If you understand that thought directs energy, you will understand that dwelling on the same thought keeps energy stuck.
Let’s look at some practical implications of this.
When you keep thinking, ‘My knee hurts’ or ‘I have a weak bladder’ or ‘I can never make enough money’ or ‘My relationships never last’, while each of these may have had some truth about it at some point in time, thinking the same thought over and over again keeps energy stuck in that particular vibration or field.
In Eastern healing traditions, there is the idea that when Ki or Chi is stuck, dis-ease and not just physical or biological dis-ease but any kind of dis-ease is the result. On a material level, this is the basis of Feng Shui, for example. In areas where energy is stuck, the dis-ease that that may cause is said to affect you and your environment in relation to your health, your finances, your romantic relationships and your family life.
The energy of the Universe, whether you call it Ki or Chi or God or Love or Prana, is naturally in constant flow. When we interrupt that flow, whether briefly or over long periods of time, we are certain to experience the dis-ease that results.
Yoga, Tai Chi, Chi Gong and some other kinds of physical activity are aimed at allowing energy to maintain its natural flow and, if stuck, to resume its natural flow.
When you hook on to an initial thought and keep thinking that thought, you are keeping energy stuck in a holding pattern as it were. Can you really expect your knee to heal if energy is unable to flow freely through it and around it and in doing so restore it to its natural healthful state?
Likewise, if you keep thinking the thought, ‘I am not making enough money’, can you really expect that state to change since energy is stuck in that particular holding pattern?
Again, if you keep thinking the thought, ‘I think so and so cannot be trusted’, can you expect that aspect of your relationship with that person to change if energy is held in that particular pattern of thought, feeling, action and decision?
Bear in mind that no thought is held in isolation. All thoughts are held in ASSOCIATION with other thoughts. So, energy stuck in one thought will have an effect on other related thoughts and their physical, material, emotional or mental associations.
If my energy is held in the thought, ‘I don’t trust so and so’, it is likely that the thought, ‘She is my boss’ (an associated thought) will also suffer from the stuck energy. This could result in an often unrecognized feeling or thought, ‘I resent her being my boss’ or ‘She is not a good leader’. Overall, this doesn’t help your relationship, does it?
Likewise, if you’re often thinking the thought, ‘I have a weak bladder’, well, for starters, expect to have a weak bladder. BUT, it doesn’t stop there. You might find yourself getting more and more reluctant to go to certain unfamiliar places because you aren’t sure about the availability of toilets there or their convenience or condition. Or you may be reluctant to stay out for too long or watch a concert, something which you have always loved doing, in case you feel the urge to go.
Its implications run even further. You may find yourself reluctant to go to a certain person’s home because the toilet is rather inconveniently located on the second floor or outside in the yard and when it’s cold, you know you won’t enjoy going outside when nature calls, as it surely will especially since you keep reminding yourself that you have a weak bladder.
Over time, you will find more and more things, people and places to say no to because energy has been stuck in a holding pattern created by this network of associations. In fact, if you took a moment to reflect on it, you are likely to find that you’ve become more and more anxious, less tolerant or patient and more fussy and demanding.
This is especially evident in some older people whose daily routines limit them to a very small range of physical, mental and emotional activity. It is not that they are ‘naturally’ incapable of doing more, rather that their energy has become chronically stuck within a small range of thought patterns that they have probably been rehearsing for years.
Yet, when their energy is encouraged to move more freely, whether through physical activity or cognitive intervention – changing thought patterns in order to release energy from where it has been unnaturally held – often, there is improvement and sometimes quite dramatically on all levels – mentally, emotionally and yes, physically too.
People suffer from depression because energy has been stuck over a long period of time. Helping get energy unstuck by changing thought patterns is terribly important although by the time someone is ‘diagnosed’, the usual methods of changing thought patterns or thought habits can prove a little less accessible.
So, what are the more ‘usual’ methods of changing thought habits?
You know, while this might strike us as ‘remarkable’ (meaning rather unexpected or beyond our usual expectations), the practice of being ‘PRESENT’ is such a POWERFUL way of ALLOWING energy to flow freely.
When you practice being present, watching whatever is happening without getting sucked into it over and over again and which is how energy gets stuck, you are actually moving with the natural flow of energy. JD Krishnamurti referred to the awareness of ‘what is’ as ‘choiceless awareness’.
The practice of ‘choiceless awareness’ is a very powerful way of unlocking yourself from deeply entrenched thought patterns and freeing energy that is stuck in such thought habits. The more you practice ‘choiceless awareness’ or the related practice of ‘breath awareness’, the more you benefit in very profound and practical ways. You will see what I mean in this post.
Over time, the tendency for your mind to get locked in particular thought patterns in which energy gets stuck weakens. You will find that obsessions, cravings, attachments, hatreds, aversions, fears and phobias begin to lose their grip on you as energy is released from these holding patterns and allowed to move freely once more.
It’s not something that is likely to happen overnight but every practice of ‘choiceless awareness’ and/or breath awareness, which is meditation practice, has the effect of allowing energy to move freely and thus be available for creative work including new thoughts, new ideas, fresh feelings, fresh enthusiasm, greater aliveness.
Here, it helps to keep in mind that your thought patterns/habits didn’t happen overnight either. They happened over long periods of time, many over decades. So, be reasonable and compassionate with yourself.MENTORING
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