Understanding and managing your emotions is key to achieving personal growth and accessing a higher vibrational energy. You can only tap into your inner wisdom by transmuting the charge of your toxic emotions such as fear, shame, anger, and grievance.
This poses a particular challenge during a time when social media and the political narrative feeds on negativity and our darkest toxic emotions.
Your body is the most authentic recording device of everything that has happened in your life. You will dream of events that happened decades ago because those memories are stored away somewhere in the depths of your body cells.
When you dream of when you were a seven-year-old and stole the cookies from Grandma’s closet, you have in some way not closed with that incident emotionally.
Your head-mind probably made up all sorts of reasons why taking those cookies was in order, while your sub-conscious heart-mind knew very well that what you did was stealing and that you hurt Grandma because you lied to her.
A tension or dissonance between head-mind and heart-mind, like acting against a gut feeling or doing something where all the alarm bells are running at a heart level, are just those things that the body will always remember.
Training your “heart-mind” to be emotionally mature is one of the reasons we are here on earth. We humans are imperfect beings, and probably the most disconnected of species from ourselves and our natural environment.
We have incarnated as souls to use our bodies as instruments of learning.
The heart is not merely an organ of the cardiovascular system that transports nutrients, oxygen and hormones throughout the body and removes metabolic waste. In the spiritual sense the heart is described as the “seat of the soul.” It is the first organ that develops in the fetus and is the connection between our physical and non-physical (soul) selves.
Impulses or thoughts flow first from the heart and then to the brain. The brain dissects, rationalizes and analyzes. The “heart-mind” is authentic and closest to the true self or soul purpose. Knowing the difference between “head-mind” and “heart-mind” is the spiritual learning part.
Our body is constantly sending us signals about what we need to hear and work on. The problem is that we are so caught up in the world of distraction that we mostly fail to listen until the body gets really angry and calls a time-out with some illness or malady. It is no surprise that cardiovascular diseases top the list in much of the Western world.
Regaining the connection
Regaining that connection to the “heart-mind” comes mostly during times of solitude, during meditation, prayer and deep walking. That is when we become aware of our emotional state of being. Some of the “emotional memories” stored in the body could go back many years or even decades.
These energies can be transmuted very well with the ancient body arts of tai chi, qi gong and yoga that were developed and refined by spiritual masters over many generations.
It is only fairly recent that these ancient arts have reached the Western world. One of the great tai chi masters, Cheng Mang Ching, was ostracized by the Chinese community in New York when he began teaching tai chi for the first time to Western students in the early 1960s.
If you walk the main Camino Frances, you will be walking for five weeks or longer. After two or three weeks on the road you realize that the Camino is much more than a mere physical exercise.
Not only does the body start detoxing, but I have noticed on my walks that dreams, childhood events, and memories of traumatic relationships that occurred many years ago return with a particular clarity.
These are particularly precious healing moments when old trauma is released to open up the channels for a flow of new energy.
Whatever the heart-mind hasn’t transmuted emotionally will at some stage come back to haunt you. It is why the mother on her death bed has that last wish before dying to reconcile with the son she hasn’t spoken to for years.
Volunteers and therapists companioning the dying have told me that the deepest regret is most often not having made amends with innermost family members. A peaceful death then only comes when that “something” has been dealt with.
What Chinese medicine has known for centuries, modern medicine is confirming with latest research. Many a serious illness has its origins in emotional baggage stored in the body-mind.
There is a particularly poignant passage in the third Beatitude of the Bible: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
In the original Aramaic language, spoken by Jesus, the meaning is more subtle: “Tubwehun l’ makiche d’hinnon nertun arha.” This roughly translates to: “Renewal to those in emotional turmoil and blessed are those who can soften that which has hardened in their bodies.”
While walking in solitude you will inevitably be confronted by the same phenomenon as when lying alone awake at night: Hundreds of thoughts will be passing through your mind of past and future things.
One thought chases the next as you wind yourself up and down in a spiral of dancing monkeys in the head.
You won’t control those thoughts by practicing mind control methods. The mind does become aware of what it is thinking about and can extract itself with an accusatory finger of “why can’t I think of something else? Why can’t I let go of these worrying concerns in my head?”
You will notice that as the body releases tension during your walk, those dancing monkeys gradually start disappearing as you begin the descent from the head into feeling the body.
This is best done by aligning to the present moment by focusing on your breathing and counting the inhaling and exhaling of breaths.
You can also start by feeling each step touching the ground, feeling the ground and how the energy of the earth moves from your foot up your legs, spinal cord, neck and the crown of your head. Start by walking very slowly, aware of the present moment, just concentrating on these small things to liberate your mind.
Our ancestors practiced ceremony and rituals to transmute trauma on a body level. Animals still have this mechanism intact. A herd of antelope will run apparently haphazardly in all directions when one of them has been killed by a predator. Their bodies shiver and shake, but minutes later all has passed and they will resume grazing as if nothing has happened.
Calming mind and body
Transitioning from the depths of our lowest emotional frequencies, such as anger, shame, resentment, hate, greed, fear, and anxiety, towards the pinnacle of human evolution involves embracing the transformative power of compassion, love, empathy, gratitude, peace, and serenity.
Even as you ascend the ladder of higher consciousness, the complete liberation from toxic emotions and feelings remains an elusive goal; you are, after all, only human. However, through unwavering commitment and diligent practice, you can expedite your exit from the rabbit hole of negativity.
It will empower you to savor extended periods of vitality, hope, and inner tranquility, enhancing your overall well-being and vibrational frequency. It is the recipe for longevity and good health.
Reino Gevers – Author – Mentor – Speaker
P.S. This is an extract from “Deep Walking for Body, Mind and Soul. All my books are available on Kindle, and paperback where all good books are sold. If you would like to order in batch to gift to friends, family and employees you can contact me by DM for a special discount.
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