Before we found the trigger points, we worked with the facial muscles to analyse the expression of emotion. In these experiments, it was found that when all participants used facial expressions intensively, their bodies automatically moved forward. After observing this more and more often, it became clear to me that emotions move the body. The resulting hypothesis that emotions could be the ‘software’ of our musculoskeletal system was confirmed in more and more experiments. It dawned on me that emotions could be something completely logical, mechanical and useful that had been suppressed too much to be recognized as such. That was the “click” moment.

In further experiments it became clear that there were “one-dimensional” movements that organized the body into basic movements: “forward,” “backward,” “pulling toward,” “pushing away,” “holding on,” and “letting go.” Later it turned out that all other emotions that I studied came about from combinations or variations of these “basic emotions.” Emotions turned out to be a completely logical, mechanically complex, and independent level of action that supports an infinite number of variations in the use of our musculoskeletal system in a kind of “Lego construction.”

I became more aware and more understandable of motivations, causes for actions, and the underlying causes of my own and other people’s actions. The fear of emotions disappeared. The efficiency in using my own strengths increased noticeably. I worked between 80 and 100 hours a week for more than a decade, which would have been unthinkable without the efficient use of my emotional action level.

Many different experiences were very impressive, especially the release from stress, pressure and fears is always a wonderful experience. In addition, people simply become more beautiful when they take off their rigid masks and regain access to their inner strengths and drives. In one course there was a young man who wanted to practice “grief” because he had not been able to cry for years and had the feeling that it might not be “healthy”. His fear of what we would do to him to awaken grief in him was only slightly less than his desperate hope of being able to regain access to his emotionality. When he found his grief with very little effort, no psychological stress and just three small exercises and started to cry, he was so happy that he jumped around the training room with tears streaming down his face and kept shouting out loud: “I can cry! Can you see that? I can cry! – It’s so beautiful!”

On the one hand, I experience how widespread the undifferentiated suppression of individual drives is, and there are clear parallels that keep cropping up. I am able to recognise more and more complex connections more quickly and can help more effectively. But both in the positive and the negative, there are still nuances and moments that are new and affect or surprise me.