm energy. Like I said it’s hard to explain because I actually saw these energies working together as one big cloud. I could see how the different parts of energy were flowing through my body all in the same time when I was just focusing on active breathing.

A bit after 11 am

Maria tells me it’s time to start breathing normally again. The whole thing lasted an hour but it feels like 10 minutes. I feel my arms and legs but can’t move them. Not even an inch. It’s like they are chained to the ground or like I have pieces of concrete attached to my body. Maria covers me up with a blanket so I can relax and slowly come back. I try to speak, but the muscles in my face are so cramped that only sounds come out, not words. After a few minutes of normal breathing slowly all starts functioning normally again.

The only thing I can say is what I experienced. I saw myself.

I’ve been told that this experience is for everybody different, depending on where you are in life and what you are dealing with. But the use of this meditation is for everybody the same. It gives you an opportunity to look at the mind, to become aware of how the mind works and what it has to say to you.

I saw myself, I see myself and that makes it a hell lot easier for me to live with me and work with me. 😉

Yesterday I had my second active breathing meditation and it was a different experience. At the end, I wasn’t blocked in my arms and legs. A little tense in the face, for a big part of the session I was completely aware of what was going on around me. Anyway, point is, this technique is so powerful and so effective, I suggest to everyone to try it once but make sure you find someone who is experienced in guiding these sessions.

With love,

Vince