DEEP CLEARING: Balance Your Emotions, Let Go Of Inner & Outer Negativity, Shift To Higher Consciousness: A Radical Inner Process

I've struggled with depression and various emotional up's and down's all my life. I've tried many different modalities to achieve inner peace. Each has had varying degrees of effectiveness, but none 100%.Six weeks ago I came across this book and it resonated with me. I have felt negative emotions inside myself that I wanted to release, and this book promised an approach for doing just that.I've now read the book, purchased John's audio CD's, and have done an emotional clearing session of approx. 45 minute most days over the last 4 weeks. I intend to continue the practice into the foreseeable future.I like John's belief that thoughts arise from emotions rather than the other way around. It seems to me that talk therapy has value when one can put their inner experience into words. When one can't, I think something else is needed.Eight years ago I was introduced to use of meditation as a tool of emotional health. At the time, I thought it was the "something else" needed when I could not put inner experience into words. After an 8 week MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) class and a 13-week class introducing meditation, I began meditative work with a PhD psychotherapist having 25 years of meditative experience.Eight years ago I was taught to relax and allow internal feelings to arise, watching them with detachment. The idea was that doing so would gradually implement equanimity into my internal emotional landscape. It backfired. Very badly. I meditated 20 minutes a day on my own, and once a week with a sangha. Every single time, intense bodily sensations arose. Every single time, I tried to let those sensations arise and just "sit with them." I would shake, I would cry, I would feel pressure from my scalp to my toes. I kept at it for 9 months until a meditation teacher told me that staying in a state of mind filled with angst for long periods was not good. I then realized I was hardwiring an agitated internal state into myself and I stopped cold turkey.I immediately noticed that my disposition in life got much better. However, some troubles soon arose and in the midst of the storm I ended up with 2 inpatient psychiatric stays back to back. For this review, I'll say the meditation and the "storm" were related, but not go into more detail.My point is that 8 years ago I tried a method very similar to John Ruskan's method and instead of making things better it made things a lot worse. Ever since then I've wrestled with why. It felt to me that meditative "arts" have so much to offer, but I could not understand why my earnest attempt led to such horrible results.In the 8 years since I have read some research about trauma and meditation. I've heard stories of people going on 10-day vipassana retreats hoping for a better state of mind but instead ending up in a mental hospital. There's much I don't understand about how such things work.What I do know is that when I discovered "Deep Clearing" 6 weeks ago, the same internal emotions I felt 8 years ago were still there, but at an intensity less than 10% of what they were 8 years ago. John's approach offered something different from what I experienced 8 years ago, and it's what is different about his approach that has caused me to go down the path.Those differences mean a great deal to me. Perhaps to you, dear review reader, may benefit from hearing what those differences are as you evaluate whether to purchase John's book.First, John starts with deep relaxation. He talks about getting the mind into "alpha" (technically defined as 8-12 hz on an encephalogram) as the first step. Another way he describes "alpha" is as a feelings-oriented right brain state instead of a thought-oriented left brain state. In my own experience, the emphasis on getting into this state prior to emotional processing is just as powerful as John says it is. It does seem that I'm able to better handle the onslaught of difficult internal states after I've invested 5 - 15 minutes getting into a deeply relaxed state.Second, John adds visualizations I was not exposed to 8 years ago. One is a beam of light coming in through one's head and radiating out from the solar plexus to form a sphere around oneself. A second is a connection to the earth. A third is not so much a visualization as a technique. Opening the 3rd eye appears to be a way of entering a state of consciousness akin to a state of calmness deep in an ocean whilst emotional waves churn violently at the surface.There's eastern wisdom going on with these visualizations that I don't have much knowledge about. All I can say is that the 3 aforementioned items seem to help me process emotions better.Third is the sequence of steps. For some time I've used John's audio CD's to orient me to the steps, but now I'm practicing doing it on my own without his CD's, which is what John recommends. I go through the steps of 1) deep relaxation 2) awareness 3) acceptance 4) direct experience 5)witnessing during a 45 minute session. I did not have such a structured framework 8 years. Having the 5-step framework from John's book seems to help me.As I bring this review to a close, let me iterate something you hopefully already know. "Deep Clearing" is not a book read for intellectual knowledge alone. It is a "how to" manual, and to gain benefit from it one must commit to a practice. Be sure you're willing to make some commitment to putting the book's ideas into practice before purchasing it.In my review I've emphasized my personal experience with the practice described in the book, and tried to demonstrate ways in which it seems to be working for me when a similar practice I tried 8 years ago failed. I've intentionally not reviewed writing style nor the strengths and weaknesses of the intellectual content of the book. That is because I believe "Deep Clearing" is a book not to be judged in such ways. In my opinion, the pathway it offers to greater emotional health is the proper subject of review.I have some experience with different pathways for emotional health. Deep Clearing's pathway has appeared valid enough in my experience to commit 45 minutes a day to it now for about a month, with plans for continuing to do the same for the foreseeable future.

Worth every penny.

This book has given me really amazing concepts and techniques in order to continue with my inner work. I've had many "aha" moments, such as that what we call the subconscious is what it is known as karma in the eastern philosphy. Another important concept is that love equals acceptance, and therefore, in order to truly accept ourselves, we must accept our "negative" feelings and emotions. Also, as a therapist, understanding that my real work is to make my client aware of this love-equals-acceptance concept. All the techniques I may apply should only be directed to that. So, a good therapist is someone who teaches the client how to love and accept himself, above any other thing.Another key concept was that the importance of integrating feelings. For instance, I have some friends that are rich and still obssessed with money, and they will be like this forever unless they start integrating the feeling of insecurity. Same applies to all feelings. This is contrary to many techniques that try to avoid feelings by chasing the opposite. In other words, in order to overcome insecurity, we must integrate it and not pursue security. The last one will come naturally only after integrating the first one.Additionally, and as I work with the natural hygiene approach that trusts in the body's abilities to heal itself, I noticed that psychic healing follows the same mechanism than physical healing. When we try to heal ourselves emotionally AND/OR physically, there are detox symptoms which are “uncomfortable”, there may be some pain, but we have to accept and experience them in order to transcend them, and after experiencing them, we feel better, and lighter.Last but not least, I'm one of those that want to trascend into a higher level of consciousness. Because of that, I've read many books and tried many techniques, trying to understand everything that's going on inside me. But Ruskan's approach is quite different. He says that we don't have to try to understand every feeling or emotion that we have; he says that the key is to FEEL, not to understand. If you are feeling fear, it doesn't matter what actually caused that feeling in the first place, or when it happened (last week, 30 years ago, in a previous life maybe...), the important thing is that the feeling is happening right now; therefore, in order to trascend it, we have to open to the feeling right now. The Emotional Clearing Process is NOT a discussion, it's an experience, the experience of the suppressed subconscious in the Alpha state.

Great read. Passed on to someone. I recommend for anyone who is doing self work.

So far so good. Im not even on the second chapter yet and so many of my underlying anger and overall negativity has been discovered and will be resolved due to the methods explained. I’ve learned so much so far. This book has given me the hope and answers i have been looking for to pursuit lasting happiness. I’ll add more when i finish the book.