Here to Help You Find Balance
The Mind-Body Connection
To begin, the need to identify a Mind-Body Connection as a means of addressing the Mind-Body Separation is an illusion.
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The Mind and Body share the same experiential vibratory continuum (I’ll explain more in a bit) however since the experiences in the mind are much different from the experiences of the body, we believe in the idea of “separation”.
Since childhood, we have been taught to turn off the body in favour of “head-thinking”. This and other pressures related to financial security and daily performance has caused an over-identification with the mind as the source of one’s identity.
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It is the nature of the mind to divide reality into duality. According to the mind, things in life including Self, emotions and feelings are either good or bad. The body then is viewed as something separate from Self that is often dismissed or regulated to be less important than the mind.
Everything Vibrates!
Physics tells us we are energetic beings. That is, the deepest aspect of the matter (atoms and particles) which make up our bodies is constantly vibrating.
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The lower part of the body exists at the lower end of the vibratory experience. Living life causes a multitude of sensations, emotions and feelings to arise in response to daily events. These inner experiences are “denser” in terms of vibration than head-thinking. Dense vibration moves slowly. It is this density, which is why experiences in the body can last a lot longer than experiences in the mind.
The Mind, at the other end of the same vibratory experience, effortlessly generates thought after thought. Thoughts at this end have little density surrounding them which is why it is so easy to move from one thought to another non-related thought (for example, in the space of second you can think of the core of the earth and then think of what you ate last night for dinner).
India, with Guruji Umesh at Cosmic Energy Centre
What is the Mind-Body Connection?
The body listens to everything the mind thinks. Through hormones, peptides and enzymes, the body makes what you describe to yourself, real. This is why worry becomes stomach-clenching anxiety.
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The overabundance of daily stress hormones then becomes a breeding ground for dis-eases such as heart conditions, insomnia, emotional anxiety, digestive problems, obesity, obsessive thinking, negativity and more.
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The lifestyle of adopting and investing in your Mind-Body connection means to be mindful of what state you are in and choosing to address that state either in that moment or as soon as you have finished the current task you are working on.
The Body Needs Your Help
By itself, the body does the best it can to balance the effects your day caused however, due to the aforementioned pressures, constant thinking and stressful ways of living, the body’s nervous and muscle system remains in a permanent state of readiness. This prevents true balance and therefore health from occurring.
If we examined a day in your life, we would see there is a string of events you experience from the moment you wake in the morning. How many of these events are excitatory (causing the release of stress hormones)? How many are calming (causing the release of calming chemicals)? How long do the excitatory events last in comparison to the calming experiences? Most likely, the number of excitatory experiences you have each day (and the length they last) far outweighs the calming ones.
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The goal to utilize the Mind-Body connection is to periodically, throughout your day, check in with your Mind-Body system and lead it to relax, let go and rest so balance and health can occur.
Failure to do this causes the body to retain tension, which eventually evolves into undesirable health conditions.
Mind-Body and Emotional Connection
Emotional health occurs when we allow feelings and emotions to flow through our bodies.
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Lack of allowing flow is due to inner contractions caused by believing in the mind’s duality perspective. Duality says certain things are acceptable (good) while other inner experiences are not (bad). The power of being human is we have the choice to give meaning to what occurs in our life. The truth is our bodies are designed for both pain and pleasure. There cannot be one without the other. Denying what is natural to the body reinforces separation, prevents self-knowledge and creates more dis-ease.
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Being mindful of the direction your thoughts lead you is one step. Another is to be aware of the feelings and emotions that occur throughout your day. The goal is to relax and allow the feelings to flow.
The Benefits of the Mind-Body Connection
The value of investing in yourself is incalculable. Knowing yourself is the benefit. Self-knowledge enables you to let go of what does not matter. It allows you to free yourself from thoughts and beliefs that no longer serve you. It calms you down and makes you more comfortable in your body.
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The body follows the beliefs you hold in your mind about yourself and life. These beliefs force the body to adopt ways of being that may not be natural to your authentic self. Often, because we are so busy we allow habitual “negative” thinking about life to occur. The body responds by closing down to new possibilities or new ways of being.
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Conversely, the body’s health and wellbeing affects the clarity of our ability to think. Mental performance is negatively affected when we are tired, emotional or uncomfortable.
The Body Thinks!
The idea of the Mind-Body Connection is based on understanding that the body also thinks… in its own way. The stomach thinks when it is hungry or desires new experiences. The heart thinks and feels in a way specific to the heart.
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When we “tune in” to what the mind and body are experiencing in a moment (connecting the mind to the body), it provides us the ability to address the physical, mental or emotional imbalances that naturally occur throughout a day.
What States Do You Invest In?
If we examine our lives from a physiological perspective, we might come to the conclusion that we live in a “Fight or Flight” society. That is, due to childhood wounding, past traumas, constant pressures to perform and produce, a constantly changing technologic environment and an overwhelming amount of daily information to be processed, our bodies (and brains) remain in a perpetual survival state.
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If we add to this situation the thoughts we think we could ask the question, “Does my thinking keep me in a constant state of survival?”
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If you find yourself exhausted at the end of the day, do you dwell upon all that has not yet been accomplished and what needs to happen tomorrow (based on your agenda and self-pressure to succeed)? Are you adding to your burden by beating yourself up for not accomplishing more or are you helping your body to relax and release the tension accumulated during the day?
Optimal Health = Balance
Consider that the body works day and night keeping you in balance. The physiological term for balance is homeostasis. We depend, for instance, upon the body’s ability to modulate the amount of stress hormones released into the bloodstream and yet if our mind is constantly paying attention to problems, to-do lists, while we watch our favourite TV series, the more we are giving our bodies a consistent message to stay constantly vigilant.
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Self-understanding creates the opportunity for better choices because you have learned what works for you (on all levels) and what does not.
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Knowing yourself also means being connected to your body to provide for what it needs on a daily basis. The body needs “down time” where there is little to no stimulation so it can reset. Sitting on a couch reading a book or watching TV does not help the body to reset for you are ingesting information (usually drama-based) which keeps the body processing and tense.