Yoga is not just a set of physical postures, movements and stretches. Western medical science has brought with it a limited view that our physical body is all that is. In treating the symptoms exhibited by our body without considering the whole of our being, we end up with side effects. Looking at yoga and meditation with this same mindset, we use it partially and it becomes ineffective.
I shall attempt to address your question from an energy psychology standpoint and suggest a solution. It is usually better to begin perceiving your energy body experientially through a set of tools and practices before seeking to understand the theory and concept behind it. So I suggest that you read the following article about the layers of the energy body around our physical body not to be able to understand or start believing it if you don’t do so already. But to hold it as a possibility, a hypothesis and begin a process of exploring to find out if it rings true to you eventually. Simply hold an open mind as you embark on this path.
Awareness Journey · October 4, 2022
The Five Different Kinds of Awareness The journey into awareness and the journey with awareness that I teach experientially allows one to access presence, connection and healing of the six significant awareness that exists for each and every human. These awareness have separate functions and requires healing and presence in ways that can lead to alignment of ourselves to be who we really are and become who we want to be. In this article I will briefly talk about the various aspects of awareness as seen through the lens of energy psychology. Physical body awareness is, as the name suggests the aspects of the physical body we know through living in it as well as scientific knowledge that is common knowledge today about the physical body. Working with the physical body awareness through energy psychology has some exciting and interesting benefits and healings. As a direct consequence of this experiential journey in physical body awareness I am physically fitter and healthier than I was twenty years ago. I am completely free from acidity and acid reflux problems, spondylitis, and lower back problems and also free from sinusitis. These were some of the crippling chronic ailments I had been suffering over three decades but had a coping and managing mechanism going, which, at the time, I thought was perfect, due to which I did not lose too many man days on the sick bed. Only now I realise how sub optimally I had been operating all those years. Secondly, I could not run beyond 200 meters and if I walked more than 3 kilometres, I needed a strong energy drink or snack to keep me going but even with that, I never went beyond 5 km. Now I regularly participate in 10 kilometre running races! My fitness now seems to be an absolute miracle to me because I never ever imagined it possible even a few years ago. My sinusitis and spondylitis used to be so severe that apart from several bouts of unbearable migraine every month; I was suffering a mild low-grade headache 24×7 over two decades. I had become so used to this continuous mild headache it became my normal. Only when I was completely free of it in 2017 did I realise that I had gone through years with a headache, my constant companion! What a miracle it seemed to me when I was totally free of it! For the first few weeks without it, I felt light-headed and almost as if I was floating! These are just the physical aspect of my story, my journey with physical body awareness. Emotional Awareness: I want to share some before/after stories to highlight what emotional awareness can do for you. One day several years ago, my boss, in an extremely irritated mood gave me severe scolding in the presence of some of my colleagues. His words, my faults he was pointing out and trying to correct and all were not heard by me because I felt extremely irritated and angry and at the same time deeply ashamed. My face was turning red; I started sweating and only wanted to run away. Later that day I developed nagging headache, which kept lingering for the next three days. After three days, with no relief or respite, I went to my grandfather and recounted the whole thing and cried a lot. He patiently heard me and just said a few words exactly pointing out my faults and what I needed to do to improve my output to avoid irritating my boss again. It was so soothing; it went deep into me and helped me change my behaviour so much that my boss started pointing to me as an example for others to follow. In this story, you can replace the boss with your client, partner, close relatives, anybody. After my emotional awareness journey, my grandfather now sits inside me when I encounter someone who is extremely angry and filters away all the other things and lets me absorb only the final few actionable words. So what took 3 days of sulking and suffering and intervention of a mentor now does not even take 3 seconds. There is another incident sixteen years ago, when my startup business was just two years old, struggling to find its feet, the Purchasing Chief of my biggest client called me to say that their top management has decided to delist my company from their vendor list due to an internal vendor consolidation program. I went five minutes late for the meeting and he shamed me for being sloppy and then conveyed their management decision. My personal friendship with the purchasing chief went back 15 years but that day he was aloof and seeming heartless. He just dismissed my presentation of how good our products are, how competitive and how much my startup depended on this business to break even and repay debts. It fell on deaf ears, I returned back feeling deeply ashamed, worthless and dejected. I handed charge of running my business to my partner and moved away from Gurgaon to Hyderabad. It took me two years to move back to Gurgaon and another five years after that to put our company back on track. Looking back, I see that at exactly same time we lost our biggest business, another client actually bigger than that was offering us business but we couldn’t grab it due to my emotional response to a huge loss. Emotional awareness helps me now to deeply feel the sadness and shame, but also use these very same emotions to instantly bring me back to my groundedness and helps me to be aware of how each loss or downfall or problem could actually be an opportunity in disguise. Emotional awareness is very different from emotional sensitivity. Being emotionally sensitive helps in being social and to bring passion into your work which is effective to motivate others to do your work. I used to be like this all my life, when you get irritated at some person or situation you would loose control and take wrong decisions or utter regrettable words. I always used to be like this. After emotional awareness, I am able to heal my anger, irritation or impatience instead of suppressing them and softly communicate with authority rather than aggression. I would run away or hide or avoid situations that cause shame or fear or sadness for me. If, I do not fulfil on a commitment, I would try my best to avoid meeting the client. If I lose an account I would get away to soothe my wounds alone. Now after emotional awareness, each of these events present to me exciting opportunities to strengthen relationships and deepen bonds. It is still amazing for me to see how an impossible adverse situation can be turned around to bring about fulfilment and joy merely with emotional awareness and acting out of that awareness. Mind awareness is again very different from IQ or a very sharp, clever logical analytic, quick mind. An aware mind can help you switch off the over active logical right brain activity and open up to your own emotions as well as the emotion of others. You might have noticed that highly intelligent people rarely enjoy deep bonding relationships. This is because it is impossible for the mind to slow down and allow the heart to lead when needed. I used to be like this, it would exhaust me and cause sleepless nights because my mind keeps going on and on with thoughts 24/7. After mind awareness, I am able to slow down or even shut down the incessant logical and analytical thoughts, allow emotions to play a balanced productive role and even open up to the intuitive and creative side of me. I am able to sleep better, be more healthy, balanced and effective now with an aware mind. The mind is the doer or the executive. It will plan and executive a project to perfect completion. But the mind is not effective in deciding which project to choose for execution, that is in the purview of the intuitive aspect or sprit body. Here by mind, I refer to the logical, analytical mind and by spirit body; I refer to the intuitive, creative mind. When the underlying emotions are unbalanced, the mind cannot work with clarity and it will go around in loops. Let me explain with an example here. When I had to prepare for an important presentation or client meeting, I would get terribly anxious and scared. As a result, my mind will constantly keep replaying the imagined sequence of events of the meeting and this hyperactive mind will prevent sleep and also prevent any other productive activity or interaction until the event. By the time the actual event takes place, I would be totally exhausted and end up making a suboptimal presentation. With mind awareness now, I can focus on the required planning and preparation for the presentation until it is done to satisfaction and after that simply switch off my mind and go and attend to the unbalanced emotions namely anxiety and then simply rest in a being state. This state would open up my intuitive aspect and I might get some new point or idea that could be added to my presentation to make it much more effective. I would also be rested with uninterrupted sleep and be able to make an effective presentation the next day as planned. Intuitive Mind or Spiritual awareness simply means to be able to open up your mind to intuitive inputs and creative inputs that are only available to your spirit. You can learn to tap into your full intuitive and creative potential at will. This has helped me to avoid taking hundreds of wrong paths and flawed decisions before zeroing in on the perfect decision or action plan. Intuition paves the short cut for you, helping you select only the best of the opportunity and projects for you. With my unlimited intuitive potential opened up, I am able to dramatically slow down on the action front while simultaneously being several folds more productive and effective than before. This is made possible because I do not need to opt for trial and error to find which path or plan or project or opportunity is the best for me and what time frame is perfect for that plan or path. There is no back tracking, covering up, correcting or regretting involved when your intuitive mind leads the way and logical mind follows. Experiences of ecstasy, devotion, deep fulfilment, boundless joy and surrenderfulness which translates to unshakeable faith and confidence are only possible with spiritual awareness or Intuitive Mind Awareness. It is my hope that you can access like I have, the various aspects of awareness as part of the growth and healing you may yearn for. To learn more about this and to buy my book or enrol into my online mentoring program use the link below to visit my website.
A disease in the physical body or the emotional mind-body or a mental health condition arises out of an imbalance in the energy body. Imbalances in energy body means disruption or distortion in the natural flow of energies in our energy body. This can be caused by external factors or internal factors. Internal factors means energy blocks or negative energies stuck deep within the energy body. These blocks would have been caused by traumatic events in the past or repeated experiences of trauma as in the case of C-PTSD.
Our energy body learns to live with these stuck energies by covering it up with a cloud of energy called unconscious energy. As long as you are able to avoid certain things and live in a controlled environment, life would seem to be normal. We built our life routine within these new boundaries and find our comfort zone in it.
It is somewhat similar to how our physical body and energy body learns to live with a lifelong addiction. We could be addicted to any thing (such as substance like nicotine) or habits such as a mental fantasy or just being lost in thoughts all the time or watching something all the time. Once we learn to live with it, we would get uncomfortable when we start to wean away from it. But when wholesome healing is the goal one cannot avoid some pain the weaning process involves.
Awareness of the underlying energy body and adopting a stance of active acceptance and allowing would greatly reduce the pain of transition. Active acceptance is not accepting your condition, that would be passive acceptance.
My suggestion to you is to learn and be with FGCB. In the beginning be with it just for 30 seconds. Come back it as frequently as possible. Say every 15 minutes or every half hour. Just for half a minute, once every fifteen minutes. If you feel comfortable with this, extend it for one minute or more. Once you are comfortable with staying with FGCB for three minutes and returning back to it repeatedly and frequently throughout the day, add the practice of Deep crossing to it. Once every hour, 3 minutes of FGCB followed by 3 minutes of DC. Slow down or go back to the previous stage whenever you start feeling uncomfortable. This would be a gentle, graceful and very slow process but it would eventually see you through complete healing and transformation.
I can guide you through your healing journey if you reach out and enroll in to my online mentoring program. All necessary information is available in the links below.
FGCB is explained here:
Selvan Srinivasan · 1y
What are some breathing exercises for beginners who struggle with focusing on their breath while meditating?
Do this for just three minutes and see if it helps. Sit on a straight back chair with feet flat on the floor, the entire soles of the feet from tips of the toes to the heels firmly contacting the floor. Keep your back erect, you may place a cushion behind your back for support if required but do not lean back on an inclined backrest of the chair. Let your head be held straight, neck straight, shoulders square and relaxed. You may tilt the head very slightly downward to gaze at a point on the floor in front of you a few feet away from you. Keep your eyes fixed on that spot for the three minutes without moving your eyeballs. Allow your eyes to be half open and half closed and hold that spot in a gentle gaze and not a stare. You are not looking there to see something but simply holding that spot in a gentle gaze. Exhale with a loud sigh from your mouth and use gentle effort to empty your lungs as far as possible without straining too much. Then relax your body and allow the inhale to happen effortlessly and soundlessly through your nostrils. When you sense that the inhale is over, do not put any further effort to breathe in but repeat the exhale from the mouth with the sound and gentle effort. I call this conscious breathing. Effort only for the out breaths and allowing in breaths to happen effortlessly. This entire process is called FGCB or fixed gazing with conscious breathing. You may set hourly reminder alerts on your smartphone and repeat this 3 minute FGCB every hour throughout the day today and see how it helps with calming your mind. This is a powerful grounding practice and you can do this even when you are driving and waiting for the red signal to turn green. Allow any such interruptions in your day to remind you to come back to the practice of FGCB repeatedly. For more information and plenty of free resources to aid with the practice of meditation and deep healing, please visit my website.
DC or Deep Crossing is demonstrated here:
Selvans Deep crossing: https://youtu.be/qq6iKZquuVI
You can read about the course and enroll here:http://hyderabadpsychologist.com/awareness-journey/