by Tanmaya George
You may have used or heard terms such as "its my nerves" or "he is getting on my nerves". But what do we mean by it..?
Our nerves transmit information. The part of our nervous system called the autonomic nervous system ensures the communication between the brain and the rest of the body. It controls involuntary body functions such as breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat and the dilation or constriction of blood vessels.
So when we feel under threat our heart for example starts beating fast and our breathing changes. This is not something we choose but a response of the body to a stimulus in our environment. Conversely, when we relax and support the body in realizing that it is safe our heart rate and breathing slow down, our sensations change.
One of the most common stressor to our nervous system is the thoughts we have. When we dont choose our thoughts they can become negative stimuli that make us feel stressed without us being aware of it. This is why meditation techniques such as Max Meditation are so powerful because they allows us to take a step back and consciously choose to let go of our thoughts.
This also works the other way around because a relaxed body cant hold stressful thoughts, so when we consciously plan in time to relax the body we automatically also help the body to relax.
Why do we sometimes need to rebalance the nervous system?
The Hermetic Principle of Rhythm expresses the idea that in everything there is manifested a measured motion, a to and from, a flow and inflow, a swing backward and forward, a pendulum-like movement. There is rhythm between every pair of opposites, or poles, and is closely related to the Principle of Polarity.
Acupuncturist and many forms of ancient wisdom techniques work on removing obstructions to this natural flow. This also applies to the nervous system. At times our system can get stuck in either hyper or hypo-arousal states. So we can find it hard to relax or to get active.
This is usually when we haven't been able to fully allow an experience to "flow" through us. Maybe we didn't feel safe to experience it, or maybe something very abrupt prevented us from completing an experience, movement, or reaction.
The body and our nervous system has built in mechanisms for healing and releasing built-up stress. These can be supported by healing methods such as the life activation, aura healing, soul retrieval and also ensofic ray. All these amazing healing modalities support us in gracefully releasing past experiences and rebalancing the nervous system in different ways.
How can you explain the differences in sensitivity between people?
When I ask clients what they feel in their bodies, there is a wide variation of intensity of sensations. Some people can feel minute shifts of the autonomic nervous system as strong sensations while others report not feeling anything.
This is also true for substances that also have a big impact on our autonomous nervous system. Coffein, sugar, alcohol are just some examples. Interestingly some of us can take large amounts of these while for others they immediately will produce an unfavourable response of the autonomous nervous system. This is just one example of how differently sensitive we can be.
One way of explaining these differences can be through the flight, fight and freeze model. When faced with a threat under time pressure we choose either fight, flight or if none of these are available freeze. In the freeze state we feel less, it is in a way a protection.
I can speak from experience when I say it is quite common and many people experience freeze in some form. As we start our healing journey the freeze states start to melt and our senses get sharper and more precise. For me the biggest shift happened in this regard during healers academy. This second initiation is designed to open our senses and the 5 days of this class help to melt many blockages in the "central core" or the "central nervous system".
What exercises can support the rebalancing of the nervous system?
The Max Meditation system and Chi-Do are wonderful ways to rebalance the nervous system. I am also attaching a short practice that can be beneficial in situations where it is not possible to do meditation, rituals or chi-do right away. The track "To The Rescue" can be accessed here.
Blessings
Tanmaya