Exploring systems that work.
Spiritual
4 posts
Short: Constriction is Fear
As I’ve been aging, my body has been teaching me more and more. I used to think that when I was tight, I should stretch. That’s what we’ve been told—that’s what everyone’s been told. But then I ran across this gem: your muscles tighten when your body thinks they are too weak for the demand you’re putting on them.
Your muscles tighten when your body thinks they are too weak for the demand you're putting on them.
Another telltale sign came from understanding what happens to muscles when you die. Two very significant things happen: you become instantly hyper-flexible (called primary flaccidity), and after your ATP (the energy currency of cells) depletes, rigor mortis sets in, making your muscles contract. It surprisingly takes more ATP to relax than to constrict.
The answer isn’t stretching; the answer is strength and movement. Flexibility comes from strength under load. You need to work out those constricted muscles. You need to build up their confidence. Victory after victory, they learn their capabilities. You aren’t actually stiff—your brain just doesn’t trust you. To protect you, it contracts for fear of being hurt…
To protect you, it contracts for fear of being hurt...
Hmm… you say, that sounds mighty familiar. The parallels to our emotional state are uncanny. You fear, distrust, and constrict your actions—your love, your heart, your soul—because you don’t believe you’re strong enough to handle the pain, the hurt, the lies, or, as Shakespeare put it, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” But just like your body in total surrender, total relaxation, there is no pain unless you’re fighting the action.
But just like your body in total surrender, total relaxation, there is no pain unless you're fighting the action.
I’ve been inspired merely by the title of a book, Becoming a Supple Leopard, though I haven’t read it. However, that single thought—that single image—has guided my learnings about pain and resistance. What does it mean to be supple, physically, emotionally… spiritually?
In my mind, the word supple brings imagery of a finger poking skin and everything giving way—like a masseuse working muscles with zero tightness. No pain, no fear; a meek confidence. Paired with the image of a leopard, it brings forth ideas of strength, grace, and unobstructed movement. I think to myself: that’s what I’d like to become—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Short: Chaos is Good
Imagine you're in the middle of a storm, winds wailing around you so close that you can't see but 5ft in front of you. That's sometimes how our lives feel, we try to fix that by scheduling, controlling, and knowing what's ahead. We do that by planning. We try to plan how to get to what we want, and sometimes, that's great, but we also very often have limited imaginations and our stability keeps us in a mediocre life.
Do you know how a virus assembles in a cell? It makes each component of the virus separately, and they all just jiggle around the cell until they form together since each section is chemically attracted to the next. Out of the chaos, comes form.
Instead of looking at the storm as bad, imagine that instead it's building a path for you. If the winds weren't blowing, you'd know exactly what was in that direction...and it might be lacking. But as the winds blow, the stronger the winds blow, the more possibilities exist, the more chances there are for that direction that didn't even exist objectively before.
So, enjoy the storm, take this as a moment to reflect on what you want the storm to create for you, meditate on what your heart is calling for. Remember, the universe is on your side. Trust that, know that, and when the time is right, walk bravely in that direction.
Short: Knowledge and Separation
To know something, you need to separate it. To know you, I need to separate you from the crowd. It requires focus, and focus blinds us to everything else. Our left brain is known for naming, logicizing and understanding the world, but it does that through the act of separating it into pieces. Our whole existence has been built on that...
Genesis 2:16-17
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
Yet there exists another path, the path of connection, the path of being part of this co-creative dance that happens all around us. Not needing to understand it, not seeking to control it, but seeking its rhythm, its pace. This is the way of the right brain. It's a way of letting us feel the heartbeat of the universe. This is the way of plants, trees, animals and insects. Feeling, sensing, and acting.
Belying each of those worlds exists a gift that can be claimed for whomever wishes. On one hand, control, power, knowledge, and on the other, peace, surrender, guidance. Neither world is better or worse, they both exist within us. In every moment both worlds are active, it only matters which one we play with; which one serves our purpose.
I believe our culture has denigrated the right brain for far too long, and as it has atrophied, our world has suffered. We were made to carry these two worlds for a reason, we were made to control and know...while being connected and in flow.
On one hand you had the Native Americans, who lived with the land and helped it thrive. On the other Europeans who dominated it and discovered new technologies. One was filled with health, and spiritual abundance but lacked "material wealth" the other built on the backs of a sickly cast of workers utilizing nature for their masters means.
One had power. One had life.
Yang and Yin. Yin and Yang.
As cycles go, if Yang won out before and led to our technological boon a the expense of our connection to nature; to the universe; to God. I have a nagging suspicion that it will also lead us back full circle to living again with nature; back in the connection that gave us life...back in the arms of the Divine.
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