The mind doesn’t know the difference between an imagined threat and a real one. When you are imagining a situation of stress or challenge, your body produces all of the adrenaline you need to fight or run. It doesn’t matter if it’s a dream – if it’s in the past or a worry about the future – if the effect on you is real RIGHT NOW. If a part of you is trapped in a past experience, your mind is replaying that experience at various times of the day and a different moments in your life, bringing you back to that physical real stress with every reminder. Your mind is trying to tell you what you have left behind. Can you instead create something healing instead with the imagination present in the mind?
After some years of my kundalini yoga practice I have reached a turning Point. Enough of the noise and sadness has cleared away and I see very clearly what is underneath; a lifetime of unmanaged, stuffed down anger is pouring up to the surface through my heart, all over my face, out of my mouth. I cannot articulate what I am angry about because like anything mixed together and left to rot it becomes an unrecognisable poisonous sludge. All of the years that I have strived to be responsible and have criticised others for failing to take responsibility, I realise I have been raging against the failure of the adults around me to do the same when I was a child. These emotions are painful and difficult for me to manage because I never learnt that skill. But I am grateful to be learning that skill today because I cannot continue my life living with this anger buried within me. I imagine the women in my life, lovingly pulling the black cord of angry despair from my back, gently untangling it from my throat and heart. Because the mind doesn’t know if it’s real or not.
We’ll be doing the kriya to relieve inner anger at class tomorrow. I hope you can join us, come slam the floor, and liberate yourself from whatever you still carry.
