Hey guys,
I began my inner work journey roughly 2 years ago. I spent a lot of time just learning the mechanics and learning what to say etc. Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble getting past the starting gate for a while. It wasn't until I realized that everything wasn't going to go as smoothly as I had planned after college that I really dove into inner work. I had the right beliefs, but I didn't have the "weight" (wait/patience) to match them.
My disposition towards inner work built from being stuck in same place I returned to when I found this forum. It's funny to me. Every long journey ends where it begins. It actually marked the start of a new journey, one I'm enjoying immensely.
Roughly two years ago, I started meditating on my own. I had some successes, but I was grasping for straws in the dark. It kind of takes a little help to get going and figure out what you're doing.
It takes more work figuring out how to approach yourself from a disposition of compassion and acceptance each and every day.
Fwiw, if I'm saying this^^^ then you know it's true. For some of the older members, you probably know how hard I am on myself. I learned that attitude from those who were hard on me. I thought I had to be hard on myself because failing wasn't an option. For my childhood, it never was. And that's ok.
You don't need a coach for learning to treat yourself with compassion, or maybe you do if you're me or like me.
Six months or four months into my journey, Dr.Awesome, a very old member of the community, made a post offering a month of free sessions for inner work.
I can emphatically and without a doubt say that his help is worth it. If you're more advanced in the realm of spirituality, emotional awareness, and acceptance then you might find some of his services lacking. Where he would shine for an advanced person is in helping you identify your center and integrating your balance into everyday life. He's awesome with this.
In our first month, Dr.Awesome helped me alter my relationship with my brother. Amazingly, I felt something I had only experienced one time before, the gap between experience and action (or reaction for me).
I was literally grounded so strong in experience that I could feel as if time had stopped when interacting with my brother after our FIRST session. Anything below breathtaking couldn't describe my feelings for that first session.
In later sessions we covered everything from embarrassment, attachment, addiction, trust, doubt, the relationship with my mother etc. I can honestly say that most of my growth over the last year came from the weekly sessions that I have with him. Unfortunately, they are ending soon so he can move on other ventures.
One of the biggest highlights of his efforts and failures was helping with cigarettes. For a month and a half, 6 sessions, we worked together on my addiction to cigarettes. Unfortunately, we had no success. This is admittedly a failure on both of our parts. I couldn't accept my fear of quitting. For me, for what was and is at stake for me, is the death of who I have become.
It is an entire readjust to the world and the way I see it. It's a readjustment of the relationships I have and have had.
To his credit, he admitted that he had no experience with helping anyone with addictions. His main areas are self worth, self respect, and compassion, pretty much everything dealing with self love. He did take the time to research approaches from highly rated people in his field.
We made it to the point where I could find the issue in my body/nervous system and chased it over multiple sessions. I didn't make the leap to quit immediately because I couldn't place enough faith in myself after my last major failure. The fear and doubt was too strong.
I also think it might have been a mistake using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) for the exercises, but I heavily qualify my statement saying that it was also a complete failure on my part.
We have left some areas partially and more so unexplored like my relationship with my mother. I caution that statement with a clarification that some of what has been left unexplored is my unease with exploring those areas. The first time we worked with the relationship between my mother and I, I was left angrier at her. The second time, there were many conflicted feelings. I imagine a few more sessions would help me reach a place of acceptance. There are more pressing issues that I want to spend the few sessions I have left with him on though.
I do think that Dr.Awesome makes judicious decisions when it comes to approaching issues. We didn't always use EFT. Sometimes we used simple body awareness, visualization, and at other times combinations of techniques. I clearly remember when he actually had me do literal "pushups" after an EFT session because my emotions were so strong (too work through my emotions). Unsurprisingly, my emotions intensified and then dissipated. We did this twice. In nearly every session, my dreams were affected (changed from the usual), and I clearly realized after that pushup session the root of a serious self worth issue.
The only way to describe the experience from the epiphany of my dreams from the first pushup session is otherworldly. I lucidly experienced my "spiritual" or emotional world for the first time. I saw the mechanics if you can even call it that (closest words I can use) of my inner demons or subconscious actors of myself. I realized them for the stupid ass jokesters they are and the way they want to just help you.
I also got to see how they're always trying to protect you from something.
I vividly remember walking on the banks of my subsconscious for the first time and experiencing a vast ocean (after a few of our early sessions). It was a deep peace and familiarity crossing the shoreline. I didn't actually ever expect to lucidly dream and consciously interact with subconscious pictures. In fairness, I still can't lucidly dream and it only happens after deep inner work or experiencing deep emotional awareness.
I've probably gone on too long in this review, but I felt it was right to say these things.
Dr.Awesome is a good teacher and also works with Flow83 and GPWalsh's team.
The only way I could detract from the help he's given me to make sure that you're hearing a balanced review is that we worked with EFT too much and possibly for too long. EFT is emotionally draining. It's an intense workout and sometimes you need to give yourself a break.
On the whole, he's judicious about approaches to problems though.
I hope you all enjoy reading.
Best,
Slim