»
Finding the Shape of Happiness in Your Bodymind Part 2
admin | 31 October, 2008 11:16
These shapes in the bodymind are created by trigger points, triggered habitual response patterns that become our personal history. A situation occurs, triggers a cellular memory, a reaction. When our back is up against the wall, we do one of the following, fight or flight, freeze or faint based upon our habitual responses. After years and years, we tend to react in the same way, healthy or not, effective or not. When we react, the bodymind takes on the shape of the reaction, and then the bodymind holds the shape of that emotion, long after the situation has ended, creating an incredible amount of stress in the bodymind.
We live out this personal history, hanging onto these beliefs and habits, experiences and emotions, from a state of consciousness where our actions are dominated by these unconscious beliefs and habits. Our lives become routine and mechanical. It is as if we have somehow ended up on automatic pilot. Slowly, day by day we move further and further away from our own humanity. We stay in jobs that are not satisfying, and relationships that are not fulfilling. Because we, as human beings, have a core need to have meaning, purpose, heart in our lives, walking through our lives in an unconscious state, numb to life, sleepwalking through life, threatens our well-being.
We tolerate unacceptable situations in our lives. We talk ourselves into an illusion of okayness, making our lives acceptable by numbing ourselves through many different methods including alchohol, drugs, food, cigarettes, gambling, relationships, material acquisitions and overconcern with other people and their lives. Even activities like watching television and reading can become addictive, mind-numbing activities. These, and so many other behaviors are all distractions that offer us the opportunity to forget, temporarily about our unacceptable life situations. Sometimes we do not even forget, we just feel apathetic about it for a short period of time, while we are distracted. All of these behaviors take us further and further from our humanity.
A few of us embrace our oneness with the universe and hold onto it throughout our lifetime, but most of us do not. Even those of us who do embrace our oneness with the universe from an early age, eventually lose that connection as we grow up. We spend our lives trying to recover our humanity, that feeling of wholeness we once had, trying to ease the pain of that hole in our gut, filling the emptiness with whatever we can find to distract us from our pain.
Through Yoga Heart Meditative Movement TM awareness practices, we attain an increased level of bodymind awareness. We learn to notice how life moves through the bodymind and how the bodymind moves through life. We begin to know ourselves and we begin to see how we are moved by those around us. We are able to become aware of the trigger points, our habitual response patterns, and change our responses. We begin to see how our bodymind takes on the shapes of life experiences. We are able to let go of those emotions and experiences in the bodymind. We wake up and have a choice as to how we will respond to our environment, people, places and situations. Then we are able to choose to move through life more effectively, moving from the heart, the authentic self. Wellness is experiencing balance in your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual life. It is knowing when you are off-balance and knowing how to find the balance again. Balance may look different in each individual life, however the result of balance is wellness for everyone.
