What Now

Over the last week or so I have looked into various ways to try to "get in touch with" that inner pain but unfortunately with little success.

I have tried a couple of forms of "energy work" - Reiki and Chi-Gong. The practitioners said they could detect something but didnt seem to identify it correctly to me. I must say that I did feel the "treatments" effected my mood in a positive fashion, but I didn't get anywhere near to an emotional release or feel nearer to the pain or anger. - oh well, worth a try.

I have tried a couple of different sessions with "spiritual" type healers - There are lots of them around here. On one occasion, there was absolutely no connection to, or detection of the issue by myself or the practitioner. On the other occasion, the practitioner said they detected an enormous fear (which I didn't feel was right but Freud may say otherwise.) In that case however, the practitioner had absolutely no clue how I could get in touch with it and had no suggestions of how to help - a bit disappointing! - no joy here either.

Finally, I tried a Hypnotherapy session - Id heard of spontaneous emotional releases through this on occasion and there was a practitioner here with a good reputation.
The session lasted nearly 4 hours and I felt that he lowered my mental conscious level by not more than 1% (I had hoped this would not be the case but suspected it might be - I'm highly non-suggestible it seems). It was thus far more of a counseling session than I would have hoped for and while I did get a couple of behavioral suggestions that may be of some practical value, on the whole it was not a success.

So, What now?
Well, it seems that I'm more or less on my own with the problem. Sad to say, but this is the usual situation for me and what got me the problem in the first place. On the flip side though, I have plenty of experience with this situation and I expect I will be able to work it out in my own way over time. I will also keep an eye open for other opportunities if they present them selves, but I feel it is unlikely at this stage.

Also over the past week, I have of course spent the time to review the causes of the past and obviously, my parents were not trying to hurt anyone. They are people with human frailties and they had their own lives to live at the time. I'm sure they had plenty of their own struggles in their own childhoods that I neither had nor have the slightest insight into and we know how our childhoods affect our adult lives :)
I was raised while they were in their twenties and thirties, so I can easily see how they may not have had the most complete set of child rearing skills, and that's more or less normal I suppose. There are reasons why good people do the strangest and least understandable things and I'm sure this is one of those cases. That said, I can safely say that I don't hold any particular grudges against them. Im also very sure that they truely did love me, but that they simply didnt express it in a way that I could detect as a child.

As it stands, I'm about to spend almost two months in silence, contemplating my life and the universe and such. I figure Ill have a good shot at working through plenty of this stuff at a deeper level in that time.
The three month course is a different experience for everyone and there are a bunch of goals intended to motivate the participants. I was initially getting myself aligned on these goals, but it was proving very difficult.
Over the last two weeks, my meditation has really gone down the drain as my mind has been far too active and I'm not skilled enough at meditation to keep mental noise of this magnitude at bay.
I assume that this will abate if I just keep at it, so that is what I will do. Likewise, my ability to study (lots of reading material in the course) is seriously compromised at present - More of those mental interruptions.
Given this, I feel that its better that I just "go with the flow" and see what I get, rather than accept external goals as my own. So, I will use the time and the course to work away at both the course material and my own internal issues and we´ll just see what we get when we are done.

I'm still quite looking forward to the long silence.
I expect Ill do a couple of posts in the first month but the last month is likely to be very quiet from me, so don't hold your breath waiting for the next post after about 10th April.

After that, Ill post again on 22 June.