Messages

As Tayesin mentions, diet and environment are key factors. I've recently explored free form amino acid supplementation to help me work with my chemical imbalance (lack of neurotransmitter precursors basically). It's helping far more than what doctors have tried with me. I've explored this myself in the end.
I've acquired a waverider jnr (biofeedback machine-soon to be for sale I think) which enabled me to learn something about pushing against the depressive nonsense. However I've learnt this is a multidisciplinary issue.
Things that have aided me include:

Exercise - aerobic/weights/swimming or something social perhaps?
Satisfying work if possible.
Fresh food diet, light on red meats, very light on white bread and high glycemic index foods (google this it's worth it. The higher the glycemic index the faster the insulin response, the faster the energy "dump" which I have to tell you is a major contributor to feeling even lower!) Surprisingly decent ice cream scores a mid range 52 and white bread score near 100! The suggestion is keeping blood sugar constant so foods below 50 generally and oh, leafy greens! and whole foods. The better the source of these the better for you.

Clearing the mind meditation helps me a fair bit

NEW Energy ways makes a huge difference

Social contact and plenty of it is likely to have an impact. The brain is extremely plastic and adaptable no matter your age-more so the younger you are but regardless. Social interaction and parties cause your brain to work the most apparently, which causes neuron and connection growth, which is good-you feel more stimulated and alive. (Source Robert Winston's -The Human Brain).

Learning new skills, especially if it's something involving your hands and body in some way.
Nutrient supplementation has helped me-amino acids and decent multivitamins.

Last but not least, lose any excess
alcohol/coke/fizzy crap drinks in favour of water Lots of it. I think 2 pints a day is one suggestion. I use about 3 myself.

If you are on medication, then I'd attempt to get some of these steps in balance-at least diet, exercise, water and social interaction-before cutting the meds out. In your shoes I'd also get a handle on energy work and meditation too of course but the aforementioned ones I think are essential for sure. I hesitate to tell anyone energy work and meditation is essential for their mental health (despite the effect it's had on me) because that seems to be a bit evangelical. I think it's perfectly reasonable to be able to balance this before exploring energy work and similar.


As for exploring it , as long as you have the interest to try the beginning exercises you are likely to get some results. These should spur you on to do more. Excessive willpower not required. An ability to apply your attention and your imagination to parts of your body is . It's not hard, honestly. Your meds *might* slow it down a little, might not. You'll find out when you quit the meds. If they haven't worked by now much, they never will btw.

One further thing, you may find it worth your while looking up the term bundi (lock), it's a yogic term. I'm personally aware of 4 of these in my body and I have to close certainly the one in my throat (causes me to hiss on the inbreath) to pull energy in. Without it's more difficult for sure. To pull energy up the spine I need to close several. One in the top of my spinal column  (I think), one in the perinium, the throat one and the solar plexus one.
I'm going by my personal experience only here on these sensations. Judging by my success with some of the demonstrations with people, yes this seems to be chi.

NickJW, talking from my experience I've preferred a more deliberate conscious approach to working with energy work.
I don't agree tro-flow, if simply living was enough to develope chi then we'd have most of our elders "walking on water" somewhat. Ok that was facetious . Some martial arts do stress chi developement, however tai chi for example is a long winded process UNLESS you've already understood how chi feels. Something is lost in translation perhaps. For example my original instructor was all with the passive (feminine perhaps) waiting business-standing meditation. Embracing the tree, iron horse stance etc. He felt chi would flow from this practice. It didn't for me just on this. I had to work it. Sacral pump, several other "locks" and deliberate work. Tai chi works, but I know from my experience only when you already can feel and move chi for yourself, then you can sense the real power of tai chi.
Robert Bruce's NEW Energy ways was the most effective I've ever come across for teaching a beginner how to feel his/her chi and move it around some. I've been playing with this since I was 11 yrs old and only recently found a writer with a system that felt genuine to me. The patience, the zen and the waiting etc is all well and good to those who are used to that practice.
For someone like me, I like something to do, to get some feedback. I know quick results are somewhat frowned upon in traditional practice, but really there's nothing bad about a quick result in itself when it's part of a systematic practice that builds upon early results. With the NEW system you get early sensations very quickly. It then takes practice, effort and time for those results to build into something bigger.
One thing with eating, you may get more sensitive to your diet the more energy work you do. Once you can feel this for yourself, then fasting might help a little though I don't see any need for it. A really healthy organic whole diet is more important
hehe..it looks like I set out to be disagreeable doens't it. Sorry it's late, but I had to respond. Passive training philosophies seem to irritate me a lot for some reason I'm sure there's plenty of analysis to be done there one day. I just know I've had real energy sensations and results when working directly.  Not waiting
Night folks

Wow marathon! I wish I was that disciplined mentally!

I think we all have different ideas as to what "enjoy life" actually means. For some it's simply being with their children, their loved ones etc. For others in this lifetime it's about exploration. For some of those explorers what makes them really happy is their search for themselves in a spiritual context. And for many they don't know what to enjoy life is.
So no. Just enjoy life is not quite enough of an answer I don't think for many. It's not for me.
Enjoying life consists of so many experiences and things I think.
I've met plenty of people who cannot enjoy life just are they are. They hate who they are, they have good reason in their eyes.
I've been there CaCoDeMoN. Just as you are changes thank heaven, but really when I was smoking weed for a time, when I was hitting weeks of low depression, there is no way on earth I could have just stuck with enjoying life as I was. I needed to attempt to find more of "me" and of the universe. Even if I didn't end up spiritual at least I've ended up with a happier life as a result big time.
Sorry but that phrase really really touched a nerve I think. I want to find what some might call my true self, actually it's just the feeling of deeper expanded awareness that comes from extensive energy work that I really really go for.
As I said, you touch a nerve I think

This is about personal choice isn't it however?
Someone who's not willing to expose themselves to depictions of erotic acts of alternative sexualities doesn't need a label to explain their choice. This is emotive enough for them. I'm not a heterophobe because I don't choose to watch straight porn.

Actually since most porn is pretty boring really I don't see much that's mind expanding about it really. To find something disgusting often starts in feelings before reaching the reasoning mind. A man finding gay sex disgusting to watch is not choosing to find it disgusting, it's a product of his life experiences to that point.

Him trying to watch more of it to be less disgusted probably won't help. Him getting to know gay couples etc in a purely social context is by far and away the best possible way I know to reduce any unconscious homophobia.

His feelings for their act would be blunted somewhat to the point of well he'd rather not think hard about it, but it doesn't make him react too much either.
Having an empathy for people in relationships is more mind expanding as is socialising with a nice wide variety of people of all kinds. Something at the moment I'm not doing anything like enough of!

There is doubt as a philosophy, and there is there doubt for good reason perhaps. The former tends to be simply dogmatic and nothing can change it. This form is totally and utterly useless IMHO.
The latter (reasoned doubt, open minded skeptism) is a tool, it is the sign of a healthy questioning mind that will not take anything on face value, but it's not automatic disbelief OR automatic belief. It's the middle ground if you like. If something comes along like some new phenomena, you can choose to be interested enough to decide that you want to question it. This questioning may lead to you needing to sway a little one way or the other but generally an open minded skeptic would be in the middle until something he/she experiences makes up their mind for them. Proving something is fake perhaps, experiencing something is real perhaps.

The philosophy of doubt is a bit different, (my definitions aren't great perhaps-just my perceptions). This is the Randi style form of "everything paranormal is fake". This is sitting firmly on the disbelief at all costs side of the fence. I'd hate to have that sort of person as a judge in court.

^^Now this just got tooo sophisticated for me . There's just me, that individual is rather simple I think.

I'd like to see that photograph tro-flow . Just out of curiousity. I've never found a way to get my energy really photographed so I have no idea what it would look lik.

Your right Nostic with that point.

It's the rare person that will say, especially after a long argument, "ya know, you were right all along. I take back everything I said. You've convinced me".

I have to remember this point you've made, because I've been guilty of this when I've been explaining healing and chi work.
There is something that certainly grates on me when some heavy skeptic tries to convince me however that I'm mistaken when I explain about moving chi. This for me is where "proving" stuff comes in. I get very frustrated with someone I'm convinced is a narrow minded idiot . So ego comes out to play and try and knock him back.
The majority of the time the skeptic is not going to admit he was wrong when I demonstrate healing. I've had one skeptic do an about face in the end. Out of many. The others  well after a demo they still stick to their position but the discussion finishes quickly.
People are simply comfortable to live within certain mindsets perhaps.

I don't feel afraid to find out there's a real spiritual reality out there myself, yet nothing I do proves it to me at this time. Apart from the energy work. I'm starting to think that perhaps for some silly reason I've chosen to live a life blind to greater reality, and that the energy awareness was sheer chance. who knows.

How can that be?

Aliens would probably treat people as bad as people treat animals. I am nearly 100% sure that they would be extremely ignorant and obsessed with control.

Now that's gotta be prejudice ain't it? They're not of Earth. We don't know how many arms, legs, brains or anything they have. That's the point. They are alien, we just don't have a basis for comparison really. So being sure of anything is unlikely.
I'm almost sure that anyone who's sure of what aliens are like -without meeting them- is likely to be mistaken.
Had to edit the quote LOL.

I'm not sophisticated or on a "spiritual" path as far as I know. I'm here because I can feel what people call "chi" and I think I may have felt the beginnings of kundalini flow a few times. Very hot and some "squirmy" pressure/pulsation sensations in the spine. There is a distinct and directable "energy" flow that can be consciously moved-though simple visualisation alone doesn't work at all for me one little bit. Before discovered R.B's work I had to use real emotion big time, as I grew more practiced I noticed it was a more muscular sensation almost-certainly tactile. Now it's a lot easier.
Side effects include feeling that there is more of me present in the "now". So maybe moving chi and working with it brings more of "you" into the present reality perhaps.
I do work with the sensations I call kundalini feelings during my daily practice. Not because I know anything about the spiritual developement stuff. Simply because moving that stronger feeling energy makes my body and me feel stronger and "more".  I did do the questioning of the spiritual stuff years ago, but now I've stopped worrying about that part. Psychic abilities would be fun, but I've not experienced those particularly nor many other phenomena. So for now I have a useful toy, tool whatever to be played with. It's kinda life affirming, and assures me that the arch skeptical are pretty much wrong about the origins of consciousness. Anyway I'm just rambling now ain't I? Hope I didn't waste your time here Just needed to type more than I intended.

"Looking for "the" energy" is not difficult. It's very easy, and yes it's part of you. Just some people are much more interested int the deeper, spiritual aspects of this and discuss that side more.

I've never seen one, I don't believe blurred photos etc. However I would be a fool to close my mind to the possibility just because some evidence is suspect. There is every chance that this has as much validity as anything else reported in the news elsewhere in the world.
I would like it to be real myself for sure. Kind of a boyhood dream to meet aliens and spaceships .

Nah finding someone else's sexual acts disgusting or distasteful in a personal way is natural if they differ a lot from your own. Especially if you've had a fairly straightforward experience in your own life.
I couldn't call a heterosexual man who felt gay sex was disgusting a homophobe on that basis alone. If he had problems with gay people in general then yes. But the potential sexual acts between 2 guys? No that's not homophobia.  There are sexual acts and fetishes I find distasteful and worse myself, but they are ultimately harmless and none of my business, but I wouldn't say I had a problem with the participants ever I just don't want to think about or witness the acts.
I don't rent any porn myself, but if I did, you know I'm unlikely to enjoy heterosexual porn.
To me tolerance doesn't have anything to do with being interested in alternative lifestyles sexual acts, but being able to just accept people exactly how they are. fuji257, you sound as tolerant of homosexuals as a straight man is likely to be in general. BTW you have a point on the "political" gay scene, there aren't too many straight men who make such a fuss about being a straight guy as far as I know, But I have the most annoying cousin whos' discovered he's gay. He's decided because he is, he needs to be camp, and push it out for all to see. That grates on me.  Don't see the need for it these days.  I have some unusual interests etc, but I am proud of the differences-of being able to live with those. I don't think it needs "wearing" like a badge 24/7 though.
I missed this discussion as I've joined the board not that long ago, so

The bounce is up and down the spine. When drawing energy up, it's usually in the context of a full body sweep that draws in new energy from the "Earth" This has to cycle up the spine and torso over the head and into the throat down through the chakras into the subnaval centre.

I may be able to help. I have abyss and boxednirvana here on a standard adsl connection. I use an ftp server when i need to OR my apache web server. Email me for access one at a time and I'll share.

I wonder how many alternative sexual/sensual lifestyles are represented by the people posting on this thread? I'm just curious. Tyciol I can see your points, religion and government in general need to be well seperated by now.
No one can truly judge you harder than you'll judge yourself. So in terms of spirit, karma and sin in general people don't really have the right to do this. Of course in the real world, we have to have judgement of people going on when certain things are committed-murder, theft, etc. But outside of these things religion should stay out of it. Love is love, and whoever/whatever is the truth about our creator, the being is not going to agree with very narrow human dogmas definitions and arguements really are they? Hmm..that said, if that being is also us and everything else maybe it would..
I don't know..
Me, I have a same sex partner and I cannot say that my intuition has a problem with it. Not all relationships are about the sexual basis of it.
Damn too much wine tonight. Maybe I'll write some more for the hell of it tomorrow.

2 Weeks ago Internet Explorer would not find these pages. Firefox would. Only this site caused the problem. So ok I used my firefox, I prefer it anyway.
Now Firefox is getting
[quot]Bad Request
Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.

Request header field is missing colon separator.

05186637%3B%7D

Apache/1.3.33 Server at sls-eb9p5 Port 80[/quote]
But Internet Explorer is now working fine.
Again it ONLY this forum, no other webpages or forums are doing this? Is there any explanation? I am virus scanning as I type here. But for just this site to do it seems a bit specific. And hugely annoying.

Sounds like a mammoth waste of time all this monitoring.

Sounds like your unblocking some really blocked patches on your legs there.
At this stage I would not be working on chakras as the energy body is still showing signs of growing from a fairly novice state.
I think you will need to do more work on full body circuits, slowly and gently throughout the day.
Get a real sensation of storing the energy in the subnavel centre each time.
If it's easy to have sensations in the legs then don't spend much time working on them specially, just incorporate them into the full body circuits.
After a few days it should calm down normally. Might take a week or two.
Until your sensations are consisten and less disturbing, steer clear of the primary centre work I would suggest personally.  I'll say more when I'm more awake.
Safest place in your body to store excess energy is the subnavel centre.

Good replies folks. I need to reread them all again during daylight hours as it's 1am right now .
Thank you.

Thank you for all your advice Arnfinn.
I've just spent an hour preusing that site, unfortunately it seems to be trying hard to persuade/sell me the book . Even though it gives a lot of free information, I can't seem to drill down to the actual "how to do it" bit. I get a lot of surrounding info, but no distinct clues on how to start.
However I think I've located "feel" place in the centre of my head in the location described. I've used it when I've done very strong spinal energy work before. It's been one of the "locks" I think involved in circulating chi when I first tried to do kundalini work.
This was 12 mnths ago, now I do nice safe NEW exercises, though I do throw in a round of spinal work as well.  I can feel the place and breathe "through" it.
Perhaps, would you mind describing if you've used this yourself how to actually click it-if it's worked for you?

Ever since I was little demotivation and depression was a regular feature of my life. Now I'm beginning to feel that it's like the sea, I keep building walls and castles to keep it out, but it eventually comes back. Why?
I don't accept that it's now a lesson to be learnt. I've tried biofeedback, nutrition, exercise, altered diets and practiced energy work and a certain amount of meditation over the years.
What I've found is I can get shot of the worst effects mostly and it's not as bad as years ago. I still spend too much time at home because business is slow, and I don't know how to get out of the rut. When my business partner has new business for us (he's got many contacts and has been running companies for years) then motivation goes up whilst I'm working and concentrating. Then we get dead zones, where he's got some work but it's not for us both. For a while my motivation and mental health is level, I'm able to study and train etc. However I've no idea without spending money how to get new business - cold calling doesn't work. Anyway this is digressing. Basically if I get too many weeks of no work coming in, then it gets harder and harder to have good motivated days. I can't stay up during dead time. This is NOT recovery and rest at all.
I don't do enough for that for one.
I understood years ago that depression had it's place in that it causes longer term mental rest at times if everything's in balance. In me and my family it is not. It is an unnecessary mental discomfort that now serves no purpose other than to hurt progress on anything I might wish to study otherwise.
The steps I do take to alleviate it for myself include trying to exercise, eat better, take amino acid and multivits, drink plenty of water, make sure I've slept enough, meditate some, complete my secondary and primary centre work and try to do enough.<- however this last is hard, because I have to fill up a week and trying to find reasons to go out is nearly impossible at the moment. I do need reasons to be out and about.
Anyway with all the energy training I do now, isn't it about time this silliness got put to bed? I've had it since I was a kid, and I've been fighting it OR giving in to it etc etc for way too long. I don't believe it has anything new to teach me now.  It's just a flaming hindrance to things I do want to do.
One friend tries to tell me to go along with it and accept it. No. It does not help to do that. It becomes a real problem if I do that.
I accept that what I've just written is quite rambling indeed because of my mental state of mind. But I'd rather write it hear, and get some other insights and experiences than moan to my partner again. He can't help this, and I'm fed up of bringing him down with it.
If it's a "neg" then I want it gone.
Anyway if you've read this far thank you. LOL.

Edit: Just writing this out in this way did help some today!

mircoacc, use dyndns.org. that's what I do.
Only I can't give out my webaddress as it uses an offensive word as part of it. It's used on IRC you see..

When they teach healing cptpicard, what techniques are they teaching. I was going to join years ago when I was 17 but then I realised it wasn't for me. I'm too independent minded to join a group with qualifications and rules.  Before I discovered NEW I was still able to work on people using healing, it was more instinctive perhaps and I got results.
Would you say my current combination of instinctive energy channeling and the NEW system that I use now to structure and enhance my training compatible with how NFSH works these days?

Thought I'd ask because their website doesn't clarify what you are actually taught.