This journal excerpt is the beginning of an account of my experiences of my energy body. My explanations of my understanding of my energy body will be interspersed with brief details of my life.

I grew up in a blue collar family. My father worked for the railroad as a brakeman and later a conductor. He would be gone for days at a time, return home for a day or two, then be gone again.

My mother had five children. Having three kids in a year (myself and my twin, and a sister a year older) was difficult for her. She generally cooked one dinner a week. I grew up eating a lot of toast, cereal, ice cream (family bought it in bulk on sale), and popcorn. In the summers I ate fruit from neighbor trees and picked berries and mowed lawns for money to buy candy.

As a teenager and young adult I worked in a donut shop.

Diet is a backdrop to my experiences.

Moving into the body of this journal...

I grew up having odd sensations, like when happy I would experience waves of intense tingling current flowing from my heart down my arms. I didn't know until my early adult years that others didn't experience life this way.

A few times I thought I was experiencing a state of rapture - intense bliss.

Growing up I suffered from an occasional black depression. It felt like being numb in a dark room, and I could hear muffled voices outside.

At age 23 I had been living with housemates on Skyline Blvd, a semi-rural area above Portland. It was a great time to be alive. I had wonderful housemates who cared for me. Going home to find out what others had been up to every day was a wonderful experience.

Then the house was sold and my housemates were going to relocate.

My parents had just bought a new house in Gresham (suburb of Portland). I moved home to help paint the new house, help my dad sheet rock a lower level, and do some landscaping.

One night I had an odd experience. I felt like I was looking inside my spine. I could see places where the tube was crowded with what I perceived were restrictions.

I visualized and experienced/felt a current in the shape of a line come up the spine. It would hit a blockage and a small crystal would break free, generally floating upward. I would then visualize/feel a line of energy coming down the spine and trapping the crystal between the two currents. When that happened, a single muscle somewhere in my body would spasm and relax.

I did this at night a week.

I decided I should practice yoga to help my body loosen up these tight muscles.

I was terrible at hatha yoga (stiff muscles, joints). A small book I picked up mentioned doing bellows breathing, but warned not to do more than three bellows breathing practices at a time and limited to six a day. It had a dire warning not to do more.

Bellows breathing is several rapid, deep breaths through the nostrils, doing a powerful final inhalation through the nostrils, holding the breath and dropping the chin down to rest on the upper chest. Now release the breath through the mouth. Repeat.

Over time I did bellows breathing longer every day.

I came to feel energy in my body as like flowing water, but in restricted channels and pathways. Each time I did a bellows breath, the flow of current picked up slightly and pressed against the restriction. Over time the restriction in that channel would begin to open, like water slowly pushing through a channel.

I came to understand that the energy channels and pathways overlaid my nervous system. That if you looked at a picture/diagram of nerves running through the body, you'll see the nerve roots that come out of the spine, and trunk lines that run down each arm and leg, etc.

Where you have a major nerve, you have a major current of energy.

When I did bellows breathing, the current in one part of my body would increase.

Energy in the body can be felt in movement (like tingly water) and like current (feels like a buzz), and the pathways can light up and be seen in the mind's eye.

I'll start with my arms as an example.

There's a major current that runs down each arm and branches off into small channels. When I did the bellows breathing, I felt that flow in the main channel in my arm was constricted. Each time I did the bellows breath, the energy flow in my arm, near my shoulder for example, would increase slightly. I could feel/see this in a sense.

Each time the energy flow would increase slightly in this place of sluggish energy flow/channel, the muscle in that area would spasm and release tension.

This would happen over and over and over, slowly opening that energy channel so I could feel the current moving more freely (like water moving through a corroded pipe being cleaned, like an electrical current/buzz increasing the current).

Over time I discovered I'm on an 11 week cycle. The cycle starts at a high. Each bellows breath increases the current in a body part/channel. A high lasts about a week. Then I go into several semi-highs. I had to do a few bellows breaths to get a result.

I then slowly drop into a low, where nothing happens when I do the bellows breathing, but the work I do in this low period affects how well a high starts.

So the next cycle would focus on a major current running down my legs, or my butt and low back, or chest, or eventually, my head.

I didn't choose the progression, I was just aware of it.

I thought of the body currents as 110 volts and the spine and brain 220 and that crown and top of my skull 440.

When I increased the energy flow in my spine, the channel in my legs would light up (I could see/feel the entire channel).

When I got to an 11 week cycle that focused on my head, tapping into that band would cause a body muscle spasm around my head that would throw me out of the bed into a wall.

Now, for another realization.

When I did the bellows breathing, I was changing the overall expression of energy flow in my body. I called this lighting up. I could experience/see channels of energy, from large to small. I wasn't seeing restrictions, just channels lighting up.

I also, at that moment that I changed the patterns of energy flow in my body, would experience memories of past experiences. In those moments/several seconds I would be back in time experiencing a conversation or experience. I was fully in that moment in the past, then I would drift back to an awareness that I was sitting in bed doing my bellows breathing.

I loved having these experiences. I felt for the first time that I had a deep understanding of my body.

My family and friends thought I was crazy, but I was willing to pay that price.

The full version of this journal is available on Amazon Kindle at

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PLKWW16/