How I got here

My work as a psychotherapist and then mentor over the past (almost) thirty years has taken twists and turns as I have gone through varying life experiences.

The one thing which has been constant though has been my belief that life (us) is about something deeper than the obvious. There is mystery to be delved into and solved and we can only explore this area by a kind of inner communing.

Part of the mystery is us and the way we are able to use ourselves to find the answers to the non-obvious.

Our emotions are our own key to this mystery world; if we repress this all important ingredient, we are less alive and less aware and unequipped to find our way beyond the mundane.

I was pushed further into this world of inner discovery out of absolute necessity and sheer misery. Off and on, since my early twenties, I had recurring problems with my skin when it would flare up in a kind of eczematic flourish. I tried various complementary medicines (mainly homeopathy) which worked for a bit, but then there would be further break outs. It wasn’t too bad at times but I was always aware of it lurking. Suddenly though, about eight years ago, I was very stressed and there was a huge blowout in my skin.

What had happened was that I had experienced the trauma of suffering a great injustice where my work was concerned. Everything I had based my life on was shaken to the core.

Of course, more importantly, I knew I had to find a way to go forward from this place where I felt doubly betrayed and stripped of everything I believed in and stood for. I knew also at another level that this was the Universe stepping in forcing me to make fresh changes in my life. In Eastern spiritual philosophy they talk of Maya:

 The illusion of reality we hold to and how this must be ripped away to reveal the true consciousness of ourselves.

In other words we have the opportunity to connect with our true selves if we can release the various false beliefs and blocks we hide behind. And it is often only through pain of some kind (emotionally or physically) that we are forced to do this. But how to find this fresh way? As I said at the beginning, the answer lies inwards. Meantime, back then, I was covered from head to toe in skin which was very dry, red and itchy. I looked terrible and I felt terrible.

The dreadful looking person I saw in the mirror triggered emotional responses from very deep down inside me and that was when I became aware that my skin in some awful way was my friend.

I found myself owning up to feelings that I had never allowed myself to admit to.

I discovered that I had insecurity and fear deep down in myself that I had covered up all my life.

The injustice I had experienced left me feeling very angry and very powerless; a great recipe for depression.

My journey was now beginning in earnest; I would not stop until I had cleared all these blocks.

For many years I have meditated and have been particularly open to Eastern spiritual philosophy with Tibetan Buddhism at one point becoming the main foundation of my practice. I visited India often and met with several very advanced Lamas. It was also my good fortune to meet some other very spiritually advanced people there. One of these was called Ma (Indira Devi), who had been sent by Sri Aurobindo along with Dadaji (Dilip Kumar Roy) to set up an ashram in Poona. I had been lucky to meet Ma several times in a private setting and spent many hours with her prior to her passing a couple of years later. All of these special, spiritually advanced people seemed to possess similar qualities and brought out the same response in me each time.

They had an inner sense of themselves which was different to the superficial confidence of the average person and this inner sense affected me; it seemed to connect with something deep inside me which was in a different compartment from the normal part of me. I felt tongue-tied and awkward in their company and yet there was also a sense that something important was happening inside me; that a connection was being made with a part of myself which I had not been aware of. It was as if I had inadvertently stepped onto a see-saw and my usual sense of myself had shifted; all my habitual responses were somehow put to the side as they weren’t applicable to this type of depth of experience. Instead, there was another aspect of myself (a part that I hadn’t known had existed) that was shyly coming to light.

What was this part?

Where did it come from?

As I have worked longer with this inner sense of myself I have come to see that this inner part is free of the conditioning of the past and is mysteriously connected to a wider knowledge. This part which I would call the authentic self is present in everyone but is covered over by our need to hide and to fit in. Yet it can be connected with when you meet someone who is truly clear, such as those spiritual individuals.

This special understanding certainly has nothing to do with intellect but seems to come from a collaboration with a state which we find within ourselves when we relax down inside ourselves, so that some kind of connection is made with the energies of the universe. Out of this partnering, we start to glean understandings about ourselves which seem to come from out of the ether.

I talk about all of this as it is the background to the way I found to go forward into healing myself. As I sat in my misery and tried to relax in a meditative kind of way, it was suddenly in one of those sessions that the whole idea of The Core Energy technique came into my mind. As I practised it, on myself and my clients, I came to see how profoundly it worked in helping to free blocks which were often not even known of until they appeared. My skin cleared. My powerlessness and anger cleared and my fear cleared. The result of all this work is also that my mind is much clearer and much freer to think in fresh ways. Whatever else lies hidden, when it comes to light I will greet it in the knowledge that all is a further key to greater mental clarity and happiness.

Complete freedom – not freedom to do what we like, that is not freedom, that is triviality, but to be free from all pain of anxieties – it is our responsibility to bring about a radical transformation in ourselves.

J Krishnamurti