Hey guys, Erik Johnson. This is day 38 of no rocking back and forth. I’ve been a rocker for 40 years and I decided to really stop this time. I went one other time for almost a month, but I just started rocking again. I couldn’t really handle the stillness. Here’s Rocking Back and Forth Tips for Adults.
But this time, I set the intention to really stop. I kind of got insight from God that, you know, if I want to do something great with my life, now’s the time to stop rocking and start helping others who are rocking back and forth as well, because it’s a perfect time to stop – 40 years.
You know I’ve rocked over 46,000 hours of my life away. Started rocking back and forth when I was eight years old, watching the Muppet Show with my parents. I think I started because I had a lot of energy, and I was very sensitive. My dad was kind of scary when he got mad and I think I just started doing it because I wanted relief.
They call it self stimulation, or stimming, and just as a young boy with Asperger’s, I devised ways to feel good and I guess I was pretty creative in comforting myself in many other ways because my environment was scary. My dad had a scary temper. My friends picked on me. Even school teachers picked on me. I remember getting punched by teachers, and one teacher pulled me up by my hair because I wouldn’t let a kid sit next to me.
So it was me against the world, and I was very sensitive. So the rocking really helped me get into my own little world. I could Daydream easier. Then when I added music to the mix.
It was a perfect combination because I could rock back and forth, listen to my hard rock and just stare out the windows of our house we lived in Port Townsend Washington and off the Puget Sound so I could see the bay. I could see the water coming in from Canada, the straights of Juan De Fuca and I could see the freighters pass by and I loved tugboats and my dad had a sailboat. That’s why we moved to that town, so my dad could sail on the weekends.
We came from California, Newport Beach. We had these big windows. We lived on a hill. It was a beautiful town that was very innocent, no crime, no gangs and I could walk from one end of town to the other and not get harassed.
But, after dinner I would put on my headphones and listen to hard rock and rock back and forth until bedtime and that was my life. Then when I was 17 I added alcohol to the mix. So when I had alcohol, music, and rocking and that was pretty much my life. I didn’t really become an alcoholic until 20. But the rocking was always there.
Rocking was just something I did with my girlfriends, they didn’t say anything about it. My parents didn’t say anything about it. There was no mention of autism or Asperger’s. It was just a normal life, and people just never teased me.
So I guess that one good thing about rocking is that no one teased me about that. But it basically took away from my life. I mean, I needed it. But then again I was missing out on a lot of activities that I couldn’t handle, you know, I had anxiety, social anxiety, very shy, very quiet around people, and so I just got used to rocking.
And towards the end of my rocking, last year, for the last six years, I’ve been rocking from morning until night because I work from home, and, I even had calluses on my knuckles, you can still kind of see them a little but they’re healing now because I haven’t rocked for 38 days.
But I literally had calluses on my knuckles from rocking, putting my hands, my knuckles on the floor while it rocked and my back hurt. It made me more anxious around people.
Rocking Back and Forth Tips for Adults
So right now I feel more confident and my self esteem is a little bit higher because I quit rocking, which is one of my biggest addictions left. Music was also a 40 year addiction and I’ve cut that down to half an hour a day – just a little bit of jazz, before that, I listened to 14 hours a day of music along with the 14 hours of rocking.
So, I’m pretty pleased with what’s going on, I’m talking more to people, I’m looking into their eyes more. I’m learning how to look people in the eyes. And it really helps your confidence if you don’t do things that you shouldn’t do behind the scenes.
For instance, I used to be a flapper, which is slang for something else that boys do that men shouldn’t do and that was something else that I quit, not too long ago that caused a lot of guilt and shame.
My whole life I’ve been operating out of fight or flight and guilt and shame. My dad created fight or flight in me. I never used to take deep breaths. I was always running around distracting myself. I never could sit still, always had to have music playing in the background. I always had to have a cigarette in my hand, a coffee in my hand or alcohol in my hand.
Now, I’ve taken a lot of those things away and I feel vulnerable. But I also feel like I’m actually becoming a man now and it’s funny to say that I know I’m 48 years old but the rocking really stunted my mental growth, along with drugs and alcohol, all those things mentally stunted me.
So I really don’t feel like a 40 year old man. I might physically be a 48 year old man but I certainly don’t feel like it mentally. But I believe we can use that to our advantage, because everyone wants to have less stress and they want to feel their youth. I can tell you that I feel pretty darn young.
Now I want to physically get my body back, start doing yoga, start stretching. My fiance and I are walking in the morning. I’m going to start jogging again and lose weight because my whole thing is to get physically, financially, and spiritually free – down here in Texas especially.
So, anyways. What are you guys doing? Are you rocking back and forth? I really appreciate my first comment of someone that rocks back and forth, and I know that there’s a lot of people out there that rock back and forth and that’s what this channel was about. I’m so excited that I’m now getting views about rocking back and forth, because that’s the thing that I did the most, I mean it was my number one addiction, it was my number one stimming activity and it took a lot from my life.
It gave me relief in the beginning but in the long run, it took more away from me, just like all the other addictions, they lie to you, they make it look great, then they trap you, they entrap you, they make you feel good just temporarily but in the long run it depletes you, it takes away from you, makes you more anxious, makes you more nervous and rocking was right there, along with all the other vices and addictions.
So, if you’re new to this channel, hit the subscribe button. Tell me what you’re doing with your life. Do you enjoy rocking back and forth? How much do you do every day? Do you want to stop? Do you want to keep going, is it affecting your life? Is it getting in the way of your life, because, you know, I was rocking 14 hours a day.
I don’t have any friends you know the last couple friends I had left when I got sober, 13 years ago because they were just drinking friends. So when I got sober 13 years ago, I isolated even more. I didn’t want to make new friends.
In fact, today I still don’t have any friends, but I’ll work on that in a little bit. Right now I just want to get used to not rocking back and forth, and learning about myself the more I sit still. The more my inner child surfaces and my personality surfaces, I can really start to see what I need to work on and when I need to discard any old negative thinking.
It’s just like an old program, you know you just play the same old programs over and over. But I want to be a new man. So therefore I have to discard my old negative thinking, I have to get rid of the guilt and shame that’s held in my body – the fight or flight that’s been in my body for 40 years.
I was constantly running, hiding from reality any way I could because I didn’t want to face myself and a lot of people do it. It can look as innocent as watching TV, every night. People do not want to sit still in silence because they don’t want to know what’s deep down inside, because once you sit still and in silence, your true self is going to start to surface but you have to let it surface so you can grow. You have to integrate all those suppressed thoughts, emotions and feelings that you’ve suppressed for decades.
They will start to surface and a lot of people can’t handle the uncomfortable feelings that come up when you sit still. But guys, that is where all of the growth is. So if you want to become a true man or woman who is confident, who has self esteem, then you’re gonna want to sit still and let those things come up, and if you feel emotional and you start to cry, don’t suppress it, let it come out, you know, go to a private room, go out in nature, and just cry. Just let it all come out. You’ll feel amazing afterwards, you really will.
I’m here for you guys, leave a comment. You know, let’s start talking about this because not many people talk about rocking back and forth, you know, most articles. They only talk about autistic children. They don’t really talk about adults that rock back and forth. But like I said, you know, people don’t just stop there rocking back and forth when they turn 18. You know that’s ridiculous. We have a lot of habits still from our youth from our childhood and rocking is one of them a lot of things a lot of stimming habits come from childhood that we just we just keep doing in our adulthood.
So, if you’re sick of rocking back and forth. This is the channel for you. Like I said, I have been working 14 hours a day, at least three hours a day for the last 40 years. And I’m here to tell you that. I don’t really know what happened, like, you know, I mean, I don’t have a lot of great memories because I was busy rocking. I missed a lot of life. But I don’t have regrets because I became a heavy drinker and I almost died when I was 32, and several other times I could have died over 100 times, drinking and driving, doing drugs, you know, drinking and drugging.
So I’m here for a reason, and you are to, we all are here for a reason. And I escaped death so I’m very grateful for every, every new day. I don’t have regrets about my rocking, because if I stopped rocking, you know, 20 years ago, I wouldn’t be doing these videos. So it really is my calling so anyways I’m rambling. Thanks for listening, and we’ll talk to you soon guys.
Here’s more Resources for Asperger’s and Addiction
Sincerely,
Erik C Johnson