Читать книгу Learn Languages Easily. Methods of self-regulation for successful learning - Андрей Ермошин - Страница 52

Traumas, which have no direct connection to the speech, can still affect it. When Elena observed the process of speech production, she discovered the consequences of an episode she experienced many years ago.

A comet got into my head

Elena. A comet got into her head when she saw how her husband hit their daughter with the back of his hand when she was standing in the cot and crying. This episode brought up a feeling of hatred towards her husband, which lasted for more than 30 years, even after the divorce.

There was a similar tension in his body.

During the session of self-regulation, Elena let the “comet’ leave her head in the opposite trajectory, and her body finally began to relax. Along with relaxation, it was easier to see the mystery of the speech production. Speech is born in the state of calm, and then it flows like a river. A whole river flowed and then disembogued into the ocean.

Other processes began to go freely. Reference books, dictionaries, and films are loaded through the top of the head to the area of the stomach. Elena felt she was “on air.” She offered the following interpretation of what has happened: she got connection to the info field35.

Robocop

Nikolai is 32 years old. There is a certain delicacy in his build. He experiences a lot of stress even when he has to contact people in his mother tongue. Face gets tense, and there is also some tension in the chest and stomach.

On the test drawing, there is a 5-year-old boy. This is indeed what Nikolai feels like, although he works for a big company in a very good position!

As he was paying attention to his sensations, he revealed he was like a Robocop in the film, as if his face made of steel, and his body protected by the armour.

“Before the moment this armour appeared, had there been anything in your life that could have been traumatizing?” I asked.

“There were a lot of fights in the family. My mother used to shield herself with me, so I was a buffer between her and my infuriated dad.”

“What seems to be covered with armour?”

“It’s as if I didn’t have the frontal part at all. Imagine a building, the front of which is ruined and crumbled completely. I feel like I have left my body. By the way, I have been having these dreams that I lost my head since I was a child.”

“Fortunately, a human body is not a building of lifeless bricks: we have a process of regeneration. Observe what is happening.”

In the mind of Nikolai, the following static picture appeared. His father is sitting in an armchair as some sort of shapeless mass in front of him, Nikolai is tense, and everything in the picture is motionless. Nikolai is “frozen’ with his fear. At the level of his solar plexus, there is a big and completely empty sack.

The further process consisted in coming out of this state of being stuck and being outside your own body. As you know, there is an expression “to throw somebody off his stride,” and it looks like exactly what happened with Nikolai.

Very gradually, while keeping the attention on the motionless scene, it started to “unfreeze’ and “melt.”

I helped Nikolai with the words of support: life has changed, nobody is fighting right now, and he is a grown-up person with a lot of experience. I asked him to observe how his new experience (the experience of defending his dignity and the experience of communication) was coming from the space, from his head into the reservoir at the level of his solar plexus and stomach (where he used to feel emptiness).

Everything bad, that got inside, went away through the face and eyes.

Alongside with the changes inside, Nikolai’s self-image changed too.

The initial state of the frozen pain, hidden rage, the fear of emotional expression, and protective tension transformed into a new state of freedom, peace, and being filled with new knowledge and strength.

In a new state, it became easier to imagine and then learn what adequate communication with people is like36.

Bold 90-s

A constructive drawing of a person, which we have described earlier, brings out the issues that influence the overall state of a person. Even if an issue does not produce a direct influence on the speech, it can interfere.

Unwanted generation

In the class which took place on August 13, 2011, in Moscow, there were Elena, a saxophone player; Ilya, an architect; and Denis, who worked on television. All of them are people who grew up in the 90-s.

In Elena’s drawing, the neck was drawn as a triangle with its vertex looking up. This is a sign of offence. Her favourite instrument, saxophone, fell through into her soul as if it was a black hole. It is a dead-weight burden at the bottom of this hole. When Elena graduated from music academy and she was eager to begin growing professionally. To her great disappointment, her skills and instrument were not in demand. It was very difficult for her to overcome frustration. Even now, there is a sad joke: “If you are a student of a Conservatory, make sure that you have a spot in the underground to be able to earn money.” Back then, Elena had to live this joke.

In the drawing of Ilya, the architect, there is a triangular head with the vertex looking downwards, and a neck, a large circular body. Arms and legs are long; arms are lifted above the line of the horizon and have fists made of circles. This is a contour of anger, and a reflection of a similar story of frustration, disappointment, and pain. The only difference is that there is more rage in Ilya’s reaction. Instead of developing ideas of improving architectural space, Ilya became a civil servant in an architectural bureau with 90-year-old grannies doing tedious paperwork. It seems that someone is intentionally dragging him into humdrum. Ilya changed jobs six times, but the result is always the same: nobody needed his ideas. As for sensations: walls of a building (at the level of the chest) seem to have fallen apart into a deep mine.

35

The session took place in Moscow in 2012.

36

This session took place in Moscow on February 6 2012.