Exercise 5: Working through internal tensions and traumas received during the learning process

Read the first step of instruction, close your eyes, do the part of the exercise, then open your eyes for a while and read the next step.

– Where are the feelings, left from the first encounter with a foreign language? The first time you heard it, the first attempts to understand and speak – where and what impressions did they leave?

– What do you feel like? Do you feel happy and ready to work (which would be great)? Do you feel some mobilizing tension or even feeling traumatized?

– In case you feel calm, comfortable, and confident, just reinforce this state, let your body feel and spread this awareness, too.

– If you feel some tension or even some damage, wait for the moment when you feel where the element supporting this tension is: is it at some distance from your mind or has it gotten inside? When did this damaging signal start? Did it hit you in the head, the chest, or the stomach? Is every cell of your body suffering? What does this wounding element look like according to your sensations?

– Wherever these damaging elements hit you, wherever it is now, and whatever it looks like (whether it is a rock, a pin, or some unpleasant powder, you need to decide if you prefer to keep carrying it around or if you have had enough of it.

– If something wounded you, observe how this object or energy leaves you in reverse trajectory. Whatever got inside without invitation, let it go without any regrets; it will come out the same way it came in.

– If this is something massive, then you should try to relax and calm down, and take back all your energy from it. This object will dry out; it will get smaller and smaller, and what is left will disappear completely or will fly away.

– Residual inertial tensions melt, and a pleasant warmth and heaviness softly spread all over your body from the centre to the periphery. After this, your mind will get clear. Your arms and legs will get the sensation of being filled; your head, chest, and stomach relax and calm down.

– When you feel that the space of your mind has cleared, and internal filling is even; there is an overall feeling of integrity, purity, and balance, and then you should wait for the realization of the way you should treat similar potentially stressful situations in the future. This understanding may appear right above your head in the form of a little cloud or sun, or it can already appear in your head, on the forehead as the concentration of something radiant.

– Then you decide whether this is the destination of this work. Do you need to look at a deeper level? Understanding of the situation is becoming a part of your body: it flows down into your body as light or water; you accept it, and your body absorbs it.

– You get used to feeling calm when you have to use the language. You imagine how you act easily and in a business-like way.

– When you feel that this process has reached its end, open your eyes.

The following typical stories can also be of help to you.

On a pin

After first encounters with the English language, Serguei thought it was too difficult, and it felt like being pierced by a pin in the area of a lower back. Below this pin, there is a little carnivorous animal with a bushy tail, which looks like an arctic fox: this is an image of hidden anger. He took the pin out. Internal opening closed. That little animal hid away. He had the sensation that English flowed down easily like water from the head to the body and found its place in the stomach²⁶.

Tatyana the violinist

Tatyana is a professional musician. She told us the story about how she went with her orchestra to England for the first time when she was 17. According to the contract with the host party, she was supposed to be in a homestay. They were going to a provincial town for some festival.

Tatyana did not speak much English. Starting from customs clearance, she remembered the feeling of embarrassment because of herself and the whole orchestra; 42 people in total could not speak English.

When it was time to meet the hosting family:

“I didn’t understand much,” – Tatyana continued. – “I felt dumb with a spasm in the throat. I felt very confused and very uncomfortable. People were very warm and welcoming, but I was incapable of expressing my gratitude. I felt like an idiot. My head seemed completely empty. I had already started believing I was a complete fool.”

“I am an intelligent person stuck in a ridiculous situation!” That would be a much better way to think about the situation. Tatyana and I begin to work together

“In order to avoid such situations in the future, it would be a good idea to study without any stress. What is happening in the head now, with the way it is filled now?”

“It feels better.”

“What about the rest of your body?”

“Either” – Tatyana confirms.

She understands that there is some knowledge she has already acquired, and she let it become a part of the body. She is much better equipped than when she “felt like an idiot,” and nobody can stop her from making further progress. The reaction Tatyana had during her first visit when she lacked linguistic competence was natural absolutely, but it did not make this reaction necessary to experience. It was time to leave this reaction behind. What kind of reaction was that, and what did it feel like? It was a sensation of a big compression, a strong squeeze at the level of the body.

In the course of observation, Tatyana noted that her tension was melting, new competence flowed into the body, and now she can imagine a new trip in this newly renewed state²⁷.

A thin chainmail and a helmet

“I am wearing a thin chainmail, and at the level of the nose, there’s a metallic plate. It’s my protection” – Irina tells us.

“When we communicate with a native speaker, we never have the vantage point. Our linguistic knowledge always loses to that of the native speaker. And it often makes us take a defensive position” – I comment on Irina’s description.

While we pay careful attention to the sensation of energy invested in the formation of the “chain mail’ or other spontaneous protective mechanisms, be it a shell, a whole house and even a fortress, as a rule, this energy then returns to the circulation and undergoes reverse development. One begins to feel the ability to lean on the internal strength and competence, which are located in the stomach, in the chest, in the head; after that, one can move on from protecting one’s own self-esteem to building the strategy of how to achieve results.

Irina “calls back’ the energy she invested in protecting herself, and she begins to feel free. Her new protection is her competence, that is: the knowledge she absorbs during studies²⁸.

Edgy upbringing

The way we perceive new information can influence by the image of the person who communicates it to us.

In the situation when a teacher motivates a student using edgy techniques of targeting student’s self-esteem, and when students have to defend themselves and prove their worthiness, it is no wonder that soon students find both the teacher and the subject off-putting. The main task of a person is to preserve his or her inner self from damage and maintain one’s dignity. If a tasty dish is spiced with disrespect and lack of affection, then one would hardly be able to enjoy it. If a teacher allows him/herself say something mean to a student, then it is likely, that the subject this teacher is reading, will be rejected as well.

Take your grades with calm!

Healthy attitude to marks means understanding that it is an evaluation of your knowledge on a given day and on a given topic. It has nothing to do with evaluating you as a person. Tomorrow, you can be an A-grader. Moreover, the person who provides you with this or that mark cannot be objective absolutely; he or she is also human and can be in a different mood. Sometimes, this person can be downright unfair. This is a part of reality. In any case, one should treat grades with calm. Grades are not the point; what matters is whether you can reach your goal or not.

If a student is poisoned with the negative marks of the teacher, it is rather unpleasant, but it is not the end of the world. You need to find and let go of the poisonous alloy that accompanies useful knowledge.

A poisonous teacher

Ekaterina: “There’s a whole whirlwind of difficult moments. My head is buzzing. There are images of these teachers, a real kaleidoscope of personalities.

I had a teacher. He was with a sense of humour, but it was rather unkind. It all sounded more like being ridiculed and humiliated. He seemed kind at first, but then…”

Ekaterina observes how this whirlwind of unkind influences leaves her body as something grey, black, and dark²⁹.

Here are several more examples of internal work.

Steam through my eyes and ears

Irina: “My tonsils responded. They seemed to feel loose like when you have a sore throat. Steam was going through her ears and eyes. Some tension was identified at the root of her tongue; it flowed to its tip and then completely disappeared.”

Throw away a crumpled piece of paper

Svetlana: “There’s a crumpled piece of paper in my hand, and I have thrown it away.”

A ray of light hit me – stop – back off

Julia: “My ears. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t make sense of the speech. I began to think that I wasn’t able to hear. My reaction: eyes strained; I felt like I was going to cry.”

A.E.: “What exactly happened to you back then?”

Julia: “A bright ray of light hit me in both eyes.”

A.E.: “What place did it reach? You need to follow its trajectory to the end and then say ‘Stop!’ and set off a reverse process, that is: you will need to observe how this unpleasant energy goes out and away. Ok, this ray of light came, but now, it has to go.”

Through Julia’s eyes, it is moving out. Julia observes how that ray of light, which wounded her, leaves her and moves away. She feels free. Her ability to hear and to listen returns.

Sometimes, it feels like earplugs falling out when your ability to hear is being restored³⁰.

Tongue in the hook

Here is an example of working with myself.

I learnt German in school and college (in der Schule und in der Hochschule). What do I have left from those times?

My tongue is on a steel hook.

When I was in the fifth grade, our headmaster told us that our new teacher was highly professional and that her pronunciation was the best among other students of her university. Perhaps, this was just a way to supporting a young teacher and earning our respect.

Quite paradoxically, it did not inspire and, on the contrary, we felt numb. It seemed embarrassing to speak with a bad accent in front of such a teacher, but it also seemed impossible to understand how one should pronounce from those few comments and few classes we had with her. In the end, no one dared to talk in front of her, and no one could learn to do so because there was no other source. There was only a textbook. Nobody has heard about audio and video courses back then. Language teaching was very formal and scarce.

Now, many years later, I have a better understanding of that situation, but it does not resolve the conflict between high requirements and the lack of opportunity to correspond with them, which I experienced at school.

Even though I always get my As for German, I continued learning this language in college and achieved a certain level. German has always been a language for reading rather than speaking for me. That “hook’ that got my tongue had me through the years. Naturally, as soon as I realized it, I chose to “get my tongue off the hook.”³¹

My mind took it quite literally: a steel hook and then setting my mind free from it.