My Welcome Post

[dlc123]

Hi All

 

I'll do my best to explain what brought me here.

 

I began having energetic experiences about 3 years ago through the practice of the Wim Hof Method. His method (for those who don't know) combines breath work with progressive cold exposure.  During this practice I would experience sensations best described as "magnetic" in my hands, belly and head during the breath holds. I also began to experience light behind my forehead when I had my eyes closed. I continued this practice for a while but at a certain point I felt that it was a little too frenetic and jarring to my system. I kind of modified the breath practices by slowing down the breathing and limited the cold exposure.

 

A year later I went on a 5 day silent meditation retreat in the Insight tradition. My experience on this retreat was profound and afterwards I began to take meditation very seriously. After about 4 or 5 months of diligent practice I began to have extremely intense bouts of crying and emotional release. These experiences were often accompanied by an intense magnetic sensation in my chest. I had a history of trauma and had battled depression for most of my life... steady meditation practice was essentially releasing the valve on my emotional pressure cooker. I was very overwhelmed by these experiences, but I eventually found a buddhist teacher and a therapist that practiced western psychology within a buddhist framework who I am still working with. 

 

These experiences really threw a huge curveball into my life, and the last couple of years have been full of really intense transition and emotional release. As I began to gain some confidence with all the energetic experiences I had been having, I wanted to learn a way to work with them, so I started learning to practice Donna Eden's Energy Medicine, and eventually I enrolled at an Eastern Medicine school to learn Massage Therapy. 

 

My most recent experience with the subtle energy happened a few months ago during a moment of intimacy with my partner. My body began convulsing, I started sobbing and I was thrown into intense flashbacks from childhood as well as "memories" that I could not recall from this lifetime. This went on for about 4 hours and was accompanied by many intense visual experiences. Since this has happened, my body has continued tremoring and I've felt a build up of energy in my pelvic floor that is sometimes incredibly difficult to manage - either causing a "hemorrhoid" feeling or intense and difficult to manage sexual energy. A few times, I've been able to draw the energy up to my crown and back down through breathing, resulting in some pretty blissful experiences, but I haven't been able to do it consistently and for the most part this energy has been very difficult to manage. 

 

So I'm here looking for some recommendations for practice - While I do have a background in the Martial Arts (Kenpo) I don't have a ton of experience with Qi Gong... I've taken a few classes and read some Mantak Chia but I've never dove into the practice, I find it difficult to learn these things through books. I live in the NY area and am definitely interested in meeting teachers or other practitioners who my experiences resonate with. I'm also happy to have a place to share these experiences where people will have more understanding and experience with what I'm going through.