Елена Русанова – How to Hear Yourself and Start Creating (страница 5)

Eventually, we found the instructions and suggested routes: where to go and what to do, and we sketched out the arrows in a notebook. I even started coaching him: "Right, left, down, bend over, don't look back..." We learned about the coveted Shift key, which allows you to run fast rather than just walk. By pressing this key, my son navigated the ventilation labyrinth on his first try, reached the right spot, slammed Huggy Waggie with a giant box, and finished the first season of this game. Delight, happiness, euphoria, and... an increased number of gray hairs on my mother, along with frayed nerves.

How much does this reflect our entire life, which is essentially the same quest, a wandering game with many tasks, difficulties, and horror. The more we let's get involved the more we play this game, the more we experience emotions of all ranks and scales: from disappointment, anxiety, anger, fear, to positive, yet still temporary, ones. In fact, it's all just a game, and not ours, one we've immersed ourselves in. You can't quit if your interest in it hasn't waned.

And until you've had enough of these games, you'll find yourself playing them over and over again. Career, house, loans, cars, mortgages, problems, jobs, expenses, everyday issues, constant fuss and achievement, and we get angry, afraid, anxious, looking for surrogate relaxation, and so on in a circle.

As soon as the interest wears off, you exit the game, or rather, you simply realize what’s happening, and you can breathe a sigh of relief…

Unpacking the Human

"When you look at the stars, think of one of them as my soul." (Optimus Prime, Transformers: Age of Extinction)

Until we understand how our personality is structured, with all its conscious and unconscious aspects, we will continue to struggle with its manifestations. We will push things into the back of our minds, for example, negative emotions, refuse to accept all its parts, or take on unnecessary burdens and baggage.

The secret is in knowledge, and this is a great power.

You can continue to succumb to the influence of your own demons, fighting them, unconsciously tearing yourself apart, not understanding what's awakened within you right now, or why you think and feel the way you do. Or you can begin to reflect and explore where we perceive everything from, and whether our thoughts and emotions are truly OURS.

Philosophical movements and practices, including, for example, yoga, view the human being as a broader system, not limited to the physical body. After all, we think and feel—but we can't touch it, right? This means there's a lot we can't see with our own eyes, but it exists.

We won't discuss the basic systems of human life learned in school (from digestion to respiration) here, but rather delve a little deeper into more metaphysical foundations. The body can be easily tangible, such as legs or arms, or invisible, like our thoughts, while still being a part of us. This is precisely what the term "subtle bodies" or levels, as we will call them in this book, explains.

In addition to the physically observable body, there are also invisible subtle bodies.

Moving from denser bodies or levels to more subtle ones, let's imagine the following order (in this book, I'll only give examples of four of them; information about the other levels can be found in various sources if you wish). All of them are closely interconnected.

So, let's begin…

Physical Body Level

The easily tangible and visible part of us. Appearance, height, constitution, how we are structured and built.

We can touch, feel, and stroke, sensing muscles or skin. Some processes in the physical body occur unconsciously, for example, the reactions of internal organs, while others we feel and are aware of. Tension in the chest, pressure in the abdomen, muscle fatigue, or, conversely, a lightness in the body when nothing hurts.

Connecting with the body is a very important moment, because often our thoughts take us to unknown distances, and now we are far removed from the body, losing contact with it.

Anxiety and fears about the future can so completely block certain areas of the body that we can't even feel what's happening. Panic attacks, the ultimate form of anxiety, lead to a complete systemic breakdown. Recall the scene in the cartoon "Inside Out 2," when Riley experiences something similar during a hockey game: palpitations, hand tremors, shortness of breath. In such states, fainting can even occur; the body no longer simply tells us, but screams: "Something's wrong, danger lies ahead!"

You've probably heard the phrase "grounding and connecting with the body." What does this mean? In moments when your mind is particularly "flying off," for example, when you've wandered off into the future, the past, fears, and various rehearsals of situations, you can return to the here and now through grounding.

Grounding is, literally, connecting with reality through contact with nature and our planet on a physical level. Walking barefoot on the earth or grass, going for a walk, listening to birdsong, experiencing your body through any practice - bathing, yoga, exercise, jogging. Inhale and exhale, simply breathe deeply for a while, or gently stroke your skin.

If we didn't have a body, we might be able to fly in airless space like light whirlwinds, but that would be a completely different story. We are here on planet Earth and are in the body, which means we must use this connection with nature and life itself through it.

Nature, forests, trees - our helpers to quickly “come to our senses”

Take a deep breath and ask yourself: “What do you feel in your own body at this moment?”

Mentally go through every part of your body, starting with your feet and ending with your head and arms. How your body feels right now, for example, does it feel lightness, tension, or pain in any particular area? This simple daily practice is what makes up our lives. Yoga even has a separate branch called yoga nidra, where, lying in shavasana with your eyes closed, you focus your attention on every part of your body, trying not to fall asleep. Observe your physical sensations, focusing on them, rather than following your thoughts, which, of course, never go away.

If we constantly repress and fail to process negative emotions, this blocks our body and leads to psychosomatic reactions. This has long been known as a fact in psychology and medicine. There are numerous dictionaries and reference books on symptomology and psychosomatics1[1], which describes in detail how the body reacts to long-term stress and health-destroying emotions.

Even a momentary thought that evokes the emotion of fear, for example, will immediately trigger a reaction in the body (the jaw tenses or a tightening of the chest). One can imagine the tension, immense blocks, and pain that chronic worry, stress, fear, and anxiety cause. This leads to problems with weight, skin, digestion, and a host of other consequences.

Energy Level (Etheric Body)

The body's energy level, whether it's energized or de-energized. How we feel in terms of our internal strength. For example, fatigue and a constant lack of energy: "I just woke up, got out of bed, and I'm already tired." Or, when the body is on fire and ready for new feats and accomplishments, you feel like a charged broom or a bouncy ball.

The very name "etheric body" suggests that it is something that cannot be touched, but can be felt energetically, for example, with the hands.

There's a good yoga exercise that demonstrates this level. Rub your palms together quickly and vigorously for half a minute or more, then move them slightly apart. You'll feel a cloud forming around them, like invisible soft cotton wool or electricity encircling your palms, this warmth spreading up to 10 centimeters around them. Or when there may be red spots on the palms and even the soles of the feet - dilated blood vessels at the moment of an influx of energy, like after a long distance run, when your whole face glows. When your legs buzz, as if a wave runs through your body - all these are examples of how energy feels.

At this level, various healers and Reiki work2[1]- practitioners who use their hands to scan the body's organs, directing energy to specific areas and alleviating the patient's condition. Among practitioners and sensitive individuals, there is even manual reading of energy and information from photographs and books, including when choosing a particular food product.

And this isn't some fantasy. Scriptures describe numerous instances of hands-on healing. Or recall the scene from the famous Doctor Strange film, where he could manipulate his hands to move energy - fireballs - performing incredible miracles. It's just a metaphor, but it clearly conveys the idea of the etheric body and energy.

In our hands is power and energy...

But, of course, energy isn't just in our hands; the etheric subtle body envelops our entire body in an invisible layer. Physically, we can feel a charge and surge of energy in our chest, head, legs, and throughout our entire body. The quality, density, strength, and stability of the energy depend on our states.