Curiosity And Willingness
Is this you? Good at explaining why you're a certain way and your past patterns, yet when a difficult emotion or physical symptom comes up you'd say “Sorry! I don’t know why I am feeling like X?”. We're very good in society at psychoanalysing but not at being with the discomfort of emotions or unfamiliar sensations. Developing our ability to be with energy in motion (e-motion) is actually how we develop our nervous system capacity and new neural pathways - but how do we do that?
So, a quick nervous system 101. Our nervous system has 2 sides:
1) voluntary: intentional actions like moving a limb, and
2) involuntary: automatic functions like digestion.
Within the involuntary side there's a sympathetic and a parasympathetic side. Often described as rest/digest and fight/flight, however, it’s more nuanced. Think more like the pedals in a car: gas is the sympathetic and brake the parasympathetic - to drive anywhere we need both! And to drive smoothly, without crashing, we need to flow between the two. Slamming both at the same time, or keeping one pedal stuck to the floor, makes for an unhappy car.
We are taught how to drive a car but not how to drive this billion year old body we’re experiencing the world through. Being with the body, with curiosity and willingness for it to show you what's going on, is how we learn to drive. What engages your gas? How does the brake feel?
All information about the world comes in through the nervous system (aka the senses) into the brain. The nervous system, however, does not speak English, it speaks the language of sensations. Entering through bodily sensations gives your brain a new reference point to integrate experiences bottom up and build new neural pathways.
Welcome in more curiosity, especially into what signals and messages you’re getting from your body. Sit with that shoulder or stomach ache and see what it might want to tell you. Tune into what your muscles and body temperature do when you feel joy or perhaps panic. Couple this curiosity with willingness to give time and space to just be with whatever you notice. With the gift of your awareness things can shift. Let me know how it goes!
