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This is the third article in a series on vibrant living. The first, “FRINGES, BOUNDARIES & TRANSITIONS: Potent Points in Time & Space,” explored life’s persistent call into the mysterious unknown.
The second article, “Crest of the Wave—Direction & Presence in a Fluid World,” explored how we might cultivate our ability to enter new territory. Can we become adaptable— consciously directive and response-able, open to what is and curious about what might be?
Easy to say, harder to do: especially when we sense threat to our body, our identity, or our cherished beliefs. The initial response to perceived threat can be life-saving. Held too long, these responses become habitual stances—patterned reactions that constrict our capacity to thrive and to connect with others.
When we are being reactive or addictive, gripped by emotion, locked up in body and mind, what is happening? Can we learn to stabilize and re-source ourselves? Can we mobilize our forces in the midst of confusion, challenge . . . even threat?
Beneath thought and expectation, faster than opinion and assumption . . . lives the body—and it does not lie. It tells the truth and does it immediately. That clenching in the gut, the flood of warmth, the tingling skin or the racing heart: the animal body responds instinctively. Shame spreads across the skin; anger floods tissue with heat; fear constricts passageways; relief washes through belly and throat; glee tingles delightfully. Emotion and sensation speak directly. We are biological organisms. Despite any frontal lobe activity (reasoning) that might override this biology, we respond innately and innocently—as animals—to both care and threat.
We need habituated biological responses and the body naturally seeks to release them. When the adrenalin of flight/fight/freeze courses through our system, our muscles constrict, our blood races, our jaw clenches. Afterward, the body moves to complete the experience, to right itself once again in ease and flow. An incomplete stress response creates all sort of mischief in the body.
Resolving stress is essential self maintenance. Even better, we can create new patterns in our nervous system. We can shift our chemistry, change our habituated posture, and transcend outmoded stances in our thinking.
The energy currently stuck in old story, in pain, or in habit, the pain that is achy (burning, leaden, gripped, agitated, whirling, prickly, or numb) is the very same life force that provides our wellspring of sustenance. What calls our attention—the physical pain, the emotion, sensation or belief—rises into our attention in order to be released or used differently. If we track with benign interest, these messengers will deliver precious jewels of insight: the living experience of relief or deep rest; the felt sense of delight, of power; the solid sense of just knowing; streaming life force, freed to create anew.
Animals slough off stress all the time. They shake and roll, they sigh and yawn. The nervous system discharges tension and re-sources, as needed. Perhaps unfortunately, humans have the capacity to interrupt this natural process. We can stifle and lock down; we tend to compartmentalize, to isolate and bury. Over time, we can become hyper-alert—managing this material is quite a job! We become rigid, narrowing our range of acceptable experience.
Stored energy—from injury, memory or experience—generates a build-up of electrical charge in nerve, fluid, and tissue. It interferes with our chemistry, which affects our thinking and our emotions. Chronic muscle tension and long-term patterns in chemistry weaken the system. A host of symptoms emerges, including skin sensitivities, chronic aches and pains, organ and system dysfunction, hormonal swings, and psychological imbalances . . . to name just a few.
We might return to our organic will for release. Jiggling and wiggling, natural breathing, resting and stretching luxuriantly—sensory playfulness and flights of imagination—all these stimulate movement, in our organs, our fluids, and our tissues. They fundamentally change the flow of thoughts and imagination. Our whole system responds—from the streaming chemistry of our master glands to our digestion of both food and information. Through lymph, connective tissue, organ, and bone; through thought, feeling, and sensation; movement enlivens our system.
When stored energy discharges, all sorts of things happen. Just like the tiger let out of the cage, the dam bursting loose, the child in complete meltdown . . . Initial flows contain vast stored power—explosive forces, intense sensations, a flood of raw data. They’re often unpleasant when they first get going. All the elements are present. The heat and burn of fire; powerful, tumultuousness waters; the chaotic flow of air. We hold our breath or hyperventilate, we shake, shiver, and quake, our waters flow as tears and snot, we burn and chill down, we get nauseous, dizzy. weak-kneed, tingly, and numb.
We ache again when we unpack stored energy. We revisit living memory as we crack open the box of old pain. Whether it was emotional hurt, physical insult, or psychic breach, it lives now in body and mind and it resolves here--in the sensate self. We are brave to stay present as stored pain concludes its long sojourn within us. Its often ugly, gritty, messy stuff.
But only at first—and this is the magic of our organism. When as we attend the movement of stored energy, it reveals meaning and it releases capacity. Just as the child’s storm passes into delight, the river finds it own level and flow, the tiger settles to rest and watch; so, too, the initial flood of release loses it intensity and reveals its essential character. Its meaning and message rise to the surface. As we draw near to ourselves in a curious, friendly way, all we need to know becomes clear, all the resources we need become available.
All we need is within us. Like all universal truths: simple . . . but not easy! This is a redemptive journey. It takes courage and great heart forces. It takes patience to attend our pain, perseverance to learn new ways of being and doing. It takes physical will and stamina. Fortunately the process gifts us with these very same qualities—patience, courage, stamina, and a big heart. Exploring and mapping our vast interior, befriending ourselves . . . this is a worthy investment with a healthy return, indeed!
“The tendency of an organism to maintain beneficial stability. Organic equilibrium.”
Life gifts us with the innate desire to find ease, comfort, and pleasure. We are designed, like all organic life, to seek optimal states of being. Once we experience ease, our being wants more of it (smart, eh!). Once we experience comfort or pleasure, we have created an internal pathway our body wants to travel again. Potent forces—our nervous system, our thinking, our feelings—all line up to support this experience of more ease. Each time we make our way back into this new experience, it becomes easier to find again. We enliven the terrain. We can then access this new possibility (new physical response or thought) in our landscape of self just when we need it most: calm through the storm, inspiration for the task, relaxation during stress.
So sit down with your bad self, your aching back, your tender child . . . get interested. Listen and learn a thing or two. If “monsters be there” at the edge of known territory on your map, follow the sage actions of young Max in Where the Wild Things Are:
“. . . when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes, and showed their terrible claws till Max said “BE STILL!” and tamed them with the magic trick of staring directly into all their yellow eyes without blinking once
If you don’t have your scary wolf suit on—if the darkness is too ominous, the pain too intense, or the way is hidden—then, like all adventurers facing fearsome obstacles, find a skilled ally. Find someone who is not afraid of your particular demons, your sorrow and fury, your aching bones, your sore heart. Choose someone who can remember, when you get lost or scared or confused, that these bones, this very heart . . . they contain your desire, your wisdom, and the fuel for your finest deeds.
Sometimes exploring our interior landscape requires fiery will, sometimes for gentle care. We may be called to soothe wounds, clean out dreadful corners or cut through a dense thicket of obstacles. Luckily, the tools are endless and available. Clues arise in response to our gaze. With dedication, we can find our way—even when we don’t know where we are headed. Most assuredly, where we are going is easier and filled with more life than where we have been.
You hold the key—your attention, your intention, your curiosity. Turn the beam of your awareness to what lies hidden, to what is scary or numb. After the explosion, the meltdown, the numbness goes away; your very own, personally designed treasures will be revealed to you. This is life’s promise. All we have to do is step inside and take a look around.
