Please help me with NEW

[MatthewWright]

I have recently purchased Astral Dynamics, and have started reading the NEW Energy Ways section, and need help. I can't seem to get it to work. "Feel your left knee. Become aware of it." I don't know what it is I'm supposed to be doing. Concentrating on it? I can 'feel' my left knee right now. If something touches my left knee, I can feel it. I'm aware of my left knee now. What does he want exactly? It seems that Robert's teaching requires some level of "just getting it" from the student, that I don't know if I have. For example, the exercise where you draw a circle around your thumb joint over and over, until you can feel that without actually drawing the circle. I can't feel it. I need to draw it. I can't feel any circle being drawn there unless I'm physically doing it with my finger.

Please, help. This is getting frustrating. I keep scratching my lef tknee and sitting there trying to "feel" it and become completely "aware" of my left knee, but it seems almost pointless, because I don't think that whatever he wants to happen is happening.

[MatthewWright]

Also, another problem occurs when trying to do the exercise where you run your figner from the base of your left thumb to your shoulder, or doing the exercise where you run your fignertips along the back of your hand on the beginners page of this site. I cannot get myself to recall the moving feeling of the fignertips. I can recall the overall feeling of touch on my left hand, but not the feeling going from the wrist up. It's like I can feel the whole length I ran my fignertips along all at once, but cannot get myself to recreate the feeling of touch moving from my wrist up.

[Planet_Jeroen]

Please, help. This is getting frustrating. I keep scratching my lef tknee and sitting there trying to "feel" it and become completely "aware" of my left knee, but it seems almost pointless, because I don't think that whatever he wants to happen is happening.

It's a strange concept to start out with, since it involves you accepting that there's more then meets the eye.

A helpfull hint is given by Brian, where he suggests the following:


If yo have trouble with the stirring or brushing actions after several minutes, try this: Open your eyes and point your left index finger to your right thumb joint. Your index finger should be about an inch or so above but not touching your thumb joint. Use your index finger to stir or brush the area above the joint.


Try that for the other areas you mention as well... do it slowly, and it might also be helpfull to imagine energy emitting from your index finger to the place you try to work on. If you want to get a refference feeling, rub your hands together for a while with the palms and then slowly bring them together, without touching. It should feel as if there is something soft between them, or as if you try to push to magnets together with identical poles.

Other then that, replace 'feel' and 'become aware' with 'how does it feel' and go from there. Try to answer that question as specific as possible for yourself, while you hold the brushing concept in your mind as well.

Hope you can work with these suggestions.

Regards,

Jeroen

[MatthewWright]

I don't know if there is much there to work with, but I'll try, thanks.

I guess I'll just have to keep trying until something happens.

That seems to be the main problem, I'm waiting for anything to happen. I don't know exactly what I'm shooting for, so I can't try it directly. Be aware of your knee. What does that mean? I'm always aware of my knee, it's a part of me. I don't know how he means me to be more aware than I am now. I can concentrate on it, I suppose and think about it, but I don't know how to "feel" my knee and to "highlight it with my awareness".

That's why I'm not sure if I can go anywhere with seeing how it feels, and go from there. It doesn't really feel anything at all after I stop scratching or drawing the circle.

Maybe I'll just have to keep trying it, but think differently each time. Re-think the way I'm thinking, until I finally realize what he means to happen.

Is there any certain end result I should be waiting for to know that I've done it successfully? What happens if I think that I have become more aware of my knee, but I really havn't. I'm just fooling myself. I'd end up continuing on from there without knowing I havn't even gotten the first steps right and it would all be a waste.

I have done the palm thing before. Long ago. I'd hold them about an inch or two apart, and then bring them out to about a foot apart and then back and forth, and eventually I could feel something between them. As if the air had thickened between them. Quite a cool feeling. How does this apply to the energy work though?

Thanks a lot for your help, I really appreciate it.

[Tom]

The reason why tactile imaging is easier than techniques based on visualization is that for most people it is easier to remember and recreate what a touch sensation felt like than it is to recreate a picture of some sort. What you are trying to do is to remember what something felt like and pretend you are feeling it exactly the same way at first. Then you go on to make up new sensations. It is like when you are reading that example of tasting a lemon. You are guided to feel the weight of the lemon in your hand and to smell it and to see the pores in the peel. You are guided to imagine cutting into the lemon, seeing the juice spray and drip from where you cut it. The smell grows stronger and sharper. You then imagine putting some of the lemon in your mouth and biting into it. As long as you keep everything vivid and involve several of your senses, your mouth will react as if you were really eating a lemon. It is like that with tactile imagery. Working with ideas like brushes and sponges and rubbing them on parts of your body is just the beginning. It is easier than trying to start from the beginning with "become aware of your energy", but it happens that you will start to find things going on fairly quickly that you did not make happen deliberately. You might also find that sensations continue in the area where you were practicing after you stop and move on to something else. What happens is that you become familiar with the sensations of energy moving through you and then you can switch to using tactile imagery to bring those back. The process continues to get faster, easier, and more direct. Other people will just just directly to telling you to imagine the energy moving into you and through you by visualizing it as light. This approach works also, but it requires a far bigger initial leap on the part of people trying to learn on their own from a book or a web site.

[MatthewWright]

Tom:

I know. I can't do it. I can't get myself to recall the feeling. That's the problem. I scratch my left knee. I stop scratching and tyr to recall the feeling. I can recall doing the scratching, but not the feeling of scratching or being scratched, let alone bring other sensations into the picture.

See, for me, I can easily recreate pictures of things. Just going to answer this, in my mind I can see your little avatar picture in my mind, as I think about replying to you. As I try and concentrate on recalling the feeling of my knee being scratched, I can see my knee in my mind. I don't even look at my knee while I scratch it, I keep my eyes closed, but I can still see my knee when I try to recall the scratching feeling. And it's not a choice, either. Whether I want to see it or not, I do. It isn't even possible to get rid of the image, because to do that I have to think: Ok get rid of that picture of my knee! But that right there just reminds me of it and brings the image right back up.

Picturing things isn't a problem. It's recalling the feelings and imagining feelings that I can't seem to be able to do. When i try to recall the feeling of my knee being scratched, I just get a picture of my knee and usually my figner scratching it. Sometimes there is some kind of mark or streak where I'd been scratched. Maybe the scratched spot is coloured differently. But that's it. No feelings come back to me.

For me, to have the feeling of being scratched, I seem to have to be physically scratched, and because of that I can't even begin any energy work. That's where I need some kind of help.

Thank you, though, now I have a better idea of what he means being aware of my knee. I think...

[Tom]

Given how good your ability to work with pictures is, it sounds like you should go that route. You can apply pictures to everything you would do with tactile imagery. There have been other people with the same circumstances. Actually, for me I have to have sound effects for my primary imagery rather than tactile or visual. A couple of people needed to adapt tactile imagery for use with smells. The more senses you can work into your practice, the better. It is just that for most people, it is challenging enough just to get one sense working this way and the easiest is usually touch. For you to force yourself to do things that way would be like making a marathon runner walk with crutches and braces.

[MatthewWright]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

I'd rather learn it the way descirbed though, as Robert actually goes out of his way to explain that it works better than vizualizing things. For example, you can't use ROPE with just pictures.

Not to mention that now that the challenge has been set in front of me, I have to take it head on. I'd rather not find a way around it.

I just need to find someone to tell me what he means by "become aware of it your knee." People have given me some great tips and ideas regarding the work, but nobody seems to be able to directly answered the question. I'm not complaining or blaming anyone, I'm just saying.

Is there any way I can contact Robert directly?

(P.S. - If I seem like I'm being difficult or anything, please take note that that is not at ALL my intention. I just want to learn this thing properly, and to do that, I have to understand it. Don't think I don't appreciate your help, Tom, it's excellent to have someone willing to try and help me, and I'm grateful.)

[gorillabait]

I think that the phrase "becoming aware of your knee" sounds more complicated than it really is. If you touch a part of your body, you feel it. You feel that touch. When you take your finger away, you still feel a remenant of it. That feeling is all that they mean, really. The more you try concentrating on feeling a part of your body, the more you can feel it without needing to touch it. Right now I can feel almost any point of my body, and there are many places which feel tight or otherwise uncomfortable; these are problem areas in my mind.

Becoming aware of your knee means being able to feel it really. If you touch your knee, that feeling of touch is all Robert means. Eventually you'll even have the sensation of being able to feel the inside of it, bones and all.

If this doesn't help please let us know. I'd love to try and clarify further.

-Mike

[MatthewWright]

I MAY have gotten somewhere:

In between posts I've been doing the exercise where you stroke your hand and tyr to recreate the feeling. I was hoping maybe I'd be able to get it to work, but it was to no success until a few minutes ago.

I tried it again, slowly stroking the back of my hand. I made sure I could feel it clearly and did it oooover and oooover. I then stopped, shut my eyes, and tried to recreate the feeling. Unforutnately, once again, I could recall the overall feeling, as in, could feel the general path of the strokes and even sort of feel where I would begin each stroke a little stronger, as if my fingertips were still there, ready to go to work. Unfortunately, they seemed to just sit there.

I kept concentrating and trying. No stroking feeling. No sensations. Not at first at least.

After a couple minutes of holding out my hand and just simply focusing on the feeling, it was as if I could feel it more clearly. Still no stroking, but at least a "stroked" feeling. I could sooort of feel something between a tingling and a pressure in my hand. I may have a better idea of what he means by "being aware of your hand" now, but I'm not all the way there. At least it's a start.

Thanks Tom, you've helped.

EDIT AFTERWARD: Gorilla, I didn't thank Tom and not you on purpose, by the time you posted, apparently I was already in the middle of typing this up. Thank yuo for your post. THe thing is I DON"T have a remnant of touching my knee. I have it for maybe half a second, just like if you touch anywhere. But I can't hold on, I can't keep the feeling, and cannot recreate it. Even in the above post, I couldn't feel the stroking, I couldn't recreate that. All I could do was hold on a little longer to the afterward feeling of being stroked. It was the same when I did the exercise from the book. The one where you go back and forth with your figner from the base of your thumb to your shoulder and then try and do it without touching. I can hold onto the feeling of the path my figner traced overall, but I can't make any kind "moving up and down" feeling. I can recall where I traced, but no type of movement. No type of shifting the awareness along the path.

[MatthewWright]

One thing that reading your repsonses has led me to consider is that I might be expecting something new when really this is all simply natural. What I mean is, long before evr even hearing about OBE's I've thought it was kind of cool how if you thought about a single body part, it was almost as if everything else wasn't there. Almost as if if you concentrated on one body part, it was like you could feel that body part simply "being." Not feel it touching or doing anything, but be aware of the fact that it is simply "there." Now don't think "What an idiot! That's the whole thing! That's what he thinks he's having trouble doing!" I don't get hardly any sensation at all. I suppose I get what you might call a light tingling, but that's it. Also, the reason that I always assumed this wasn't quite it, is because I don't get that feeling by doing anything Robert describes. I get it just by thinking. Just by thinking about my hand.

As much as I'd like this to be the case, I can't be right can I. Because I still can't recall any type of feelings. Like you must know by now, I can't re-create the feeling of being stroked. So I'm still not doing it right, I still am not using tactile imaging.

Man this is frustrating. It must be for the readers too, and I apologize. I can "sense" my hand, but I can't do any of Bruce's stuff with it, and don't even think I'm sensing it properly anyway.

[Tom]

Most people ignore their bodies unless something goes wrong. Hands, feet, the mouth, and the tongue in particular are exceptions to this neglect, so they tend to respond fastest. Often one side of the body will respond faster than the other. It can take several months of daily practice to wake everything up and to no longer have tactile blind spots.

[me]

try to feel for a pulse in your toes and other extremities then work it into a tingle, or something... thats what i do

[enoch]

I never get my foot to actually tingle just asif I've run my finger around it. I think that you would need a very sophisticated and advanced imagination to do that...but try and be aware of how it would feel if you were to circle your toe with your finger...be aware of what kind of sensation you would feel in that area. The tingling will come to some extent in time but nowhere near as exact as the real thing, in my opinion. I could be wrong, there may be people who can replicate that feeling exactly, I dunno. I mean, it's the same as imagining running your hand through your hair or patting your head. You don't actuallt feel that patting but you are aware - in your minds eye - of what it would feel like. Hope this helps :? :wink:

[MatthewWright]

Thanks everyone, I've made a decent bit of progress. I can replicate the tingling feeling of stroking my hand almost any time now, although sometiems it takes a couple of strokes to give me a little "boost" or reminder. I can go a nice ways from there.

Enoch: When I do it I can actually replicate the feeling of having been stroked (still no movement feelings, which is keeping me from the circle around the thumb joint exercise, but I'll get there soon) to the point where it's much stronger than if I had actually just stroked my hand. It's pretty neat.

Once again, thanks for all your help.

[tyciol]

You try and recreate the sensation of touch, tingliness, whatever, then expand it through the knee joint.

[mirtna]

I think that i understand what you are saying, though i don't have your gift of visual imagery.

My personal opinion is that the reason you feel your concentration is wasted (that is, that your idea of 'what it felt like' wasn't real/vivid enough) is that you are just starting out in your practice. Aside from a few lucky and gifted inidividuals that seem to take to all of this like fish to water, we all started out there at some point :)

I think that a major portion of the changes one undergoes as a result of regular practice is a BIG increase in sensitivity, both to external stimuli and internal. So on the one hand, one might take more pleasure in such things as a sunset or a song, and also on the other hand be much more *aware* (key word here) of their own thoughts and feelings. Building up awareness seems to be absolutely integral to all of this.

Anyway, sorry if i've rambled on, just thought i'd share my view.

[enoch]

I think that a major portion of the changes one undergoes as a result of regular practice is a BIG increase in sensitivity, both to external stimuli and internal. So on the one hand, one might take more pleasure in such things as a sunset or a song, and also on the other hand be much more *aware* (key word here) of their own thoughts and feelings. Building up awareness seems to be absolutely integral to all of this.

I think you hit the nail on the head there, mirtna

[tyciol]

I find the best way for me to feel tactile stimulation is to tickle it, but scratching/slapping/punching might work too, though I'd recommend it for muscley areas and not joints, which you probably wouldn't be working on much anyway.

[nparker]

Hi..!

I though there are a main problem with “being aware of...” mental action, and such is the mind scenario completeness concept.

As in Rope Technique, tactile imagination of a pair of hands pulling a rope doesn´t enough. It´s needed to make a mind image of us climbing the rope, but not from visual imagery viewpoint (remember its energy wasting nature) but including in such a mind image tactil and mainly “kinesthesical” components. It´s needed to think about us and our hands (not physical hands) as a connected set.

Well, apologize previous digression (rope technique related) and coming back to “being aware of...” (aka “feel your...”) concept, scratch action of a specific body part allows us to highlight such area making it even more detectable.

Scratch action, too, allows us to gather a reliable data set in order to efficiently point (or direct) our mind a posteriori, done the tingling sensations generated through.

My best regards...
Sincerely,
Natalia Parker

[Chris]

I noticed the effects of NEW the first time I tried (the force of the energy movements felt was quite impressive). I don't think I have better visualisation skills then most people (my 'vision' visualisation skill actually seems to be quite diminished compared to what it was during childhood).
The reason I picked up NEW techniques so quickly was due to the work I had been doing in breath meditation. This meditation requires attention on the breath, but also periodically tactile awareness of the body. Over time, ones sensitivity to tactile sensation increases dramatically, and tactile awareness can be placed on any internal or external spot (or multiple spots) immediately.
Perhaps people who find NEW difficult to start with could attempt tactile based meditations for a while first, and then move on to NEW? This would have the added bonus of developing relaxed focused awareness, and increased duration of awareness.
The book I got the breath meditation from was:” Teach Yourself to Meditate: Over 20 Exercises for Peace, Health and Clarity of Mind” by Eric Harrison. This is probably the best book I have read on meditation for beginners.

I find the best way for me to feel tactile stimulation is to tickle it, but scratching/slapping/punching might work too, though I'd recommend it for muscley areas and not joints, which you probably wouldn't be working on much anyway.
I agree: tickling is very powerful.

My feet frequently give me a good bit of pain. :cry:

I had tried reflexology, seeking healing. But since I read about NEW, I tried tickling. That seems far more powerful than simple reflexology.

[tyciol]

Mine used to give me a lot of pain too. I find being more concious of how we land our feet during walking, running, climbing, and focusing on building strength (the feet has tiny muscles in it, not just calf and ankle) actually tends to help, and adding variety to how you walk. Landing slowly from a low controlled height is less impact.

Mine used to give me a lot of pain too. I find being more concious of how we land our feet during walking, running, climbing, and focusing on building strength (the feet has tiny muscles in it, not just calf and ankle) actually tends to help, and adding variety to how you walk. Landing slowly from a low controlled height is less impact.
Thanks for the advice. I don't think my problem is actually in my feet. It is more a matter of nerve functioning. But I will try as you say.

[tyciol]

Ohh sorry I thought you meant the actual foot. Refloxology from what I know is stimulating the nerves on the feet so that the corresponding nerves it matches in the body (like organs or whatever) are also helped. I didn't even think of the possibility of the manual stimulation aiding the feet, but yeah, it's like a foot massage or something, but also helping with nerves.

I wonder... do you think if you hit the points in the hand that matched the organs/feet it'd help in addition?

Ohh sorry I thought you meant the actual foot. Refloxology from what I know is stimulating the nerves on the feet so that the corresponding nerves it matches in the body (like organs or whatever) are also helped. I didn't even think of the possibility of the manual stimulation aiding the feet, but yeah, it's like a foot massage or something, but also helping with nerves.

I wonder... do you think if you hit the points in the hand that matched the organs/feet it'd help in addition?
Most foot pain is due to problems in other parts of the body. Thus reflexology is said to help with foot pain by helping those other parts. Such is the theory.

I sometimes do hand and ear reflexology, as well.

For what it's worth, this morning I called Pete Egoscue's radio show, Pain-Free Radio (http://www.egoscue.com). He gave me some advice, which -- I think -- may help.

[tyciol]

Cool so it works in reverse, never thought of that.

I did always wonder why it always seemed to be the foot or back that hurt people.

Cool so it works in reverse, never thought of that.
That's the theory...

I did always wonder why it always seemed to be the foot or back that hurt people.
Essentially, both suffer from gravity. Some people have poor circulation in the foot because the veins in the leg aren't carrying blood back to the heart properly. Others have nerve problems in the back that prevent signals from reaching the brain, resulting in ever-increasing numbness.

As to the back, itself... It is designed to be flexible while doing something no other animal does, walk erect.

According to Peter Egoscue, the key to avoiding problems is in good posture. Unfortunately, that can be harder than it sounds.

From what I see, I think Peter is right. But then, who am I to say?

[stargazer]

Matthew, I found the "awareness of a body part" to be somewhat like... have you ever watched a horror movie where they're doing something particularly icky to somebody, and you find yourself cringing and super-aware of your own corresponding body part? That's kind of how I tapped into the idea of, body awareness. (Though naturally, in a positive way!)

The other thing that helped me was that I used to feel a lot of cobweb sensations when I lived in a haunted building. I thought that the cobwebs were due to the presence of entities, i.e. that the entities were brushing up against me, but now I've revised that idea to be that the cobwebs were MY body's reaction to the entities, so to speak. Cobwebs to me, feel rather like there is a sort of an invisible pressure from the atmosphere, pressing against certain points on my face. The sensation is rather like my body is "pressing back" against that pressure. Knowing and feeling that sensation allowed me to adapt pretty well to the NEW system, though it required me shifting my focus from "feeling exterior sensations caused by an exterior force" to "feeling exterior sensations caused by an interior force, namely ME" i.e., there's stimulation happening to my energy.

I've found it difficult to adapt to larger awareness motions like the spinal bounce, etc., but.. the more you do it, the easier it seems to be. Keep at it! I've found that the resulting sensations make it much easier to target.. i.e. when I started with toe work I had a hell of a time telling one toe from another, but now I feel tingling in the corresponding toes which makes it thus easier to target, and so and soforth.... "Fake it til you make it" has served me very well.