Tag Archives: body

Readers of Infinity: Body Speak

In alignment, creating inwardly now…

Change is happening now. Don’t you see it? Don’t you feel it? In your own lives change is happening.

If you decide that you are stuck, then you will miss the exuberant energy of change that has come to visit you. However, if you decide to embrace the energy of change, no matter where it may take you or what it might mean in the long run, you will be greatly surprised and relieved of your constant issues of discord.

Discord, of spirit, comes with being human, for human body and spirit will fight each other, even to the death. Yet, keep in mind that spirit and body both never give up, for they are married to each other until a new level of understanding is reached. Only then will they relinquish their grip upon each other, a grip that is both loving and adversarial. This is an ancient bond that will determine the evolution of each one of you.

Do you fight your spirit?

Find the means of communicating with your spirit throughout the day. Ask it to guide you. And yes, your own spirit will guide you; speaking to you in terms you will understand. The only thing you need to do is listen. Pay attention often enough and finally you will get the clear messages that are being directed through your human self, your body, for this is the language your spirit speaks: Body Speak. Once you understand this, it will become easier to communicate with your spirit, and you will understand your body/spirit discord as your greatest asset.

Keep in mind that spirit self resides in body self, so most often spirit will speak through body self. This means that you must start listening to how your body reacts. Investigate what it tells you. Take your first assumption, which will most likely be a mind/thought/worry/fear reaction—perhaps even full of self-loathing or deeply self-effacing—and go deeper, beyond the mind and into the body alone. Eventually you will get the deeper meaning of the signs your spirit is communicating through your body.

For instance: If you eat too much you might get a tummy ache, bloating, gas, etc. This might make you feel bad about yourself, leading to thoughts of gluttony, inability to control desire, neediness, self-hatred, etc. But what is your body really telling you? It is really telling you that it speaks to you! In very simple language that you can actually feel!

What does your headache tell you? What is your spirit telling you by your inertia? What is your spirit trying to alert you to in your vigorous energy today? What is your spirit trying to tell you, as it speaks through the wall of your human body?

Some Body Speak is easier to understand than others, such as sleepiness, hunger, thirst, but there are deeper signals behind each and every sign you receive.

Take sleepiness for instance. Okay, my body tells me I’m tired. What do I do? Fight it? A good reaction would be to pay attention and get some rest; without resentment, anger or worry, simply acquiesce. Take it to another level as you acquiesce. With care of self in mind, allow rest to be what it should be: rejuvenating. Ask spirit self to let the body rest for so many hours. Ask dreams to guide you as you sleep. Ask awareness to remember dreams upon awakening. Use sleep time on many levels, with the first intent being care of body, and second being spiritual work.

This is what body and spirit desire in human beings: constructive cooperation, enthusiasm, and commitment to growth. This is what life itself desires, life as an evolutionary project, for each one of you is a work of art. Each one of you is the inspiration and the artist, and the project itself. Each one of you has all that it takes to create a beautiful artistic creation: The Self.

Requirements for such creative work are simple: willingness, perseverance, and openness to the possibilities that you are constantly being offered to do the work of the self. All of you have the materials and tools within.

Don’t be so afraid of life. Life is yours; within you it seeks expression. Begin there. Stop looking for it outside of you and look inward. This is where your creative energy awaits, where spirit resides, in your own body. The two, spirit and body, are inexplicably aligned, even when you don’t think they are.

Ask them to teach you, and then wait, with the sure knowing that they will. Be ready to receive your guidance. Learn how it comes. It may take some time to figure it out, but just remember this: everything is meaningful. Do not dismiss anything that comes to you, for you may be missing the guidance you so desperately seek.

Life itself shows you the way to enlightenment, fulfillment, wholeness, connection, and all else that you seek. Be open. Be kind to self and others. Learn impeccability. Learn these things and what they really mean each day that you live your creative inner life.

Work on the self is the most unselfish of acts. Find the means to begin a new project: evolution of the self, ergo evolution of the world. Resolve the discord between body-self and spirit-self, for the self and for the greater good. You can’t go wrong. Listen to your Body Speak.

Channeled most gratefully, and with love.

Readers of Infinity: Body-Mind Communication

Somewhere in between the shadows lies the aware self

Dear Infinity: What message of guidance do you offer us today?

Be mindful of the body self. Be aware that pain signifies a need for change. Be also aware that in change itself there is indeed pain. Pain may be a catalyst to change and change, in turn, may trigger pain, but either way, in offering pain, life is suggesting that change is necessary.

Why must we change? As human beings life is all about change. From the moment of conception until death, change is constantly taking place, both incrementally and in leaps and bounds. Sometimes we find ourselves perfectly happy to be along for the ride and at other times quite reluctant. But, in the end, change happens anyway.

There is a determining factor, often overlooked, in the changing process and its outcome, and that factor is the self, the aware self. In training the aware self, one becomes attuned to what the body self indicates in its daily alerts.

Pay attention to pain, not as something to be suppressed and gotten rid of, but as a challenge to raise self-awareness. Pay attention to what pain is trying to tell you, often on a very deep level. Pain may come in the form of physical pain, but it is also likely to come in the form of emotional or mental pain as well.

Allow the self to treat pain differently now. Attend to it differently. Ask it to clarify its message. Ask it to guide you to understanding and release—for pain requires a response on your part if it is to truly be released. In release comes greater clarity and growth, the kind of growth that leads to more acute awareness of the self, both the physical body self and its messages as well as the higher, aware, self and its messages.

Inner work can begin simply by bringing attention to pain in the body—physical, mental, emotional, spiritual—in whatever form it appears. Ask it to let you in on why you must suffer. The higher self and the body self communicate quite well already, but you lie somewhere in the middle of the communication, often not privy to the real messages being sent. Learn to speak the silent language of body-mind communication. It’s not really that hard to do.

Somewhere in the folds of self lies clarity

Ask pain, in whatever form it comes, to lead you to clarity. Know that it is necessary, first of all, and know, as well, that it is equally necessary to acquiesce to the release of it. It is what happens in between that matters. Old pain left behind creates blockages and communication between the body self and the higher self suffers as a result, leaving you feeling distant, in muffled unawareness.

Find time for quiet talk within. Learn the secret language of body-mind communication. Begin with that. Sit with quiet mind and wait for insight. You will receive it. Decide what needs to be done to begin a process of change that is right for you alone. If a course of action is not clear, ask again. Receive another message and ask another question. In patience, await your body-mind response. It will come.

There is always a part of you ready to give the answer. There is another part of you that must be ready to receive it. Once you begin to recognize these two parts and the language that they alone speak, you will be well on your way to changing in a different way, all aspects of self—body, mind, spirit, physical, mental, emotional—communicating nicely.

Oh, and don’t forget to enjoy the process, one of the most engaging and enlightening, that of being human with awareness!

Thank you infinity!

Most humbly and gratefully channeled by Jan Ketchel.

#699 Chuck’s Place: In-Body Experience

All the faculties, possibilities, and accomplishments of shamanism, from the simplest to the most astounding, are in the human body itself.”
-Carlos Castaneda, The Wheel of Time (p. 199)

Today, I explore the value of achieving the full energetic potential of the human body by learning to breathe. As Castaneda suggests in the above quote, the gateway to the energy body is the physical body. In Hatha Yoga, and all yogas, the breath is the most important factor. In fact, yoga is all about breathing. In the asana called Savasana the body is calmed to its energetic vibratory state. This is the result of deep relaxation and full breathing, no obstructions. Full breathing entails breathing deeply into the abdominal cavity and filling the lower, middle, and upper parts of the lungs; it is also commonly called the three-part breath. Typically, most people limit their breathing to shallow breathing that only fills the upper lungs, leaving the abdominal area, in particular, unfilled and dormant.

The tensions of modern day life and the inner instincts are borne in the rigidity of the body, in what Wilhelm Reich, a psychoanalyst from Freud’s inner circle, called character armour. Reich, whose main area of focus was on the body, theorized that most of what the human race accepts as climax or orgasm is incomplete, as the natural involuntary movements of coitus are generally restricted by the ego’s inability to let go to full body release. His most famous student, Alexander Lowen, founded the Bioenergetic School of Psychotherapy to address the rigidities in the body that inhibit the full realization of physical pleasure in modern day men and women.

Fear, whether it be generated by the ego’s discomfort with the instinctual animal self or by trauma, or simply by the conjuring mind itself, often registers in the body as a constriction in the throat, resulting in shallow respiration. Deep instinctual impulses or psychic complexes may also be held back or stored in the stomach and abdomen, as well as in other parts of the body. Shallow breathing results in a numbness, or lifelessness, a virtual disconnect from the body below the head. Cultural norms that insist upon flat stomachs further rigidify the midsection of the body, forcing it to be held in. As a consequence of these types of bodily restrictions, middle and lower lung breathing is rarely accomplished in daily life, creating an in-body state of dissociation.

In-body association is critical to both wholeness and furthering our evolutionary potential in the energy body state. Many people who have had out-of-body experiences (OBEs) as a result of trauma must first re-associate their physical body to further their OBE exploration. This requires opening up the connection between the head and the rest of the body, which includes full breathing without obstruction. In fact, shamanic recapitulation, which is the practice of re-associating all of life’s experiences on an energetic level, includes a deep breathing magical pass.

I suggest, in addition to other practices involving healing and wholeness, that a focus be placed on learning how to naturally breathe into the abdominal area. Bringing awareness to the abdominal area, relaxing it, allowing it to begin filling with air while breathing in through the nose, and contracting the abdomen while exhaling through the nose, is a good first step in learning to connect with and discover the full energetic benefits of deep breathing. This can be practiced regardless of constriction that might be felt in the throat. Consistent practice may allow the rest of the lungs to fill, flowing from the abdominal area in full three-part breathing, eventually allowing the head to release its fear and constriction to this deeper connection.

Breathing is our most natural bodily instinct and our greatest bodily need. Our first and most important act is to take the breath of life. So, breathe fully! Breathe with awareness, allowing for deep in-body experience, the gateway to everything!

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

The following books are available in our Store: The Wheel of Time under the Shamanism category and Yoga and Health under Resources.