We’ve all had times in our lives when everything is working out – it’s like we’re blessed with a lucky star and the opportunities, people and good fortune just seem to fall into our laps. These are rare occasions when we are in the “flow” of life and can’t seem to put a foot wrong. In the world of frequency, we would say that you are aligned with your future self and that universe you are operating from, is free flowing energy. For most of us this state doesn’t last, and we revert back to our ordinary lives and often bad habits.
Why can’t we stay in that elevated state of congruence? From a brain perspective your basal ganglia forms neural pathways through a cue-routine-reward loop. Over time, this process becomes automatic, creating a shortcut your brain is reluctant to abandon. So, if the bad habits and the restricted energy are all part of this familiar routine, you’ll drop out of the flow state and go back to a life which is familiar and “safe”. In yoga we call these grooves in the mind your samskaras, bad habits and familiar memories and emotions that drag us back to the same old, same old.
Wilhelm Reich stated that: The life of an individual is the life of his body. A person who doesn’t breathe deeply reduces the life of his body. If he doesn’t move freely, he restricts the life of his body. If he doesn’t feel fully, he narrows the life of his body. If his self-expression is constricted, he limits the life of his body. And all these restrictions develop as a means of survival in a society that denies body values in favour of power, prestige and possessions.
Reich was the father of ‘de-armouring’ the body. People build up defences or ‘armour’ due to stresses of everyday life, shock trauma and negative thought patterns. Armouring restricts and blocks the free flow of energy in the body, keeping us in patterned behaviours that produce dysfunction, illness and premature aging. We walk around inside a body that is bound by pain tapes of the past. Armouring blocks the flow of energy through the chakras, which in turn depletes the organs associated with those chakras. Thus, our holistic body system becomes compromised and separates us from a natural connection to Source.
On Yoga Retreat coming up soon: Gather, Breathe, Grow – in Silence Fri 20/3/26 – Sun 22/3/26, we will be using Reichian physical movements and Conscious Connected Breathwork as part of our de-armouring therapy. As we de-armour the body we will allow suppressed emotions and memories to surface and integrate, leading to nervous system regulation, greater body awareness, increased flexibility, and renewed vitality.
We are much more than our body. We are much more than who we imagine ourselves to be. As sacred humans, we are interconnected with all forms of all things within Creation. Yet, most of the time we walk around asleep to the grandeur of our potential. From Anodea Judith: The body remembers what the mind forgets. Releasing armour is not weakness, it is the beginning of real strength. Its going to be an amazing retreat! Love and namaste Margot