Short Term Spiritual Results

Short Term Results Trap. Many feel good after participating in their favorite spiritual group/activity. Feeling better will generally translate into a moderate reduction in tension as evidenced by measurements of blood pressure, heart rate and extremities' temperature. But this is only a short-term improvement. Too many folks trap themselves, thinking that these short-term results are valuable. No, the long-term results are what are valuable. If measures of tension are continually low and/or decreasing as the months go by, then the evidence points to valuable spiritual growth. If long-term results show no improvement or generally show high levels of tension, then the spiritual track you are pursuing is most likely a feel-good trap like opium.

Author Testing Results. (I take no medications.) I too was a primal therapy client many years ago, although not with Dr. Janov. My blood pressure when I wake up is, on average, 110mmHg systolic and 62mmHg diastolic. These two numbers are in the optimum range for all adults. For my age group, such results are rare. My heart rate upon awakening averages 50 beats per minute; this is a number that rivals young athletes' heart rates. My fingertip temperatures usually run about 97 degrees Fahrenheit (very warm hands). These three results indicate markedly lowered tension levels from the norm, even the norm for folks in their twenties. My blood pressure and heart rate readings are lower than they were forty years ago. (My fingertips years ago? I don't know. I never tested them until a few months ago.) When I underwent primal therapy in my early thirties, my blood pressure and heart rates dropped about halfway to where they are now. At age 65, at about the time I decided to write this book, my blood pressure and heart rates took another drop to where they are now. What happened at age 65? I really "got it" in my understanding and acceptance of non-attachment. It did not matter whether I had help, a relationship, a working group, or any other support for me or for this book. I was truly OK and safe.