Session 4: The Horizontal Path

+ Introduction

To see through the mist of your conditioning into a stable place of awareness and happiness, freedom from pain, freedom from the limitation of injury and victimization, nothing more is needed than simple practice, with awareness.

Simply showing up, day in, day out.

Eventually, it shows results. Just showing up, doing the practice, brings results.

It’s guaranteed.

It’s also why most people don’t see results: they get disillusioned, they get disheartened, maybe because they don’t believe their expectations are being met, maybe they wanted a quick pill fix and they realize that diligence is required, or maybe they realize that quite frankly they don’t want to realize freedom from their pain.

Some people prefer to suffer, sounds crazy, I know, but some people would rather complain and be a victim than actually grow.

And that’s fine, there’s no judgement there. When someone is ready to wake up, they will.

What I’m sharing in this video today is an elaboration of some of the practices in this series, and I was questioning whether to go into this or not, because it is a little bit more advanced, and I want to keep this series as simple and accessible as I can.

But the nature of this topic is such that once this is understood, even if you only intellectually understand it, even if you’ve only just been exposed to the idea of it, it will accelerate you past potentially past years of confused suffering and projection, and quite frankly a lot of quote unquote mistakes, so I consider it rather important.

People have a lot of challenges and a lot of questions come up when they do yoga, and a lot of them have to do with this topic, but this topic is hardly ever actually taught. And if it is taught, it’s veiled and cloaked in mysticism.

So I want to give you a really clear and grounded understanding of this topic, which is the topic of the conditioning of the human body/mind system.

+ Conditioning As Stored Experience

As you experience life, your emotional reactions to the circumstances and situations that you interact with are stored in your body and in your mind.

In your mind, you call them memories.

If they are negative in some way, if you for example were bullied or assaulted, and there’s still shame there, you could call this trauma.

The mind does not exist independent from the body.

The hormones and chemicals that you experience as happiness and pleasure, pain and sadness, these are part of a supremely complicated system of interrelationships that for the overwhelmingly vast majority of humanity, are completely unconsciously directed.

Someone makes a face at you that reminds you of your mom yelling at you when you were a child, and you get triggered and start arguing with that person, or your partner starts telling you that they’re excited about a new vision or dream they’ve had, and you don’t understand why, but you’re not supportive or excited about it, in fact you’re almost trying to subvert it somehow, and you don’t really know why.

Arguments, trying to be right, all of this, all this “being triggered” thing, what does this have to do with chronic pain?

The thing is, the bodymind system doesn’t really delineate between imagined trauma and real trauma. Your mind doesn’t differentiate between big threats and small threats. It’s all the same.

It’s why the same mechanisms used to recondition your body work with the mind, it’s just at a subtler level. Your consciousness is working on all these different levels simultaneously, it’s just usually an unconscious process.

You could be daydreaming in traffic, for example, and not pay any attention to your physical reality, but you still end up back home.

It’s not that you really went anywhere, it’s that more of your consciousness was invested in a certain layer of reality. So with this in mind, when you work with reconditioning your body, you’re also reconditioning your mind. It’s all one part of an interconnected whole.

This is why it’s important to be able to address negative emotional memories, because they are stored in the body.

In the practice of yoga, these stored “traumas” exist as tension that is released through the asanas.

As this process continues and deepens, as you for example, explore the nature of an injury and reprogram your nervous system to interact with the physical limitations, you are doing the same thing with the physically based, food body, as well as your emotional body.

This complex system of interrelationships is beyond the scope of this particular series, and it’s far more effective and efficient for someone to explore this on their own and discover their own internal language for communicating this to one’s self than it is to simply listen to someone talk.

That’s the good thing about the asana practice: that you don’t really need to think about it. But some context is useful.

Now, if you are interested in diving deeper into the mechanics of this reconditioning process, and want to further explore the relationship of the bodymind complex between conditioning and your behavior, if you want to really know how to consciously let go of limiting beliefs, adopt more aligned, ever-clearer and more life-affirming points of view, and realize the effects this clearing up of beliefs has on your bodymind, I recommend checking out “Conditioning: How to train the mind for clarity, joy, and effortless flow“ which provides more context on the nature of our psycho-emotional experience and how it relates to the ways we unconsciously interact with the world. I’ll put a link in the description below.

“Catalyst” and “Empowerment” will also be released shortly, these are all very brief reads, and there is a sourcebook that will be soon available called “The Horizontal Path” that covers all of this in much greater detail, guiding the reader through a step-by-step rewiring of their entire belief architecture in accordance with what they want out of themselves and out of their lives, using the yoga asana practice and some meditations and the like as a central theme, and taking all the veiled yogic practices and demystifying them in a no-nonsense, bullet point-esque sort of approach.

For now, understand that:

1. The body and the mind both store experience,
2. The mind doesn’t differentiate between imagined and real, and
3. By engaging with stored trauma, whether psycho-emotional or physical, you in essence revisit that trauma in order to “offer it release,” so to speak.

When you view the asana practice with this in mind, you make “healing” far more available to both the body and the mind. If you pay attention, you might notice that emotionally charged memories pop up while stretching certain parts of your body out, you might notice that certain parts of your body when getting stretched out and moving are associated with different psycho-emotional events, for example fear tends to be felt in the gut, everyone’s experience is different, but just keep this in mind, and don’t try to force anything.

The goal is to make movement, whether physical or mental, effortless. You don’t attain effortlessness. You don’t force ease. You allow it to be. You let the steadiness and the ease of the moment reveal itself through relaxation.

You don’t yell at yourself to relax, you allow yourself to relax. This can be a little tricky at times, especially when we get frustrated and angry, our vision narrows, and we have to force something and do something, but it’s just something to let pass. The asana practice will help with that.

+ Introduction

Find an open location with clean airflow, free from bugs and dust, and set aside the next ten minutes or so to really let this lesson settle in. Working on one’s belief systems and starting to unpack the buried contents of the unconscious can be unsettling at times. Asana practice helps both ground the individual as well as gently release the gathered traumas that are now finding expression in the world. This release of emotional tension is reflected in the body, and finds manifestation over time as injuries, tension, as gnarled attitudes and twisted beliefs that inform how we move and interact in the world. These layers of conditioning have a very real impact on the body and the mind. Through the asana practice or any such program of physical development, conditioned behaviors can be productively engaged with.

When done at the pace of the breath, in sequence with the in breath and the out breath, with five to ten breaths inside each pose, you will most likely notice impatience or some inner tension coming up. This is a great opportunity for you to actively engage with such uncomfortable sensations and is a crucial part of reconditioning your bodymind. If you cannot sit down for five minutes with yourself, you probably need an hour of it. So, too, each asana. There is also a tendency to try to push the bodymind beyond its boundaries. Ostentatious posts on social media showing attractive bodies in outrageous poses gain a lot of attention. We are captivated by the outlandish, by that which is beyond the borders. Do not take the belief seriously that you must hyperextend your elbows to reach into a pose.

So often we bring ourselves beyond our boundaries, as if that is the only place where we can grow. If you are struggling with a pose, you are not in it. Where is the comfort, the steadiness, the ease, in the asana? If you do not even know where you are, why push beyond? From an inner place of centered stillness and steadiness, your body will show you the way to go. Give it a chance to do so.

Remember: listen to your body and open your awareness. Guide your movements with your breath, and have fun.

+ The Sequence

Namaste!

The theme of this sequence is connection. We’re starting to connect sequences, and we’re starting to connect the dots between ideas and the body.

The sequence is Combining the movements we’ve covered so far. Again, as before, simply watch the review of the sequence before starting, you’ll have a chance to go through it after you’ve seen all the pieces.

During this sequence, simply stay aware of your mind – of your ideas, of your emotional experience, and the thoughts that pop up while doing the poses. If you’re unfamiliar with this, it might take some time at first to grok it, but what you’re looking for is an intuitive feeling that can relate, “this pose I’m doing and the tension I’m releasing” with “this is the psycho-emotional experience going on.”

So, we’ll start in a comfortable seated position.

• Sukhasana / Kneeling / sitting in a chair
• Ujjayi Breathing
• Parsav Sukhasana (Seated Twist)
• Parvrtta Sukhasana (Twisting Variation)

Take a few deep breaths here, and check in with a body scan. How are you feeling right now. Ask yourself not in words, but an intuitive, thought-free clarity that simply witnesses and acknowledges your state of being right now. If anything pops up, don’t label it, don’t say, “oh I’m mad” or “oh, I’m relaxed.” Simply feel it, let it come, let it be, and let it go.

• Stand up in base
• Tadasana (Standing)
• Uttanasana (Forward Fold)

If your particular injury requires you to take a stop at Marjariasana, cat pose, then do so. Remember your variations, and check in with your body and the nature of your thoughts. Remember the transitions between poses, and to lead with your breath.

• Parvatasana (Mountain Pose)
• Uttanasana (Forward Fold)
• Tadasana (Standing)
• Sukhasana (Seated)

+ Introduction

Congratulations! For many of you, this is a major milestone. Don’t worry if you can’t do all of the movements perfectly. The goal of the practice is to let the pose fit your body, not to force your body into the pose. Take your time before moving on to the next lesson. Re-read the descriptions and re-watch the videos at least once, and make sure you can:

• Hold the postures without holding your breath
• Continue a steady pace of smooth breath when transitioning between postures

Generally, this should take you about two to seven days, at twenty minutes a day, to really tune into the nature of your injury. When I say ‘tune in’ I literally mean just that. Close your eyes and do the postures, and allow your awareness to rest for a moment or two on the sensations that you feel, especially if you start to approach the limits of your comfort. Pain is a signal, nothing more. It means nothing bad on its own. Only you have the power to make it matter, which means you have the power to take it away, too.

+ Homework

When doing these movements, pay attention to the particular emotional frequency associated with your injury. There may be fear, sadness, regret, or any number of emotions that come up. Self-judgement is a very common side effect, and from what I’ve seen this is usually what keeps people from completing any course of expansion.

Self-judgement can be projected out to the world around you, to others and your activities, and then you will find that you tend to attract situations and circumstances that only serve to support that vibration. So tune in to the frequency of your injury: what is there? What emotions are coming up? What am I observing? What is being revealed?

With a little extra attention, you can start to move around the injury. If you reach a position where you are stuck (for example, if you struggle to place your hands on the ground, or to stand up in base, find the bodily position where you are closest to doing the posture, and sit with it. Stay there. Let yourself get impatient, let yourself be bored, and breathe.

Let the impatience motivate you to find some other way to move. Maybe you need to rotate your hip a little bit, maybe you just need to move your knee a couple inches to the side, and you will free up some space elsewhere in your body, and then accomplish your particular expression of the pose. In time, it will come. Trust the process, and trust yourself.