I may have caused a terrible energy body imbalance, HELP!

[ecksemmess]

(I have posted a varation of this in the Ask Robert forum, but of course I also would like to get the community's thoughts here...)

I've been working with Robert's energy and OBE techniques on and off for years, but never really properly went through my energy body and systematically cleared blockages - and trust me, I do have many blockages of considerable seriousness (related - here's a post I made in 2007 about finding blockages in my energy body, and the hellish pain I went through when I tried too hard and fast to clear them: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=9923 (http://forums.astraldynamics.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=9923) )

Unfortunately after the experience described in that post I never properly went back to the energy work, but I have intermittently practiced OBE and trance stuff ever since. Then, several months ago, I stumbled upon an incredible new ability and was thrilled. I found that, by sheer intuition and willpower, I can connect emotionally with a deep, awe-inspiring part of myself (subconscious? higher self? not sure). I don't need to be tranced or physically relaxed at all to do this. When I do it, I get a flood of ineffable emotions (I often tear up) and a powerful pre-OBE vibrational state soon spreads through my body with all the usual symptoms (racing heart chakra, etc). This requires quite a bit of concentration and willpower to maintain, or else it quickly fades away to nothing.

So you can imagine how thrilled and surprised I was to find such a startlingly effective technique - full access to the vibrational state in seconds, with the physical body in a thoroughly UN-tranced, fairly tense state, and sometimes even with eyes open! Seems too good to be true, I thought. Well it appears I may have been right. After a few weeks of playing around with this intermittently (never penetrating far enough into the vibrations to have an actual OBE), I began to feel a little unbalanced, and had some digestive problems, so I decided to give it a rest. But the unbalanced feelings soon worsened and I became terribly physically ill. That was seven weeks ago and I've been quite sick nonstop the entire time with various digestive problems, headaches, weakness, etc. But far more prominent than those symptoms are the energy symptoms: my energy body feels like it's gone completely haywire. All kinds of very uncomfortable floaty, buzzy, tingly feelings everywhere (slightly more prominent in the area of the crown, solar plexus and navel chakras), along with very strange feelings of utterly nonsensical emotional upset ranging from sadness to near-panic (and trust me, I have NEVER suffered from emotional or mental disorders before this).

So what have I done about all this? Well of course, first I tried all the obvious things -- got looked at by a variety of medical doctors, none of whom could find anything wrong. I also completely stopped all metaphysical work for quite a while. None of this seemed to make much difference, so I cautiously tried starting with some trance/energy/OBE practice again. Things did not get any better or worse. I've tried everything ranging from immersing myself in the physical, doing lots of grounding exercises etc. on the one hand, to wholeheartedly pursuing and practicing my ultra-fast vibrational state technique on the other hand. It doesn't seem to matter. Either way, I'm in serious energetic trouble, with periods where I feel relatively normal for several days alternating with terrible bouts of all the physical, emotional and energy-body symptoms I mentioned before. I have also used NEW to check the sites of the large energy body blockages I used to have and they are most definitely as bad as ever. I feel intuitively that this is some kind of major energy body imbalance brought about by the combination of the overwhelming energetic strain of my powerful vibration state technique and my poorly prepared energy body, rather than a neg attack or some other such thing, but of course I don't really know and would love everyone's input. As I've tried all the usual grounding type practices to get things to settle down and all have failed, what are my options? Should I just plow ahead with basic NEW blockage-clearing techniques, at a particularly careful and slow pace? I'm nearly at wit's end here, so please share whatever advice you can.

Thanks in advance, and if anyone wants more details about my situation please don't hesitate to ask!

[Tom]

The first thing I would suggest is getting an energy body reading from Aunt Clair. Just as you wouldn't go to a doctor with the diagnosis already in mind, it is best not to self-diagnose in the case of serious energy problems. I have done this enough to know from personal experience that it is rarely what I think it is and rarely as severe as I think it is. Discomfort is not a very good gauge of what is going on because often the blockages are in a different location than the problem areas. There may be other people here who can do diagnostic work, but I don't really know who.

[Korpo]

Hello, ecksemmess.

What you seem to have connected to is your astral body, otherwise also known as the emotional body. It also sounds like this has led to a clearing or shaking loose of a lot of stuff - energetic blockages at the emotional layer. This process can seem chaotic and it is indeed a good idea to ground a lot. This might also make sense of that feeling of "emotional connection."

Even though your astral body is in the same place as your physical/etheric body (just larger), clearing out blocks in it will not necessarily directly lead to clearing out blocks in your etheric body (which you still felt). However, it might have again started a process wherein the loosening of emotional blocks started a loosening of etheric blocks (for example due to increased energy flow), leading to all the symptoms you've observed. These blocks might get worn down or lessened over time, especially if they were interwoven with emotional problems, which is likely.

Stop energy work practice, practice grounding, live a grounded lifestyle, and see if it settles back down. Give it some time, weeks maybe, to do so. Observe the emotions that come up with detachment. Journal your dreams to get a picture of your emotional state or what is going on.

Do not trigger the process again for the time being unless you are prepared for similar experiences.

If these measures will over time reduce the symptoms again you have a good guess as to what happened, and you can decide whether you want to clear out more stuff this way or leave it well enough alone. Emotional clearing might be unavoidable if you want to access the astral body for projecting.

Take care,
Oliver

[ecksemmess]

Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply, Oliver. Since my first post I have indeed been thinking along the lines of what you said - a much more serious and long-term effort to ground myself in the physical is probably needed. One particular thing I just realized is that I have a lot of entrenched mental/psychological habits which draw energy from the energy body (such as constantly trying to access precognitive and intuitive abilities for decision making, etc.) and I hadn't yet tried giving those up since all this trouble started, because they're so automatic that it hadn't even occurred to me that stuff counted as energy body strain. Since last night I've made a strong effort to discover and stop all those habits so that my energy body can truly rest, and so far it seems to be working pretty well. Today I feel a lot more like the old me, particularly psychologically. The physical problems and energy sensations are far from gone, but I'm more hopeful now, so we'll see what happens. If you (or anyone here) has any more thoughts, those will be appreciated! :)

[Korpo]

Hello, ecksemmess.

Good to hear!

I would not necessarily speak of "strain," but your use of certain abilities or intention to do so can indeed have an effect. In response to your intention your energy bodies will try to get into alignment, and certain habits and blocks may prevent that, and this might trigger releasing them.

The higher you aim in these things the wilder the ride.

Let's say someone wants to experience OBEs of the same clarity and meaningfulness as for example Robert Monroe in "Far Journeys" and beyond. This requires access to the higher energy bodies in a way that would in my opinion shake much more loose than just aiming for having an etheric OBE at first.

On the other hand developing these things is your natural birthright, and you have influence over how quickly you want to develop. You can intend to grow and have a certain influence over the speed of that growth. I would not go as far as saying that you control the speed, but I'd say you have an influence.

There's something as a comfort zone, where you can integrate what you experience. This is not necessarily comfortable, as not all lessons can be comfortable usually, but it is pretty much the balance where you are going as fast as you can while still being able to process and handle what happens to you. You can chose to go faster and the consequences will teach you the price of that. You can wish to go slower and there might be a price, too.

Finding the comfort zone is the magical trick - bringing you the joy of growth without the strain of going too fast. You may find that you have from time rebalance your idea of what your comfort zone is, especially if you experience a jump of development like your recent experience.

There are certain leaps in development that take you to a new level with new challenges, and I still remember how it was when I first got a deeper access to the emotional level. The emotional states I was experiencing after energy work sessions came quite unexpectedly, and I had to adjust my grounding practices as well, but energy work afterward has of course had a much bigger positive impact on my life.

Take care,
Oliver