In this podcast I look at some of the psychological teachings of George Gurdjieff, a spiritual teacher who was born in the Russian Empire in the late 19th century.

Gurdjieff first found acclaim in Russia in the 1910s, and after the First World War and the Russian Revolution, he gained a following among the wealthy and influential classes in Europe. His unconventional teachings and methods attracted many, but have probably prevented his more progressive psychological ideas from becoming widely known and accepted.

Gurdjieff's ideas were not scientifically based, but probably woven from contemporary psychology mingled with spiritual teachings from various religions. I personally think they make a lot of sense today, and not only that - in an age where our lives are increasingly driven by technology, many of his words seem astonishingly prophetic.

My sources for this video include the books In Search of the Miraculous by PD Ouspensky, Meetings With Remarkable Men by George Gurdjieff and Psychological Commentaries by Maurice Nicoll.

I’ve been doing a lot of Trauma Release Exercises over the past few months, and it’s been an incredibly powerful process.

It’s also been really exhausting.

It’s not the actual exercises themselves that are exhausting - it’s the emotional release process that’s been draining me, physically as well as mentally.

Many people do Trauma Release Exercises regularly and find them just mildly relaxing.

So why have I been holding on to so much trauma? What traumatised me in the first place?

In this podcast episode I discuss the dangerous and scary childhood illness that traumatised me repeatedly between the ages of 2 and 4 years old. I’ll also discuss some of the flashbacks that I’ve had over the years.

Please be assured that this is not about self-pity! I know that hundreds of millions of people experience trauma that’s just as bad, or much worse than what I went through. For me it’s more about self understanding, and understanding more widely about the effects of trauma and the trauma release process.

Memories of traumatic events, especially repeated, complex trauma, can be very distorted. I consider myself very lucky in that the events of my illness were recorded in detail, and also that I had the loving support of my family while I was experiencing them.

For full details, listen to the audio - there is also a transcript available.

Photo by Pauli Nie on Unsplash

Music

Sunset On The Beach by JuliusH on Pixabay

Spanish Guitar by 5XBeats on Pixabay

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Search online for Trauma Release Exercises, and you’ll find loads of information on how to do it, pictures and films of people lying on their backs, tremoring. But there’s very little information on what actually happens when you do these exercises regularly - how it affects your sleep, possible side-effects, even how long it takes to heal from the trauma, to start feeling better.

I’ve been doing Trauma Release Exercises regularly for 8 weeks now, with the assistance of a certified practitioner.

I’ve found the process utterly exhausting. The exhaustion usually comes one or two days after a session of tremoring, but to be honest, I never really know from day to day whether I’m going to be exhausted or wired.

I discussed the effects in this video that I made on my YouTube channel a couple of weeks ago:

The video was made quite spontaneously. I had been intending to make an entirely different video, but I was finding the effects of the Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) so overwhelming that I just felt I needed to talk about it.

I do need to emphasise that the Trauma Release Exercises are not actually to blame for this emotional and physiological rollercoaster. It’s emotional release itself that is exhausting. The TRE process is just a tool for doing this - and a very effective one.

Going by online comments, it seems that other people have had similar experiences when doing TRE, although there are also many people who report none of these effects - they just experience more relaxation and less stress.

More information

Links to where you can obtain TRE online:

https://treglobal.org/open-workshops-classes/

https://tre-online.com/

One-to-one TRE:

https://treglobal.org/tre-provider-list/

https://treuk.com

More info on Internal Family Systems (IFS):

https://innerkindnesstherapy.co.uk/posts/internal-family-systems-sub-personalities/

https://ifs-institute.com/

Music:

Sunset On The Beach by JuliusH on Pixabay

Moment by SergeQuadrado

Get full access to Inner Kindness Therapy at innerkindnesstherapy.substack.com/subscribe