After the recently completed 30-day program, the door to an updated way of perceiving myself and the environment began to open for me. Of course, changing the perception of oneself is a lifelong process, but the AEQ method represents an important point in this process for me.

What have I observed so far? One of the things is that every ‘’Why’’ has its own ‘’because.’’ And I mean every ‘’why’’ even those that I never even thought of before. It’s easier to say that ‘’it is just the way it is’’ than to take responsibility for the condition you found yourself in.

After a month of AEQ exercises, I can safely say that I am surprisingly better at detecting the contraction within me, some of which I wasn’t even aware of (i.e., nothing at all). Now I feel more clear muscle tension, and how I am not relaxed at all. Honestly? Yes, these are unpleasant feelings present in my body. As Aleš said during the program: ‘’the more I see, the worse I feel.’’ Your true state of being really isn’t as obvious as we wish it to be. But it offers us many options to improve ourselves and solve what troubles us. While being unaware of ourselves can lead to nothing but trouble in the long term. And if we want to change ourselves and our relationships, pouring a glass of pure wine is absolutely necessary. The good news is that increased sensation also brings enhanced pleasant sensations!

It is especially interesting to come into contact with your body. While driving in my car, I suddenly feel contact with the seat, I feel my shoulder blades and the shape of my spine. I feel how different one shoulder blade is from the other. When I’m walking, I notice how my abdominal muscles aren’t relaxed. I even feel pain in my body differently. I notice how often I stand cross-legged and consciously correct myself. I wonder what I don’t want to feel? Why do I make such a clear X above the ground, above the earth? And that’s how new things open up that I didn’t even notice about myself before.

When I’m interacting with others or am in an unfamiliar place, I pay more attention to my body and try to figure out what’s wrong with me. What, where, and why do I feel the way I feel? What is my body trying to tell me? When I don’t feel comfortable around certain company, I feel resistance, how the body tells me no and wants to leave. However, separating subconscious fears from actual body warnings is difficult. But at least I know that when I really listen to my body/myself, the result is a better feeling and a sense of empowerment.

My first contact with the AEQ method thus covered different color spectrums, from pleasant to less pleasant. It’s not easy to admit that you’re not as emotionally mature as you thought you were because you’ve been trying to work on yourself for ten years. You realize that you often don’t transform the energy into a form that you could use to properly regulate relationships. You often don’t know what to do with a bunch of intense emotions, especially during conflicts, to bring about real and effective editing and resolution.

Then you realize how shallow your breathing is. How you joyfully talk about how important it is to listen to yourself, but then realize that if you’re suffering from strong contraction and sensory-motor amnesia, you couldn’t hear yourself even if you tried. I now know why I couldn’t solve certain problem using only meditation. These problems grew even bigger as time passed.

And in times when people often seek solace in the spiritual realm, which in my opinion is, of course, nothing wrong if we appropriately use spirituality and meditation (i.e., not for escapism), however, we must not forget our earthiness. It will probably become increasingly necessary to observe what increases our separation from the body and pushes us further away and what actually brings us closer to ourselves. Although I worked a lot on consciousness and awareness in the past, I now realize that my subconscious mind was not really updating properly all this time. The gap between consciousness and body has become too large. Contact with the AEQ method undoubtedly changed my concept of “personal growth,” which I perfected in my own way. What makes me happy the most is that I am becoming “just” a person again – a person who wants to be in the body and listen to it.

Then you realize even more clearly that absolutely all choices in life are conditioned by our subconscious. Choosing a place to live, a job, a profession, a partner… “How and why did I move to Bovec? Because there is beautiful, unspoiled nature and hills! Because we have many opportunities for activities in nature,” I answered the AEQ teacher. This is all true, of course, but it is only part of a wider truth. Life is not only made up of beautiful mountain flowers and clean rivers; there are also deep and dark caves, avalanches, and piles of mud. Admitting that behind every decision, even one that looks innocently beautiful, there are certain heavy traumas is difficult. But at the same time so relieving.

Now I try even harder to see as many layers and sides as possible in life. To be aware of every action and decision, where it comes from. Taking responsibility is challenging. To face one’s own illusions (which have been present for who knows how many years or generations) even more. But in the long run, it’s liberating. And if I think about how much we have talked about freedom in recent years… Do we even know what freedom is? For someone, freedom means traveling to foreign lands; for someone else, a beer in a pub; jogging in nature for another person… All of this can be a part of freedom. For me, the current perception of freedom is that I can make decisions and express myself authentically in life, and this is not influenced by my obscured subconscious, in which a small sea of wounds and traumas has accumulated through life and passing generations. We all probably have a lot of work to do in this area. But maybe this work alone can lead us to a really deep breath… full of life.

Ana Vehovar