February 6, 2011
Primal Contraction 0
Almost every primitive life form has an instinctual reaction in the presence of a potential danger, it contracts. Just think of the polyps of a coral or a snail. I bet you have some child memory of touching the antennas of a snail and watch them contract and if touched more the snail totally contracted and coiled up inside the hard shell house. Then, after a while, it relaxed and came out again and continued to do it’s snail things as if nothing ever happened. This is a sound and normal reaction that will help the individual life form to survive. It is basically nothing more to it than contraction and expansion, contraction and expansion. The very heart beat of existence it self.
Strangely enough there seems to be a very deep resistance within the human psyche to this natural contraction. We call it “fear” and we don’t want it. Contraction becomes an indication that something is wrong and the mind starts to analyze the cause of this unpleasant feeling of “fear”. Usually it goes one of two directions to find the scapegoat. Inwards, blaming us self for contracting because we feel we should be open and available, or outwards projecting the cause to something outside, usually a memory of a situation or a person that has hurt us in the past. It becomes a circle of instinctual contraction and storytelling in the mind that enforces the contraction in an on-going loop instead of relaxing again when the danger is over and go on with life just as the snail in the example above.
I more and more feel that this primal contraction is the very foundation of the sense of separation and for many people it seems to stay in a more or less chronic state of contraction.
So what is the remedy? First let me say that this is a quite new and on-going exploration for my self. I have no easy answers and not much is written about this in the spiritual literature. Mainly they are circling around the thinking (mind) and emotional (heart) levels of identification and the instinctual contraction I am talking about here is millions and millions of years primal to emotions and thoughts in the evolutionary memory we all carry in the cells. With other words, there is basically nothing we can do about this contraction. It is purely instinctual and has nothing what so ever to do with will. What I find helps is to be aware when it happens and not starting to fight against it. Just simply allowing and noticing what is happening in the body. If possible I can slowly move in and out of the situation and feel if the contraction is changing. Usually the instinctual contraction triggers a lot of thoughts, stories in the head, around why this is happening. Simply noticing what kind of stories I am telling my self without judging them. And of course I am judging the thoughts and emotions, then I notice that as well. Allowing everything to happen and being aware.
What can be done with the primal contraction it self? Basically trying to do anything with it, is what sustains it. I would say that this is the utmost surrender. Surrendering not just on the level of the mind and the heart but also on the most rudimentary physical level of life and death.
My advice? Be daring and yet gentle to your self, be like a snail, and one day you might find your self not using the shell house as much anymore.
Richard
