Our lack of understanding that the body is the seat of wisdom and power has created a consciousness that has separated itself and is operating according to its best idea of what to do. Its best idea is based on a set of ideals that are out of touch with the present moment, which the body is in direct contact with. This separation occurs when consciousness, in the course of having an experience, begins choosing responses from its internal catalog rather than checking in with the body to see if they match. This will leave the experience undigested in the body and build up more residue.
Over time, consciousness will move faster, become more out of tune with the environment, and eventually, run on fumes without the gravity it would gather were it to descend into the body. This leads to a perpetual state of discomfort and powerlessness, and as the mind becomes less and less capable of interacting with the body’s communications, it begins treating them as a nuisance. Communications from the body occur as a slowness and weight, which, to the aspect of consciousness that seeks unfettered freedom, feels like a burden.
In truth, they are the key to freedom because they contain the very directions that consciousness is looking for to reenter the body. It is only in and through the body that we see there is nowhere to get to but here. The body knows what it knows through a felt sense. Inside that feeling is information consciousness needs for the well-being of the whole.
The body is drawing consciousness down in order to connect it to the unprocessed feeling so it can process, interpret, and direct. Unfortunately, we are not trained to make that drop, so most of what we sense from the body is the off-gassing of the undigested material. This appears as a free-floating anxiety or fear, a sense of dread, or a background feeling of discontent or resentment.
The body yearns to digest this material. For the most part, our bodies are left unattended, densely packed with undigested experiences. In fact, it is so dense that consciousness can scarcely enter without coming into contact with partially or wholly unprocessed feelings and sensations. The space that would be required in order for both sensations and emotions to adequately move through as the dynamic energies they are, is filled with material that, unprocessed, still carries with it a charge.
To have material that is charged means that at the moment a phenomena met with our nervous system, a charge of positive, negative, or neutral arose. The moment of contact creates a charge. If that charge is met with attention, it is detonated or goes off in consciousness. For this to occur—because the charge is held in the body—consciousness must inhabit the body. If this is the case, it is quite simple; phenomena contacts the body, is met by attention, is discharged, and is received in consciousness as information and in the body as a kind of electricity.
The good news is, this is only undigested material. The other good news is that digested material becomes fuel, energy, and wisdom. It is the process of converting poison to medicine. It is a process of retraining the mind first to descend, then to penetrate and remain attentive without acting—especially as the charge goes off—then to wait and listen, then to decipher, and then to wait until the charge is released into the body and there is a sense of power. Then, finally, to act.