It is well known that we affect our biology with our thoughts, outlook about life, beliefs, unresolved (karmic) issues and other similar mind-body-soul perspectives.
I believe that we have much more power to create our realities (and our bodies, our experiences, our relationships, our financial status, etc) than we give ourselves credit for.
I have been working with my second chakra since September 2008 attempting to achieve my ideal weight without having to diet or exercise (crazy, isn't it?) but I truly believe that one can change physically, mentally and emotionally... from the inside out.
The reason why I worked on the second chakra is because it is related to the sweetness of life and experiencing joy (so I felt there was a link between this energy centre and sugar-cravings).
The second chakra is also the centre of emotion and where all our fears are lodged.
These emotions are frozen in time: when you have had an experience, any emotion is registered in this centre and remains exactly as it was at the age when it was registered until it is revisited, relived, released, shifted, transmuted and healed (here I felt that there was a link between this energy centre and vulnerability of dis empowerment).
This chakra is also the centre of self-esteem and assimilation of food and digestion. Some of its metaphysical qualities are change, movement, health, family, tolerance and absorption of new ideas. Some of its qualities when it is out of balance are over-indulgence in food or sex, confusion and purposelessness, jealousy or envy and the desire to possess (here the links were very clear between this energy centre and outmoded thinking patterns that get frozen creating lack of movement and fear of change in our lives).
Finally, since the second chakra is located at the navel, which was once our umbilical cord (our attachment to our first physical home: our mother and the nurturing that she provided) it was easy to see how our food habits have so much more to do with nurturing and emotional need than sometimes purely physical maintenance.
Because of all these factors, I believe that food and nurturing can get confused. So when we really need to get healing we actually eat instead, hoping to fill that void created by the lack of integration of the memories, energies or emotions lodged in this centre. We don't understand why this void doesn't get filled by the food we eat and are pulled powerlessly to eating the wrong foods and/or overeating.
But what our body in its wisdom is actually doing is to match the vibration of this centre with the foodstuffs we are attracted to, because it is a Universal law that equal attracts equal. So my theory is that until we can shift the frequency of this chakra (e.g. healing it) we will be attracted hopelessly to the same foodstuff and in the same large quantities.
But these uncontrolled urges tend to create guilt in us because we perceive them as wrong, and so we get locked in a vicious circle of further lowering our already low vibration via self-judgment and self-blame, and which in turn creates low self-esteem. We are emotionally telling ourselves that we can't be trusted to be responsible to look after ourselves and we experience feelings of worthlessness because we don't have the appearance that would give us personal self-respect and pride.
And so we are continued to be drawn to those foodstuffs that we were trying to avoid in the first place... and in larger quantities or more often!
In "Acupressure for the Soul (Biological Spirituality & The Gifts of the Emotions)" by Nancy Fallon, PhD, it says that: "Not until a change occurs in the second energy centre simultaneously with a belief change, can the true powers of the emotions be awakened. When there is physical vibration in the second energy centre, such as crying, certain breathing techniques and gut-level yelling can bring about, then there is a cellular memory opening and re-programming can take place".
I am right in the middle of writing an Ebook relevant to this subject: "The Liberation Diet: Staying Young, Healthy and Beautiful from the Inside Out". This is not just going to be merely a compilation of thoughts but it is going to be a research of real-life case studies: I want to prove, once and for all, that yo-yo dieting doesn't work and that if we work with our psyches, we are more likely to find balanced eating patterns and habits than if we expect some external factor to do it for us. I believe we must take responsibility for our growth, and our physical body is just one part of this reality.
I have been away from home (Spain) for 21 years. I go back on holidays from time to time and when I visit, my mum always tells me about this person and that person and what is going on in their lives. One thing that has caught my attention over the years is that I always get shocked as I notice that someone who during my previous visit was healthy and sound, seemingly age overnight. Whether they are in their 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's, it is amazing to see how one person seems to look the same for many years, just to seemingly overnight... look 10 or 15 years older! The way they look, the way they walk... seem to show a vast reduction of liveliness or life energy. Sometimes my mum can tell me whether they may have had an illness to explain such drastic deterioration, but other times, and these are the ones who really catch my eye, they can only explain this as normal aging.
But I have a fighting spirit and I don't accept anything at face value, so when something is highlighted to me so clearly, it is time for me to investigate. In this case, this led me to researching aging factors linked to what I call personal energy management.
However, I am one of these people who can't diet: I feel depressed when I attempt to diet; life is not worth living when I try to diet! Because normally dieting requires forcing yourself to eat in a different pattern and different foodstuff than your body naturally guides you to do. If you would like to eat differently, then I believe you need to shift the energy of your body so dieting becomes not-necessary, your body guiding you to the higher-vibration foodstuff that matches your new level of growth... and the best news, this would happen effortlessly! You would be able to maintain your new body-weight permanently without focusing on calories count or amount of grams of fat ingested.
This is why I started to investigate loosing weight the spiritual way: from the inside out, and the theory I came up with is that we put weight on when we move on in life but do not deal with unresolved emotional issues.
As we have seen by Nancy Fallon's quote, the chakra affected is the second chakra. It is situated just below the navel. You can see why the majority of people over 20 have a small (or a big!) so-called spare tyre! Who doesn't have any unresolved emotional issues from childhood or even... from previous karmic lives?
After a few years of struggling with food-cravings and sugar highs-and-lows, I gave up and accepted that the new me was a larger, more lethargic, less energetic, more dormant person. I put it down to normal ageing and, had I not done something about it, I would be one of these people who put on about 10 extra kgs every decade (becoming one or two sizes larger), who when looking at their pictures of younger days would think to themselves: wasn't I thin then?
I was living in the UK at the time. Mario and I had been about 7 years together when I heard Spirit's voice: "Pack up and leave. You are going to South Africa".
As usual, I heed the call. As we turned our lives upside down in order to leave behind 17 years of personal history, I came to South Africa and the first thing that happened to me is that I was dying to cleanse my body! So I started to eat fruit and yoghurt smoothies for lunch, soup for dinner, herbal teas during the day. Within 3 months I was... 54 kgs! I made my body lighter and then it was time for a baby, so my new vibration was happily matching that of my baby of light, hence I had an effortless and problem free pregnancy as our energies were in harmony.
In her "Power Nutrition" article, Annette Colby PhD tells us:
"How did we get so afraid of feelings? After all, emotions, including the so called negative ones, are a natural part of being human. Everyone experiences them - each and every day. Yet some people cope with difficult emotions by repressing them. It becomes an automatic habit to sweep unpleasant feelings under the rug and to stop consciously noticing what the body is feeling. Emotional eating can in part be the consequence of not allowing feelings to flow naturally [...] Eating, or starving, can serve as a temporary antidote to the feelings of sadness, depression, hurt, anger, self-hate, guilt, stress, boredom, and so on.
For some, the act of not eating all day serves to numb awareness of the physical body and emotions. Limiting food intake can create a false sense of being 'in control' and can lead to a feeling of calmness. For others over-eating, binge eating, or bulimia work more effectively to create a momentary solution. These behaviors can briefly calm, distract, and sometimes divert attention away from the original emotion. Food itself, especially carbohydrates, can release powerful chemical and hormonal responses which create a sense of temporary well-being. Any of these eating patterns can work by reducing tension and anxiety, suppressing feelings you can't stand, removing your attention from an uncomfortable situation, and so on"
Annette Colby continues to explain that we become emotional hostages when we hold down emotions "usually as an attempt to protect ourselves from feeling pain. It is coping strategy designed to keep us safe. Somewhere along the line an unconscious decision was made to avoid conflict, deny our feelings, and be strong by handling things ourselves. Eventually, it became such a way of life, that there is now fear associated with letting feelings flow".
She says that suppressing emotions may be a copying mechanism but it comes with a price. These emotions that are felt to be deadly or scary, that have been locked up and kept under control, give us a feeling of fear of the unexpected: what would happen if I actually faced these emotions? Would I die? Would they kill me?
Well, maybe yes. The old you would certainly die. And although only the ego would die, this very skilful part of psyche has made us believe that its death means the death of the whole person. So only when we decide to face the void and are willing, or able (over a period of time, as it takes time to open up to hidden feelings) to jump into the nothingness of the new person we will become we can liberate ourselves.
Annette says "At first, it may feel like a flood of emotion, but as the pressure of unexpressed emotions releases, you will feel lighter. You will not cry forever. The anger will not keep on exploding forever. The pain will not go on forever. Learning to gently and compassionately be with what you are feeling allows healing to occur".
I don't think the majority of the people have the tools to deal with this kind of healing by themselves. They normally will need help. I underwent numerous healing sessions of many different kinds, workshops, training and psychic development; I studied for a very long time (still am) the many different hidden realms of the soul and since it is my passion, I will continue to do so for as long as I can. This paper is one of my many attempts to do so.
KARMIC LOADS
When people see me for the first time, they usually tell me that they think I am in my early 30's.
I feel that I have done such intense spiritual work for the last 14 years of my life that somehow, I have undone some of the ageing that came to me with my karmic load of my early 30's.
Remember I was mentioning at the beginning of this writing that some people seem to age unexpectedly at some time between their 30's and 70's? Or that it happens regularly, in stages, once every decade? Remember I was talking about going up a couple of clothing sizes each decade but accepting this as a normal happening that comes with aging?
I noticed that in my early 30's, steadily but inexorably, I put weight on; I didn't have as much energy as when I was younger; I became less flexible in my thinking and didn't seem to get so excited about things in life as I did before.
There are many other ways in which this lessening of energy takes place. I am sure many of you have also noticed this; perhaps all these factors creep up slowly and one day their accumulated effect shows itself seemingly overnight as a deterioration of our energy system or in physical terms, ageing.
This time I intend to cut this karmic download in the bud and deal with it before it is manifested as normal ageing processes and take this opportunity to shift myself to the next level of energy. I am no longer prepared to be a person who will go up one or two sizes every decade and decide that it is normal, accept it as unavoidable and feel heavier and more restricted as life goes on, until one good day, one is referred to as an old person, a person whose world shrinks physically, emotionally, mentally, while you make yourself as comfortable as possible while you await to die.
All those years that I couldn't diet or let go of foodstuff that wasn't compatible with me, now I realised that I was using food as a cushion, as comfort. Within the period of a month, my body has willingly let go of several eating habits that were bothering me for the hold they had on me: eating biscuits in the afternoons and eating milk chocolate... they were the habit of a lifetime!
I have also let go of eating carbohydrates during the day and eat only fruit and herbal teas. In the past I would have felt hungry, depressed and sorry for myself, but now I find this practice empowering because I feel that the scale is tipping on the side of managing my energy. Truly the physical part of the spiritual work is the hardest!
What I am trying to say is that when you force yourself to change your diet or do exercise in a desperate attempt to hold back ageing or merely lose weight, if the issues that underlie these tendencies of putting weight on and / or having less physical energy are not dealt with, one requires to use more and more of one's will in order to keep all this at bay and, sooner or later, a challenge or a test will come by in order to force you to deal with these hidden issues.
And it is very likely that at some stage one will give up exercise and dieting done this way because it simply can't be kept up as it will become a strain and a stress instead of the joy of a body following its energy blueprint of health and youth. This is why I resist the urge to join a gym or do a diet: I rather work on the emotional underlying issues in order to get my body to willingly and joyfully guide me towards the dietary changes and exercise routines that best suit it, according to how I shift and transmute heavy, negative energy into more positive, lighter, youthful energy.
The proof of the pudding will be if by the time I am 53, will I still look and feel 32?
