Maddie

I recently moved and got a job selling cars (which I hate, but its all I can find for now) and a lot of the other sales men are real douche bags. Anyways as one would suspect you need to be very assertive in this business but the problem I have been noticing is that when I get very angry I can literally not speak (and its usually at this point that I need to say something the most). Yea I get mad, and yea I want to say something, but I can't, and don't know why; any thoughts? solutions? theories?

Lol I liked the douchebag link :-P ... Another thought I had today was to check out my heart meridain as the heart is responsible for social interaction in a normal way in society and is also affected strongly by shock. What happens to me is that someone is rude to me, first I tend to go in a state of surreal shock as though I can't quite comprehend that someone would really be such a douche. This state of shock is what causes me to freeze up and not be able to respond. I do feel that going back through childhood might be a very good way to get to the bottom of this as my parents always forced me to swallow my anger, and I have had a lot of good progress from going back to childhood stuff in the past with other issues as well. *edit: After a little more thought, I have come up with a more plausable explination. As a child my father would scream, slap, hit, scold, me if I ever expressed my anger. My mother would make me feel as though anger was an evil thing and make me ashamed of it. In both cases I feared. In the case of my father I feared him directly, and in the case of my mother I leared to fear the expression of emotion, anger in particular (interestingly enough my mother had a her gall bladder removed a few years ago, and the gall bladder with the liver are responsible for anger, which she always suppressed). I learned as a child that anger just got me hit, or screamed at, or a speech, and that it was far safer to supress it. So it would seem that fear trumphed the role of anger in my life. Fear is the emotion of the kidneys and adreanals, fight of flight, it makes us "freeze". Now in situations where I should get angry, instead I freeze, as though what I am scared of is letting anger out. It is as though my kidneys have taken over the role my liver should be doing. My liver seems to be doing its job (cause I certainly feel a lot of anger) but my kidneys do not let it out. So I feel that the best thing I can do now is to go into my kidneys and let them know that in some situations it is ok to express anger/assertiveness (like when someone is trying to take advantage of you).

I like this suggestion and will give it a try (I'm sure my esteemed co-workers will be happy to give me the opportunity to practice this lol)

That is how I start just about every morning, makes me wonder how I'd be doing if I didn't do that lol?

Yes that is exactely how it was when I was a child, and yea I was also thinking working on the throat chakra, and probably also the solar plexus chakra as well as the liver would be the way to go. edit* Throat chakra for the obvious reasons of suppressed communication. Solar Plexus for its role in personal power issues. Liver in is role in anger/assertiveness. I think what is going on is that I have a blockage in my liver, so where as it is supposed to express assertiveness in such situations, this energy gets stuck and there for gets hot and burns as anger, plus the fact that its "stuck" is exactely how my voice feels when I'm really angry. There is a condition in TCM called "Plum Pit qi" it is a symptom of Liver chi stagnation, and it feels like there is a "plum pit" stuck in your throat, so there is some sort of connection between the liver (anger) and the throat (communication).

I think the "emotional blockage" comment is worthy of more focus. I have found that the cold draw is effective at reducing the physical desire, but one thing I discovered after eliminating physical desire is how much emotional issues played into things as well. I think it is important to observe with in yourself what types of emotions you have about sex so that you can identify what the real emotional issue is. For example if one pretty much simply wants to "get off" in the physical sense this could point to a root chakra blockage. If they want to be able to seduce women for their ego than this points towards a solar plexus issue, ect... So trying to decipher what type of emotions drive your libido is helpful in bringing balance.

are you serious?!

Did you do as he suggests in the beginning of the book and have a well established MCO (microcosmic orbit) first, or did you just jump ahead to the retention practices? I'm guessing you did the second, which would explain the problems.

There are already so many threads about this topic, so I'm starting to feel like a parot talking about this, but I'll say it again just cause I sympathise with this issue. If the problem is simply pre-mature ejaculation this is considered a kidney yin deficiency in TCM. There are good herbs for this if your interested, or you can go to an acupuncturist and get them from them. Here is a site you can order these herbs from... http://www.agelessherbs.com/YinValleyFormula.html The homeopathic remedy Staphysagria is indicated from excessive masturbation and sexual thoughts. The sacral chakra is the chakra that has to do with sex, so focusing a lot on this point when doing the MCO helps as well.

I heard from a TCM doctor that if you clinch your teeth and stand on your toes when you pee it helps.

Alex your welcome. I actually just finished my 100 days of cold draw retention training and I have found the before/after results phenomenal, which inculde but are not limited too... 1. Far greater pleasure from much less stimulation. 2. Much greater ... "water pressure" 3. My emotional state is much improved compared as to when I began. This was actually the primary reason I started the 100 days of cold draw retention in the first place. Specifically my sacral and solar plexus chakras have seen a drastic amount of improvement, and thus I feel siginficantly better. Ironically a lot of what caused me to feel the need to retain was a guilt and shame complex related to sex. As these emotions are the primary issues of the sacaral and solar plexus chakras, using this excess jing to help balance those areas was very helpful. I now view sex as more of something to enjoy when its time as opposed to being bi-polar about it i.e. (either get totally obsessed about it to the exclusion of everything else, or avoid it as though it were evil) 4. My energy level while I can't say is as high as an Olympian athlete, is quite improved comapred to when I first began which as feeling fatigued almost constantly.

Yes, Testicle breathing converts sperm into jing, which are not the same thing. Sperm is made from jing, but is not jing. The goal of testicle breathing is to reconvert that sperm back into the jing from which is was formed. Then you do the cold draw which is to draw that jing into your MCO which then has the effect of converting this jing into chi. Generally in TCM nocturnal emission is considered a result of kidney yin deficincy. Now I can't see why doing testicle breathing before bed would cause that so what I think it may be is rather than a true kidney yin deficiency it could be a excess of yang thus producing a relative yin deficency. The reason I say this is because male sexual energy is yang, which causes me to suspect that you are not fully completing the converstion process into jing, and thus leaving an excess of male yang sexual energy in your system. If you enter a yang state while awake you can have more conscious control over dealing with it, but if you enter this state before bed then you obviously have less control over it, and the nature of male yang sexual energy is to expand outside the body. If this indeed be the situation I believe that you would benefit from prolonging the amount of time you do testicle breathing just a little to ensure you complete the converstion process completely, and then be sure to run that jing in your MCO which will help convert that jing to chi. Hope that helps, good luck.

Well basically doing testcle breathing/ cold draw sends chi down the the testicles which in turn converts your sperm into jing. My first thought was to say not to leave the chi there when you are finished, but you already said that you do not do this. When I practice the cold draw it makes everything down there shrivel up and get pretty small, and though I am not 100% sure, I do believe that this is the result of the jing conversion as jing is less dense than sexual fluid. As just an aside, yesterday I just finished 100 days of doing the testicle breathing/ cold draw. So as to not retain longer than is healthy I decided to relase what I had in there. Most unusual thing..... it was all prostate fluid, and no sperm at all!! I did not expect this, but then I was kind of like "oh well I guess the conversion process has been working effectively". So back to your concern, I do believe that what are you are doing is beneficial to your problem. Its always good to run your converted jing through your MCO once you finish, cause I notice that if I leave too much chi in the perinium / root chakra area where the prostate is that I tend to get aroused much easier (this could explain your increased occurance of nocturnal emission).

I generally don't really like to think about money and career stuff too much, but sometimes the situation becomes so problematic that I can't help but wonder how this topic ties into the bigger picture. I just totaled up my past earnings for the past 19 years and averaged it, and my average earnings of 19 years of adult life equals $8603. a year. I don't know why I do not seem to ever be able to get a good job, and make any money, but since this has gone on for so long it does make one wonder WHY? I am not an alcoholic or a drug user, I am pretty responsible and a hard worker, so what gives?! Is this karma? or what?

I have obviously been doing a lot of research on this topic the lately, and also a lot of introspection. The most pluasable thing I have come up with is that my Root chakra needs working on as it is the chakra that is all about survival issues i.e. money, job, career, rent, ect... and these are exactely the issues that are my problem now. A few months ago I had similar problems with sexual issues and did a lot of work on my sacral chakra and that did wonders. Nashenas the method I use to work on my chakras is mainly the MCO. I either power it with chi from my dan tien, or what I have been doing a lot lately is powering it with jing using the cold draw. Another method I use for working on a chakra is to simply breath into it until I feel more chi in it than before. As far as working on my Root chakra I have shifted back to placing an emphasis on doing standing meditation again as I feel that this is a very root chakra activity.

Yes zhan zhuang = standing meditation, and yes there are many different forms, but that book that Scotty recommened "The way of energy" is an excellent one. As far as a good source for the 8 brochades here is a link http://ymaa.com/publishing/dvd/qigong_DVD/8_simple_qigong_DVD, good luck

The side effects can be numerous and varied, and as to how you can eliminate that feeling, refer to what I said in my previous post.

My intuition tells me two things about what you said. The first is that this is pretty good and deep stuff that I need. Though I don't really understand it. The second thing my intuition tells me is that I think the fact that I do not really understand what you have said (though I believe it is good) is a large part of the problem. I think the same thing that does not allow me to understand what you said, is also the same thing that is causing my problems in the first place.

From a TCM point of view there are specific guidlines as to how often a man can safely ejaculate, and it varies by age and health. The jist of it goes that a teenager can pretty much safely do it daily, a man in his twenties ever other or every few days, thirties a couple timea a week, fourties every once a week if not less, fifties once every couple weeks, sixties once a month, and older than that should not at all. Traditional Chinese Medicine is a very old science (much older than western medicine) and has had thousands of years to be tested and validated. The thing is that yes semen does regenerate, but one must ask where does it come from? Since sperm has the power to make life, and a life with a soul is a very powerful thing, then it stands to reason that sperm carry a very powerful energy. This life giving energy is called Jing. We have two sources of jing, one is pre-natal and this is what we recieve from our parents, and it can not be added to. The second source of jing is post-natal and this is what we make from the food we eat and the air we breath. Ideally we try to draw upon our post natal jing and not use up our pre-natal jing. Doing Qigong is one excellent way of building up our post-natal jing. Our body uses our jing to make sperm (or ova for women). If we don't over do it then our body can mostly use post-natal jing to make sperm. But if we ejaculate past our capasity to replenish our post-natal jing, then our body has to dip into our pre-natal jing and this is where get get into trouble, because once we burn up too much pre-natal jing we age and have health issues, and once it is all gone we die. As to its morality, I think that is a very subjective debate, for each one of us has unique moral standards. If for one of us masturbation does not violate our personal convictions then for us it is not immoral. Yet for those of us who feel that somehow masturbation is wrong (regardless of the resons) then we are violating our own morality and now feel guilty and shameful, and thus it is better for those of us who feel that it is bad to not do it. Though I will say that if one tends to feel guilt and shame very easily then perhaps they might want to determine why it is that they feel this way. Inappropriate guilt and shame are very often sacral and solar plexus chakra issues. I have found that running my MCO through these areas has done wonders for me in helping with this area of my life, as well as Bach flower remedies.

As one who has recently been batteling fatigue and diligently trying to come up with solutions to this leme tell ya what I've found to help. A good general form of Taoist exercise is the 8 brocades which I try to do daily. Its good for moving the joints, streching the mucles and tendons, streching the meridians and clearing them out, ect.. As far as building the energy level standing meditation is a very good practice for this. The 8 brocades and standing meditation together are a really good combo, as standing meditation builds a lot of chi, and the brocades help circulate it. Aside from the practices I have found Siberian Ginseng (Eleuthero) to be highly effective at increasing my vitality. The homeopathic remedy "phosphoricum acidum" has also been very helpful. In the past I have used the Bach flower remedies of Olive and Hornbeam as well. I hope that givnig you a lot of options will help you to find one or a few that will be usefull to you.

Well basically when ever you loose Jing you lessen your vitality

I guess I've been somewhat supprised at a lot of the resonces here so far. It seems that a lot of people who practice cultivation and have no trouble believing that energy is behind our health and spiritual development, can not seem to wrap their minds around the notion that our energy also affects our "outer life" as well, including our econimic situation. The reason I say this, is because when I was trying other methods for my inner life nothing really seemed to do the trick until I began to work on my inner energy. If this has been the case, then why would it not stand to reason that the vibrations we send out into the universe do not affect out outter life as well. Why do the rules stop just because its money, or something else that is not in our paradim of understanding. From what I have read of the Root chakra and its blockages, it would seem that my problem is very much related to a blockage there. Since the same principles have held up with other things I have wanted to change about myself, why would this be any different? Why do we not want to take a peek behind the curtain when it comes to money?

Yea exactely, the people who most don't like the changes in me are my family members who have known me the longest. I guess they are used to how I am "supposed" to act, and now that I am not "playing my role" it seems to disturb them.