Within the body – this vessel of consciousness and organ of perception – exists a rich tapestry of wisdom whispering in mysterious melodies and yet longing to be decoded by the one willing to listen. To the one who’s grown accustomed to perceiving through thought – who relies on the mind to decide and discern – this wisdom may be untapped or even muted. However, it’s never too late to open the doors to a world that defies confinement and expands beyond the logic of mere intellect!
Welcome to the altar of your Soul.
Through the body, we can dismantle the patterning with a grace and an accuracy that blows the mind to pieces. The body is the doorway to the blueprint of your Soul. She carries all information that you came here to unravel – every memory, every contraction, every karmic knot that awaits resolution. There’s no need for you to understand, remember or even know what awaits illumination; but if understanding, remembrance and knowledge should arise then that’s beautiful!
What’s required is the capacity to Be With what arises, no matter how painful or uncomfortable. What’s called for is the courage of Heart to fully feel and welcome all that’s calling for your attention. And so begins a healing journey, an inner relationship and an awakening within.
Healing through the Body
The body (and all her subtle layers) is the store-house for all that remains exiled. In this contracted state, there’s fragmentation, as if pieces of your Soul are no longer available to you. When you call these forgotten parts home – the parts that have been pushed out of view – you invite them back into wholeness. The contraction is ultimately transient and only held together by fear. Through your loving presence it relaxes back into Source. As the contraction unravels, the latent energy stored within it is unleashed.
What may be felt and experienced as a release or dissolution is actually a transmutation, for energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed.
There’s no right way to traverse this path. The purification of consciousness is as varied as it is vast as it is deep. Each Soul, each Body and each Heart calls for different subtleties in approach, navigation and surrender. So the core of this journey calls for your willingness to experiment, to fall, to get back up again and to listen deeply to what works for you. Having said that, there are some underlying principles that can be adapted to your own way of working. If we start with a felt contraction or known issue at hand – one that’s perceived in this very moment – then we can began this inner dialogue …
Awaken your Innate Capacity to Heal
Your job as Presence is to restore mobility to the paralysed parts of you. As loving-awareness, you breathe new life into stagnant, frozen energy.
Four Steps to Freedom:Â
- Clear-seeing (establishing awareness)
- Pure-feeling (cultivating heart)
- Being With (making contact)
- Surrender (letting go)
1. Clear-seeing (establishing awareness)
The first step to freedom is the capacity to see and then acknowledge what’s here.
As the objective observer you’re able to hold space for everything that arises without judging or identifying with it. You are the Seer and Perceiver of all experience.
Practices to cultivate Awareness include mindfulness techniques, spiritual inquiry and meditation.Â
The orientation of these practices calls for a re-direction of attention from phenomena (the objects we perceive) to the one perceiving. To rest as Awareness is to rest as the silent space of pure subjectivity.
Related Article: Seeing is not believing: emerging from the story of Me
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2. Pure feeling (Cultivating Heart)
The second step to freedom is the capacity to sense and feel that which is here.
The Felt Sense of an issue is the recognition of it as comprising a visceral and energetic presence. Through careful and patient investigation one can begin to locate and describe the felt sense of what’s here, whether this appears as sensation, emotion, image, symbol, thought or all of the above.
Pure-feeling is the capacity of Heart to stay open in the midst of pain.
Practices to cultivate your feeling system are any embodiment practice that fine tunes your ability to sense and feel what arises. Any practice that brings you into the body and expands awareness to include subtle energies enhances pure-feeling. Think dance, movement, body-work, breath-work, voice-work, and emotional awareness practices.
3. Being With (making contact)
The third step to freedom is where clear-seeing meets pure-feeling and enters INTO RELATIONSHIP with that which is here.
This is where that which was set aside for future digestion is brought into the light of awareness to be seen, felt, heard and met. Through this meeting there’s the opportunity to practice and cultivate all the qualities that are vital for relationship to flourish: openness, understanding, compassion, and tenderness. When the lost and forgotten part is finally held in Deep Empathy, then the Life energy trapped within this karmic knot is finally able to move. What releases is the misunderstanding that this part became bound by. However, this does not happen through trying to fix, change, avoid, or eliminate; but by simply Being With.
Practices to cultivate being in relationship with what arises include all heart-based and devotional practices. In addition, engaging in service and conscious relationship cultivates the qualities required to make empathic and respectful contact with whatever you’re relating to (whether that be another sentient being or fragments of your psyche).
4. Surrender (Letting go)
The fourth step to freedom is an act of letting go beyond what you know.
When the exiled part feels deeply heard and met then its function of protection dissolves and it can be absorbed and integrated back into pure consciousness, no longer solidified by its misunderstanding. We may notice life energy beginning to flood the system as the wounded structure begins to collapse. At this point, a letting go beyond identification is possible. As Life begins to flow again, our only job is to surrender to this movement.
The key here is to really receive and relax into any movement, opening, and expansion. If anything arises as resistance to this re-calibration, then we can repeat steps one through three by acknowledging, sensing and being with this resistance.
Disclaimer
As with any spiritual instruction, this may sound more simple than it is to put into practice. We all know that we need to cultivate awareness and accept our feelings but when the rubber hits the road we may be easily consumed by panic, shame and overwhelm.Â
In truth, what these words point to (which is the act of Being With) is incredibly simple. However, the recognition of this simplicity arises from a somewhat complex journey. As we apply these principles to a fragmented psyche, we’re bound to meet up with all kinds of twists and turns + tricks and traps as the survival strategies get activated. It’s not our job to lament this reality, but rather our duty to show up and deal with the hand we’ve been dealt. Practice is the key word here and it’s the practice of Life.
The awakening to your Self and the inclusion of everything you pushed away is a subtle terrain to navigate. That’s why it can be incredibly helpful to have a witness and ultimately a support system to hold space for those things that feel challenging and just out of view.