The Instinctual Mind

Breathing into the heart opened a whole new universe for me. I could feel my heart healing as I began to digest the flood of vivid feelings, sensations and impressions that I carried from my past. My heart began to feel like a vast ocean, but I assumed that there had to be more.

Internal Martial Arts systems in China emphasize the development of the dan tien which is situated within the lower abdomen. I began to wonder what would happen if I were to center my awareness within the feelings and sensations that I experienced within my abdomen. I possessed very little awareness of this part of my body, and I couldn’t really feel that very much was happening in the beginning. My intestines felt a little congested and I could also sense that I was holding a lot of tension within this part of my body.

My self-awareness has increased as a result of working with this practice. I can feel the issues and emotions that I hold within my body. Undigested issues and emotions cloud my awareness and leave me feeling bound up inside so that I cannot move as freely. Internalized issues and emotions also causes me to feel more disconnected from the higher power.

I’ll usually sit and breathe with my awareness focused on the feelings and sensations within the abdomen for thirty to ninety minute intervals for days or weeks at a time. I sometimes experience tension within my intestines and my abdomen can feel a little distended as the deeper layers of stress and emotion emerge. Reconnecting with these feelings and parts of myself can feel very uncomfortable. Waves of anxiety or other unsettling feelings sometimes make their way to the surface. That can leave me feeling a little raw or emotionally vulnerable.

I go out for long walks at other times. I can feel my aura expanding whenever I go out to walk in open spaces. The stresses and emotions that are normally pushed down inside begin to flow more readily through my body and aura. The Earth has its own aura or electromagnetic field and that helps to diffuse and purify the stresses and unpleasant emotions that surface.

Some of us find it difficult to attract anyone or we attract the wrong kinds of partners. Others continually self-sabotage by setting themselves up for failure. We often find ourselves confronted by the same kinds of people, circumstances and issues and that tends to evoke many of the same painful feelings. But we’ve been conditioned to resist any kind of pain for so long that we push the feelings back down. Frozen feelings and emotions have a way of holding everything in place. Our dysfunctional patterns can become so deeply ingrained and many of us struggle with the same kinds of issues throughout the course of our lives.

Many of us continually operate at the surface most levels of our consciousness. We try to think our way out of our problems. Thinking and talking about our problems often becomes another means of resistance as it distances us from our true feelings. But some of us have intellectualized our problems for so long and that’s all we know how to do and then we feel powerless to effect any real change in our lives. We will never get very far in attempting to think our way out of our issues that are held within our body and subconscious mind.

Unresolved issues and emotions can create so much confusion within us. This confusion can easily spill over into other parts of our lives. That makes it difficult for us to gain any real clarity or understanding about ourselves, our relationships, the world we live in and what we’re here to do in our lives. Many of the issues will sort themselves out and the confusion will abate as we learn to digest our feelings.

I had internalized so much pain and conflict and that caused me to attract or become attracted to women who were either unavailable or abusive. I tried so hard to hold on when things were not working and that just created even more pain and confusion. The powerful emotions buried within my subconscious blinded me so that I couldn’t see what I was doing. Those emotions also created a powerful compulsion that caused me to repeat the same pattern.

The dramas that I was caught up in became more transparent once I began to digest the underlying emotions that had held the problems in place for so long. I could then see and understand the patterns that had been playing out in my life. I began to deconstruct the "drivers". The driving compulsion that caused me to enact unhealthy patterns began to lose its power. I felt my attachment to the other person dissolving to the point that I no longer had a need to be with them. My attraction to unhealthy kinds of people and situations lessened. I then began to attract healthier people into my life.

Many of us have learned to shut down our emotions, disconnect from our bodies and are living up in our heads. Some of us have a tendency to dissociate and that can leave us very ungrounded. Breathing into the feelings and sensations within the intestines has a very grounding effect as it cuses us to become more rooted in our bodies.

I was very disconnected from my own body and emotions. I lived in my head and tended to take everything that I saw or heard at face value. I couldn’t understand why certain people were so incongruent. I tended to personalize other’s behaviors and I sometimes felt hurt when people were being dishonest, playing games and being hurtful or insincere.

I internalized a lot of sexual shame and guilt growing up in a fundamentalist Christian environment. I also encountered a lot of very negative attitudes toward men as I grew older. The message I received was that there was something wrong with me for having any kind of need or desire to connect or to experience intimacy. My own needs and desires to be in a relationship and my sexuality were not okay. There have been times when I felt these parts of myself shutting down.

Breathing into the abdomen has helped to awaken my sexuality. I’ve began to feel a strong vibration or sense of aliveness throughout my abdominal-pelvic basin. Becoming vibrant and alive in this region of the body creates a magnetic presence that’s made it easier for me to attract the kind of person who is right for me. I found that it was also important to breathe into the any feelings of shame or of not being okay, good enough or acceptable. Digesting these feelings enabled me to experience greater self-acceptance. Breathing into any feelings and sensations of desire has also helped to awaken these parts of myself. I feel more comfortable with myself and grounded in my own sexuality.

I learn so much as I’m working with people and observing what’s happening within their bodies and mind. I can see where people are at in their lives, the kinds of issues they are dealing with, their level of intelligence and other resources they possess. I can see the impact that painful or emotionally traumatic experiences have within the body and mind of an individual. I can also see how illness is manifesting within the body.

One of my greatest desires is to do everything I can to help others to increase their level of self-awareness and to provide tools and resources that will facilitate healing and personal development. Writing is an enjoyable creative process that makes it possible for me to share my insights. But there are also times when I can’t seem to find the words to articulate what I’m seeing and feeling within people’s bodies and minds. That can be very frustrating for me. Sometimes I just need to forget about the writing for a while and go do other things. I have also discovered that the insights always flow more readily whenever I remember to breathe with my awareness centered on the feelings and sensations within my abdomen. I’ll also breathe with my awareness centered within any feelings of frustration, stuckness or confusion.

Developing the awareness within the intestines helps to increase our intellectual and emotional range. The enteric nervous system or ENS has been described as a second brain. The ENS is embedded within the lining of the gastrointestinal system. The ENS is comprised of a vast network of complex neuro circuitry. It has somewhere around one hundred million neurons that allow it to learn and remember. The ENS utilizes the same neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, nitric oxide and norepinephrine that facilitate the function of our brain.

Many of us struggle to find a sense of purpose or direction in our lives. There may be many things that interest us. But we start to do something and then lose interest, because we do not feel passionate about what we’re doing. Suppressing feelings and emotions shuts down much of our body-mind consciousness. We disconnect from the parts of our consciousness that would reveal our true purpose and then there’s no real passion or desire to move us.

Our life’s purpose is something that we feel through our bodies and emotions. Breathing into our feelings and emotions helps us to digest the backlog of unprocessed stress and emotion and the internal conflicts that that make it so difficult for us to move forward in our lives. Working with this practice makes it possible for us to develop a greater awareness of our deep underlying needs, which are connected to our true life’s purpose. Actualizing our needs makes it possible for us to fulfill our purpose.

Breathing into the abdomen has awakened an instinctual knowing within that has given me a very strong sense of what I need to be doing. It causes me to feel very agitated if I’m wasting time and energy by doing things that are not on track with my purpose. I feel a very strong desire emotionally and physically that lets me know when something is right for me. I get a feeling that says "…I have to do this". I feel a strong sense of passion for what’s truly important for me and a sense of urgency that compels me to move.

So much emphasis is being placed upon developing the heart. We do need to open our hearts so that we can experience more love and compassion for others. But our heart awareness is very limited when we are disconnected from the parts of our consciousness that reside within our abdomen.

We are all connected to our mothers through the umbilical cord when we come out of the womb. Our deepest emotional bonds are experienced within the abdomen. We become much more present within our bodies and our interactions with others as we develop the awareness within our abdomen. Awakening this part of our consciousness increases our capacity for intimacy. We experience greater empathy and that helps us to understand the needs and considerations of others.

Our intestines are somehow connected to other parts of our body. What happens within our intestines affects all of our organs and systems. Breathing into the feelings and sensations that we experience within our abdomen will cause the tension our neck and upper back to release. This practice also helps to relieve tension that many people hold in their jaw that causes them to grind their teeth at night. Many other health concerns respond and show considerable improvement as we work with this practice.

People who work with this practice describe so many different kinds of feelings and sensations within the abdomen. However, many people do not feel much of anything in the beginning. Many of us will initially experience very subtle sensations such as dullness, heaviness or a slight sense of warmth. That is to be expected considering that most of us are not very conscious of our physical bodies.

Many people mistakenly assume that nothing is happening if they’re not experiencing some kind of vivid feeling or sensation. Breathing into the feeling of heaviness, inertia or other vague sensations is still very effective, as it helps to awaken the consciousness within this part of our bodies. With continued practice, our body-mind awareness will increase and the sensations will become much more vivid.

Many people have told me that they don’t feel comfortable with or connected to the lower part of their torso and that the emotions, energies and imagery contained therein feel foreign. Some have said that it feels very dark and scary inside their abdomen and that focusing their awareness within this part of the body brings up all kinds of feelings that they would rather not experience. This is one of the things that can happen as we suppress our feelings and disconnect from parts of ourselves.

Breathing into the unpleasant feelings and sensations allows us to bring consciousness into these parts of our body and mind. The dark and menacing quality will be replaced by warm and comforting feelings as these parts of our selves become healthy and alive. Our body and mind will then become a place of refuge where we return to find strength and inspiration.

Many of us are juggling long hours of work, caring for our partners and families and various other responsibilities. We may never really have the opportunity to process the stresses of our day to day lives. Our mind-brain is always recording. Television and other forms of media continually feed all kinds of audio and visual impressions into our system. The stresses of day to day life and the continual barrage of media input can leave us on sensory overload. The mind-brain-body system then becomes saturated with all the stresses, emotions and other sensory inputs that we are unable to digest.

Breathing with our awareness focused within the intestines stimulates both the brain and mind. Working with this practice can sometimes produce mild altered states as vivid imagery and dreamlike scenarios begin to play out in our awareness. It can feel at times as if the brain is purging itself of its accumulated clutter.

Working with this practice also intensifies my normal sleeping dreams by causing them to become much more vivid. My dreams will at times have a very thick and garbled quality about them. It feels like a cleansing process is taking place within me as that happens. I can feel my sensory capacity increasing and that allows me to become more aware of what’s happening.

Much of our stress gets pushed down within our abdomen. Many of us feel as though we have knots in our stomach whenever we become upset. Stressful emotions can damage our intestines when we fail to process them. This is one of the primary reasons that so many people are suffering from digestive disorders.

The abdomen becomes very dense and congested when vital healthy life force can no longer flow within this part of our bodies. Our body loses many of the vital resources that it needs to sustain itself. This can eventually lead to further health problems that cause our bodies to break down and age at a faster pace.

Physical, energetic and emotional toxins have a very deadening effect upon our awareness. These toxins cause us to feel heavy and sluggish as they reduce our life force and dull our senses. The inner spark or passion within us dies out and then we become complacent. Parts of our body-mind consciousness begin to shut down. That narrows our intellectual and emotional range and diminishes consciousness.

Breathing into the feelings and sensations helps to awaken the healing intelligence within our body and mind and to bring greater consciousness into our bodies. Our bodies and minds can then begin to heal themselves. Breathing into the feelings and sensations will help us to process the accumulation of stressful thoughts and emotions and to cleanse our body of toxicity. The knots will soften and unravel and the bloating will begin to subside. Digestion and elimination will improve. Digestive disorders such as colitis and Crohn’s disease usually show considerable improvement.

There’s a tremendous amount of self healing that we can do. I have also found that this practice becomes exponentially more powerful as I combined it with chi gong practices that are designed to build power within the dan tien, body work, healing session, and the vision quest.

The acupuncture meridians, chakras and layers of the aura are all aspects of our subtle anatomy that help to nourish and sustain our physical bodies. The chakras and levels of the aura start to break down when people’s bodies become heavy and congested from all the accumulated emotional baggage. Surgery and traumatic injuries can also damage the acupuncture meridians, the chakras and the layers of the aura. The chakras are often disfigured in individuals who were subjected to physical and sexual trauma. Healing sessions are often necessary to repair the damage to the physical and subtle bodies and to help you to digest the backlog of unresolved issues and emotions.

Start by sitting in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and then begin to breathe softly and deeply as you focus your attention in the area behind your navel in the middle of your intestines. Allow yourself to notice any physical or energetic sensations such as the texture or tone of the intestines or any emotional sort of feeling that you experience within this part of your body.

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