Expand and release

Expand and release

October 2014

By Suma Varughese

If we can expand rather than fall into our default programme of contracting each time we encounter resistance, we will heal emotional, physically and karmically, says Suma Varughese

Accepting what is has been one of my central practices ever since I entered the path. What is helping me to deepen this practice is my newfound capacity to expand into my thoughts and feelings, and therefore to fully feel them. The common practice is to contract when something happens that we do not like. When someone says something that makes us feel put down, we contract. A challenge arises at work, and worry makes us contract. Anxiety, fear, resistance, self-doubt, guilt, shame – all of these cause us to contract. And when we contract we deny ourselves life-giving prana. Oxygen and prana fail to reach us in adequate measure, and thus our emotions get stuck within our body, instead of being naturally released. Eventually, the parts of the body that hold these emotions are consistently denied prana and oxygen, and tend to sicken and cause disease.

When this happens, once more we contract. I have noticed that we tend to contract any area of the body in which we experience discomfort. A stomach pain causes us to instinctively contract around that area. A chest congestion, back pain, head ache, all these cause us to contract, because our default programming is to resist what is unpleasant. And when we do this, prana and oxygen fail to go to these body parts, causing the discomfort to persist or even get worse.

Dr John Sarno, author of the paradigm shifting book, Mind Over Back Pain, has enabled millions of people the world over bedridden through slip discs, to retrieve their lives and health by stating that the cause of the crippling pain was mild oxygen deprivation to the body part, and not the slip disc. What’s more, he said that the reason for the oxygen deprivation to that part, was because of some stress they were holding there. I myself have healed from a painful slip disc episode by recognising that the problem was psychological and not physical, as he makes us repeat endlessly.

With my newfound practice of expanding into any resistance I become conscious of, I am finding that not only am I able to free myself of the resistance, but also to heal the body part! I have been suffering from sinus attacks, colds and chest congestions for the last eight years. All fruits save pomegranate, milk products and wheat products, would immediately give me a cold. I was inured to these deprivations, but as the expansion became more habitual, I found that my cold began to clear, and I am now able to have fruits like bananas (which I adore), or milk products like curds, without too much of a problem, though I am discovering that excess has its consequences. I am amazed. I never thought I could reverse this problem to this extent, but clearly expansion brings prana to the body part and heals it.

With my newfound practice of expanding, I am able to heal my ailments

Similarly my IBS too, though not fully healed, has abated considerably thanks to my expanding into my thoughts and feelings. Even a sciatica pain that used to hobble me, is under abatement thanks to this new practice.

Moreover, by expanding and releasing our thoughts and feelings, we are actually ensuring freedom from karma because once the emotional charge leaves us, there is no further karma, and that means we are getting that much closer to the final liberation.