Throughout our lives we recoil against the world. Our bodies unconsciously tense and contract against unspoken threats. Without knowing it we are depositing a drop of pain into our body with each resistance to life. If we allowed feelings to be felt as they come up, they would naturally complete their Gestalt and flow through us, leaving us relaxed in our own bodies. But we don’t.
We live up in our heads and treat the body like an inconvenient appendage that has to be fed and watered. This self-imposed mind/body split makes us feel very scattered and anxious. When we give our bodies some attention at last, we find that they are the source of great wisdom if we just tune into it. Then we discover where we’ve stashed our unwanted feelings and begin to feel them, allow them, accept them and finally release them.
Some cultures have long acknowledged the operation of what we might call subtle energy systems within us. In India the chakra system describes swirling vortices of energy in different parts of the body that emit and receive their own frequency of vibration. When chakras are blocked with emotional debris, so is the free flow of vital energy through the system. Whatever is blocked physically is blocked energetically and vice versa. All parts of the body can be the site of Aha moments but the most common places are the throat, the solar plexus, the gut and the heart.
When you explore your own emotions, you find out where you store your painbody and learn to dissolve it:
““I have learned how to dissolve and evaporate the knots of fear and frustration in my solar plexus and head” ”
The heart chakra’s value is universal love and when this channel is clear, mind and body are connected and transcended. Aha moments sensed in the heart can bring wholeness and peace:
““I feel it in my heart. It’s physical. I feel whole and at peace with myself. I’m not sure I can describe it any better than that”. ”
It is from the heart that we come to know about love and how powerful it is. We can be whole-hearted about life only when we tune into the heart and feel for the passions and values that are most important to us. The most loving thing we can do for ourselves is to discover our unique life purpose, what is most deeply valuable for us to live a fulfilling life. And the heart is much stronger than the head, having its own ‘brain’ and an electromagnetic field about 60 times greater than the brain in amplitude. The heart’s energy permeates every cell in the body, making it a much more reliable guidance system than the thinking, monkey mind. So tune into your feelings – accept them, feel them, release the ones that cause you pain and get excited – get very excited - about the ones that serve your life purpose!
Exercise
Sit down and tune in to what’s happening inside. Think about what is deeply important to you at this juncture of your life. Draw a picture. Use words. Find metaphors.
Now write a list of your values and passions. Make sure they are your values and nobody else’s. As you contemplate each one, close your eyes and breathe it into your body. Check for feelings of excitement, motivation. Re-write your list in order of priority. Your body will tell you which values to prioritize.