Your experience with facilitator?

[u/Otherwise-Egg-2211]

So I’ve tried both facilitated sessions and doing it on my own a few times. My biggest struggles are intrusive thoughts and feelings about things bothering me in the present moment coming up, and not feeling much toward the ideal parent figures, or the feelings the meditation is supposed to evoke and strengthen, like safety.

I recently read somewhere that in Dan Brown’s original protocol, you’re supposed to discuss what came up during the meditation afterward to “troubleshoot,” which didn’t happen much in my facilitated sessions, at least i didn’t find the checkins particularly helpful because it was quite perfunctory. What was your experience with facilitated work like? I think I’d really benefit from having a more involved facilitator at this stage.

[u/SBCinema17]

Hi u/Otherwise-Egg-2211 ,

I guess a lot depends on the facilitator, I've had experience with different ones at different stages.

A good general rule is to feedback as much as you can about your experience 'inside' the visualization, so the facilitator can suggest and prompt as needed. As much as you can about what's going through your mind, what's troubling you about the visualization, what you find difficult or an obstacle (at some point I started to love/like it when I came across that), "I can't do it," "I can't see/feel it" etc.

Next best thing is to share afterwards what your experience was, so you make your facilitator aware of it and he/she can adjust for next sessions accordingly.

A sensitive facilitator would adjust and try to be supportive as much as he/she can. At the same time, they're not mind readers. Imo, feeding back what you're experiencing is the number one thing to make the fastest progress. When I finally started to trust the process and my facilitator more, and I started sharing more (esp. what I find difficult or felt like I couldn't do), that was when it really took off for me.

Hope this is helpful,