Welcome to Move, Part 3 in the Bio Hacking Series. While Mood is critical, Movement is the most powerful on ramp into hacking or "recalibrating" our emotions.
The brief Introduction post sets the stage for this and the posts that follow.
If you have not done so, please do read Part 2 - Mood - before reading this post.
To anchor bio hacking, (wellness) as a deep understanding rather than just a collection of opinions we need to build our own experiences and practice comparing different actions.
The key is to get as close to functional as you can, and keep returning to that as your personal base-line
There is no point adding more resources to anything that is dysfunctional.
No amount of exercise, great food or money will save a person who is living under constant unrelenting stress and anxiety.
Unless that food and movement practice is specifically helping your body to let go of non useful tension and inflammation. (fear and toxins)
In the last blog, MOOD we touched upon fear responses either coming from a clear and present threat to our person, or a perceived threat to our personality, to our persona.
In this world where we have tamed our environment, 98% of threat or stress response is coming from our sense of worthiness being challenged. That worthiness is largely based upon the groups, ideals and values we feel we are defined by. When these are challenged, we take it "personally".
Having opinions about anything leaves us open to becoming both up-set and set up. (Being curious and having ideas is both fun and functional, until we become attached to them or find self worth in them)
Un-Winding
Stories or opinions that we use to bolster our sense of self worth or hope to gain some personal benefit from come at the price of a fear response when they are triggered. That is because they are stored using negative emotions, or charges.
They are a kind of body memory and as such they alter our gestures and our posture. This interferes with our ability to move nicely. It is reversible though. When we change our posture we "feel" differently.
The residual tension in our muscles and connective tissue is fear, it is readiness, it is defensiveness - not to real threats, but to things we take personally.
Mindful Movement is the Hack no 2
What makes Yoga, Tai Chi and Qi Quiong so powerful, is not the specific movements, (though they are of immense benefit). It is the quality of our attention during ANY movement that determines its effectiveness for healing or "bio Hacking".
To go through the motions, without paying attention to the emotions is pointless and potentially dangerous
Dysfunctional tension is stored using fear - it is fear in the form of a body memory.
When we breath out, and give our-selves permission to experience it - acknowledge it, only then may we release it.
If we make it "the bad guy" that we want to "get out of my body" - then we are still at war with what is. With our biology. We are still coming from a place of "control" - which IS tension. It is "intention".
Be with it, allow it
Then feel it in its entirety
Only be being with our fear can we avoid running from it and in fact "re-charging" it - like a battery - ready for next time.
Gravity or Vanity
Mindful movement does 2 things
It is re-wiring our neural pathways back to functional movement which is sensitive to force and gravity .
While "dis-charging" the stored energy and "readiness" of old fears, anxieties, stress, which are sensitive to thought and vanity.(stories that have a component of self worth, either shame or pride).
Vipassana Method
Involves seated meditation, scanning the body with eyes closed, checking in with and returning to the sensations within each square millimetre of our body. This too is movement training. It is perhaps the highest and most difficult form. In stillness we may notice that which is both able to move and that which is restricted. Our biology is always in motion, pumping, squeezing, and most importantly..resonating or sensing.
Move
Move like it is a sacred activity, give it your full attention and it will bring you straight into the now - into the joy of being without needing.
Thank you
=8-P
The GIF image shows how emotions that are based in interpersonal fear create tension that in turn creates swelling and inflammation. Emotions are also signals that we send out, they alter our body language, to move nicely, gracefully, we need to be in relation with the world around us rather than our stories about how it should or should not be. (I spelt excited wrong, probably still thinking about procreation lol..)
If you enjoyed this, please do consider also reading later additions to the Bio-Hacking series:
Part 4 - Meat
Part 5 - Vit C and Lego