Remember the Kevin Bacon game? It was a game about degrees of separation, a guessing game of movies and actors that always ended with Kevin Bacon being an actor in a film. Understanding consciousness is very much like this game. You have positive, negative, and neutral and eventually end up with an authentic you. Let me explain…
Just to reiterate, when I am referring to Mother and Father (Yin and Yang); I am actually referring to the ways in which energies flow on the material plane which is subject to dualities. Feminine energy has the quality of being receptive. Masculine energy is active. We all are constantly trying to balance these forces whether we are aware of it or not. As the mother and the father unite a whole you are birthed once again. The beginning of finding this balance is to learn and use the internal controls in the body, and refining ones ability to access a neutral perspective. As a contrast, and an explanation why exercise alone is not enough, most forms of gym training are duplicated from the world of sports which are used to create a proficient athlete and are relatively superficial in terms of where the efforts are targeted. We push against weights in the weight room; we use balls, bikes, machines all in order to obtain fitness. Again the focus of the training deals with acting against some resistance. An external form of resistance is no different than how most of us already live our lives. We are active people who push our way through life. We work hard, we worry hard, and we don’t know how to relax. Relaxation is not watching TV, or reading a book; those are activities and still fall into the category of masculine/cognitive energy. The implications of our way of life and our typical health routines point to an inability to receive, recognize our internal authenticity, and ultimately truly relax. When we train for internal Martial Arts or a Yoga system, which emphasizes the internal mechanisms of control, we are able recognize the resistances within, learn to center, and learn how to relax and heal. Much blame gets spread around when trying to find the source of our struggles in life. The truth is we control much of our fate. Our fate has been written by past actions and future fixations; hence the need to witness and exist in the present. We should want to write our own story consciously. Motivational speakers know this, they use psychology in a pointed way to create sudden bursts of enthusiasm, which unfortunately seem to fizzle out after a short time; because the goals which we are trying to obtain are external or fantasy notions of what we want in life without regard for why we want those things or are those things in line with our higher selves. Our present was conceived in the past and our future is now!
Using the mind to conquer the mind’s perceived insecurities is no different than a power lifter trying to hoist 300lbs over his head. Energy is Energy, we choose how to direct it and we choose just how much we have access to. The shortage most people experience is often due to the conflicted state of the relationship with ourselves, we are not whole. A relationship is just time spent. We must have a non conflicted relationship to sex, to food, to physical activity, to our efforts. As we resolve conflicts thru witnessing and willpower we find we have more energy, because we are operating more efficiently. We have brilliant built in mechanisms for venturing towards wholeness, but I must reiterate, the first thing that must happen is to commit to having a relationship with you.
We can reach within ourselves not only by closing our eyes to peer within, but also by utilizing the internal voluntary muscles of the body. Most of us have heard about the Kegel muscles, these are the muscles which line the pelvic floor from anus to genitals and which also harmonize with the navel point. To contract these muscles is to reach into the body and give it as assurance you are going to bring your separate aspects together. Our bodies are designed to hold prana, or life force; and the way we do this is thru the breath. The amount of life force we have access too is directly related to our relationship with ourselves and our practices. Most of us are far too stiff and rigid to inhale completely, and others of us just don't want to bother because it represents a deviation from our program. We have to develop strength with the breath, control of the breath, and create the internal environment to accept the breath. The ability too breath deeply is a journey which begins at the base, our foundation, the pelvic floor. Every contraction is a signal, a nerve impulse, and a stretch of the facial (the connective tissue surrounding the muscle fibers). This is significant because the pain we experience in the lower back, hips and pelvic floor, as well as many of the associated dis-comforts are due to us not making the journey back to the mother, not communicating in a precise physical manner with the body that it is not in the way of harm. The mother is what’s solid beneath us. A simple contraction and hold is the needed communication. The lower Chakras are related to feelings of security feeling at home, feeling taken care of, etc; and when we do not heed theses signals, which are communicated to the mind thru the nervous system (as emotion or energy in motion), then we begin to perceive ourselves as insecure or we feel we don't belong or we lack confidence. Fear and the less desirable emotions are necessary because they are protective. However, they can become very tiresome. The body again, just wants to be assured that it is secure, and then it will release the pattern or stuck emotion which is causing the undesirable results. This is where we must cultivate awareness, as these emotions show up we simply must witness them and center ourselves, we don't need to entertain them forever, wine and dine them, or show them around our house; only a hello and farewell is needed. The emotions will trigger thoughts, these thoughts are the stories they like to tell about their origins; these stories are the lessons which are to learning order to stop the harmful pattern and make the necessary changes so we can head down the path led by those options and choices which are attractive and beneficial, and cause no harm. The thoughts are only relevant to a point, because they are just words which are used to define the emotion so that we can interpret what we are experiencing. Again, don’t dwell in the thoughts, please keep this as only an aspect of your practice, because any speculation or fixation in excess beyond what is necessary in order to not duplicate the circumstance again is simply not being present; learn and center. For example, lets say you are conflicted about your career or business and how to raise the necessary funds in order to keep it all together. This entity, the business, requires energy, in the form of time spent and effort; this energy has to come from somewhere so it’s likely there will be some form of energetic sacrifice in order to produce the desired results. This is common and not insignificant; the energy used to create a productive business may leave you feeling at a loss in some way in terms of your personal life. The sacrifices most often are the relationships with those around us, or us physically. The obesity epidemic and many lifestyle related diseases are choices, we are not victims, but willing participants in the disease process; we choose where we put our energies!
Father (active) conquers, mind over matter, the heart may get cut off and we don’t feel as much, it’s a cognitive bias; mother (receptive) gets swept up in emotional waves that can cripple initiative. Many of us end up choosing what we are going to neglect; if we neglect the Father then we may not be able to use reason to direct action towards our goals, and if we are to heavily influenced by emotions then we become reactionary and slaves to impulse. So what we must due is develop a practice of witnessing, of not neglecting, of balancing the polarities- between the head and the feet, heaven and hell, low and high, the third eye and the lower charkas, action and true relaxation, feeling and thinking, etc… None of this is possible without spending time with you and cultivating a neutral perspective which allows you to rise above it all- this is the Taoist middle path. Really there are no degrees of separation between you and your authentic self, Kevin Bacon; you just have to perceive it that way.
Peace
to schedule a private Yoga Therapy session contatct Akal at somaarts1@gmail.com
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