We live in a state of constant air - perpetually in the realm of the intellect. It's not entirely our fault. The internet and mainstream media have a mighty pull. Fed by headlines and buzz feeds, advertisements in both visual and auditory noise storms, we are over stimulated and hyper alert. We are the wired through wireless generation, constantly on alert, constantly living in a fear state because everything is feeding into our heads. Think symbolically - the brain, the vessel for thought, ideas and intellect, is at the top of the tree, head in the wind. Our culture feeds this constantly, making us believe particular narratives to suit a capitalist agenda. Neglect to water the roots and the tree is in perpetual sway until it falls. Hyper-wiredness leads us into hyperstates of depression, anger anxiety, frustration - into holeness over wholeness, lacking the nourishment we need to fully inhabit the space of human experience.
Never has this been so true than in this age of global pandemic. Everything has the qualities is vatta - in ayurveda, vattas qualities are airy - moveable, quick, changeable. Look how fast the virus has moved across the globe, or at least the human response to it. We have barely had chance to adapt. We have an unseen enemy transmitted through the air and are told to be afraid of it. Vatta energy also governs breathing and the heart rate - something affected by emotional states. Vatta is fine in balance - we are most creative in this energetic state - but out of balance, we easily becomd frightened, anxious, and depressed. We're not taught ways to cope. We ignore death and compassion is muted and replaced with self interest and competition. We're detached from nature and our true nature.
Little wonder so many of us are failing to cope. I know I haven't been. Believe me I've screamed and cried and sat in the darkness with my heart aching a lot these last few months.
Coronavirus anxiety is a thing
In this state, our hormones are activated and we become in a perpetual state of fight, flee or freeze. We become angry (flight), tune out by increasing screen time or drinking (flee) or become disengaged and disinterested (freeze). I can't say that I haven't been guilty of this - I couldn't write this piece and not say I haven't sat down to a nightly wine for the first few months, put my fingers in my ears and la-la-la'd, watched Netflix or refused to out in public or speak to anyone.
It makes us sick. Mades me sick.
How can we live a whole life perpetually in this state of dis-ease, dis-interest, dis-ability? How can we re-store ourselves into a sense of contentment and completeness? How can we - I - heal from this punch in the world-face?
We need to move out if this intellectual, hyper activated state and into our bodies.
This embodiment is what a yoga practice - or indeed any somatic art form like dance or tai chi - is all about - it's awareness activation of all our parts working as part of a whole human experience.
This is something more particular to healing philosophies such as TCM that looks at the intelligence of the whole body - heart, lungs, fascia, liver and so on - over Western practices that centre on the brain. Coming into our bodies, we become more in tune with all that is, rather than existing merely in cultural and social stories.
For example, take again the virus. Our response to it is air - we are afraid of dying, our position on top of the food chain is challenged, we see everyone as the enemy, economic stability is usurped and we begin to distrust our relationships, our governments, the systems we must live within.
But if we approached it from an embodied state, we approach it differently. We notice our increased heart rate and slowly exhale, calming the nervous system. We nourish our gut with quality, organic food to support our immune function. We notice the tensioning of our shoulders and jaws, and gently take steps to release tension there that leads to back pain. We notice inflammation because we are paying attention.
We are paying attention to the wholeness of our human experience.
We feel the earth between our feet, the soil against our fingertips, where the first absorption of bacteria are absorbed into the skin to become part of our living biome. We feel the heart resonating into space and it coming back at us, compassionate symbiosis. We accept death and tune into the flowing rhythms of our bodies as they age and decay. We love our bodies unconditionally, because they are as strong as they are weak. We know to be still when it is needed and to move when it is needed, propelled by an inner knowing and feeling that is in tune with our bodies needs, not the dictates of things outside us.
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It's in this way that we begin to move toward wholeness. We become all things - air, yes, but also earth, and fire, and water - fluid, adaptable, passionate, grounded and creative. We tune into our heart's knowing, which starts to drive all we do - loving minds, loving bodies, loving relationships. From this place of love, we give back out into the world what we have chosen to recieve from it - not the static wired-ness of this culture, but the flowing is-ness of all that is, and all we can be.
And so any practice that helps us become embodied, and helps us pay attention to the things that bring us back to our true selves, is a practice that can help heal what is broken and fragmented, pulled tight and wound up, splintered and frail. We pay attention to the universe - not just a tiny, flawed and broken part of it.
Through coming into my body, I ease, restore and heal, more fully able to participate in the world, despite it's intensity. There is good here, and I must attend to that.
This piece is in response to Abundance Tribe's Question of the Week about how we might achieve wholeness. There are many ways I could frame a response - this one grew from my own yogic practice of where my attention goes.
With Love,
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Living in an eternal state of worry and anxiety is not what we are destined for, and it has a nasty tendency to feed on itself because then we even start worrying about "worrying too much!"
The Internet is a marvelous invention (I say this as a dedicated "nerd!") but it has done us little favor in the sense of serving as a way for many people to spend too much time in their heads; in their thoughts, and thus become quite ungrounded.
I love working in my vegetable garden not just because it helps us grow great food, but because it allows me to get my hands and feet in the dirt. And that matters!
Bright Blessings!
Oh yeah believe me I worry about feeling anxious!!!
I walk a fine line between tech and freedom from tech, that's for sure!!! Balance in all things.
Same same - the vegetable garden and great outdoors is my saviour.
Love and light back atcha x
Interesting thoughts... and yes, ayurveda has much to offer us with its ancient wisdom.
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Thanks @artemislives!!!! It's definitely a really valid way of interpreting the world, our health and our relationship to both. Like TCM, both offer us a lens!
Much love.
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ENGAGEtokens.Amen!
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Very poignant in parts and inspirational in others... but 100% spot on all round!
So, SO true!!!!
@creativemary wrote a post recently... the details of which may interest you!
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Thanks beautiful ... ill check out hers and yours in the morn!!
xxx
Thank you Jaynie🤗
No need xxx
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Yes awareness is so important and remembering who we are in all of this craziness, it is easy said than done, but we must. Thank you for this wonderful response xxxxx
Thank-you for tuning us into the wholeness, being in touch with our true self, that coming back into our body through somatic art form can bring!
Such a transformation from your opening few paragraphs to the final ones that invoke a more loving way!