By in Meditation

Body Electronics- A Form of Meditation?

I have been having sessions of Body Electronics for years. Amazing that I have only just realised some of what really happens in the session.

Basically, I spend 3 hours on a massage couch: the therapist holds a point, much like a Reflexology point for the 3 hours, the point heats up, eventually, it cools down and then it pulses. The point relates to an organ like the liver or lungs. Once, it stops pulsing, I am ‘cooked’, the process is over. For me, I lie there going into my body, being aware of all physical sensations, aches, pains etc. and all emotional stuff, like anger, happiness, in fact, all or anything that comes up while I am on the couch. It’s a form of intense meditation. Total Mind and Body awareness.

As you can imagine it can be a challenging process, I am not supposed to react to any of the sensations, if there is an itch I cannot scratch it, literally. It is not for the faint-hearted; only those who are willing to go to places that we don’t normally go to or admit we have.

Apparently, there was a client who literally tried to run on the couch. The client was a runner; there he was trying to run away from whatever it was that was coming up. Don’t get me wrong, there have been numerous times when I have wanted to go to the toilet while I am on the couch, it is an escape mechanism to get out of the situation. Fight or Flight! I do not react to any of it; in fact, I am supposed to go into the feeling of wanting to go to the toilet. Not easy!

Part of the process means I ‘drift’ or feel very ‘floaty’. My therapist will ask me questions every now and then, which brings me back into the room. At the time I hate it when he asks questions; I’m quite content to be where I am. Just lying there: floating. I am in my subconscious mind, and each time he asks me a question it brings me back into my conscious mind. Not thinking.

I have often wondered why sometimes when I am guided into meditation that I drift off. I have no awareness of what happened, what was said or what I experienced. I had thought that I had drifted off into a comfortable sleep. But now I am questioning what is actually happening and of course, I don’t really know. Although probably sometimes I sleep and sometimes I drift off to a place that as yet I cannot define. Maybe I am in my subconscious mind? I have quietened my thoughts, not thinking. That is the ‘goal’ of meditation, to quieten the internal chatter.
I had been told that I ‘go out of my body’ but what does that mean? I have no idea. I didn’t dare ask the person that told me, on reflection maybe I should have.

I recently watched a TED talk, Jill Bolte Taylors Stroke of Insight. An amazing talk about herself: she had a stroke, a haemorrhage on the left side of her brain. In her words, she ‘lost’ her past, her future, language and her identity of who she had been, and herself as an individual.
The right hemisphere of the brain is in the present moment, being, and thinks in pictures: the left hemisphere thinks in language, is about the past and the future and has a ‘to do list’, it is about doing.

Now, this is really making me think about meditation, the conscious and the subconscious mind. How meditation quietens the internal chatter, the thoughts, the beliefs. Is what we think and believe really true? Are we our thoughts? Do I drift off into my subconscious mind while in Body Electronics? I believe so, possibly making meditation easier. It has certainly helped me understand myself, helped me to move through obstacles, ‘issues’, things that I have believed have held me back. Our answers are all inside of us. We don’t allow ourselves time to spend on ourselves to ponder, to review our lives, the moment, where we are or indeed who we are. Life is generally far too frantic, busy; we live in an age of distraction, of sensory overload. If only we could spend the time to meditate, to calm our conscious mind, our left hemisphere down. To keep the energy in our mind more on an even keel, more balanced. Balance the positive energy and negative energy.

Louise
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