Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy website.
On New Year’s Eve, Jan took me to a most unusual yoga class. The entire class focused on softening, just allowing the body to gently and slowly sink deeply into a few asanas. I found my body responding, awakening to an old memory of infinite release.
I first contemplated infinity as a young boy, daydreaming in a grammar school classroom. I reasoned, back then, that a small finite grain of sand was infinite because if you cut it in half, and then cut it again and again the process would never end, there would always be something to halve again. Of course, I realized that the instruments that would be needed to halve the diminishing grain probably did not exist, but this didn’t change the reality that infinity existed in the halving process.
With my body, it’s the same experience. I focus on an area and intend it to relax, release, or soften. Immediately it responds. As it arrives at its new place it presents a new sensation, or boundary, that is actually a new, albeit lesser, level of tension. If I keep my awareness on this new place and once again ask my body to release, off it goes, to a new place, half as tense as a moment before. This process could go on forever, if I could hold my awareness on it.
At the end of the yoga class, I mentioned to the teacher, Nicolas, how wonderful and effortless was the stretching. I was gently reprimanded for my use of the word stretching to describe the process. What he teaches is softening, no pressure or rigor applied to the muscles, simply a deepening of release, allowing the body to find its own way. In my experience, it’s keeping my awareness on the muscle, noticing its level of tension, and asking it to release. It seems always capable of softening to a new level of tension.
Ultimately, I experience this as a gateway to my energy body and infinity. At a certain point in the softening process my body, as a physical form, disappears, dissolving into sheer energy. For me, the sound of energy kicks in at that point, an almost deafening vibratory sound. It feels like an energetic massage and attunement. This is an opportunity to maintain awareness in a sheer energetic state of interconnectedness, awareness without a body.
What I am describing is an extremely pragmatic tool to access the energy body. Bringing your awareness innerly, by focusing on your physical body, sending it the intent to soften, again and again, is a gateway to infinity. It requires no books, no training, no money, simply the honing of awareness to the sensations of the body with the intent to go deeper and deeper into softening. This is a tool anyone can hone, at any time and any place, through a simple shift of awareness and intent. Try it!
As always, should anyone wish to write, I can be reached at: chuck@riverwalkerpress.com or feel free to post a comment.
Until we meet again,
Chuck
Hi Chuck!
Once again, I am amazed at the synchronicity of your blog!
On New Year’s Eve, I was rushing to work, my body exhausted from what seemed like weeks of “running”. I was not in a very jolly mood, actually I found myself winding up tighter and tight, feeling angry and I didn’t know why. This made me feel even more unsettled, after all, it was New Year’s Eve and I didn’t have any reason not to be happy, but my body wasn’t feeling very joyful, instead, it was feeling very painful. My head was pounding from the tension, my chest with such pressure, felt like an elephant was sitting on it, my shoulders were hunched up and I was gripping the wheel like a mad woman as I sped off down the highway…not a pretty picture! I felt like I was spinning out of control and I didn’t know why. I had 45 minutes to get my eyes uncrossed, the frown off my face, teeth unclenched, fingers unknotted…. and be cheery! In an effort to distract myself, I began to make a plan as to what I needed to do “in the coming year” to resolve this problem. “Plans”, or lists, have always worked for me, or so I have convinced myself. I decided that first, I needed to eat healthier, then in this order I would: quit my job, move to a tropical island, do yoga, read, play, swim, kayak, walk/run, get weekly messages…by the time I got to work, I was happy and smiling—I had a plan and it was my best one yet!
Chuck, after reading this morning about the tools for “softening” as a way to reach our energy body and ultimately infinity, I’m once again reminded of the seeds that Jeanne has been planting in our awareness over and over from the beginning: that we have everything we need! We don’t need to go outside to find it, just go innerly and feel it! Very eloquent, simple and to the point…so, why then is this so difficult to grasp, do and maintain?
Do we simply forget, do all of our distractions get in the way, do we purposefully allow it to lapse from our consciousness…………………?
Maybe these questions—and my lists—themselves are merely distractions!
Keep giving us the tools!
My New Year’s intention: Just do it!
Happy New Year!