My First Amanae Experience

I often hear from people who have read through my long-winded brochure, or read all the text on the Amanae Europe website, and they ask, ‘Yes, but I still don’t know what Amanae is.’ It is hard to describe if you have never experienced it directly. The easiest way to transmit the work is hands-on. The second easiest is tell the story of our direct experiences. This is my story of my first Amanae experience in 1994.

I was having weekly ‘bodywork’ sessions with Jon Bernie, a former Zen Monk turned bodyworker. I put bodywork in quotes because he was much more than that. He was the therapist that I needed without admitting that I was in therapy. He introduced me to meditation, many forms of bodywork and energy works, and advaita teachers such as Jean Klein. In our first session years earlier, he guided me to experience myself as expanding well beyond the limits of my skin.

A year or so later, I made an off-the-cuff comment to him. ‘It seems as if everyone I know who has had sessions with you cry during their sessions. I never cry here.’ Jon very innocently replied, ‘Perhaps it was not safe for you to cry at some point in your life’. Immediately, an auto-response took place. My legs closed abruptly, knocking my knees together. I started to hyperventilate, and a controlled crying took over me. It was the exact same bodily experience that I had suppressed decades earlier as a young boy. When I was punished, I would cry. My mother would then threaten another punishment if I didn’t stop crying. My body became a contorted, heaving mass trying its best to shut down the crying out of fear. It was amazing on a few levels. First, I had completely suppressed this memory. It was the first time I realized that things could be completely shut out of my waking consciousness. Secondly, sitting in the chair across from Jon, I became an 8 year old boy suddenly terrified of his mother. It had been nearly 20 years in human time, and yet it was as if it was just happening now. My body unconsciously reacted as if the threat was real. There was no thought involved. All of this triggered by one comment that slipped under my protective ego and touched a deep and painful nerve.

Many sessions later, Jon suggested that we try a new work that he was learning. He didn’t tell me anything about it, simply saying that he thinks that it would be good for me. I had deep trust in him and his experience so I said yes. Jon began working the heart points on my back. I was immediately struck by how painful the movements were. I was moving my body to avoid the movements as much as possible, and making low groans of discontent. To my great relief, he stopped working on the heart points. But then he made his way to my shoulder blades. The movements there were screaming painful, and scream I did! I’m sure that my yells were heard at least 3 floors above and below his work room. This in itself was remarkable as my politeness control would usually never let me do something like that.

I could not believe that he was not using tools in addition to his fingers. I had the impression that Jon was trying to tear my shoulder blade off of my back. At one moment, I had the question, ‘What the hell am I doing this for?’ The question made me laugh. I laughed for some minutes, laughing at the fact that the question wasn’t even funny. The laughter built to an uncontrollable level. It was the beginning of the release that I had been waiting my whole life to have.

After 10 minutes or so of laughing, there was the slightest of shifts in the laughter. It turned into crying. As I had hardly cried since those boyhood years, it caught me by surprise. I didn’t feel sad...I had no sad thoughts. Just all of the sudden the shaking from the laughing became shaking from crying. My instinct was to control it. Jon encouraged the crying to continue. After some doubts about the wisdom of that, I chose to trust in Jon’s support and let the crying continue. The crying strengthened until it became a full weep, having a life of its own. This deep crying seemed to last an hour, likely it was between 5 and 10 minutes. I had no idea what I was crying about. Eventually, the crying and shaking subsided. I had an image of a well inside me that had run dry. Whatever salty water that was inside of me had been completely pumped out.

I was tired in the best of ways, fully relaxed and feeling an openness that I could not have described at the time. During the 10-20 minutes of laughing/crying, Jon simply held his hand over the shoulder blade. Now that I was calm, he resumed his movements over the shoulder blade. I felt the sensation of a click or snap as his fingers crossed a ridge. This time, there was no pain at all. I was certain that Jon felt sorry for me was going easy on me. I told him that it didn’t hurt and that he could use more pressure. He replied that he was all the way into the ‘doorway’ and using full pressure. I was stunned. Although I trusted Jon completely for years, it was hard to believe. The first movements were excruciating, and now utterly easy and painless.

In hindsight, this confirmed what I had heard about: pain in the body is most often emotional in nature. This had been a vague concept. With this experience, I learned it first-hand and without doubt. My doubting, science-trusting mind needed this experience. I left Jon feeling like a different person than when I entered. I knew that my life would change from that moment forward...

Eric Lipin

Image Credit: Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash