Most women need healing. I am not talking about treatment (the stuff you get from a doctor like drugs, tests or injections). I mean healing when we change our physiological state from stress and anxiety to the state of calm, love and connectedness.
Healing always means changing the physiological state. It is what all good healers do - they change the way the body and organs operate from an unhealthy way to a healthy way.
Every woman can change her physiological state herself, if she is aware of it. Very often we are so used to our physiological state that we don’t even know if this is normal for us or not.
The reason for this is that we start developing our physiological state when we are a baby, and then our body remembers it and works the same way later on in life. But the good news is that we can change it – but only if we are aware of it and want to change it.
As young children we develop the way we become
When we are little we learn how to feel about ourselves and about life from our parents and adults who are around us. It all starts from the emotional reactions they evoked in us when we were little. These childhood emotional reactions affect the body and the organs and make them function in a certain way. Then it becomes like a default mechanism when you have an anxious physiological state all the time.
As adults our bodies have tendency to recreate the same physiological state we were in when we were children. Think how often you have felt inadequate, fearful or embarrassed in a situation where other people feel just fine and normal? It is because your body recreated a physiological state it used to be in when you were a child. And it happens even against your own will, even if you say to yourself “Hey, I shouldn’t feel that way about this situation.”
Many women make mistakes trying to change their physiological state using their will alone
When you try to change your physiological state using will alone, you often fail. This is because the will is controlled by your brain (conscious part). But your physiological state is controlled by the other part of the nervous system - the autonomic nervous system which is different from the brain.
What is the Autonomic Nervous System?
Why it is important for women?
The autonomic nervous system does not refer to the brain. It refers to the body and to the organs and how they function. The autonomic nervous system is divided into sympathetic and parasympathetic parts.
The sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system is responsible for the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism and it is activated when we are in a survival state. Hormones released during sympathetic activation are adrenalin and cortisol (stress-related hormones).
The parasympathetic part of nervous system is responsible for a calm, loving and connected state. Parasympathetic system activation is associated with the release of a hormone called oxytocin. Also, the Vagus nerve plays a big role in parasympathetic activation.
Basically, any time when you feel unwell, anxious, embarrassed, guilty, stressed or ashamed, your sympathetic nervous system gets activated and adrenalin is released. This is always bad if it happens often.
As women we can only be strong, resilient and efficient when we are in a connecting and loving physiological state and produce more oxytocin (not adrenaline). That means we work on parasympathetic nervous system more often than sympathetic.
The ways to produce more Oxytocin and activate parasympathetic nervous system
- The primary conscious action to produce Oxytocin is caring for another. Appreciation, generous touch, gratitude, and emotional connections with other people will help you to do that. The saying "the more you give, the more you get" is related to oxytocin as well. The more you nurture and connect with others, the more responsive your body and brain becomes to it.
- Meditation causes Oxytocin release.
- A good massage or acupuncture will help to release more Oxytocin.
- Allowing a full, down-through-my-body loving breath, which is called Oxy-breath, will always help to release Oxytocin and change your physiological state from stressed and anxious to calm and connected.
- Relax your shoulders.
- Imagine a thread pulling the top of your head towards the ceiling so your posture is nice and enhanced, but not rigid.
- Sit on a chair, or stand comfortably.
- Put feet shoulder-width apart, arms resting on your thighs with your hands facing upward.
- Relax your jaw. Relax your jaw muscles too.
- Relax your tongue and allow a deep breath in. Now notice it is not ‘take’ in a deep breath, it is ‘allow’ a deep breath. When you take a deep breath your chest rises, which is actually a more sympathetic type of breath, and it activates the sympathetic nerve that is going to produce more adrenalin.
- And now-with a little smile on your face, your eyes relaxed, your gaze relaxed-you are going to exhale with a pleasurable sound of a ‘ha’ (h-a). And you’re going to allow your ‘ha,’ or your exhale, to be slow. This is really important. Exhale slowly and exhale much slower than you inhale. You can inhale for the oxy-breath at a regular rate. You can exhale much slower, with a ‘ha’ sound. The sound and feeling of a component of pleasure must be there also.
Why is it important that a component of pleasure is there? This is because your hypothalamus will pick up on the vibration of pleasure and realize that you are not in a ‘fight or flight’ mode. You cannot be running away or fighting if you are in a state of pleasure. Or, in other words, you simply cannot be in a state of pleasure if you are running away or hiding.
It’s going to sound like this: Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
See the video, which shows you step by step how to perform an Oxy-breath.
How does the Oxy-breath work?
The Oxy-breath works because it switches your body away from the sympathetic system to the parasympathetic and activates Vagal pathways (Vagus nerve which is a part of parasympathetic nervous system).
Why and how does that happen?
When you have a little bit of a smile on your face you’re telling your hypothalamus “I’m not in ‘fight,’ I’m not in ‘flight,’ I’m not in ‘freeze.’’’ So it’s going to switch you away from the sympathetic system (fight or flight) to the parasympathetic system (rest and relax mode).
It also will activate your Vagal pathway.
When your Vagus nerve gets activated, then you have a connection between your belly and your emotional brain, which is really the essence of mind-body connection because the Vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve in the body. It connects to the core of the brain. The core of the brain is the emotional brain. It’s called the limbic system and it is where your emotions are. The outside layers of the brain are responsible for our thinking and logic (the cognitive brain).
So, the Vagus nerve will connect the core of the emotional brain (limbic system) and come down with the huge pathway of nerves. It’s not one nerve; it’s a pathway of nerves. Below the belly button it gets divided into millions and millions, if not billions, of nerve endings. So, by vibrating the Vagus nerve with the loud sound Haaaaa, you activate the nerve endings in the belly. This gives you the connection with your emotional centres in the brain, which is why we intuitively say, “I had a gut feeling,” because we are thinking in our belly. By activating the Vagus nerve, we become more intuitive as well.
To conclude:
Women’s healing = changing your physiological state from “fight and flight” to calm, love and connectedness. You can do it with:
- Regular Oxy-breath (at least 3 times daily)
- Connecting, bonding and expressing your gratitude to others and yourself.
- Meditation
- Massage
Next step of healing
When your body releases Oxytocin, the next step of healing is connecting to your Higher Self. The Higher Self is a part of you that loves, trusts, appreciates, and has a purpose, which is confident and joyful.
The Low Self is the part of you which is depressed, anxious, needy, manipulative, empty, weak, vulnerable, tense, lonely and helpless. The Low Self is your chatterbox (or critic) - the one that often talks in your head about how scared you are, how bad you are, that other people are better then you are, that you are not good enough. If you have any addictions (or obsessions) like eating disorders, alcohol, drugs, OCD or other addictions - then your Low Self always gets attached to those.
Everyone has these two Selves - High and Low. It all depends on which one you choose to feed, which ever you choose will always win. The choice is yours.
|
