Flow with the breath, deeply inward.
Slowly release the constriction of body armor.
Open to the tide of the body ocean.
Ride its waves of healing motion.
Safely, with abandon.
Breathing,
Chuck
Today, we present the weekly channeled message, as well as a message to all who knew and loved Jeanne, as well as to those who never knew her in this life. Today is the day that Jeanne died in Heiden, Switzerland, twelve years ago.
Here is the weekly channeled message first:
Let the energy of now take you forward. As your journey unfolds, stay informed of the always-changing self. Allow transformation to take place, and with awareness allow the self to change. In awareness that you are indeed a changing being, in constant flux, allow your life to take you now into new levels of consciousness.
Turn your gaze outward each day, even as you turn it inward. Notice where you life is trying to lead you. Listen to your inner self and listen to your body self. These two selves, your energetic you and your physical you, must become true partners on your journey through life. Think of your energetic self as the gas you put into your vehicle, driving your physical self, it’s trusty companion. Your mind intercepts, cutting off natural communication. Quiet the mind and let the two of them communicate once again, directly. Let your gas flow, without blockage, into your vehicle, as you simultaneously learn to accept your life as an ever-changing flow of energy, signs, synchronicities, and messages. In opening to the existence of such universal communication outside of you, you may find that the mind is not as necessary as you now think.
Thoughts often confuse, but your energetic self and your physical self seek only growth, uninhibited. Your partnership, in alignment, will result in a tiptop vehicle to drive through life in, with your energy flowing nicely within. Keep it always in good shape and it will not fail you. Find out what all of that means for you. Everyone is different; everyone must find their personal equilibrium and balance. Take one empowering step on behalf of that partnership today and every day, devoid of the mind’s trappings and old sayings. Clear the mind so that the channel of communication may always be open and flowing. And then see what new happens!
Here is the rest of the communication from Jeanne, as Jan asked her to comment on the anniversary of her death. Here is what she had to say:
Although my absence is still felt, those who knew me and were deeply attached to me must not grieve for me, or for themselves and the loss of me in their lives. Life is death; death is life. As I have said many times before, though I do not exist on that plane, I do exist! Take that into consideration as you continue your own lives upon that earth. Sorrow is a manifestation of the mind. If you silence the mind, removing what it tells you from your thoughts, releasing those mind-thoughts from your physical body as well, you will discover your own true energetic form. This energetic self does not exist only in your physical body, but outside of it as well, in eternity. If you can experience this energetic self, even for a second or two, you will know that I exist!
Set your intent to access and experience this self and then you will know the answers to the questions that the mind cannot grasp very easily. Experiences of the energetic self are the means to understanding how I can still exist. Your physical self will grasp this as well, once the mind’s conjuring have been removed. It will “know,” as deeply as your spirit knows. You already know what I’m talking about.
Every night you dream. Begin to dream with intent now. Intend to accept your energetic self and, with awareness, practice using this self more frequently, in waking and dreaming, allowing something besides your mind, and what it thinks it knows, to guide you. Look to your heart, the true organ of communication in each of you.
Energetic communication is what I have been doing, and continue to do. I use my energetic self to communicate and work in all worlds. The practice grows as lessons are learned, as awakenings are explored and accepted. It is a viable means of communication that can be practiced anywhere, even between people upon that earth. It’s called telepathy in some circles, but I prefer to call it energetic communication.
Be open to life in a new way, to the life that lies before your eyes, My Dears. But also be open to life that you cannot so easily see with your human eyes. When doubt arises, ask the self to let it go, to stay with burgeoning awareness, simply for the heck of it. There is no harm in that! Be an explorer! It’s what I am. I explore, try things out, discover how things work, and then I use what I learn to communicate. In the beginning, it can be a challenging and even clumsy process, but over time skills are naturally honed.
I look for you all in energetic form, those I knew intimately in more than one form and those I don’t know yet. I always have been looking for you. Look for me in return. You will know me by my energy! There will be no doubt that it is I!
My love expands upon you all. It’s all that matters, you know, love and loving all beings equally, without attachment.
I awaken with a start from an action-packed thriller dream. As the storyline reassembles to waking consciousness, I survey the state of my body. My jaw and throat are tightly clenched. The muscles of my legs and arms are tight as well. My pelvis, abdomen, stomach and chest are all frozen. In my stilled state I breathe slowly, lightly, and intermittently from my upper chest. My body lies in utter stillness. My emotions are sadness and fear. My overall body sensation is one of pensive anxiety.
I begin to review the dream, what it means in this dimension of waking life. What are the parallels, the synchronistic implications for life in this day? My mind begins to tell me a story to fit the theme of the dream, to account for the vigilant state I experience in my body. My mind concludes that indeed, bad news must be on the near horizon; I must remain on alert, brace myself.
I remind myself of the many stories my mind has generated in the past to account for similar physical states of heightened alertness. I remind myself how rarely those stories have turned out to be true. I remind myself that the storyteller mind is quite creative, however, its genre is essentially fiction, not to be trusted to guide the daily ship.
These reminders, I notice, have little impact on releasing my body from the vice grip it finds itself in. I appreciate the mind’s attempt to help the body release through these reflective reminders, but I also realize that my body needs a different approach.
I direct my consciousness away from the storytelling center of the mind and enter into the state of my abdomen. I notice the tension of its grip. Slowly, I direct my breath into my abdomen, allowing it to expand like a balloon. With that, I notice the tightness in my pelvis and stomach gladly asking to follow the lead of my abdomen. They all release and my abdominal energy flows in harmony once again. I notice my breath beginning to fill my chest cavity, the muscles around my ribcage relaxing, allowing for deeper expansion as my heart opens as well.
I shift my focus to my still-clenched throat and jaw, releasing the tightness of my jaw, directing air slowly into the channel of my throat, allowing it to expand slightly more with each breath. I notice my fingers and toes spontaneously uncurling. I feel warm blood flowing throughout my body. I notice my mind is quieter, as it listens to my body, how it questions whether there is, in fact, danger at all. That thought sends a spark of alertness through my body. I quickly shift my awareness back to my body and take in a full breath, allowing all parts to release as I exhale. I’m good to go now.
I realize that had I not gone and met my body where it was at, I would have held its tension, however, subliminally, throughout the day. It’s message to the mind would have generated an ongoing epic story, reinforcing its conclusion that I must remain on alert. That would have been the dominant experience of the day. Without awareness brought to the body, to release it from its reaction to the world of the dream, I would not have been freed to be fully present to life during the daytime.
It’s not enough to tell ourselves to relax. We must go to the body and meet it where it’s at. We must free it to accompany us through the day, so that it may correctly perceive and communicate its reactions to the here and now, offering a true gauge of the reality of the moment. I know, from years of study and observation, as well as personal experience, that like the animals who sense and communicate the momentarily arriving danger of an earthquake or oncoming storm, that the body will tell me when there is real danger. We can trust it, but must first go to meet it where it may be stuck and preoccupied with old reactions to old stories, which must be cleared if we are to be fully present and aware.
As my dream and subsequent experience reveals, we must go and meet the body where it is at, listen to its findings, and help it release old reactions if we are to fully benefit from its ability to assess and react to real and present danger. To merely shout commands from above, telling it to relax, will not suffice. We must go inward and tenderly treat ourselves to a natural release. Once we have accomplished that, all can proceed from there!
Chuck
When we are met with a smile, a nod, or a gentle welcoming gesture, we are programmed to soften, feel safe, relax our defenses and breathe freely. This innate archetypal bodily response to accepting supportive validating gestures may be inhibited by a history of traumatic interruptions that threatened safety; however, these bruises in human interactions can heal and, over time, allow us to relax into our innate capacity for love. We never lose our innate capacity to give and receive love.
The journey to freeing our innate capacity to receive the world, and express our full presence in it, is multilayered but largely physical. The bruises of trauma generate archetypal bodily defenses far more ancient than the archetypes of human interaction.
Failures in human interaction trigger an intrinsic self-driven defense system that functions independently of the behavior of others. If others cannot be trusted then the self alone becomes the source of safety.
The body turns on its own vigilant guard to protect the boundaries of the self. Sleep may be light or infrequent as a result of such vigilance. Muscles remain taut, shoulders tight, breathing shallow. All bodily systems, in fact, stay on heightened alert to possible danger, cautiously anticipating, planning, and avoiding potential trouble. This completely self-reliant defense system is ancient and highly useful in times of real danger. In our evolutionary history there was a time when it alone insured survival. Though less necessary in the modern world, it can be activated in a heartbeat should we be confronted with serious danger.
A major challenge in healing from trauma is turning off this ancient defense system when it has been activated unnecessarily. Here the human ability to reflect and choose a new action is particularly useful.
We can employ the mind, with its ability to observe and reason, to assess whether we are indeed really, in the here and now, in danger. The realization that we are not in danger in no way lessens the grip of this ancient defense that protects us through its control of our body, but it does give us a point of awareness, within our body, that alerts us to where the true work lies.
Reason alone has little to no impact upon the body’s defenses. We can, however, intentionally direct our awareness to our body and notice the state of our muscles and organs—heart, stomach, throat, etc.—as well as our breathing. We can, with awareness and intention, begin to direct our breath to various parts of our body that we notice to be clenched or shut down. We can, for instance, progressively soften and loosen our solar plexus or heart as we gently direct our breath into it. Similarly, we can begin to release tension in our shoulders and legs, or wherever we find tension in the body, by intending ourselves to do so. The body quite obediently listens and responds to our intentions.
As we consciously release the grip of vigilance in our body, our brain receives different messages from our body self that lies separate, beneath the head of reason. If our muscles and organs are relaxed, our brain concludes that we must be safe. The brain is then freed to stop its own vigilant story making that had given definition to the worrisome messages that it had been receiving from a tense, defended body.
Every time we release the tension of a clenched part of our body we change the message to the brain and the brain, in turn, changes its message back to the body. Over time, the brain can send the message that it’s okay to relax; we are safe. With safety comes receptivity, and our inherent archetypal ability to engage in deeper human connection opens. Smiles, nods, and warmth are able to be more safely received and expressed. We open.
This process of opening is indeed multifaceted and includes the journey of recapitulation, but it can be supported and enhanced, at any time—even in this moment—with one gentle directed breath.
Breathing away,
Chuck
The term out-of-body experience, also known as an OBE, is specific to an energy body state where consciousness is separate and away from the physical body. The physical body might remain in full view to the energy body during an OBE, or the energy body might travel away from the physical body to the ends of the earth, though remain tethered and fully capable of snapping back into it in an instant. This separation of energy and physical body is quite natural, especially in dreaming. It can also happen volitionally in waking states or involuntarily under the impact of trauma.
Traumatic separation of physical body and energy body is considered a dissociative psychological defense that occurs when overpowering physical or psychological events—events that are too much for the body to process—send consciousness into refuge away from the body.
As opposed to an OBE, dissociation can also occur within the body, in an in-body experience. In contrast to a separation of energy body and physical body, this dissociation involves a separation of mind and body where the mind dominates as an in-body energy center that preoccupies our attention—or consciousness—with an incessant internal dialogue that judges, critiques, and compares us to others without pause. This nonstop stream of chatter can so absorb our awareness that our bodies are completely rigidified and fatigued by the emotional energy generated by these internal messages. In fact, our internal messaging systems, like the texts and pings we constantly hear on mobile devices as we walk, sit, talk, sleep, and drive, completely dissociate us from the location and action of our bodies in space and time.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico called this dominance of the human body by the mind, a foreign installation—an aberration that grossly limits our humanness and the fuller realization of our true human potential. Pragmatic practitioners, those shamans realized that they could not fight the mind with the mind. They discovered instead that they could find inner silence, the shutting down of the incessant dialogue of the mind, by practicing bodily movements that required their full attention in order to be performed successfully. Toward this end those shamans saturated their lives with these physical movements, which they called Magical Passes. With full attention placed on doing these bodily movements, they were able to achieve increasing moments of inner silence that released access to their fuller potential as navigators of infinity outside the limited confines of the mind.
I encourage the practice of movements such as tensegrity, yoga, martial arts, or any physical activity that when practiced mindfully— with full awareness of the body experience—separates the practitioner from the meanderings of the dissociative mind.
Awareness, in full association with body, unleashes our true potential as human beings and frees us from the bondage of a mind-driven dissociated life, which is the current fixation of our species. The mind in this fixed state is a great thing to lose, as awareness is then freed to fully coordinate with the wisdom and action of the body in alignment with our unlimited potential.
Always moving,
Chuck