By Ifetayo White
Let’s just lay it on the line: Flow is the secret ingredient to healing what keeps us from the full experience of joy, of freedom! Remember the feeling of freedom that we had as children — moving fluidly, easily, flexibly, full of energy and vitality? This is the flow of freedom from constriction, holding, resistance, tension and pain. This is the energy of joy.
Take a moment to feel in your body where there is tightness, hardness, sensitivity, pain, numbness, spasm or immobility. Check out your shoulders, upper back, middle back, lower back, neck, head, face, chest, heart, upper arms, hands, lower belly, stomach, buttocks, hips, legs, and feet. What can you sense? Are there spots where you can feel any of the sensations mentioned above?
What awareness do you have of feelings or thoughts or beliefs that you are holding onto or can’t let go of? What experiences of loss, of disappointment, of betrayal, of abuse, of trauma, of fear are you recalling? These are also energies of constriction, resistance, tension. No flow. Less freedom. Less joy.
We have learned so much in the past several decades about the relationship that our feelings, thoughts, and past experiences have with our bodies. We have learned that when there is a release of energy on either the emotional, mental or physical level — stuck feelings, beliefs, rigid muscles, inflexible joints — there is a corresponding release on the other levels. More freedom, more flow, more joy is experienced throughout our beings.
OK, I would like to make something clear right here. There is a difference between someone or something making us feel good, and our creating the permanent channels of joy within ourselves by opening to more flow. A release or a letting-go has to take place for energy to flow where it had been restricted before. We begin this process by becoming aware of and feeling the constriction, pain or inflexibility in our body or emotions or thoughts.
The next step is to make a choice to let this painful or limited experience go. Then, we need to learn: what can I do right now to change this condition or what support do I need to accomplish this?
Creating more flow in our bodies, minds, emotions can be as simple as taking as many breaths into the restricted space as needed in order to create more energy of openness and flow there. Sometimes slow rhythmic movement to music or wild, passionate dancing will provide an initiation of release and create more flow within. Slow rhythmic walking, yoga, qi qong, tai chi, bouncing on a rebounder or exercise ball, applying heat are other remedies for constricted flow. Spending time in nature is always healing.
Oftentimes we will need to find someone who can provide us with the support we need to release what is blocking our freedom, our flow, and our joy, to unblock the stuck places, to help the knots unwind, to let the tears flow. There are many experienced and compassionate practitioners and therapists in Beaufort who can share “their way.” Hands-on therapies, energy work, movement, change and empowerment coaching and therapies, are a few of the tools available to create release and the creation of more flow in the body, mind, emotions.
Go for the flow and enJOY more freedom, more living.
Ifetayo White has been a holistic healing practitioner since 1989. She offers support to her community through classes and meditation at TheraVista, in addition to providing life empowerment coaching, Reiki training and treatment, trigger point therapy, integrative bodywork, childbirth preparation and education, birth and postpartum doula services through her businesses. Ifetayo can be contacted at 843-271-1923 or neesamoon@gmail.com.
