Injury is usually the result of an overload that is severe and prolonged enough to lead to burnout and termination of the overload. Injury, especially if it is repeated, offers us an answer to what, despite a strong will and a clear motive, we need to do more efficiently, or we are doing it with obviously wrong intentions.
Everything in life works according to the system of needs and desires that arise, then we perceive them and satisfy them. We direct our attention to its fulfillment if the need or desire is sufficiently strong. That way, our directed attention triggers and creates a series of events that eventually fulfill the need or desire.
The problem arises if, due to the loss of a clear connection between the muscles and consciousness, we no longer receive real sensory data into consciousness, and the lack of awareness of the actual situation is not even noticed. This may even suit us for a while, as the body is less of a hindrance to achieving what we want faster or more often than is physically possible. It allows us to overcome our physical limits even when no actual or logical need exists. So, we train even when we’re tired, we eat even when we’re not hungry, and we live more and more like a person addicted to exhaustion and fatigue who can’t sleep if they haven’t exhausted themselves enough one way or another.
The realization that it’s possible to feel oneself incorrectly, even when fully conscious, allows us to think about how a condition called sensory amnesia influences our efficiency in achieving our goals and improving our quality of life. This enables us to create the need and desire to become aware of a situation that we were unaware of before – we were only aware of the unwanted consequences of the loss of internal communication – by learning the method. Orderliness and efficiency, which are improved with AEQ exercises and logic, allow us to better and more realistically feel and determine our needs and desires.
A better-defined goal is easier to achieve. It allows us to be better aware of our current position, well-being, and abilities. A better definition of the starting point and the goal enables the currently most effective and, depending on our current knowledge, the easiest path to the goal. Awareness of well-being and abilities enables choosing the most appropriate way to reach the goal and a more accurate determination of missing knowledge and abilities to fulfill currently unattainable desires.
All of this is made possible, even though it doesn’t look that way at first glance, by knowing the principles of the AEQ method and understanding the logic of AEQ exercises. Achieving goals more effectively and thoughtfully changes our criteria, desires, and fears, allowing for greater boldness, breadth, and success.
The same applies to eliminating the causes of an injury that prevented us from sporting activity. Pain has a similar function to hunger. The need to eliminate the pain shifts attention to oneself and leads to alignment with the intention to eliminate it. Since the AEQ method increases the understanding of the causes and the ability to feel the states of pain, it is easier to more precisely determine why we are in pain, what needs to be changed, and how, which results in a sufficiently good coordination of actions and thoughts. All of this increases the regulation of muscle tone, thereby reducing entropy and eliminating the cause of the pain and the pain itself. Knowledge of this sequence is therefore important for learning AEQ exercises, as it reduces sensory amnesia and allows us to properly recognize the information vacuum when it is necessary to eliminate pain. It also enables appropriate coordination of actions to achieve the goal for which we perform the movements.
We can see a lack of coordination, timing, and ability to relax even when we aren’t extremely tired. We can find out what are the true motives for engaging in a certain sport in a certain way because the wrong motive does not allow the desired result to be achieved without excessively frequent injuries and psychological problems.
The injury can also be understood as a form of physical depression of the activity, which was created so that we can take a step or two back and see the forest instead of the trees, which was invisible to us before the injury because the subconscious need to express the accumulated energy from the body in such a way that it does not trigger an unwanted reaction from the environment, against which we would be learned to be helpless and helpless. We create the fear of this especially in childhood, especially if we live in a family that operates in a way and in relationships that create a state of toxic stress in the child, which he cannot manage on his own without the help and understanding of adults, no matter how authentic and is clearly expressed.
The injury can also be understood as a form of physical depression of the activity, which was created so that we can take a step or two back and see the forest instead of the trees, which was invisible to us before the injury because the subconscious need to express the accumulated energy from the body in such a way that it does not trigger an unwanted reaction from the environment, against which we would be learned to be helpless and helpless. We create the fear of this especially in childhood, especially if we live in a family that operates in a way and in relationships that create a state of toxic stress in the child, which he cannot manage on his own without the help and understanding of adults, no matter how authentic and is clearly expressed.
In this state of helplessness, we have no choice but to limit and distort the perception of the actual situation inside ourselves and our environment on which we have been or are still dependent, and thus develop and maintain a state of sensory amnesia, which we keep long enough to become chronic and transferred to the subconscious part of the cerebrum, where it remains active even after we develop physically and become independent. Therefore, we retain the learned helplessness and resistance to certain forms of self-expression and the need to direct unexpressed energy into the ground through running shoes, pedals, or kicking a ball because we were not allowed to protest or kick to show hatred towards those who should unconditionally love and protect and understand us. Or we hit the water when we swim. Thus, without a negative reaction from the surroundings, we perform movements that were advised against or forbidden to us in childhood when we were not allowed to slam the door or hit the one who hurt, insulted, or abused us.
The ball then replaces the stone that we would throw at someone in anger or the slap that we would justly apply to our father or mother when they treat us as if we are not there or behave childishly and immaturely and expect us to fix their relationship.
A clear and truthful reflection on the connection inside us can help us fill and change our attitude towards movement and lower the chronic contraction we suffer from, as it is required to maintain the illusion our life depended on in the past. That way, we decrease and prevent the return of injuries and the demands that our body continues to fulfill our unrealistic needs by overdoing it in sports or at work.
Aleš Ernst, author of the AEQ method and AEQ breathing
