Years ago I was studying to be a Rolfer. One morning, during my first week of training, I woke up to go to the class. I didn’t notice that anything was unusual until I got in my van. Then I felt as if I were doing high dose acid. In spite of this, I continued on to the class, mostly because I wanted help from the folks there. Somehow the work that we had been doing in the class had triggered something powerful and important in me.

In the class, we had been focused on the chest, and mine had a deep history, much of which I was just beginning to understand. I had had pneumonia as a little boy, but I hadn’t been aware that I was still carrying such powerful feelings from that time.

When I came into the class that morning, everyone knew immediately that something was going on with me. When one of the class leaders began working on my chest, I suddenly burst into terrified sobbing. I felt a great sadness and a feeling of being completely alone. I must have been carrying all these feelings in the muscles and underlying fascia of my chest for years! Finally the teacher suggested that I go home and rest for the day, staying with the feelings and seeing what came up.

On my way home, I remember stopping once at an intersection and getting out of my car. I was too high to drive and wanted to walk. But I didn’t want to leave my car there, so I got back in and somehow managed to drive the rest of the way home.

When I finally did arrive home, I felt so lonely, and the sadness was overwhelming. So I went to work. I spent the next ten hours working on my head, examining my feelings for all the significant people in my life. I soon realized that all my relationships had been skewed by these repressed feelings of sadness and loneliness that had been locked up in my chest muscles for all these years.

Eventually I did return to ordinary reality. I had changed though. I was more conscious of who I was and what I really felt. I was certainly more loving and kind. The experience had been a gift from Spirit, offered and accepted without the use of acid.