John’s Sunday Blog

Compass

What is missing from our digital world? If you think less of it may be better for you rather than adding more to it, I would agree. Yet, what I’m talking about is a perceptive, yes, cognitive thing when it comes to digital content. For one, there is no sense of smell when consuming the digital. We have olfactory (sense of smell) sensors in our skin, heart, lungs and liver. When we consume digitally there is no feel, nor any taste to it. With only sight and sound one is brought straight into the thought world and the body is forced to deal with the emotional reactions to the choice of the content. Also, our body uses direct current electricity; the same electricity that the sun rains down on us. Alternating current, which is poisonous to us, produces the second-hand light from man-made devices which lack the full spectrum of light we need for health. No, I’m not just going to rag on the negative parts of these technologies. I want to talk about the loss of creativity and self-direction when drawn into that world on a consistent basis. So yes, it is a useful tool for learning and entertainment.

I don’t think we have primitive brains. In fact, I think that the sophistication and intelligence in nature far surpasses anything we can cook up. The sophistication in one blade of grass surpasses all societies preceding ours. My opinion… yes. My proof: Without photosynthesis (another mystery we try to explain) there would be no mammals. In other words…YOU. And what are you? You are your body. I don’t mean just the inert matter itself, but the process of it. You see, the body does not live in psychological time like we do. It is always in the present. And the deeper parts of our brain do not know about deadlines, resentments, worry, etc. Real or imagined, it takes cues from our emotions which produce vibrations on what it needs to do to keep you alive. More problems arise when symptoms (migraines, muscular skeletal pain, digestive and sleep issues) are greeted with the same attitude that brought them about. Pressure to fix or control.

When we farm out our attention toward too many things “out there” we lose our creative abilities. Even worse, possibly not knowing what our abilities are and what we are really capable of. This makes one a complacent spectator doubting one’s own decisions or making none at all due to overwhelm. Or doing what is prompted to you.

Yoga has an answer for this. A return to the body on its playing ground; the present moment. When your mind is focused solely on the breath, movements and sensations, a homecoming happens. You return to the body as a process of nature, not an ideal, imagined or picked up- just pure actuality. Additionally, if you do this with an attitude of acceptance and allowing, not fighting, fixing, competing or comparing, you might be surprised by a freshness in one’s outlook. Certain pains may recede and be forgotten because we begin to trust this process of life rather than control outcomes. Many of us cling to a past we cannot accept and try to avoid a future of more of the same whilst in un acceptance. Does that make sense? See, the body does not know time. Will you give it some?

And when one turns to it. Use a sense of friendship, the body has been your friend has it not? No matter how much we push it, abuse it. Always there, even in sleep striving for balance.

Not the win.