Notice how peaceful a calm weather day makes you feel within yourself, calm too, while a wild weather day makes you jittery and feeling unsafe, perhaps worried. Control of your central nervous system can be affected by things outside of you but also by things inside of you; thoughts are as worrisome as bad weather. Learn to speak to your central nervous system. Unlike an approaching weather system it will pay attention to you. You can calm it, placate it, urge it into peacefulness; it just takes practice. Breathe and speak kindly to yourself. You have the power you need within yourself to bring about the change you desire.
How fickle the weather, changing day to day, and yet over a whole week or a whole year it matters not, for as a whole the daily weather changes are insignificant. In the human life, however, as a search for centeredness is pursued, drastic daily changes register in the body, bringing disruptions that are readily noted, affecting everything in a person’s physiology. A calm body and mind on a daily basis are intrinsically important to a calm heart, to keeping a calm and centered attitude and central nervous system. No matter what is happening outside of you continue your good work on yourself, remaining calm despite the storms, continuously honing your inner world.
The internal dialogue is that seemingly nonstop chatter in the backdrop of the mind that constantly judges everything and everyone, particularly one’s self! Carol Tiggs, Carlos Castaneda’s counterpart, as the Nagual Woman, once called it Bobby the Flyer, whose incessant lyric was: “I’m so bad!!!!”
Carol’s Bobby the Flyer issues from the shamanic mythological origin and function of the internal dialogue in humans: an extraneous predator that feeds off the negatively excited emotions generated by the voice of criticism and judgment. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico believed that this entity, whom they labeled the Flyer, influences our minds and bodies, through the internal dialogue, to ensure a steady supply of tormented emotions for its consumption.
This raises the phrase, feeding off negativity, to a whole new level. We certainly experience ourselves feeding off negativity when we find ourselves in a bad mood, as the internal dialogue assigns every perception we have with a negative thought and emotion, which can either eat away at us in depression or feed our aggression.
Carlos Castaneda taught that this Matrix-like dynamic corrupts the true magical nature of human nature, as it becomes shrouded and frozen in negativity. Typically, humans, though entranced by the negativity of the internal dialogue, compensate with materialistic delusions of freedom and satisfaction. Carlos jokingly called us complacent chickens in a chicken coop, unaware of the predatory nature of our true predicament.
On the positive side, this compromised energetic stalemate has generated for us a solid body and world, which offer us a great opportunity to refine our energetic essence to reach higher vibrational levels, as our minds seek liberation from this embodied negativity.
The restoration of our true magical beingness, experienced as awe, optimism, joy, and lightness of being, requires that we neutralize the impact of the internal dialogue. This begins with stating one’s intent to consciously assume control and direction of one’s mind. The realization of this intent assumes many forms.
Though I may not have control over the thoughts that pass through my mind’s eye, I can control the thoughts that I choose to look at. This is the essence of the core Buddhist imperative of non-attachment. If I don’t grasp at a thought—that is, engage a thought that automatically presents itself in a process of active thinking about it—it simply floats by without impact.
This is the essence of concentration in meditation: releasing one’s self from riding the automatic chain of associations that spring from attaching to a thought, volitionally returning one’s attention to one’s choice of focus instead, such as the breath. Not engaging the internal dialogue, with active attention, neutralizes its impact upon the subconscious mind, the law of attraction center of the human psyche.
The subconscious, when time is not taken for self-reflection, simply activates energetic programs that construct our reality and determine our emotional states. If negative self talk is delivered to the subconscious, it may result in feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, as well as fear of others, who seem so powerfully superior and threatening.
Alternatively, kind and loving messages of self-acceptance, volitionally delivered to the subconscious, may result in a positive, adventuresome outlook, as one becomes excited with the experience of living in the now. Realize that though this might be a coveted state of being, the familiar world, rendered by habitual attachment to the ever-defining drone of the internal dialogue, may be frightening to let go of. Freedom requires the awe and courage to enter new worlds of possibility.
The internal dialogue can be highly seductive. The ego might mistakingly believe it can engage in communication with it without harm. This is an ego inflation. As soon as one enters into debate with the internal dialogue, it wins. Its weapon is to grab your attention, and once it has that, it wins every time! Rationality ought to be more humble.
Beware of the reasonable offerings of the internal dialogue, which can sneak in like a Trojan horse spouting perfect logic. Better to shift attention to positive messages to the subconscious mind, than to expend one’s energy in debate that actually reinforces old programming. As the I Ching suggests, the best way to combat evil is to not engage directly in a confrontation with it but to make energetic progress in the good!
Do not attach to the idea that the internal dialogue will simply go away. It is in endless supply. We cannot control the world of thoughts we live in, which constantly seek inroads into our attention, but we can let them be. Simply don’t empower them any further by naively gifting them the energy of your attention.
If the internal dialogue generates a frantic beta brainwave state of incessant negative thought, remember the first-aid alpha brainwave breath, which will very quickly release you from its clutches. For as long as necessary do this repetitive breath: an inhalation into the belly to a count of 8, hold for 8, exhale to the count of 8, hold for the count of 4, repeat the cycle.
All attention on the count and sensation in the body. Breathe until your consciousness is free, then relish in the calm. No easy road to freedom, just keep on breathing and you’ll soon be free!
If balance within the self is achieved balance outside of the self may also be maintained, nurtured and utilized to great advantage. A more balanced inner self produces a more balanced outer self so that your progress in the world may go unhindered and your daily life be without fear, regret or resentment, for balance within the self addresses such issues. Look within to resolve that which distresses you rather than without, for if you are unsettled the world around you will appear as chaotic, but if you are settled within, the world around you will appear as in its own natural unfolding, as you will appear in yours. As within, so without.
The mass shootings of now grate upon our collective heart, nerves and gut, agitating our intent for calm and spiritual advancement in ourselves and our world. Our reactions range from outrage to utter despondency, true depression of spirit.
In the midst of WWI, in 1915, psychic researcher Frederic Myers, who had physically died in 1901, channelled to Juliet Goodenow the following perspective on the forces at play in the Great War, from his removed subtle perch in the next dimension:
“Germany is suffering today, in consequence of her having accepted as truth the writings of misguided theorists, involving the world in a conflict of opinion. Materialists have accomplished this tragic result through the materialistic belief of the nation… Nations that overdevelop materialistic ideas lose the necessary spiritual balance to retain sufficient equilibrium.” (Letters to Juliet: Is there Life after Death? p. 18)
Certainly, if we fast-forward to WWII, Germany fully materialized its theories of human perfection through actualizing laboratory procedures of purification via human extinction. The Holocaust became the ultimate material realization of misguided and misapplied spirit.
The passion of misguided beliefs achieving materialization are the tragic sparks we witness daily on our current world stage. The equilibrium we require for stability is extremely tenuous. How might an individual, but a cell of this living world soul, contribute to needed balance, both within and without?
All have direct access to the inner workings of their central nervous system. The subtlest thought or vibration registers in the nerves of the body, activating automatic reactions and responses. The speed and network of this subconscious activity is far more rapid than the deliberate analytic workings of the conscious mind.
As a result of these hidden mind/body processes, we might find ourselves seized with passion, or equally mired in sullen mood for unseen or unreflected reasons. These unconscious operations take hold of our state of physical charge and swoosh us along like dried leaves in a powerful wind. Collectively these winds generate the human clashes of now.
True, there are forces, seen and unseen, that strategically seek to provoke such disarray; all are not the meeting of non-premeditated intents. However, intended or random, we, as individuals, have the power to assume control of our central nervous systems.
In fact, this is critical to our greatest challenge in life, as we all must release our physical bodies at our time of death. Critical to optimal transition is the ability to completely relax, let go, and go with the flow of body to spirit. Resistance or refusal at this stage fixates one’s journey in an alternative illusory life, necessary to be completed before the real journey can be successfully resumed.
Thus, now, while fully alive as souls in physical body partnership, through focus upon our physical body, which constantly registers and reacts to spirit commands—conscious and unconscious—we can deepen our spirit’s calm and take command of our soul’s journey in this life and beyond.
The practice is quite simple, yet like all skills of value, requires patience and perseverance for optimal development. We begin by turning our awareness, which is a function of our spirit, to the state of tension in the physical body. We will notice if our heart rate is elevated, if our jaws are clenched, if our breathing is restricted, if our throats are constricted, if our belly is tight, if our perineum is tense, if pain or numbness is registering in some organ or appendage of the body.
With conviction and intention, we suggest to the body to go deeper into calm as we consciously release the tension in the body, taking it down a notch in calmness. With our breath in exhalation, we ask the body to take it down to another level of calm. We repeat this several times, as we reset and take command of the state of relaxation in the body.
Notice how another spirit, the internal dialogue, begins to initiate its interpretations, judgments, negative beliefs and stories, and how they stir the body to resume a tense state. Don’t engage in arguing with this cognitive activity. Instead, use it as a trigger to go deeper into calm.
In fact, begin to use all explosions of emotion and physical threat as triggers to go deeper into calm. Fear not that this will ill-prepare you to respond to danger. Every seasoned martial artist knows that the best strategy for encounter is the clarity afforded by deep calm. Certainly, the greatest opponent of all, death itself, is best managed in utter calm.
From the place of deep calm, you contribute calm and clarity to the collective world’s nervous system, contributing soothing balance to stabilize it in such tumultuous times.
Regardless of eruption upon the planetary surface, go deeper into calm. This is the Spirit that will materialize true equilibrium in our world.
