From Lou's explanations and encouraging comments during the processing, I learned what I was doing and why, so I became more confident and could use the processing better. Lou says some people can even do a certain amount of processing on their own (and he encourages this). And rather than him being like a therapist and me the patient, Lou prefers to be more like a skilled, knowledgeable friend who can help me and teach me things he's already learned.

Besides releasing the material, I also became much clearer about my past and about the various levels of emotions and thoughts that my parents had. I was able to actually experience how my different life long body tensions and emotional patterns had been created. I am now mentally clearer about the details of my patterns yet the emotional charge on them has gone way, way down and even been eliminated. I no longer have a belief system with a lot of energy behind it, which makes me believe neither life is as bad nor that I should act in such self-defeating ways.

All my processed experiences included negative behaviors like physical blows or pressures, my own or other people's tension, strained effort, holding in expression or withdrawing for protection, fear, pain, anger, resistance, avoidance and even denial. I found that these negative behaviors were really other people's, and my own, but in events that happened many years ago. Yet, because they were stuck inside me, and I was unconscious about them, they'd been affecting my own body and mind my whole life. Even in the process I wasn't mentally aware of the next part of the events until I got to each point. But the technique enabled me to get in touch with it and get it out of my body. The method also became easier to do and I became more effective with it as I got used to doing it, and as more of the blocking material got removed.

One of the key experiences I released was at my birth. There was a lot of embedded energy from just before, during and then after it. Lou would guide me to get more in touch with the energy by saying, "When is the most stress happening, before your head comes out, while it’s coming out, or after it comes out?" It was amazing but I could actually tell when. Then he would say, "Feel the pressure on your body and tell me who’s having the most stress or pain or tension, mother, the doctor or nurse?" Then he’d have me feel the pressures throughout the whole movement, from start to finish, and process out the words that all these people were saying, thinking and feeling. We even did it for the trip to the hospital.

I could feel that the energies of all the surrounding commotion, pain and stress got embedded in me through this squeezing. So while I, myself, was under actual physical pressure, the emotional pressure and response to stress that the other people had all got combined inside me. Mother was exhausted and in pain. She was upset and worried. My shoulder and neck were stuck. And the doctor kept saying, "push!" I saw that my own kinds of stressful situations, and my specific response to stress were exactly as happened at my birth. And releasing the physical pressure, the forced in tightness from the womb and birth canal, and the emotional and mental experiences diminished this reaction pattern in my current life. Even the chronic tightness in my neck and shoulder got a lot less. Then, when we processed out similar kinds of upsets and tension for my mother in the prenatal, even more of my stressful behavior went away. In those, too, there was a pressing in on me, the fetus, by mother’s tension. Lou could then guide me to the connecting experiences in the so called past lives and that, too, removed even more of my physical and emotional pattern. I could see how this all fit together and actually removed my current upset and a lot of upset left over from childhood, too.

The overall benefits include that my mind is clearer and my body is a lot looser and lighter. And it’s stayed that way more and more as I’ve released the deeper and deeper tensions and episodes. It’s also become easier to make behavioral changes in my life. In fact, I usually seem to have a new, better behavior immediately after the negative episode is removed out of me.

It's also easier to see the patterns that haven't yet been eliminated and look into them. I'm now bigger than they are, both physically and in my attitude about life. I found that anything I'd already worked on in psychotherapy or spiritual development got released very easily and it was like a big weight lifted out of me. I could now behave the much better way I'd wanted to without all those body residues opposing me. Things I really wasn't conscious I'd been doing also turned up and I then became aware of that sabotaging part as I released it, too.

I also find that when I'm not "triggered" or stressed, my loving and positive energies come out better, sometimes even glowing, and all my good capabilities are stronger, more effective, and are appreciated more by others.

I now see that the body and subconscious mind play a big part in what we usually consider mental and psychological behavior. And I have learned other ways to improve myself through these avenues, from Lou's nutritional information and Structural Integration Bodywork, and from my other studies as well.