Q: I just completed the process for the second time. Although I had many insights, I am still missing a real sense of achievement/accomplishment/shift in my life.
A: Be with this feeling of "missing" - because if this is happening - it is required. You obviously have some agenda about what is supposed to happen, and being with this feeling of disappointment without condition will assist you to integrate the emotional charge related to this agenda. The intent of The Presence Process is to initiate an experience. Whatever experience it initiates is valid. The procedure then teaches you how to interact consciously, responsively, to the experience you are having. This conscious response integrates the charges within the emotional body. However, when you think you are supposed to have a specific experience, and keep perceptually aiming for that - you completely miss the experience you are having right now. So, be with the experience of feeling you have missed what you were expecting - and being with this unconditionally will assist you to integrate the charge driving you into false expectation.
Q: I have two questions to you: 1. I was not sure how to handle my noisy mind during the breathing sessions. Is it necessary to fix my attention on my breathing, or is this not important?
A: Reread the instructions in the book - they are clear. The mind within the context of The Presence Process constitutes all our physical, mental, and emotional experiences. The physical, mental, and emotional are the trinity which makes up the mind. What you are inquiring is whether your mental body should be controlled while breathing. No. All manipulation is futile. As recently suggested on the website - it is recommended we use the conscious response - "I AM HERE NOW" for all our breathing sessions. And yes, of course the focus is on keeping our breathing connected - the book is very clear about this. However, there is no instruction to control what the mental body is doing.
When we connect our breathing we accomplish causal impact. When we are still mentally transfixed, this causal impact arises into our awareness as increased mental activity. If we are physically transfixed, it arises into our awareness as physical sensation. When we have developed some level of felt-perception - it arises into our awareness as emotional states. This arising of either physical, mental, or emotional consequences is simply a sign there is now movement within the emotional body. To now try and stop this physical, mental, or emotional activity in any way is self-defeating. Be with the mental body activity you are experiencing while breathing without condition. If it gets too busy in there - to the point you cannot focus on connecting the breathing - which is our primary responsibility while doing the breathing practice - then use the conscious mental response - I AM HERE NOW.
Q: I feel my energies and determination running low at this point. Do you have any advice for a third go?
A: Yes, reread my first answer and apply it to this feeling too. Your experience is valid. No matter how it unfolds, it is valid. This means it is required. You do not have to understand why. You do not have to fix it or change it or perceptually aim yourself toward another experience you assume you ought to be having. Your only choice is response, or reaction. In my first answer to you I describe response. Reaction is behaving as if what is happening to you is not supposed to be happening, and then doing something to change your current experience into something you think should be happening. This is pointless and leads to drama. Reaction is manipulation. Response is embrace. So, my suggestion as you enter this procedure again - have no agenda, no assumption, no point of perceptual reference toward which to aim yourself. Just be with whatever happens and engage it as valid, and therefore required. By responding this way you receive and achieve whatever is required.
