[Kies de datum]
Contents
1.
The First Principle: Breathing in the Belly ....................................................................................... 3
1.1 Check your lower belly breathing.................................................................................................. 3
1.2 Why is Breathing So Important? ................................................................................................... 4
1.3 What If You Are Not Able to Breathe in Your Lower Belly? .......................................................... 5
1.4 The Anatomy of Belly Breathing .................................................................................................... 8
2.
The Second Principle: Mindful Feeling ............................................................................................ 9
3.
The Third Principle: Feeling Through the Layers ........................................................................... 10
4.
Integrating the Three Principles .................................................................................................... 11
5.
When Do You Use this Breathing Technique?............................................................................... 12
6.
Review ........................................................................................................................................... 13
7.
Applications ................................................................................................................................... 14
8.
How We, the Authors, Can Be of Help .......................................................................................... 15
1
Preface
We have both been studying and working for over 30 years in the field of helping people deal with
their emotional and mental problems. In this e-book we will teach you our most effective technique
for dealing with your emotions. Over the years we have, successfully, taught this technique to
numerous people. Why? Because it works!
If people do not know how to effectively deal with their emotions, they will either suppress them, or
they will experience them over and over again, which can lead to all kinds of emotional, mental and
physical problems. Using our technique, painful emotions can change in seconds, so there won’t be
any need for prolonged suffering by experiencing painful emotions over and over again, or by bearing
the consequences of structurally suppressing your emotions. You will find that our technique is
surprisingly easy. You just have to know how it is done, and then do it!
Our technique consists of 3 principles that need to be practiced simultaneously. If you skip any of the
three it will not work. We will describe the elements one by one, and then give you an overview of
the technique.
This e-book is the first of a series of 3 e-books on dealing with emotions. In the second e-book we
will describe another wonderful technique to deal with emotions, and we will teach you how to
combine this technique with the technique described in the first book. In the third e-book we will
teach you how to shift from the emotional layer of consciousness into the spiritual dimension of your
consciousness, and how this technique can be combined with the techniques from the first and
second e-book. We recommend that the techniques are mastered in the sequence that we offer
them.
We hope that this e-book contributes to restoring happiness for many people.
Fons Delnooz and Patricia Martinot
www.de-verbinding.com
[email protected]
2
1. The First Principle: Breathing in the Belly
In order to transform your emotions you first need to breathe in your lower belly. The breathing
should be slowly in and slowly out. It is best if the exhalation is twice as long as the inhalation. For
example, if you breathe in for two seconds, you breathe out for four seconds. An even better ratio
would be in for 3 seconds and out for 6 seconds. Breathing in your lower belly means breathing into
the space between the pubic bone and the navel. When you breathe in your lower belly, the upper
part of the belly will often participate in the breathing, but that is okay.
If you find that you are also breathing into your chest – so from the pubic bone up to the shoulders –
you will be taking in a lot of oxygen, enough for jogging! This might be too much when you are simply
sitting on your chair. If you feel that your fingers and lips are starting to tingle, or are even getting
numb, this is a clear sign that you are breathing in too much oxygen. Make your exhalation longer
and breathe less deeply into your chest.
So, breathe in the lower part of your belly, twice as long on the exhale as on the inhale, preferably
breathing 3 seconds in and 6 seconds out. This is the most effective breathing technique for dealing
with your emotions.
1.1 Check your lower belly breathing
There is a simple procedure to check your lower belly breathing.
First, put your hand on your stomach area. Relax and observe your breathing.
o Does your hand move with the rhythm of your breath? If not, can you make it move
with your breath?
o What is the direction of the movement of your belly while breathing? The correct
direction is that while breathing IN, the belly should move outward, and while
breathing OUT it should move inward. If you breathe the other way around, it is very
important that you correct this.
o What is the rhythm of your breathing? What is the count of your breaths in versus your
breaths out? Can you bring your breathing to a rhythm of 2 seconds in and 4 seconds
out, or even 3 seconds in and 6 seconds out?
o How is the movement of your belly? Does it feel tight and restricted or relaxed and
open?
Second, put your hand on your navel and ask yourself the same questions as you did
above. How is the breathing in this region compared to the stomach area?
Third, put your hand on your lower belly, such that your pinky is close to your pubic bone.
Again, ask yourself the same questions. How does the breathing in your lower belly
compare to the breathing in your navel and your stomach region?
Your belly breathing is sufficient for transforming emotions if…
1. You can breathe in the lower part of the belly.
2. Your lower belly moves outward when you breathe in and inward when you breathe out.
3. Your exhalation is twice as long as your inhalation (preferably 3 in and 6 out).
4. There is sufficient flexibility in your lower belly, and it can move with ease.
If your belly breathing is not sufficient according to these standards, we recommend that you
practice our exercises for opening up the breathing in your lower belly, found in paragraph 1.3.
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1.2 Why is Breathing So Important?
The way you breathe has an enormous impact on how you feel and think. Exhalation stands for
letting go and restoring the body, inhalation for action. If you want to process your emotions instead
of sticking to them, you will have to activate the mechanism in your body that tells you to let go.
Breathing out twice as long as breathing in does this.
When you breathe in the lower belly you will activate the organs there. All of these organs are vitally
important in processing emotions. This is well known in the traditional healthcare systems in China,
India and Japan. These systems also teach us that breathing in the lower belly opens and activates
the main chakras in the lower belly. This is extremely important for processing emotions on a more
subtle, energetic level.
Breathing in the lower belly, twice as long out as in, makes it possible for your body to let go of and
transform emotions. There is more. If you look at people who are very emotional, their breathing is
up in their chest, their inhalation and exhalation is short, and –this is very significant – the length of
the inhalation is similar to the length of the exhalation. There is no letting go, and little
transformation of the emotion is happening. When you breathe in this way, you are the emotion.
There is no more distance between you and what you are feeling. So, for example, when you are sad,
the feeling of sadness is overwhelming because there is no distance between you and the emotion. If
you are angry and upset, you may feel completely consumed by this anger. Your emotions have
taken the lead. Your behavior, your thoughts, and your actions have become the expression of this
emotion. Suffering is the consequence. Suffering for you, because this emotion is not pleasant to
experience. Suffering for the people near you if you take your anger out on them. Suffering, because
at this emotional level, people tend to believe that they are right and the other is wrong, blocking
any possible, effective, communication. When the emotion has calmed down, and normal breathing
has returned, the scope widens again. You may say to yourself, “ Hey! Actually, there is truth in what
that other person was saying.” You can see it now because your breathing pattern has changed. The
breathing has slowed down and you can breathe deeper into the body again—the exhalation
becoming longer than the inhalation.
So what you see is that if you lengthen your breath in the lower belly, twice as long out as in, there
will be distance between you and your emotions. Now the emotion is not so overwhelming. Now you
can handle feeling your emotions; you don’t have to run from them anymore. This distance between
you and your emotion has huge advantages. It makes you a different person– for yourself and for
others. If you look at a person who is breathing in this way while feeling their emotions, you will
notice that this person is well in contact with themselves. They can handle their emotion and there is
much less need for emotional expression. Yes, there could be crying, but crying that comes from real
inner contact. This is an interesting point to be explored. People sometimes feel and express their
emotions very intensely, but often this behavior is more of an acting out or a running away from real
feelings, rather than a genuine expression from inner contact. This is closely connected to the
concept of taking responsibility for one’s life, and more specifically, one’s emotions. When people
take more responsibility for their own emotions and the expression of them, there is much more
inner contact and distance from the emotion being expressed, as mentioned above.
Breathing long and slow into the lower belly – twice as long out as in – while feeling any emotion,
creates this distance that makes it possible to communicate on a higher level with oneself and with
anyone else involved.
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1.3 What If You Are Not Able to Breathe in Your Lower Belly?
Reasons for not being able to breathe in the belly
Many people find it difficult to breathe in their lower belly. When you breathe in the lower belly, you
will feel your abdominal region, your genital region and buttocks, and your legs and feet, more
clearly. If for some reason you do not want to feel in these regions, the body will help you by blocking
the breathing in the belly. Let’s look at some common reasons why you may not want to feel below
your belly button.
If you have had difficult experiences in life, you may find yourself wanting to run away from them.
Perhaps you don’t want to experience them so intensely, or be in the body to feel the emotions
brought up by these difficulties. As a result, you create a kind of disconnection between you and your
body. Typically this happens by cutting off contact with one or more parts of yourself. If this happens,
there is, generally, more contact with the upper part of the body and less with the lower part.
However, this is a bit like trying to drive a car on two wheels. You need the lower part of your body
to be able to deal with life as it comes.
A second reason for losing contact with the lower belly is due to surgical operations. Operations are
invasive by their very nature. This invasion on your body generally leads to disconnecting yourself
from the part that you have been operated on. It often takes a lot of time to fully reconnect.
Restoring the breathing in that area is the most effective way of reconnecting.
The third reason has to do with the genital area. There are many reasons that people do not want to
connect to their genital region. There are the women who long for becoming a mother, but do not
get pregnant. There are the mothers who have lost a child, or who have chosen to abort a child. And
then there is the pain related to sexuality. Many people have experienced trauma around sex and/or
their sexuality due to feelings of incompetency or powerlessness, having sexual experiences at too
young of an age, not having the ability to say no under pressure, or experiencing sexual violence. All
of these are possible reasons for no longer wanting to be in contact with the pelvic region. The body
then helps you by blocking the breathing in this area so that you don’t have to feel.
Your pelvis is the base you stand on. You need it to feel strong and competent. Breathing in your
abdomen will help you to reclaim this inner power. The technique we will teach you will help you
deal with any emotions that you may encounter once you begin restoring contact with your pelvic
region.
Techniques for opening the breathing in the belly
All of our techniques are friendly techniques that can be done fully dressed, and that you can learn
step-by-step. If you are working professionally with people, do not ask them to partially undress to
make their belly more visible. If you are at home and you are wearing very tight pants that restrict
your breathing, you might consider loosening the button, or wearing something more comfortable.
Exercise 1: Feeling safe in your pelvic region
Breathing in your lower belly will only work when you feel sufficiently safe in your pelvic area. This is
even more significant for people with sexual traumas. This first exercise is very simple, and very
effective.
o Whether you are male or female, bring your attention just before the body opening in
your genital region.
o At the opening, visualize a beautiful, fully open, white rose. If visualizing is not your
thing, feel this rose there, or think, or know it to be there. You can also combine
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visualizing, feeling, and thinking/knowing. End this by saying to yourself, “for now,
forever.” This way you instruct this rose to remain there when your attention goes
elsewhere.
o Observe how your contact is in this region. If you feel no difference, contract your pelvic
floor three times and then do the exercise again.
o The more the quality of your contact with this region has improved, the more
significant this exercise will be for you. If you feel a significant difference after doing
this exercise, then we recommend that you do it twice a day. In addition, we
recommend that you do this exercise before you start the lower belly breathing, as it
will help your system to feel protected, and the lower belly breathing will be much
easier to achieve.
Exercise 2: Bringing the breathing down with your hand
When a woman is pregnant, at some point she will start putting her hand on her belly
because this deepens her contact with the child that is growing inside of her. This works so
powerfully that women all over the world do this. We can learn from this so that we, too,
can make a powerful connection with this part of our bodies. This is how it works.
o Watch your breathing in your belly. What is the lowest part of the belly that is clearly
moving with the breath? The stomach area? The navel region? The area below the
navel?
o Put your hand at the lowest point where you can still see and feel the belly clearly
moving with the breath. Rest your hand there. Bring all of your attention to the area
where your hand is touching your belly. Be mindful there. Just being there with your
hand, and your attention, will make the movement of the belly stronger. Allow that to
be.
o After some time, move your hand downward a little and allow your breathing to
follow. Perhaps that is one inch, or perhaps you can go a full hand down. Do what
works for you.
o Try to bring your hand and your breath all the way down so that the pinky sits just
above the pubic bone.
Exercise 3: Pulling the belly in at the exhalation
This exercise is very good for overcoming constrictions in the movement of the belly.
o Put your hand on your stomach region. This will direct your attention to this area. You
can also simply focus your attention on the stomach region without using your hand if
you're doing this exercise in public.
o Now, while you exhale pull the stomach region inwards. Pull it in as far as you can.
While you do this, keep your lips slightly apart so that you exhale through your mouth
instead of through your nose. Then allow the belly to naturally, and gracefully, move
forward while breathing in. Do this at least 3 times, or, depending on how you feel, for
several minutes. When you breathe in this, be very mindful-- fully observing the
movement of your breath. You should find this exercise to be very calming, relaxing,
and centering.
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o Next, put your hand on your navel and do exactly as you did for the stomach region.
o Finally, put your hand on your lower belly and repeat the exercise again.
When you do this exercise, you stretch all the muscles that are related to belly breathing, including
your diaphragm. Because you are stretching this area, emotional energy might be released and may
want to flow upward because it wants to be expressed. Many people have been taught in their youth
to 'keep their mouths shut', and not express their emotions or opinions. When you release this
emotional energy by stretching the belly muscles, your body might immediately try to ‘keep it shut’.
The emotional energy will then travel upwards toward your brain. Many experience this as a
headache. The solution is very simple. Just overrule the rule to 'keep it shut' by opening your lipsjust a little bit will do. The body will then breathe out through your mouth. You are giving yourself
permission to express yourself on the body level, the level where this all is happening. This will
prevent any headaches.
Exercise 4: Pushing the belly inward
Exercise 3 taught you to open up the belly breathing by pulling in the belly on the exhalation.
Some people find this hard to do, especially in the lower belly. If this is true for you, this next
exercise will be very useful.
o Do exercise three and observe which part of the belly is difficult to pull in on the
exhalation.
o Place both hands on that part of your belly.
o While exhaling gently push in your belly with both hands. Once you have fully exhaled
continue to keep the pressure on your belly with both hands.
o Now, take a breath in and, while inhaling, push your hands forward with your belly
muscles. While you do so, maintain the same pressure on the belly with your hands.
This helps to make more contact with the muscles that you need to use for this
exercise.
If you have any gastro-intestinal related health issues, are pregnant or might be pregnant, or
if you are on your menstrual cycle, we advise you to take caution, or perhaps skip this
exercise entirely. If you are not certain, we recommend you consult your physician first.
Training your abdominal breathing
Our technique for effectively dealing with emotions demands a well-developed ability to breathe in
the belly. You should be able to breathe into the lower belly, almost automatically, even while being
under stress. If you are not confident with this technique, or are having difficulties, you must
continue to practice in order to really master this skill. Although it may seem like a lot at first, with
practice, your belly breathing will become more and more natural and you will begin to notice an
improvement in the quality of your life.
To master this skill you need to train on a daily basis. Ideally, it is best to set aside 10 minutes each
day where you can relax and focus on practicing the lower belly breathing technique without
distraction. However, if you are unable to establish a time and place to practice your breathing, that's
ok. It can be done during any kind of lull in your day such as, waiting in line, sitting on the bus, riding
the elevator, or during t.v. commercials. It does not have to cost you extra time.
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1.4 The Anatomy of Belly Breathing
Some people like to understand what is actually happening in the body, so for them, we will explain
the anatomy of belly breathing. When we breathe, we use our lungs to take in oxygen and breathe
out carbon dioxide. The lungs are, essentially, two sacks that can be filled with air and emptied again.
Filling them with air is inhalation, and emptying them is exhalation. The lungs are very flexible and
are shaped by the movement of our bodies. For example, if we lift our shoulders and arms up in the
air, the lungs will stretch and elongate, moving with the body. When we inhale, the muscles in our
torso along our rib cage help to stretch our lungs sideways, expanding them and creating more space
for air. When we exhale, these muscles work to push the lungs inward, making them smaller. This
contraction of the lungs helps to push the air out of our bodies. Now, let's look more closely at the
torso and the role it plays in belly breathing.
Inhalation
The torso consists of two sacks that are filled with organs. These two sacks are divided by a large,
thin, dome-shaped muscle called, the diaphragm. When this muscle contracts it flattens, lengthening
the lungs by pulling them downwards and creating space for air to enter the body. As the diaphragm
flattens, it pushes against the organs in the belly, and the organs have nowhere to go except down.
This downward movement naturally expands the belly, allowing you to 'breathe in the belly.' So, the
belly expands because the diaphragm moves downwards and pushes against the belly organs.
Exhalation
When you exhale, the diaphragm relaxes and moves upwards, helping to empty the lungs from the
bottom to the top. Here is where the belly muscles come in again. As the muscles contract, they pull
the organs in and push the relaxed diaphragm upwards, which pushes the air out of the lungs.
So, belly breathing is a result of teamwork from the diaphragm and the belly muscles. They work as a
team to fill (inhalation) and empty (exhalation) the lungs. The more flexible these muscles are, the
more your body can breathe, and the more vital your system will be.
Source: www.prd-online.com
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2. The Second Principle: Mindful Feeling
The second principle has to do with feeling – mindful feeling. This refers to consciously feeling any
kind of emotion or body sensation that you might experience. Examples of body sensations are:
feeling a constriction in your chest area, feeling a block in your throat, feeling that your hands are
clenched, or feeling that your entire body is cold.
It is normal to feel such sensations happening in the body, but what we really need is to practice
mindful feeling. Mindful feeling means that we feel with all of our attention. So let’s say that you are
feeling sad, and that sadness has manifested as tightness or pain in your chest. When you mindfully
feel, you focus all of your attention on your chest, and you allow yourself to really, and fully, feel this
sadness. Now bring in the first principle of breathing to shift your emotion. As you feel the sadness in
your chest, begin to activate your lower belly breathing, remembering to breathe out twice as long
on the exhale as you breathe in on the inhale.
Why is mindful feeling so important?
If you have a pile of bills on your desk, avoiding them will not help. It will only make the pile grow
larger. Only once you have given your full attention to these bills will your desk become bill-free
again. Similarly, if you have experienced emotional pain, denying this pain won’t help. Yes, perhaps
you will not feel the pain in that moment, but the body will store the emotional charge somewhere
in your system. At some point these piled up emotional charges will make you sick – mentally,
emotionally, or even physically. Once you choose to start feeling with all of your awareness, the body
will direct it’s attention to these emotional charges and will start working on them. If you breathe
slowly in the lower belly, twice as long out as in, all of the organs and chakras from your energetic
system will become active in transforming these emotions. It is that easy!
What if the mind steps in?
Many people use their mind to stop feeling. They are conditioned that way. So once they start
feeling, the mind will step in. When this happens, you are no longer feeling with all of your attention,
and the part of you that is afraid to feel, or simply not trained to feel, has succeeded in distracting
you. This interruption from the mind reduces the effectiveness of the technique, and prevents you
from fully feeling the emotion. If this happens, gently turn your attention back to feeling and breathe
deeply and slowly into the lower belly. Almost everybody will experience this distraction to some
extent. Don’t make a big deal of it. Just go back to feeling. It will work!
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3. The Third Principle: Feeling Through the Layers
Feeling through the layers is a technique used to cleanse a larger part of your system. Here's how it
works. Let's say you feel an emotion like sadness, or a sensation in your body, like a constriction in
the heart region, and you decide that you want to work on this feeling. Begin by breathing in your
lower belly, twice as long out as in, focusing all of your attention on feeling this emotion, or body
sensation. Usually within 10 or 20 seconds the emotion or sensation will decrease. It might even
disappear completely. Your body has transformed it!
Now scan your body. Is another emotion or body sensation coming forward? You might, for example,
no longer feel sad or constricted in the heart, but you might feel lonely or cold. This is the layer
underneath the first layer. Just deal with it as you did with the first layer. Feel it with all of your
attention and breathe in the correct way. Usually within seconds this layer, too, will be transformed.
Work layer after layer until you get to a point where no uncomfortable emotions or body sensations
come forward. For this moment you have cleansed your system!
You may be wondering how long it will take for your system to be free of an uncomfortable emotion
or body sensation. Let’s say that your age is 40 and you have not really been dealing with your
emotions prior to this point. And let’s say that life hasn't been very easy on you. Most likely,
emotional charges have been stored in your body. There will be many layers that will have to be
addressed and, in the beginning, you might not get to a point where you feel free and released.
That’s ok. Just work layer after layer, continuing as long as it feels comfortable for you. For one
person this might be a few minutes, for another, half an hour. When you want to stop, think of a
positive image and let yourself really feel that positive image. Remember a time in your life when
things were good, then get up and do something that makes you happy. Go on a walk in the
sunshine, or give your dog a hug. Anything that will help you shift to a positive feeling, in that
moment, is great, and then you can try again later. Later can be the same day or another day,
depending on how you feel.
Once your system is more or less clean, you will find that you will be able to deal with new emotions
that arise in a much shorter time. Now it may only take minutes or seconds for your body to
transform the emotions and body sensations up to a point where you feel comfortable again.
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4. Integrating the Three Principles
Dealing effectively with your emotions is possible by combining three elements:
o Breathe slowly into your lower belly, twice as long out as in, preferably 3 seconds in
and 6 seconds out.
o Practice mindful feeling by focusing your attention on your strongest emotion or body
sensation, allowing yourself to really feel it. When thoughts or images come, turn back
to feeling.
o Work layer after layer.
There are still a few points that are important to pay attention to.
What do you do when emotions become very intense?
When you're doing this work with emotions, it can become very intense. Most people then stop
breathing in their belly. Their breath moves up into their chest and often into their shoulders. When
this happens, the breathing becomes short and shallow, making the exhalation almost as long as the
inhalation. This is a strong indication that we are afraid of really feeling what is there. It is the old
familiar pattern that we have been living with for a long time. Wouldn't it be better to change this
pattern? That can be done by forcing ourselves back into slow belly breathing. This can only be done
as a decisive act. You must really want it, and then DO it. To do this you have to be aware of what is
going on. You should know that when you get into your emotions your breathing will change. When
your emotions come, observe yourself, and observe how your breath changes. If your breath
shortens or moves upwards, take control and bring it back into your belly. If you are having difficulty
with this, ask yourself if it is your ‘higher self’ that has control over your emotions or if it's your
emotions that have control over you. The choice is yours. We aren't saying this is always easy, but
then the damage that comes from not dealing effectively with your emotions is not easy either.
So, remember that your tools are your self-awareness, your free will, and your breathing.
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5. When Do You Use this Breathing Technique?
Breathing into the lower belly to transform emotions can be used in any situation. Here are some
examples.
Ron comes home after work feeling tired and frustrated from the day. His wife, Janet, is home, and is
tired from taking care of the kids all day. John (8) starts screaming at Mary, his younger sister. Ron
feels his anger coming up…. So what is Ron going to do? He can take his anger and frustration, from
the day, out on his children, or he can transform his emotions by practicing mindful feeling and
changing his breathing pattern.
Ron observes his anger rising and feels his breathing moving up into his chest. He realizes he is close
to exploding. Fortunately he has read this e-book! He brings his emotions under control by
consciously breathing into his lower belly, and by changing the speed and rhythm. Two minutes later
he is capable of dealing with John and Mary in an appropriate way, as all parents should be able to
do.
Laura is at work, and she's upset because her boss has said something to her that reminds her of her
abusive father. It makes her angry, but she realizes where her emotion is coming from. Although she
wants to deal with this anger, her work is too demanding to do it right then and there, so she brings
her breathing down into her belly as well as she can manage, while working. This helps her to take
the edge off her anger. At home, once her child is sleeping, she decides to work with the emotion
that came up earlier in the day. She sits down and works through her pain, layer after layer. She
decides to do this, regularly, in the coming weeks so that she can really work through the anger that
she feels towards her dad.
Dealing with emotions retrospectively
As Laura showed, one can work retrospectively. Just sit down, feel the emotion or body sensation
that is related with what you want to work through, and follow the standard procedure.
What do you do if you want to work retrospectively but you aren't able to make contact with those
feelings? If this happens, you have to do something that will activate those feelings or body
sensations. The easiest way to do this is to recall the event or situation that triggered the emotion. In
this case, thoughts and images are your friends. They will help you connect with the emotion or body
sensation. The very moment the emotion or body sensation is there, stop recalling that memory and
begin feeling. Start by feeling this first emotion or body sensation, and from there on, work layer by
layer, according to the standard procedure.
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6. Review
Let's review the procedure for effectively dealing with your emotions.
Dealing effectively with your emotions
o Feel your belly.
o Breathe in the lower belly, 3 seconds in, 6 seconds out. Stick to this rhythm, especially
when experiencing intense emotions.
o What is your strongest emotional feeling right now? If there is no clear emotional
feeling, what is the strongest body sensation? Consciously feel this with all of your
attention.
 If you notice that your attention has shifted from feeling to thinking, turn back to
feeling.
 Whatever your feeling is, just allow it to be. Allow it to become even stronger,
simply because you are witnessing it.
 If strong emotions come, i.e. you burst into tears, just allow it. It is really ok that
you experience these emotions now. Mind your breathing! Really try to keep it
down in the lower belly- slowly, and in a rhythm of twice as long out as in. If at a
certain point you cannot stick to this, perhaps because of the strong emotion you're
feeling, try to restore the lower belly breathing as quickly as you can, for example,
right after the most intense outburst.
o Usually within seconds the intensity of the feeling lessens significantly. Sometimes the
process is done for that moment and you can stop, but sometimes another feeling,
another layer emerges. Perhaps you feel anger first, but the next layer brings up grief.
Work layer by layer, always giving priority to the most intense feeling.
o Work this way as long as you want. If you have worked for 10-20 minutes and you are
still feeling strong emotions, you can choose to proceed with your process, or stop and
proceed at another time.
o Always end with a feeling, image, thought or affirmation that symbolizes the opposite
of the pain you just worked through. So if you felt lonely, feel loved.
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7. Applications
The technique we present in this e-book is very much a universal technique. Everybody has emotions
to deal with, and everybody knows someone who has to deal with their emotions.
Here are some points to keep in mind.
First, this technique is here to help you deal effectively with your own emotions.
Second, this technique is here to help you stay free from other people's emotions. When other
people get emotional, their breathing moves up into their chest, changing the speed and rhythm as
well. If you are interacting with this emotional person, watch your own breath. There is a good
chance that your breathing will also shift up into your chest, and that the rhythm and speed will
change. You are hooked! You are hooked into the emotional wave that the other person is in, and
possibly to the emotions that your body/mind associates with the others persons emotion. The only
thing you need to do to stay free from their emotions, is to stay aware of your own breath, breathing
into the lower belly, keeping it slow and steady. This is possible in any situation: a parent dealing with
an upset child, a teacher confronted with a disruptive classroom, a husband talking with his wife who
is in pain, a therapist helping a client work through their emotions, a clerk working at the counter in a
hotel dealing with an angry, upset guest.
Third, you can teach this to other people. This is a wonderful technique for your children to learn. It
is great for them to know how to deal with their emotions and to stay free from other people’s
emotions. You can also teach this to your partner, your best friends, or a colleague who is in trouble.
And of course, when you work as a counselor, coach or therapist, this is a great technique to teach
your clients. Share it with whomever is open to it.
Highly Sensitive People
Highly Sensitive People (HSP) are people that are very open to their environment. They pick up
impressions from people and spaces that other people would not even notice. This has to do with the
way the chakras and aura are developed. It is often not easy for them to clearly distinguish between
what is their own feeling and what is coming from another person, or environment. So what they feel
is often not theirs. For example, a highly sensitive person might suddenly feel angry, but this anger
might be that of their neighbor who just walked by. Highly sensitive people have to learn to create
healthy boundaries so that they no longer become, to a certain extent, whoever they encounter. This
demands knowledge and skills, different from the ones we have taught in this e-book. Of course
what we discussed in this book is very useful for highly sensitive people too, but it doesn’t deal with
the core of the issue. For that, we have written two books. One published as an e-book in English,
and one in paperback in Dutch, German, and Spanish.
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8. How We, the Authors, Can Be of Help
Individual sessions
We run a practice in the Netherlands, Europe, and work with people on an individual basis. We work
with clients face-to-face at our practice in the Netherlands, and by phone/skype worldwide. We
speak Dutch, English and German. On our website you will find information, in English, on setting up
a phone/skype session.
Trainings
We work with groups of people, layman or professionals (therapists, coaches, counselors, etc).
Dealing with emotions is one of the subjects we teach. We give trainings here in the Netherlands,
and on request in other countries. If people want to organize a training in their country they are
welcome to contact us. We are open to customizing a training to meet the needs of the group that is
presented to us.
The authors
Fons Delnooz and Patricia Martinot are senior therapists/coaches. Both have studied and worked
with people for over 30 years. Fons Delnooz began his career as a therapist and coach studying
ortho-psychiatry, and Patricia Martinot started her career as a nurse. In the years following, both
have attended numerous trainings in the field of helping people and have worked tens of thousands
of hours face-to-face with clients- individually, and in groups. In 2000, they began running their
practice together in the Netherlands. They have written and published 10 books on a variety of topics
that focus on the work they have done as therapists and coaches, the first of them now being
published as an e-book.
How to contact the authors
If you are interested in coaching by phone or Skype, or setting up a training in your country, you are
welcome to contact the authors.
Mr. Fons Delnooz and Mrs. Patricia Martinot
www.de-verbinding.com
[email protected]
Phone: 0031 (0) 481422114
Address: Kruisstraat 21
Town: Gendt
Country: the Netherlands
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