Feeling Stuck? How to Find Your Flow.

Today we ask that you look at ways to improve the flow of energy in your life.

One simple way to look at reality is to perceive patterns of constriction, and patterns of flow, in energy fields.

A healthy body has a healthy energy flow.  Energy goes in; energy circulates; energy goes out.

All disease in the human body is really an indication of energy constriction.  The channels of energy are constricted, and blocked.  This can cause areas of stagnant energy, which is rather like a stagnant pool of water — prone to the formation of bacteria, and disease.  Blocked energy can also lead to ruptures, as pressure increases.  Strokes and heart attacks are extreme rupture situations.  

This is why it is very good to move the physical body on a daily basis, to engage in healthy exercise.  It keeps energy flowing, and thus prevents blockage and constriction.

Of course, most physical states are reflections of subtler states — the state of the emotional body and the state of the mental body.  

The emotional body is very susceptible to blockage.  Blockage in the emotional body leads to rupture, in the form of explosive anger, rage, and aggression.  A constricted emotional body can move into depression — a heavy feeling of numb disconnection from the joyful flow of life.  

To increase the healthy flow of the emotional body, you must give yourself space to feel your feelings.  It is healthy to cry.  The inability to cry is a sign of severe blockage in the emotional body.  It is good to allow yourself to feel sad feelings, or hurt feelings.  This does not mean that you should be reactive or “hysterical” — hysteria, in fact, is a rupture of a blocked emotional body.  

It just means that you are someone who can feel your emotions, both pleasurable and painful.   Most people have enormous difficulty feeling their emotions, as they are taught in childhood to repress them.  This creates constriction in the emotional body, which can in turn negatively affect the physical body.

The mental body is the seat of ideas, concepts and beliefs.  Healthy flow in the mental body means an openness to new ideas and stimuli.  It is an openness to learning, an openness to change.  A healthy mental body is endlessly curious, the way a healthy child is.

A constricted mental body rigidly locks into ideologies and beliefs, with no openness to different points of view, or to adapting and changing.  There is a lack of curiosity, a lack of interest in learning new things.  The constricted mental body fixates on following routines, on only doing what has already been done.  There is a terrible fear of change.  The constricted mental body is neurotic, indecisive.   It is dominated by fear.  

Fear, in fact, is a major indicator of a constricted mental body.  Chronic, gnawing anxiety.  Anxiety that shuts down playful curiosity, in favor of clinging rigidly to set ways of thinking and doing things.  Blockage in the mental body leads to dullness and slowness in the thought processes.  Rupture occurs in the form of panic attacks, paranoia, delusions, obsessive compulsive behaviors, ideological fanaticism, and in extreme cases, schizophrenia.  

If you are experiencing blockage anywhere in your life experience, the first thing to do is to ask how you can increase energetic flow.

One way is to do something new.  Take a class in something that interests you.  Join a lively group of people.  Make an effort to break up your routine.

Make sure that your physical, emotional and mental bodies are each getting their due when it comes to healthy flow.  Try to move your body every day, even if it’s just going for a short walk or stretching.  Notice if you are feeling your feelings, or if you are “numbing out.”  Notice if your mind feels dull as you go through your set routines.  Make an effort to challenge your mind by learning and exposing yourself to different ways of being.

Other ways to get energy moving include:

Cleaning up clutter in your home; making amends with someone you may have intentionally or unintentionally harmed in your past; engaging in altruism, using your energy to help others; dancing; singing; playing music; playing with young children; playing with animals; absorbing an emotional story that will provoke crying and emotional release; mindfully cooking a nourishing meal; getting a massage; going to a bathing pool or sauna; spending time in nature; mindful, loving sexuality; creating art, especially in tactile ways that involve working with the hands; gardening; traveling to new environments.

All of these actions involve some kind of movement.  If you wish to unblock yourself, you must take some sort of action that involves a movement out of a stagnant state into a more energetic state.  

It doesn’t matter what you do, only that you do something.  Meditation, which can seem like “doing nothing”, is a big “something” in this regard.

Also, it is important to take baby steps.  If you are a severely blocked individual, opening channels of energy too rapidly can lead to a rupture.  It is important to go slow, to start small and gradually expand.  It is a daily, long-term practice.  

Blockage, anywhere in life, is a sign of constriction.  Find ways to get things flowing.  It may be as simple as mindfully doing the dishes.