Q: I will do the process again, sooner rather than later, though I will give the time “off” a chance. Someone I know said the second time through she stopped eating “comfort foods” and it made the experience much more intense. Food is my addiction, and I didn’t see much movement in that area in these past 10 weeks. I know you tell people not to give up addictions when they go through, but is that true the second time, or might there be benefit in doing this?
A: This is a good question and points to one of the adjustments to be made in the revised text of The Presence Process. When we move through TPP for the first time, it does not serve us to try and forcibly stop all our addictive behavior. This is because extremist behavior causes the deeply unconscious imprinting underlying these behaviors to surface all at once, when we are not yet ready to consciously facilitate ourselves through such an experience. Such 'forcing' invariably leads to sudden eruptions of fear, anger, and grief - in doses that may be overwhelming, and so drive us into resistance. Then, we may turn away from TPP - the very thing designed to assist us. However, as we enter it for the second and third time [I now recommend moving through it at least three times] we are already perceptually trained to recognize what processing is, and how to facilitate ourselves through the surfacing of our emotional imprinting. For this reason, we are now equipped to deliberately place some space between us and our addictions so that we intentionally initiate an awareness of what underlies them. Then, it pays to resist the urge to splurge. However, no matter what level of the work we are in, it is important we retain 'gentleness' as a key frequency. No authentic healing comes from unnecessarily imposed suffering. This means it is up to us to find the balance - to avoid overly extreme changes inevitably knocking us into overwhelming reactivity. There is no hurry. There is no salvation in anything we eat or do not eat - there is only salvation in realizing what is eating away at us. And, we are to be gentle in glimpsing at this, so we allow ourselves the time and space to digest these imprints.
