Fun fact: this song's title inspired the title of the Beatles song released the following year.

May it touch your heart.

Well, I recently had an email exchange with JH that confirmed what I'd suspected. JH questioned whether I was talking enough to my Friend. Was I doing the therapy enough? I said I was connecting with my friend “quite a lot,” but that I knew I had room for improvement. She responded, in part:

“quite a lot” is NOT going to work.

you need to know that your friend is ALWAYS there. your friend needs to be more real than the other people in your life.

So there you have it. A tall order? Maybe, but also entirely in line with the conclusion I had recently been coming to myself.

Since that email, I've already developed a couple of new ideas that seem to help further improve the continuity of connection. I'll leave those for another post.:–)

For others the late scientist and spiritual teacher David R. Hawkins describes clearly the trajectory that will lead to the goal. (Sorry that the video owner has not enabled embedding in a blog post. Just follow the link to watch directly on YouTube.):

One of the most common answers that my patients received from their invisible friends, in response to asking, “What do I need to do to completely recover?” was, “Just let go.” Or “Just stop fighting.”...

“surrender” or “letting go” can be understood to mean “choose to think of and talk with your invisible, loving friend all the time instead of choosing to dwell on your own negative thoughts that you have so vigorously cultivated.” Surrender to the companionship and caring of your loving friend and stop listening to the thoughts you’ve created that tell you, wrongly, that you and your fears are the only things keeping yourself safe.

This sounds so simple. But mental habits can sometimes be hard to break. Depending on how long a person has been on self-induced pause, learning to change mental habits of wariness and instead choosing companionship with an invisible friend might take a few minutes…or a few years (RFP, 2020, p. 206).

Though not about the JH protocol per se, it does lend support to the value of communicating with an invisible friend (in this case the person's version of God) in recovering from Parkinson's. I've added the link to this prior post where I've collected a number of similar items.

Suppose mainstream medical research finally came up with a “cure” for Parkinson's. Let's say it was a pill you could take one time, and it would permanently eliminate all well known Parkinson's symptoms. The only catch being that, as with current medications, it precluded pursuing efforts to turn off pause. Would you take the pill?

I doubt I would take it

I doubt I would take that pill. If you've followed this blog you might be able to guess why. It's because I would still be on pause! And getting permanently off pause is even more important to me than becoming “symptom free.”

With that in mind, now would you take the pill? Answers, I suspect, will be highly correlated with whether or not the reader has ever experienced turning off pause. Those who have turned off pause (especially if they were aware of what was happening at the time) and spent some time in the off-pause state will be far more likely to answer “no.” That hints at the profound difference between pause mode and the off-pause state.

Living life off pause

To make clear that difference, apart from the presence or absence of well known Parkinson's symptoms, consider, in part, the pause-induced Parkinson's personality (see RFP, 2020, p. 193). For someone who has lived for decades on pause, switching to living off pause can mean a switch to the opposite of every aspect of the Parkinson's personality. In other words, in comparison to life on pause, a person living life off pause will likely be: less rigid, less moralistic, less stoic, less serious, more playfully curious, and less orderly, among other traits. (In a personality style such traits refer to general tendencies. No one fits them all precisely.)

Moving beyond the confines of the most familiar traits of the Parkinson's personality, a person off pause is likely to experience: less wariness, less guardedness, a greater feeling of lightness, a more relaxed, carefree, easy-going nature, more spontaneity, a greater sense of ease, far deeper feelings of joy, a less judgmental nature, much less anxiety, a greater awareness of the vividness of life experience, and greater heart attunement (see descriptions spread throughout RFP and SOP).

These lists could go on, but you get the idea. In short, to live off pause it is to live with a deeper connection to the richness and vibrancy of life. And that's why I'd be unlikely to take the pill. I want that chance to live life off pause!

You can do better than “symptom free”

If you have Parkinson's you were probably on self-induced pause for decades prior to your diagnosis. Now you have a chance not only to recover but to live a better life than the one you had before. You can do much better than “symptom free.” You can also live the rest of your life off pause!

Practicing the presence of your Friend

First and foremost, the JH practice is itself a very effective anti-anxiety technique. After all, it is ultimately all about helping you to feel safe. Here I use Brother Lawrence's term, “practicing the presence,” as a rough synonym for the JH practice because it puts the emphasis on doing any of an array of things that help you experience the presence of your Friend. And experiencing that presence seems to be the key to mitigating anxiety.

I've talked about this in a prior post. I'll add here that it's my impression that one reason this works is that practicing the presence centers your attention on the present moment. (See the Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now for much discussion of how focusing on the now banishes worry and anxiety.)

Practicing the presence to quell anxiety does take some disciplined focus but, in my experience, can be a potent tool. If you're engaged in the JH practice then, in my view, it should be your first line of defense against anxiety.

Self-administered cognitive behavioral therapy

Though not one of the practice's exercises per se, CBT plays a role in the JH protocol as well. I use mainly the CBT technique known as “cognitive restructuring”: In the case of anxiety, identify an irrational or dysfunctional thought that triggers the anxiety and counter it with a healthy, rational alternative thought. You can do this in conversation with your Friend. I've discussed this pretty thoroughly in prior posts, so will leave it at that except to say that, in my experience, when I can identify the right replacement thought cognitive restructuring can be extremely effective, eliminating anxiety very quickly.

A mindfulness technique for quelling anxiety

This one was a pleasant surprise. One of our support group members sent out the link to this short article on a mindfulness-based approach to anxiety and other distressing emotions. The core of the technique involves observing and exploring how some upsetting emotion actually manifests itself in physical feelings in your body. As you engage in this process (easily done in conversation with your Friend) upsetting emotions reveal themselves as “paper tigers” and tend to recede or become much less troubling. Though I haven't tried it yet in the presence of really intense anxiety, I've been delighted with the results concerning somewhat less severe anxiety. Below are two videos on essentially this technique.

The DARE approach

I have less experience with this technique. But I was introduced to it buy a very loving, smart daughter. (Thanks B!) So I am certain it has great potential. Notice the interesting element involving reframing anxiety as “excitement.”

So there you have a little toolkit for anxiety. I hope you don't need it; intense anxiety is no fun. But if you do, I think there's a good chance at least one of those techniques will be effective for you. Let me know!

Here are some quotes from Spiritual Maxims, along with a few of my own thoughts. (Note that Brother Lawrence's references to “God” can easily be replaced by “your invisible friend.”)

“We must perceive, continually and equally, all actions as forms of small conversations with God...”

Just a perfect description of what we aspire to. It points to weaving your connection to your Friend into all your activities. Though it comes more easily for some than others, it's an ideal toward which to strive. With persistence we can approach it.

“[P]ause for a brief moment, as often as we can, in order to love God from the bottom of our hearts, like a quick taste taken in passing, and in secret.

After all, you cannot forget that God is present, right in front of you, during your actions; that he is at the core and center of your soul. So why not at least, from time to time, stop your external occupations, and even your spoken prayers, in order to adore him interiorly, to praise him, to give him your questions, to offer him your heart, and thank him?

What could be more agreeable to God than to stop thus, thousands of times every day; what could be more agreeable than that all beings withdraw into their interior and love Him?”

I find this to be very much in line with my experience involving repeatedly returning my attention to my Friend. I've written about this here. This repeated turn of attention, even short of any talking, reconnects you with your Friend and seems to stimulate parts of the brain that are underactive in Parkinson's. This manifests for me as pleasant feelings of energy in the head/neck portion of the Du channel and in the heart. (See posts here and here for tips on getting in touch with such head and heart feelings.)

I've lost count now of how many times this has bailed me out of horrid Parkinson's feelings. Most recently it proved a potent antidote to some intense anxiety. That could be the subject of another post. But it seems those of us engaged in the JH practice have at our disposal, in practicing the presence, an effective anti-anxiety technique that is virtually unknown to the general mental health community. And I have little doubt it will figure prominently in the next time I turn off pause.

Are you up to “thousands of times every day”? Neither am I. So we have room to do more. So let's get going!

“We do this, not so much because God will notice this often repeated worship, but rather that, in the end, this worship will become natural and we will feel that God is one with our soul and that our soul is one with God.”

It does get easier.

“The presence of God is giving our mind’s attention to God or recalling to mind that God is present.”

It's really that simple.

“[Here Brother Lawrence is talking about himself.] Sometimes, feeling confusion about how to behold and love God, he simply remembers God. Other times, he focuses his attention on the name of God, or silently converses with God, confides in God about his life and the peace of his soul.”

There are a variety of ways of giving our mind's attention to our Friend. You can also say “you.” Most recently I've taken to simply saying, “I'm in your presence” or “I do this in your presence.”

“[T]his interiorized awareness, whether it sometimes precedes, however briefly, his external actions or, at other times, is simultaneous with the external actions, must always be present when the actions are finished: when one is finished with all external actions one must end, always, with the internal awareness.”

Here I think Brother Lawrence is acknowledging that certain activities might distract us from our focus on the presence of our Friend, but that we should always make sure, at a minimum, to return to that focus immediately upon finishing any such activity.

That's just a sampling, but I hope it proves useful. (See also this past post for some Rupert Spira comments on “practicing the presence.”) See the Spiritual Maxims for many more valuable insights.

First, one day several months ago, during a session, I decided to see if I could really push the feeling of surrender (for still more prior posts on the topic of surrender scan the post titles under “condensed view”). There are physical feelings associated with surrender to your Friend, or to the act of surrender more generally, and I was determined to generate those feelings as strongly as I could. I really pushed it, focusing on what I felt and trying mentally to intensify it. But following that session I was feeling pretty bad. And I felt that way the rest of the day. I don't recall in precisely what way I was feeling bad, but I suspect it involved the same feelings I'll describe in the next example. In any event, it was clear trying to push the feeling of surrender had been a mistake.

The second example comes from how about a week ago. During a session, while feeling my Friend's arms around me, a thought occurred to me along the lines, “Why don't I really work on getting these feelings to be as vivid as possible?” So just after the session I did another mini session, closing my eyes and trying to accentuate the vividness of the feeling of my Friend's arms around me. I'm not sure I verbalized it this way, but it was as though I were saying, “More vivid, more vivid!” Once again, after the session I was feeling pretty terrible. I think the feeling was based in anxiety pushing through a kind of wooziness. It was pretty clear that, again, it has been a mistake to try to force the feeling.

I think what happens in these instances of forcing is that I'm pushing against psychological resistance. And doing so stirs underlying anxiety. What's the alternative? The answer is in the nature of surrender itself. It's not a forcing; it's a letting go, an allowing. Paradoxically, though it can be difficult to achieve, it is actually effortless. Though the effortless groove can be maddeningly elusive, it is always right there, waiting. So while we can't forcibly push the resistance aside, we may be able to let it go, to stop fighting the process that takes us into surrender (or, e.g., into the vivid feeling of being held). We just have to take care not to try to force the stopping of the fighting. We need to allow our Friend to act on us and through us.

In each of the experiences described above, when I stopped trying to force it and adopted a stance oriented toward allowing the bad feelings soon abated. And I can say that, as a general rule, when you're on track in the JH practice, it produces good feelings.

Those of us from western cultures may have a hard time with this. We're so used to pushing and doing and making things happen rather than being. But embracing the latter should make for an easier recovery journey.

“Surrender is the most difficult thing in the world while you are doing it and the easiest when it is done.” ~ Bhai Sahib