Crazy old data-processing mission
If considered merely as a data-processing unit, data coming in through the sense organs and being synthesized in the brain leading to various choices, the results of which produce more data to synthesize, your person is evidently working far harder at the subconscious level than you might have been aware of, dear reader.
Not that I’d be one to suggest that’s all you are – but it’s irrefutable that among many other descriptions you are at least a data-processing unit.
If I try pushing through too much raw material through my juicer in one go, the engine overheats and closes down for a couple of irritating minutes, so I’ve learned by and by to push through less and at a slower pace to achieve a faster more harmonious result.
Although human consciousness processes are far more complex than juicers the same principle applies. When overload strikes the engine closes down for one or two irritating minutes and you simply can’t think straight at all – often when you most need to think straight too.
So what to do, how do we best ride the flow of incoming as well as self-generated data?
Well for a start, more slowly.
The subconscious does all the calculations required in any given moment, and does so faster than any computer. That function and tempo can safely be allowed to get on with it, because it knows everything anyway so certainly knows self-pacing.
It’s the conscious mind that’s the issue and which requires intercession on our part.
The conscious mind – which for the purposes of our conversation sits in the forebrain – and likewise for the purposes of our internal conversations with ourselves, it sits there making noise the whole day and night long, describing the inflow of data so it fits within the necessarily relatively limited parameters of the story we’ve been developing and telling ourselves ever since we were old enough to think in concepts and words, but which is only a story, no matter how well told.
It’s the conscious mind being unable to slot new incoming data into the story so it makes sense to us, that causes the sensation of overload and saturation, not the subconscious, which is essentially omniscient and able to process all the data in the universe in any given nanosecond without breaking pace.
{Therefore), if we remove our focus from the forebrain activity by retracting the mind, the vantage point into the very back of the skull so we can observe both our internal processes and our version of the external world from there, we are merging ourselves with the subconscious mind and are hence instantaneously freed from the constriction experience – and all that unnecessary tension, or at least a fat portion of it, is released, or more precisely relinquished, because stress isn’t a thing to release as much as an activity to persist in or desist from.
To enable such a shift within the skin, requires merely the intention to do so and the exercising of proprioceptive sense, the knack we all have when we concentrate of being able to feel what’s occurring within. But because our minds are so programmed to think about things rather than think in various modes – content rather than context, we find it tricky at first.
Visualizations can help – see a powerful vacuum placed on your back sucking your presence backwards, for instance, or each time you exhale, imagine the movement of breath out of the body causes your presence to be shoved backwards into your back, or simply honor the fact you’re comprised mainly of water, and are hence a water vessel, and the fact the main strength and weighting of the vessel is in the rear (the spine and muscles either side) and so it makes sense to tip the water towards the back rather than front, or picture your mind as a little Buddha with your face on sitting with its back leaning up against the rear wall of the skull and gazing out through the ‘eye-windows’ in the front from there.
Once you feel weighted more in the back, slow down your breath, relax all muscles, rise to your full height by lengthening your spine, and expand to your full breadth by dropping and broadening your shoulders. Then subtly lift the upper chest without arching your back and feel as if lifting the hood concealing an opening in the center-chest so that your heart region opens and you can feel your innate beauty radiating more freely.
Now grab your lowermost ribs in the front, by sticking your fingertips under the ribs, left hand on the left, right hand on the right, and gently yet firmly and persistently draw your elbows away from each other so that your diaphragm region gets a good lateral stretch – hold it while your breathe slowly for three breaths and release suddenly by letting go sharply. Wait a breath or two and notice your breath capacity has increased considerably.
Notice also how your entire system and being has relaxed in an active, ready-for-business kind of way, set your intention to accomplish all tasks and obligations, an d process all associated data with consummate ease and excellence, and carry on as you were.
Follow all that carefully dear reader, and I wager by this time tomorrow your entire relationship with yourself and the world around you will have undergone a definite transformation for the better.
With love, Barefoot, your brother on this crazy old data-processing mission,