What's Happening -- Newsletter from the Center

—2002 Newsletters
 

—Winter 2002 Newsletter
                            Physiological Energy Patterns

If one views the contemporary literature in our culture as the movement of the evolving localized mind, it is quite interesting to see the emerging patterns that are occurring in authors’ writings regarding different diets for specific types of people’s constitutional makeups.  Eating Right for Your Blood Type comes immediately to mind but there are others that have been noted in the last year.

Intuitively we know that we are different from one another in many different ways but through our sciences we have been conveniently lumped into one big category.  This happens because our cultural history knows no other way.  It is not that it is right or wrong but it is simply a fact, we see ourselves as lumpers not splitters when we do science with respect to the human mindbody.

If we view the body as an energy field as do other healing traditions (Traditional Oriental Medicine or Ayurveda to name two) we begin to see that the mindbody can be generalized into energy patterns that fit into a scheme which has relevancy not only for us personally but also for a medical practitioner.

One can immediately see the benefit for such a view.  Then the individualized training program set up by the trainer at the local gym makes sense.  A program based on one’s unique energy patterns is simply an extension of this process.  We discussed diet as now being seen as individualized according to blood type but there are other programs that are now appearing using other ways of viewing nutrition to create specific recommendations.  This whole process simply helps you become a better choicemaker regarding all of the various schemes that make up life.  So what if you found a scheme that told you what are the best colors to wear, the best aromas to use, the best spices to use and the best fruits and vegetables to use?  Then we could become better conscious choicemakers.

But this energy perspective of the human physiology has even greater relevance when it comes to healing.  Presently using this energy system in a urological practice has led to nothing less that amazing results.  And this is not to say that our contemporary medical approach has not been saying this all along.  What this energy approach has done is nothing but validate what we as clinical practitioners intermittently do already.  What it does do is bring clarity to the act of healing.

Again from an energy perspective patients with hyperacidity syndrome (with or without ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux etc), skin lesions, eye difficulties and at time nonbacterial cystitis (know as interstitial cystitis) have a predominance of transformative energy in their physiology.  The recognition of this can lead the practitioner to confidently recommend to this bothered patient a specific diet that helps the patient select foods that adversely affects his/her physiology.  Interestingly as you would guess from your own experience patients are usually deselecting food that bother them and bring on symptoms.  Why?  Because we listen to our own internal healer.  But some foods escape our awareness because we are distracted.  The energy specific diet information then becomes a tool to help hone our awareness.
 
 

—Spring 2002 Newsletter
                            The Physiological Manifestation of the Soul

At some time or another in our lifetimes most of us are introduced to the concept of the soul and perhaps some have delved deeper into this metaphysical concept more than others. And for many it remains an abstraction and nothing more. But what good is such a concept as the soul that is so widely discussed if it cannot be made into a practical day to day aspect of ourselves?

In Eastern health traditions understanding the soul has very practical consequences. Knowing where your soul is headed at any moment in time is extremely beneficial in terms of life’s purpose. It helps one sift through the extraneous nonimportant distractions in ones’s life and see with clarity the reason why you are where you are. Such knowledge creates profound stability in life tasking which can be very disconcerting for some who feel they are drifting and feel ungrounded.

The soul is also called the witness. It is that aspect of our awareness that is the silent observer in the midst of activity. If you have a chance sometime just close your eyes and notice a presence that is not only with you now but was with you yesterday, last year and even when you were a child. It is the constant unchanging factor of us that is consistent and holds our roadmap for this particular incarnation.

The best way to get in touch with this aspect of ourselves is meditation. Since the soul is the silent witness but it is not the mind. We become so involved with the mind everyday that we identify with the mind. The mind is full of thoughts, feelings and emotions but it is not silent. The witness in order to be a witness must be silent. So in order to become aware of our souls we must quiet the mind so that we can experientially know ourselves as more than the body, more than the mind but a spiritual being as well.

So the physiologic manifestation of the soul in our being is silence. In the process of meditation we become acquainted with that unchanging aspect of ourselves and because of that acquaintance we are not so taken up by the distractions that take up our attention in day to day activity. Get in touch with the unchanging part of ourselves and the changing world around us does not bother us anymore.

The health value of knowing oneself as a silent witness has more long range benefits than giving us more clarity and stability. There are many studies showing the health value of knowing oneself as a soul. By recognizing ourselves as silent fields of awareness and cultivating that aspect we develop lower blood pressure, create better health choices and reduce stress which is responsible for many contemporary diseases in our society.
 

—Summer 2002 Newsletter
                           Yoga and Release of Psychosomatic Blocks
 

The mindbody system is extremely complex existing at many levels simultaneously at any given moment so it is easy to see how it can go out of balance very easily. Various undigested experiences become locked in our physiologies without our knowing it. These experiences are called collectively psychosomatic because they are both in the matter field (somatic) and are always brought about by the mind field (psyche). We must remember that the mindbody system is intimately one. Mind is located in every cell of the body. You cannot have a thought without a molecule being produced. What happens in the mind happens in the body concurrently. From an energy perspective these undigested experiences are also called blocks because they represent blocks to the free flow of energy in our physiology.

The question comes up, “Why bother? I feel pretty good.” The answer is straight forward. These blockages eventually lead to future unarguable disease in the mindbody physiology so we need to have some way to release these blockages.

We carry these psychosomatic blocks around with us (some have termed these the black bag, subconscious garbage). We do not want the baggage but because of where we were in the past we keep it rather than digesting it properly. Until we can release them through conscious procedures such as seminars dealing with personal growth, previously alluded to shadow work, counseling or talks with friends and family we are doomed to carry these blockages around with us. It is important to realize that these procedures are not terribly effective in the end because they are at best linear in their approach.

As we said earlier the mindbody system is extremely complex and multilayered. It is very hard to consciously uncover all of these various undigested experiences because our awareness can be so easily and endlessly manipulated by the mind.  Because of this mind aspect of ourselves always getting in the way, we deny that there is a problem, resist confrontation by distracting ourselves or simply run away from ever thinking about these issues. Meditation is one of the most effective ways to release these blockages. Meditation takes us to a place where no problem exists and silences the mind so that the free release of these psychosomatic blockages can be released.

Another way of releasing these blockages to the free flow of energy in our physiology is through hatha yoga. Popularized the West as an exercise routine, yoga since its introduction is more than an exercise. If done consciously, then stubborn submerged, unconsciously held blockages that remain stuck in the physiology of our complex multilayered mindbody system, can be released.

So when one does a yoga pose and finds resistance, one is actually consciously pushing ones’s own buttons in order to evoke not only the psychosomatic block but at the same time release it. It may take several times in the pose but eventually we become free of that particular button. Hence the practice of yoga is actually, if done consciously, meditation in motion.  It shares the same benefits that tai chi and other movement disciplines offer, but only if they are done consciously.

Doing yoga on the mat can be a way of practicing life and confronting your psychosomatic blocks and augment linear experience of counseling. There is no holistic healing taking place in the latter because only the superficial layers can be uncovered and only what the mind is willing for you to look at.

The next newsletter will discuss the physiological manifestations of these blockages and how the heat of the yoga posture can release them.
 

—Fall 2002 Newsletter
                           The Second Half of the Posture

When a yoga posture is done there are actually two parts. There is the active doing or masculine part of the pose where one actively engages in the physical positioning of the body in space. However, this active part of yoga pose which is seen in so many pictures in magazines and books is only half of the process because there is a passive or receptive part of the pose that follows every action where one can be deeply absorbed into the feelings coursing through the energy body. This receptive or feminine aspect is important to pay attention to because it provides the opportunity for deep integration to occur.

Integration means the bringing together of all the aspects of our physiology into oneness. When we surrender to the masculine and feminine aspects of the pose we create space for melting away of the stress and breaking down barriers that we don’t even know we have. So the practice of yoga postures has their primary purpose of integration in the physiology which causes release of blockages that are unknown to us.

I have personally heard of situations where the assumption of specific poses evokes an emotional response such as crying, What’s happening? The active part of the posture produces connective tissue stretch that releases buried emotional baggage that cannot be released in any other way. Linear counseling will no do it.  The mindbody system is far too complex and denial too strong for us to be able to reach such areas with a cognitive approach.

But with meditation or the practice of yoga postures such releases are possible over a period of time with practice. Yoga postures when done with the intent of integration can turn the whole practice into a mediation in motion. Why? Because as with meditation the practice of postures takes us to deeper levels of stillness in the physiology so that the activity of the mind becomes overshadowed by silence. And when silence in the physiology occurs then releases of deep stresses conflicts resentments and anger can come to the surface.

So practically speaking what does this process look like? Attention is paid to the breath and with the breath we move into a yoga posture. For example, in the mountain pose the arms are joined together and brought over the head and held there. This produces stretching of connective tissue in the back and chest as one holds the legs and pelvis strong and contracted. While doing the pose the breath is engaged to bring the arms up on inhalation and slightly down away from the head on exhalation. As the posture is continued the energy pulsing up from the feet is felt coursing through the torso and out through the fingertips in extension along with any other bodily sensations. And when the arms are released and brought down from their extended position further attention is paid to the bodily sensations that are happening in the energy field of the body still engaged in the breath but NOT in the usual mental monologue (Did I do it right? That was uncomfortable. Why am I doing this anyway? I’m hungry. I’m tired, etc) By innocently paying attention to the breath and the bodily sensations the process of integration is occurring because the mind is out of the way. And once the mind is out of the way there can be no interference with the release of the hidden psychosomatic blockages that get released with the pose.

But now the release of the pose occurs by bringing the arms down from the extended position and eyes are allowed to close. Now further attention is paid to the body but the breath goes away and deep integration occurs. The eyes are magnetically drawn upward and inward as the experience of unity emerges. This is the second phase of the posture and should not be omitted because so much can be lost.

And all this happens because we chose to move from an unconscious state of being to a conscious one.
 
 

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