Keeper of TheWay

The Body Consciousness and Safety in the Nervous System

I’ve tried to keep this as practical as possible and not go overboard with medical terminology. It’s not necessary to understand the intricacies of the nervous system to get a foundational understanding of how it influences the body-consciousness.

Every minute of every day, your nervous system is tracking your internal and external environment. Thousands of signals are constantly being processed to answer the question… am I safe?

One branch of the nervous system supports restoration, connection, openness, and safety (parasympathetic), while another mobilizes and focuses our energy for activity, excitement, challenge, and stress (sympathetic). The body-consciousness interprets the world around us through the lens of survival… “safe” or “not safe”… opening or closing… relaxing or tensing.

When the body feels safe, energy flows more freely. The breath deepens, muscles soften. Our awareness is broader, more encompassing. We become more receptive to ourselves, others, and our environment. When the body senses stress, potential “danger,” or even uncertainty, energy becomes directed towards protection. Muscles tighten, breathing becomes shallow, attention narrows, and our internal resources are channeled towards survival rather than consciousness.

The subtle feedback and signals the body is continually sending often go unnoticed or are unintentionally ignored. This can happen for several reasons:

• People spend most of the day up in their heads, disconnected from the body
• They are desensitized to subtle sensations and only notice when the body is sending loud alarm signals
• They’ve accepted chronic tension, contraction, or overstimulation as a “normal” baseline
• They’ve never learned healthy ways to process and feel the negative

Over time, this creates patterns of suppression and avoidance within the inner multitude that may manifest as internal gaslighting, people-pleasing, shutting down, etc.

“Just push through it…”
“It’s not a big deal…”
“Suck it up…”
“Don’t be a burden…”
“Keep everyone happy…”
“Keep busy and stay productive…”

These protective strategies often begin as necessary adaptions to our environment, but when they become automatic, they drive us to disconnect from the body’s higher purpose. Most people are familiar with the terms “fight, flight, freeze, and fawn,” which describe the common survival responses activated when the nervous system detects danger or stress. This is the body’s way of signaling “not safe,” and in reality, these responses show up throughout our everyday lives in subtle ways.

Fight can display as irritability, frustration, impatience, reactivity, perfectionism, controlling behaviors, being argumentative, etc.

Flight may look like anxiety, overworking, overthinking, constant busyness, procrastination, avoidance, or difficulty slowing down.

Freeze may appear as indecision, passivity, shutting down, feeling overwhelmed, emotional numbness, feeling stuck or unable to move forward.

Fawn can express as people pleasing, manipulation, low self-worth, difficulty saying no, over-apologizing, self-neglect, lack of self-identity, etc.

There is a spectrum. We don’t have to be experiencing a crisis for the body to activate its protective mechanisms. Everyday stressors trigger smaller versions of these fight-flight-freeze-fawn patterns… social interactions that feel uncomfortable, running on a deadline or being late for an appointment, conflict with a loved one, growing to-do lists, sensory overload, too many choices or mental load, fear of making the wrong decision, financial concerns, uncertainty about the future, etc.

Our baseline stress responses begin within the animal nature of the body — in the animal kingdom, you have animals that will charge, dominate, defend their territory and kill; at the other end are prey animals that run, hide, panic, freeze, or collapse. These same survival impulses exist within the human body and arise in everyone at different times and to varying degrees. Healthy people naturally want to regulate themselves more effectively and handle stress better, but it’s important to understand the deeper aspects occurring at the level of the body-consciousness. Through repetition, each habitual reaction is developing and training the animal natures within us — every reaction that isn’t brought into higher spiritual awareness is keeping the animal natures operating at their base level.

When animals experience stress throughout their day, their body instinctively moves and shakes to release the energy and excess tension. People on the neurodivergent spectrum will naturally stim or engage in repetitive movements, sounds, or actions as a way to regulate their nervous systems. Children run, jump, spin, sway, and sound throughout the day as they follow the natural cycles of their body. By adulthood, our cultural conditioning has suppressed those natural instincts.

The body is our greatest tool for spiritual development, but it is a tool that must be consciously developed, trained, and raised beyond its default level of consciousness {see Consecrating the Lower Centers}. Rather than rejecting or suppressing our animal natures, we need to work with them so that they are capable of supporting us on our journey of TheWay.

Shallow breathing and unconscious muscular tension are universal human habits. When they become chronic, they keep the body leaning toward fight-flight-freeze patterns and make low-key stress feel like a normal resting state. A body that is locked up in unconscious tension and, for most of the day, receiving only enough oxygen and energy to sustain the physical, is not going to be a body-environment that is conducive to higher states of consciousness {see Sex of the Breath}.

Eventually, this contraction is so familiar that it becomes our normal. We relax just enough to not appear stressed on the surface, but never relax enough to fully submerge into the body and lower centers, staying stuck at head-level perception.

What Safety Feels Like in the Body: The more we tune into the body, the more sensitive we become to subtle energetic shifts of expansion and contraction. On an etheric level, safety is experienced as expansion, openness, and flow.

In our heads, we tend to think of “safety” as the absence of external danger or threat. The nervous system is much more sensitive than that.

Before you continue reading, pause for a moment, close your eyes, and really feel into the question: What does it feel like to be safe inside my body?

It can feel warm, soft, like you can relax into everything around you. Flow, openness, receptivity. Grounded. Deeper breaths. There is a sense that you can settle into your body and the present moment, without resistance.

It would be simple to explain “safe” as being “calm” or “relaxed,” but there’s another dimension to it. Safety also means feeling free to express yourself without constantly monitoring or censoring who you are, without anxiety, or embarrassment, without fear of being too much or pulling back and hiding. It’s feeling strong and secure in your body and mind, comfortable expressing yourself and being genuine.

Whenever you pull back, shrink, keep yourself in check, hide, or hold back from expression, some part of your system is signaling “not safe.” Sometimes this response is entirely appropriate. You might be in an environment with people who are hostile, negative, unpredictable, emotionally unavailable. You might be in a formal environment where you need to maintain distance or composure.

Often though, there is a part of us that is trying to maintain the mask of social norms, conditioned behavior, and decades of adapting to other people’s expectations — or rather, our beliefs about what other people may expect: ie, what we believe others will think of us, what they might say, and our own internal discomfort with potential judgment or rejection.

We put on a mask habitually, and even in safe environments, our bodies stay stuck in low-key stress states that unconsciously perceive openness as a risk.

“Safety is not the absence of threat, it is the presence of connection”

— Gabor Mate

I came across the above quote while researching the nervous system, and I think it beautifully conveys what safety in the body means.

The presence of connection…

What happens when you feel embarrassed? There’s a part of you that pulls away… contraction, tension… lost connection… not safe.

What happens when, in a moment of conflict, you walk away to avoid it? Shutting down… lost connection… not safe.

What happens when you’re agreeable and people-pleasing, going along with what other people think and want? You’re pushing down the parts of you that want to express freely, abandoning yourself to appease someone else — either due to lifelong habits and conditioning, or because you don’t feel able to express your opinion, feelings, or beliefs. Again… not safe.

If we’re honest with ourselves, all of this pushing away is fear.

fearing the unknown
fear of being too emotional
fear of too much pressure
fear of expectations
fear of going too far
fear of being too much
fear of disappointing someone we love
fear of upsetting someone
fear of how someone will react or what people will think of us
fear of not being enough
fear of looking foolish
fear of not being in control… and the list could go on and on indefinitely

Every time we contract against ourselves, disconnect from our feelings, suppress our voice, or act in ways that are out of alignment with our inner world, we lose connection. The push-pull of these stress responses keeps us fragmented and continually disconnected from our own internal center — the place where we can feel ourselves and feel others.

Protect-Control and the Reflective Nature of Experience:

These psychological barriers that interfere with our ability to fully express ourselves are the protect and control mechanisms that our nervous system has developed over time… in reaction to our life experiences. We learn to operate in certain ways… in order to be perceived in certain ways. We adjust ourselves to minimize potential pain, rejection, criticism, and conflict. We adjust ourselves to get approval, love, acceptance, and respect.

In childhood, these adjustments might look like: If I am quiet, they won’t criticize me. If I am useful, they will need me. If I am funny, they will want to be around me. If I am impressive, they will value me. If I do not need anything, they won’t resent me.

We create identities around who we are… and who we are not… in relation to the world around us, and then spend our lives unconsciously protecting those identities {see Divisions of Consciousness}

This collection of relational roles, defensive reactions, conditioned beliefs, emotional patterns, and protect-control strategies creates the divided personalities that form our inner multitude. One part of us might seek approval, another might resist authority, another might withdraw to avoid rejection, while another might become domineering when it feels threatened. These personalities can contradict one another because each is established at different periods in our early development — in response to different people, needs, perceptions, and the circumstances in our life.

Our early life experiences manifest according to the much larger structure of our Soul’s development. To understand the higher purpose of why these inner divisions occur, we have to go beyond childhood conditioning and beyond this present life.

From Allan Cronshaw’s The Allegory of Mind and Matter — What Do We See?

Therefore, each person not only has a unique perspective of the universal symbols of mind as expressed in the mental imagery of the forms impressed into Nature — but each person’s perception is further narrowed by (1) what sphere of mind they are polarized to; (2) the Laws they were /are born under; (3) gender; (4) the filter of race; (5) the cultural influences of their present life; (6) the influence of religion and philosophy; (7) each person’s personal level of mental evolution they have achieved over the course of the past lives their higher Soul-Self has lived. The result is that what each person sees and evaluates in the outer world, more often than not is a reflection of that person’s own mind and thinking. And it is through this interaction with a reflected image and imagery of their own mind, that forces each persons growth and development through the interactions of life which are brought about by the Laws that have created each person’s learning curriculum of life — with the objective being to force each individual into mental interactions which not only serve the individual needs of each person, but bring about that person’s own evolutionary development of mind.

Allan Cronshaw

We do not enter life as blank slates.

Each of us is born under a specific set of spiritual Laws, under the influence and domain of one of the Spheres of the Tree of Life. These Laws were predetermined before birth, according to the experiential objectives of our Soul. They are the focal point around which everything revolves… shaping the lessons we receive, the gifts we are born with, the limitations we must overcome, the recurring themes of our lives, and the unique way our perception interprets experiences.

They determine the conditions and experiences that will manifest in our lives, while also shaping the filters and perception that we will interpret those experiences through.

The external circumstance and the internal lens are two expressions with one source.

Two children can encounter similar conditions and develop very different responses because each child interprets and adapts through a different internal process. Our early childhood didn’t create our worldview, it revealed and amplified the innate tendencies and perceptions that we entered this life to learn through.

From a linear standpoint, it appears as if external events cause the internal reactions… life happens “to us” and we respond accordingly.

In reality, the Laws we are born under are encoded in our Spiritual DNA, creating the structure of our life events and ensuring that certain parameters of development are met {see Allan Cronshaw’s Spiritual DNA article}. These internal Laws are expressed outwardly into the Reflective-Feminine Earth realm, invoking the external events in our lives.

Our inner multitude processes these life events through the lens of the Laws that invoked them. Our reaction — due to our own perception — results in the protect-control strategies that manifest in the divided personalities of our inner multitude. Our unique nervous system response was reinforced through the perception of our early life experiences with parents, siblings, caregivers, friends, and peers.

In astrology, it is known that human development happens in cycles of 7 {see SevenYearCycles.com}. Growth and maturity unfolds in spirals, and each cycle represents a new stage where the strengths and weaknesses we entered this life to develop and overcome are continually brought back to us at a new level or in a different area of life. What repeats from cycle to cycle is not necessarily the same event. The circumstances change, but the underlying energetic pattern remains — internally and externally. Each cycle gives us another opportunity to encounter a new dimension of the same essential challenge — with a greater capacity for awareness and choice.

The first cycle, from birth to age seven, is when our inner multitude of personalities are differentiating and becoming formed.

We begin at conception as pure consciousness — Essence, the part of us that comes from the Soul — as the body is formed, we become enveloped in layers of vibration, according to gender, ethnicity, our unique physical DNA, as well as the impressions and energy we receive from our mother and father while we are in the womb. During infancy and toddlerhood, a child exists much closer to their Essence.

Personality, the inner multitude, is created by everything acquired through education, imitation, societal conditioning, family culture, and adaption to the world around us. According to Gurdjieff, the Essence stops developing at a very early age, between 5-7 years old, while the acquired personalities become dominant. Everything going forward, after the age of 7, further ingrains whatever self-identities and protect-control strategies we’ve developed in response to the world around us, and we are continually brought back to the same energy of conditions and situations that we’ve encountered previously — in new form to engage with those challenges at a new level and pass through the testing of the Law of Octaves {see Allan Cronshaw’s The Checksum of the Laws}

This is where the distinction between Essence and Personality is important. Personality is conditioned and mechanically responds to what it already knows — it’s triggered, positively or negatively. It repeats the patterns because its purpose is adaption, predictability, and protection. Before we can connect with our Essence, we have to become conscious enough to observe our personalities, rather than stay completely identified with them.

Consciousness begins with the pause between the event, our perception of the event, and our automatic response. When we can start to see our mechanical reactions while they are occurring, we open the door for deeper insights and wisdom.

This is also where freewill becomes significant.

The Laws establish the circumstances, perception interprets those circumstances, and personality reacts based on conditioning from past events. These mechanical personalities keep us continually repeating the same patterns over and over in different forms.

That capacity to pause and see our mechanical impulses gives us access to a greater range of choice.

We pass through the tests of this reflective reality in increments — achieving balance and wholeness to the degree that is possible, in accordance with our level of spiritual development. During each cycle, as the Laws manifest in a different form, we become increasingly capable of perceiving both the internal and external energies that must be brought into alignment and raised up to a higher state of consciousness. At the interval where the octave would ordinarily lose momentum or deviate, conscious effort introduces something new, and we continue on to the next level of testing — at a higher level.

The objective of each life and each testing cycle is to overcome the Laws we are born under and evolve beyond our innate perception and tendencies.

“Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”

Matthew 12:36

This realm is an etheric matrix — our thoughts, energy, and vibration go out into the Feminine-Reflective Reality and are returned to us like a biofeedback machine. This energy returns to us in the form of life events and interaction with other people. The outer form may change completely, but the underlying energy repeats.

In that moment of return, we have choices — we can reject and brace against the returning energy, push away and fight with it, or with super effort, we can Receive our reflection and overcome the testing of the Law of Octaves… to whatever degree we are able to apply consciousness.

Receiving our reflection means becoming conscious enough to stay present with what the outer world is invoking inside us and having the capacity to see ourselves, at deeper levels, through this reflection. When we’re able to rectify the paradox of our external and internal realities, energy that would have otherwise been sent back to the Earth is contained within us and able to be used for our spiritual growth.

The internal is creating the external… which is influencing the internal.

The inner world creates the outer world.

The outer world shapes the inner world.

Perception influences experience, experience reinforces perception.

It’s less of a linear cause and effect, and more like a toroidal field — a continual circulation between inner and outer. The world reflects our inner state, while our inner state is continually being shaped by what the world reflects back.

We are born into this Feminine-Reflective realm so that Self can Know Self, through its own Reflection. This Feminine principle is the receptive womb that receives an impression, gives it form, and reflects that impression back as a manifested experience. Through external relationships, patterns, rhythms, and circumstances, what exists at a Soul level within our Spiritual DNA and what exists at a human level within our unconscious inner multitude becomes tangible and possible to engage with.

Our Spiritual DNA carries the strengths, weaknesses, and unresolved karmic lessons of the Soul — the energetic momentum of experiences that did not begin with this present lifetime. What was strengthened, developed, resisted, failed or incomplete becomes part of the requirements and conditions of our birth — the underlying structure that determines the Laws we’ve entered this life to engage with and overcome.

Transformation requires gradually becoming aware of the Laws, perceptions, and protective patterns through which we experience life. These protective patterns influence what we notice, how we interpret the events in our life, what we anticipate, what we fear, and how we respond when life challenges us to SEE the parts of us that remain unconscious.

The internal initiates the external… the external reinforces the internal… in a continuous and indefinite exchange, until consciousness enters the process.

As consciousness is applied, the same challenges will still return again and again at another point in the octave, most likely through an entirely different circumstance (equal but not the same), and instead of responding from the same habitual ways we always have, each return becomes another opportunity to recognize the pattern, Receive the energy of our reflection, and introduce a new response.

Regulation — Balance in the Nervous System: All of this brings us back to the body. The Feminine-Reflective Reality continually presents the conditions for unconscious patterns to become visible, and the nervous system influences how much of that returning energy we have the capacity to receive without immediately contracting, defending, avoiding, controlling, or shutting down.

Regulation shapes how we interpret the internal and external signals the body is constantly tracking — safe, not safe. The more dysregulated we are, the more difficult it is to distinguish between genuine danger and perceived danger.

The image above shows that being “calm” all the time is not an example of regulation. We aren’t meant to remain in one emotional state throughout the day. A healthy nervous system is dynamic. It has the full range of expression, while remaining connected to our center throughout the experience.

Many spiritual traditions emphasize not reacting, staying calm, staying neutral, or avoiding the expression of difficult emotions. These practices can help us learn to see our reactivity and where we are behaving mechanically, but they can also become another form of negating the body and avoiding what we perceive as negative. If mental “inner peace” is achieved by suppressing what the body is communicating, there will always be some level of internal discord — a disconnect between the body and Mind. The body is signaling, “not safe,” through unconscious tension, contraction, pain, pressure, heaviness, numbness, or difficult emotion, while the brain overrides it by insisting, “Everything is fine.”

The body is our greatest tool for spiritual development. These messages are meant to be approached with reverence, embraced, and felt so that we can learn from them. When we continually shut down the body’s response to the negative -rather than learning to work with it- we are also shutting down and limiting our capacity to experience the positive. We can only go as high as we are willing to go low.

“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”

Revelation 3:15–16

The “calm” that is created through suppression becomes the epitome of lukewarmness — not true peace, but indifference, apathy, indecisiveness, dissociation, disconnection from the lower centers, etc. What appears to be “calm” is stillness that was created through withdrawal.

Polarity and the Central Path:

Within the context of the Tree of Life, the center balance points –Intellect, Knowledge, Love, Foundation– are developed through the interaction between the divided side columns. Balance doesn’t manifest by avoiding division, but rather by engaging with those extremes in a conscious way.

In Genesis 2, Eve is taken from the rib of Adam. The Hebrew word “tsela” can mean a rib, but it is also used for the side of a structure. The creation of Eve was the allegorical separation of one side of the originally undivided human being. What existed within Adam became differentiated, tangible and visible — creating polarity, contrast, relationship, and the possibility for conscious exchange. Once the two sides are differentiated, energy can move and flow between them — energy flows because polarity exists. Self and other, active and receptive, outward and inward, positive and negative. These divided states create the pull and tension through which consciousness develops.

Before this differentiation, male/female existed together but could not engage with one another. Once divided, each side could be seen through the perspective of its opposite. Just as darkness becomes known through its contrast with Light, the differentiated sides show what could not be known while they remained merged together. Self becomes conscious of itself through relationship with another.

Just as the separation of Adam/Eve represents two contrasting forces, the side columns of the Tree of Life can be understood as representing the male and female aspects of the Divine Pattern. Logic, Judgement, and Understanding in the male column. Intuition, Mercy, and Wisdom in the female column. Logic gives structure to Intuition, Intuition has access to what Logic cannot perceive. Judgement creates definition and boundaries, while Mercy preserves openness, relationship, and the possibility of transformation. Understanding separates and identifies, Wisdom receives the Whole. Each force corrects and completes the other.

Logic without Intuition becomes rigid and disconnected. Judgement without Mercy becomes condemnation. Structure without receptivity becomes control. Intuition without Logic can become ungrounded. Mercy without Judgement loses discernment and boundaries. Receptivity without structure can become passivity, collapse, or difficulty taking action.

The inward movement receives and integrates what the outward movement has generated — the outward movement then brings that integration back into expression. Together they form a continuous circulation and flow.

This same Divine Pattern is seen within the autonomic nervous system. The body moves through alternating currents of outward expression and inward integration, expansion and contraction. The question is not how to eliminate one side, but how to remain conscious and connected as energy moves between them.

The sympathetic nervous system mobilizes the body toward action, intensity, excitement, defense, and outward movement. The parasympathetic nervous system draws the body toward rest, receptivity, digestion, restoration, and inner reflection. Both are necessary movements of life, and both can become unhealthy when we stay stuck in either side. Sympathetic activation can become chronic stress, anxiety, hypervigilance, or agitation… parasympathetic withdrawal can become numbness, collapse, dissociation, or disconnection.

“Regulation” of the nervous system then, is created through the relationship between these two polarities. The center is not a static point — it’s the Third Force that enables us to move consciously through the extremes, without losing connection to ourselves. The central column of the Tree of Life is not discovered by negating the extremes, but by engaging with both sides and allowing their interaction to generate a higher form of balance.

A healthy system must be capable of moving outward into activation and inward into integration. It needs to experience the positive and negative currents of life without becoming trapped in either one. It’s not the absence of polarity — it is the consciousness that can remain present within polarity, see and receive from both sides and bring their divided energies back into union.

Recognizing Your Stress Patterns: Before we can bring consciousness into the body’s innate stress responses, we have to become familiar with how they express themselves.

Looking at the picture above, there will be some labels you can relate to — and some you don’t. Reflecting on how you handle stress gives you insight into the mechanical impulses and conditioning of your inner multitude.

Below are some questions to dig deeper:

• Which stress response do you identify the most with?

Everyone deals with varying levels of stress daily, but these responses aren’t only activated during major events. They show up in everyday challenges, frustrations, inconveniences, annoyances, and resistances — the small moments we tend to dismiss as “not a big deal.”

• Consider your day-to-day life. Whichever stress response you identify with the most, can you recognize it appearing in more subtle ways?
• How does it show up in your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and relationships? If you’re having trouble seeing these, ask someone who knows you well what they’ve observed.

Now consider the stress response you identify with the least. Whether the examples are big or small, identify at least five times in your life when you responded from that state.

As you reflect on each memory, consider:

• What emotions come up?
• What kind of thoughts are invoked?
• What sensations do you notice in your body?
• Is there any discomfort, resistance, embarrassment, judgement, or emotional charge associated with these memories?

Pay close attention to subtle reactions. Often, what we reject, deny, or minimize can reveal important aspects of ourselves that otherwise remain hidden from our perception. If you notice any negative response, stay with it. What beliefs, fears, unmet needs, or unresolved experiences might be beneath the surface? What does this response show you about how you relate to stress, vulnerability, control, or safety?

If you don’t identify with feeling frequently “stressed” in an outwardly agitated manner, begin noticing how often you enter a quieter avoidant state. Rather than appearing visibly distressed, you may withdraw, frequently stay in your comfort zone, or otherwise try to control your surroundings to prevent discomfort.

Notice:

• In your day-to-day life, do you generally remain within your comfort zone? When you go out of your comfort zone (physically, emotionally, or mentally), are you able to experience the stress of the challenge in a positive way that feels empowering afterward, or do you tend to move into fight, flight, or freeze?
• How do you handle conflict? Big and small?
• Are you able to maintain a strong sense of self around other people? Or do you deal with various levels of anxiety, embarrassment, fear of being seen, thoughts about what other people are thinking of you, or feeling awkward and uncomfortable in your body?
• Look at your communication in each area of your life — spouse, children, family, co-workers, friends, acquaintances, and strangers at Walmart
• How often do you find yourself doing things to avoid, stop, or limit the possibility of something negative happening? Are you open to the possibility that you might be controlling or over-protecting in areas that are limiting your growth and development?
• Do you often experience low energy? Or struggle with procrastination?

Everyone withdraws, avoids discomfort, or protects themselves at times. It’s important to notice how frequently these patterns occur, what circumstances activate them, and where they might be limiting your development.

Continually trying to prevent stress, conflict, or uncomfortable feelings can hold the body-Mind in a state of low-key contraction. Because this kind of vigilance may resemble “calmness,” passivity or a quiet disposition, it can be much more difficult to recognize than outward irritation or obvious distress.

Bringing Consciousness Into the Reaction: Once we begin to recognize our stress patterns and reactions to the world around us, the next step is not to judge them, shame them, or try to push them away.

Become curious.

Every fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response is protecting something. Beneath the reaction is fear, hesitation, resistance, or a vulnerability that the nervous system is trying to manage.

For each habitual stress response you’ve identified, begin asking:

• What is the conscious or unconscious “threat” this response is protecting me from? What is the outcome you’re trying to prevent?
• How much of my perception is based on self-limiting beliefs? Watch for thoughts that begin with… “I can’t…”, “I don’t…”, “I never…”, “I shouldn’t…”, “I should…”, “I’m not…”, “I’m just…” These phrases reveal the walls we’ve built around ourselves. They may seem real, but very often they are conditioned beliefs that keep us identified with division, scarcity, victimhood, and the lower aspects of our Mind and Being.
• What are the actual risks of what I’m trying to avoid? What is the worst case scenario?
• If I stop trying to control the outcome and let down my guard, what are the possible benefits?
• What opportunities for growth, intimacy, learning, freedom or connection might be accessed if I remain open instead of contracting or pushing?

These questions can be applied to conflict, relationships, communication, decision making, learning new skills, taking leaps of faith, starting new projects, breaking old patterns — as well as the countless ordinary moments throughout our day. Look for examples of these low-key stress responses that are just part of your everyday normal.

Developing Internal Sensitivity: It can be easy to come away from an article like this with the takeaway that stress is bad, tension is bad, and we need to figure out how to get rid of both. But the purpose of recognizing these patterns is not to start another battle against the body. We can approach the body by trying to manage and regulate it, or when a stress response is triggered, we can approach it from the perspective of “What do I need right now to feel more open, receptive, and connected within my body-Mind?”

The important distinction is that stress and tension themselves are NOT necessarily the problem, but rather unconscious stress and unconscious tension. “Unconscious” in this sense, meaning lacking internal and external connectivity or sensitivity -physically, mentally, etherically- which results in acting without the awareness or real capacity to receive life events in a way that can be raised up for a higher purpose.

Developing greater sensitivity begins with noticing:

• How often you go up in your head and are generally unaware of the rest of the body. How often are you in a shallow breathing pattern?
• Check in with your body throughout the day: how often do you find yourself clenching or tensing a particular muscle group for no real reason? (jaw, glutes, pelvic floor, abdomen, forehead, shoulders, lower back)
• How often do your thoughts get pulled into a past event? During moments of stress, uncertainty, conflict, or even when we’re going out of our comfort zone, the inner multitude frequently brings forward old memories and associations. We may then react to the past rather than respond to the situation actually before us {see Divisions of Consciousness}
• How often are your thoughts projected into the future, pulling your awareness away from what is happening in the NOW? This might appear as continually waiting for a future phase of life in which you will have more time or resources, not taking action or making choices until the “right time,” or predicting how another person will behave and how a situation will unfold instead of allowing the opportunity for something new by changing how you engage
• How much of your day is filled with unconscious habits or routines that you tend to do without much thought, effort, or consideration? Everyone should have quite a few, or you wouldn’t be a functioning adult — however, watch where your mind goes during habitual tasks
• When emotions are triggered, how often are you carried away by them? Getting lost in your reaction up in the head, losing connection with a secure/centered place in your body, losing the big picture, getting stuck in one perspective, inability to see multiple sides or truths, etc

No one is capable of maintaining complete internal and external connection at all times.

Every person experiences the patterns described above to varying degrees.

The goal is not to eliminate these struggles, but to become increasingly conscious within them. With practice, we can notice sooner when we have lost connection and gradually learn how to return. That won’t look like a linear path — there will be movement forward and backward, greater and lesser degrees of awareness, good days and bad days. A series of difficult days or experiences does not mean that you are failing. It may just mean that you need to spend more time working on your capacity and reconnecting with your body-Mind.

Resources and Return: Sensitivity allows us to notice when connection has been lost, resources help us find our way back. By drawing on inner and outer resources, we can move the Mind forward -through the reaction- while staying connected with the body and the present moment throughout the process.

Internal resources might include self-reflection, observing our inner dialogue, and using self-inquiry to deepen our understanding of what we are experiencing. We can shift out of mental analysis and into the body by connecting with the movement of energy internally and in the etheric field, or breathing deeply into the core and noticing where tension is being held (often in the jaw, throat, chest, belly, shoulders, or pelvic floor). Open the heart to be more receptive. Or naming the sensations and emotions we’re experiencing: “I feel my throat tightening. My chest is uncomfortable. My face is becoming hot. I am feeling embarrassed.”

Outer resources might include talking to a friend for outside perspective or just to vent, deep pressure touch (self-hug or a hug from someone else), tapping, shaking, sighing/humming/singing, listening to music, binaural beats, etc.

Each time we successfully draw on these resources, we expand our capacity to remain present with the discomfort of negative experiences. Over time, the body-Mind develops greater resilience.

The nervous system needs a fluid range of motion — a wave of activation, experience, release, and return. Regulation means being able to move through this wave without becoming trapped at either end of the spectrum or settling into a conditioned flatness that resembles “calm” but is actually lukewarmness, stillness, or withdrawal.

The goal is not to eliminate stress, suppress the animal nature, or remain perpetually calm. It is to develop the capacity to move consciously through expansion and contraction without abandoning the body or losing connection with our center. As sensitivity grows, each reaction becomes an opportunity to receive what the Reflective Reality is returning back to us, bring consciousness into the divided places within us, and allow the body to participate in our spiritual development.

More resources for nervous system regulation will be discussed in the next article.