Beginning Now
Three: Now is the time. Wake up.
So, how to we reorganize our own nervous system so it stops spinning out in endless feed-back loops of alarm and/or collapse and it starts to settle back, down into our natural state? Can we recalibrate our organism, body, psyche & nervous system into a much clearer, pure alignment with Source so we come to live with the interconnected truth of our being, resonating in harmonious alignment with nature’s world order? Can we begin to show up in our lives like this?
The answer is a resounding, “Yes!”
However, having been born into this synthetic matrix, each of us has our own, unique collection of misunderstandings, confusions and distortions which shape the world of our experience as well as who we are currently taking ourself to be within that world we have been perceiving. As we begin turning our attention toward the unspeakable, silent presence of our own natural state of being, the light of that pure love radiates into and through us directly from Source. It naturally pushes up all our fixated interpretations and identifications to be experienced, acknowledged and released. This is often confusing and uncomfortable.
For whatever reason, at this time our human species of consciousness appears to be moving out of this superimposed, synthetic mind-world/dream-body; a very limited, limiting world of mostly very low frequencies. As the frequencies of our being (and our Earth) keep going up, the costumes we have worn in that world and taken to be who we are and what the world is, don’t fit so well anymore. They are less and less frequency specific and harmonious with what is emerging within us and in our world. Each of us has our own journey purifying these adaptations and freeing up the energies/neural circuits underpinning them for the next phase of our natural self-organization/self-reorganization at a higher order of integration.
And, currently, most of our nervous systems are operating rather far from full-on and optimized. We all have uniquely shaped versions of the same basic circuits which have a limited number of ways they can get disorganized and some rather simple, readily available practices which restore balance and harmony.
In our world today, we have many processes that are appropriate and helpful; some for a particular stage in our process, others become more enduring for us. And, some are rather easy for us to learn and work with. However, it is a caveat to realize that it took us some time to develop and sink into the neural patterns underlying our habitual moods, perceptions and reactions.
For most of us these are well-worn grooves. It takes some patience and willingness to focus our attention differently for a while; noticing the non-verbal, non-conceptual sensations and feelings that develop as you do the practices. (Although I stress this last understanding of how to make these exercises/practices of embodied, somatic presence actually work for you; I cannot stress it too much.)
The part of the nervous system which animates our social-engagement system, involves seven of the cranial nerves. Sometimes these seven nerves animating our ability to express ourselves with others and read the nuances of another’s non-verbal expressions are named, “activating the vagus nerve,” for the tenth cranial nerve, the dorsal vagal nerve.
What’s practically important is that we can deliberately engage and activate these cranial nerves and thereby bring the neural firings of the social engagement system more resonantly online and foreground while simultaneously diminishing the dominance of our dissonant dysregulation. These particular cranial nerves enervate all the muscles of our expressive eyes and brow and mouth, as well as two skeletal muscles – the trapezius connecting our upper back, shoulders and neck and the sternocleidomastoids which run up both sides of our neck from the center top of our ribcage to the back, base of our skull.
We are going to do a simple exercise which can be used to reduce stress and help the nervous system to cycle down the activity the alarm-collapse networks and spin up the networks of relaxed, at ease, just here, softly open and present…Signs you are moving in the right direction are a spontaneous, rather deep, relaxing breath, a sigh, a yawn or just a sense of relaxating.
First exercise: Begin with a snapshot of your current state – take this moment to notice: just what’s it like right now physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually? Put the snapshot aside for future reference.
Interlace your fingers and place them at the top of your neck so they are cupping the back, base of your head; index fingers at the base of the skull, elbows relaxed, out to the sides, and head facing straight in front. Now, without turning your head, look toward one elbow, and just keep gently gazing in that direction. Hang out like this until you naturally yawn, sigh, take a deep breath and just let it go or you get some sense of relaxing a bit.
This may take a minute or two when you are first getting this neural pathway activated. After some practice these spontaneous bodily indications that our organism is relaxing, happen pretty easily, more quickly and the relaxed moment lasts longer. Practice makes permanent.
One of the primary ways we keep ourselves looping in uncomfortable moods and states is by focusing on the images and the story in our mind which are linked to discomfort or misery. Many of the ways we can help ourselves relax involve choosing to give attention to non-verbal, non-conceptual experience rather than the nearly constant stream of thoughts.
So, whether you’ve stopped gazing toward you elbow because you relaxed or because you didn’t and you gave up, let’s try it again and add in some other, helpful skills. Hands cradling the head, face forward, eyes toward an elbow. Now, simply stop thinking for a moment and notice the alert presence that is noticeably here when there are no thoughts and we give our attention to what is here, inside and out, in this moment. Stay with this presence a moment.
Just keep gazing, now please, notice the fact that you are breathing – effortlessly, in your natural rhythm. Begin to notice the ways your body moves as you breathe. As it moves begin to explore how the sensations change. After a few breaths, pay particular attention to the sensations and feeling as you exhale – the body’s nervous system naturally sways a bit into “rest and digest” as the diaphragm and the intercostal muscles relax during this phase of the breath. Again, beneath the noises of the mind, to the best of your current ability, notice the feeling, the sensations.
After you’ve relaxed a bit notice how that feels. The neurons of “a bit more relaxed” are a different neural network than the neurons of giving attention to “a bit more relaxed.” It has been famously said, “The neurons that fire together, wire together.” Giving attention to sensations and feelings which are or are even a bit closer to the sensations and feelings we would prefer to experience, links very different circuits of neurons and makes the particular experience we are conscious of more likely to recur. This is a form of applied neuroplasticity.
Now, staying with that feeling, look toward your elbow on the other side and hang out. Holding the area of the brain stem stimulates many of the cranial nerves as they peak beneath the skull on their way to all the little muscles of our expressive-ness. Gazing as far as you comfortably can to the left or right sends electrical impulses and neuro-chemical connections up and down another set of cranial nerves which are part of the social engagement system.
It works better and better the more you can interrupt the stream of thought a moment and turn your attention to the sensations in your body as you breathe, as you focus more on the exhale, as you notice the feeling of the stillness at the end of your exhale; that instant when the exhale has stopped, just before the inhale has begun.
You can do this once or repeat as much as you like; just noticing what’s happening and how you are feeling. You’ll know when you feel like you are done.
Now, take another snapshot – how does your body feel? What is this moment’s emotional nuance like? How is you mind; more busy or more peaceful? How about your sense of just being here and feeling alive and connected?
Repeat as often as you remember to and its reasonably convenient. Becoming somatically present can become a very healthy habit of our attention. It is guaranteed to become more valuable than the numerous moments required to make it a habit. This is because our nervous system, physiology and psyche starts having more moments of calm, non-verbal, non-conceptual presence. We begin opening up to the flow through our connection to Source of all the higher frequencies, energies and inspirations appropriate for us and our situation in the moment.