Lack of mental energy/mental over-drive

[Greenduck]

Coming out from a depression and trying to understand my current situation and how to work with it, hoping that someone could shed some light for on the situation for me.

Background
Suffered from burn-out which drained me and made my body extremely tense and tight. Have worked with it for a long time (1 year) and are currently feeling OK, but still have some things to work with.

Main problem 1
Having problem "thinking clearly". I have a hard time organizing my thoughts and doing simple reasoning, combined with feeling very uncertain about the future. My head feels very tense and I have problem with relaxing the mind, going to sleep and just don't feel that I am "home" up there, like the "lights are out". I have a hard time to figure out something for myself, and are sensitive to what other people say and somewhat to what they think (not sure about the thinking part, could be made up by myself). Also choosing words and just "general" thinking is impaired.

Main problem 2
Feeling ungrounded, not in contact with the more "basic" me. Guess it is problems with root and sacral chakra so I have tried to work with those two, mainly with breathing exercises and focusing my attention to each chakra and trying to open it up. Currently feeling that my sacral chakra is opening up again, and that I can feel the root chakra (which I haven't been able to do during the depression)

Secondary problems
Have experienced emotional problems as a result from the depression, with low confidence, low emotional energy. Have recovered in this problem, and are feeling emotionally "ok" but not as confident as usual.

Analysis
I believe that these things have to do with one another, and if I can get my head (upper chakras) to relax, so will my energy be able to go downwards. Currently it feels like it is all "locked up" because the mind/head is so tense. Like there is a blockage.


This is really bugging me out and causing big problems for me, so if someone has any ideas of how i can increase the speed of my recovery they will be greatly appreciated. Or just explain it to me, as my cognitive problems make it hard to comprehend and make a good assessment from what I can find online as it just confuses me. Currently I am doing some energy work with breathing exercises (wim-hof), working with a Tai Chi-routine and going to acupuncture every week. What I am really looking for is something that could balance my two chakras out and slow them down from being in the overdrive-state they currently are in.

PS. I attached a picture with how I feel in the body. Head area - tense, lower back and downwards - not feeling like I'm in "contact" with that parts, lower abdomen, tense and I can feel that my breath don't expand that area, and chest area I feel "weak" in it.

[Greenduck]

Oh yeah, one thing that I also feel have changed before/after is that I don't feel as connected to other people or understand them as I did before. Before it was just this "understanding" that I currently feel I'm not connected to. Like I am not seeing the "bigger picture". I just feel disconnected.

[Nox]

The good news is that your chakras aren't blocked. You'd be dead.

Bad news is if you want to get back to "normal" it'd be helpful to drop your practices. Wim Hof stuff can be good, but that doesn't mean it works with everyone. Tai chi is good once your energetic system is already functional and good if you don't have a knowledgeable teacher. When you have someone to properly guide you and your system into how it should flow. A lot of the tricks to skip steps are foolish if you don't have someone that knows what they're doing to do it. And there are very few people alive today that could even do that.

But you can still develop and progress. You need to firmly ground yourself and anchor properly.

For commercially available stuff I'd recommend a few different options.

1) initiation into hermetics by bardon. Best long term growth potential if you stick with it.

2) the xingyi materials sold by Scott Meredith. He does a good job of focusing on the legs and perineum in his stuff that'll help ground you, and you'll still feel the energy

3) flying Phoenix chi Kung from taichimania.com. The stuff is kind of pricey, but his dvds so a good job of teaching the simple exercises. But don't do the recommended progression of his. Both sitting and standing focus on the navel area meditations for a few months before moving on to anything higher up. The approach he was shown was in person by his master and so he had help and guidance if anything bad happened. Play it safe and start from the ground up.

The "best" option would be to do all 3, but most people don't have that kind of time available. So pick bardons and either 2 or 3 if you don't have.a ton of time.

Do NOT work with chakras directly. I hate to say it but most people have zero idea what they're doing or what a chakra even is. Stick with the broader approach until the systems start showing themselves.

Also make sure you eat meat and spend time in nature or at least trees.

Edit: also, instead of option 3 with flying Phoenix, the better option is to get involved with damo Mitchell's materials and begin to develop the lower Dan tien. It's a longer path, but that combined with bardons has the potential to take you further than most people you'll ever meet.

[Darkness]

How many hours are you listen to E2?

[Greenduck]

The good news is that your chakras aren't blocked. You'd be dead.

Bad news is if you want to get back to "normal" it'd be helpful to drop your practices. Wim Hof stuff can be good, but that doesn't mean it works with everyone. Tai chi is good once your energetic system is already functional and good if you don't have a knowledgeable teacher. When you have someone to properly guide you and your system into how it should flow. A lot of the tricks to skip steps are foolish if you don't have someone that knows what they're doing to do it. And there are very few people alive today that could even do that.

But you can still develop and progress. You need to firmly ground yourself and anchor properly.

For commercially available stuff I'd recommend a few different options.

1) initiation into hermetics by bardon. Best long term growth potential if you stick with it.

2) the xingyi materials sold by Scott Meredith. He does a good job of focusing on the legs and perineum in his stuff that'll help ground you, and you'll still feel the energy

3) flying Phoenix chi Kung from taichimania.com. The stuff is kind of pricey, but his dvds so a good job of teaching the simple exercises. But don't do the recommended progression of his. Both sitting and standing focus on the navel area meditations for a few months before moving on to anything higher up. The approach he was shown was in person by his master and so he had help and guidance if anything bad happened. Play it safe and start from the ground up.

The "best" option would be to do all 3, but most people don't have that kind of time available. So pick bardons and either 2 or 3 if you don't have.a ton of time.

Do NOT work with chakras directly. I hate to say it but most people have zero idea what they're doing or what a chakra even is. Stick with the broader approach until the systems start showing themselves.

Also make sure you eat meat and spend time in nature or at least trees.

Edit: also, instead of option 3 with flying Phoenix, the better option is to get involved with damo Mitchell's materials and begin to develop the lower Dan tien. It's a longer path, but that combined with bardons has the potential to take you further than most people you'll ever meet.

Well, that's at least something positive

Thank you for sharing your resources with me. I enjoy diving into new concepts, and this could sure provide some interesting reading.

But before understanding the energies, I need to feel energy and my body again properly so at this moment I just focus on getting my body back into proper function. A more simple approach with just sitting and focusing on pain parts in my body and trying to relax have worked so far and I will apply it for some time until things settle down. It feels like I have given to much attention to activities that entertain the mind, so now I'm trying to do it the other way around

But I will be interested to understand more about my energies further down, so I'll bookmark this post to come back to

But one reflection I am having that was brought up when you mentioned having a teacher for your energy-flows. Doesn't we already know how our energies should be flowing? You know instinctually. Like we should get to know ourselves first, before diving into the knowledge from the teacher? Maybe it's just me who are on a more simple-level of energy that feel that way.

How many hours are you listen to E2?

Not listening at this moment.

[thor2014]

I think combining different therapies such as E2, CBT and possibly getting medical prescription ONLY from your doctor as he can advise on what medical treatment you can embark upon.

[MD81]

I had quite similar symptoms to yours. Including mental over drive post stress burn out situations. Over drive sometimes get so bad for me that meditation is of no help. For quick fix I found nootropics, Onnit New Mood, pretty good. Occasionally I smoke catnip as well which soothes out my mind out of over drive status. My dad also has this problem of highly active brain, and recently he had pretty good results with herbal formulation of Doctor Christopher's called Relaxed Eze. You might also want to try Molybdenum as it helps with brain fog a lot.

Larger change for me came through detox. I had amalgam filling in my teeth and getting them removed and following it up with metal detox regimen really helped me getting away from a pretty nasty feeling. The feeling was of something heavy on/in my head . This got me hooked to 'detox'; and a couple of years later of following various detox methods, my finding is that most of the health problems come because of bad gut health. Healing/Cleaning the gut, (liver, intestines) puts you in very good mental health as well. It could be this reason the users of Maxim Healing reported better mental clarity and health.