Bulletin: The author of this blog has a tight stomach!

There I was lying on the table with about fifteen needles poking into my flesh and my stomach wasn’t relaxing. My wonderful acupuncturist kept coming back to my belly one needle at a time to see if my stomach released the excessive tension. No luck.

But it was for me great luck. A pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey luck! Bingo luck! Eureka luck!

There was my acupuncturist talking to me about tight organs and the need to relax them. I had thought about tight muscles, but tight organs was a new one and a revelation.

Mind-body insights burst bright in the dark room.

My tight stomach made sense of my thinking life.  I have a voracious appetite for thoughts that is never satisfied.  A tight stomach is not a responsive stomach that knows when it is full. This is more the tightness of being stretched to the max rather than of contraction and tight space.

I can stomach anything. This makes me a very good, compassionate listener, but not a good self-protector. Again, the stretched tight stomach that can’t respond.

I might think to myself,”Enough!” but I never felt it in my gut and could (will myself to or ask others to) stop. Self-knowledge striking gold!

And then there came the flight of questions: What would it mean to have a tight gall bladder? or tight kidneys? a tight pericardium? a tight large intestine? in terms of the impact on the soul life, on thoughts, and feelings, and intentions? What does it mean when these organs can’t relax and respond, when energy is stuck and stretched?

I started reflecting on my family, my friends, my clients. What tight organs explained their idiosyncrasies, their challenges, their capacities and sufferings of body and soul?

I went through all the organs of my body sensing degrees they were stretched to tightness . I also added the chakras to the tightness review.  And then I made up mantras and affirmations about relaxing.

My stomach is relaxed, receptive, and responsive. I know when I have had enough.

I realized my larynx stretches tight when I need to speak my truth to important people in my life.  (This is one of the drivers behind my passion for helping others speak their truth.)  I found my relaxing larynx mantra was

“My larynx is relaxed and expressive. I speak my truth calmly, confidently, compassionately.”

These mantras make a difference. When I silently speak them as a centering mediation, I feel these organs falling into their natural resiliency.

Just saying a generalized mantra like “My organs are relaxing.” and “My chakras are relaxing.” can begin to shift your sense of well-being, inner flow, and serene balance.

I began to examine “tightness” as the lack of “just right “relaxation. Relaxation means more than a lack of stress and tightness. Relaxation is a soul state alive with  and responsive to the forces of truth, beauty, and goodness.

Which of your organs are stretched tight, tense, rigid? How is this reflected in different ways within your soul life?

You can do a search on the organs and TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) to get some clues and hints for understanding your body/soul alchemy. Each organ in your body shapes how you think and feel and express your will.  Just imagine each organ poised with relaxation, serving the soul now, after the work of shaping the soul.

Back to my stomach, it’s tightness which began in the chronic trauma of my childhood demonstrates the mind-body connection to shaping the capacities for fulfilling one’s destiny. Relaxing my stomach will not shift the soul capacities that were developed by the karma of my stretched tight stomach – the capacity to listen without judgment – but now I will be able to be aware of my body’s needs and capacities and say “enough!”, before taking the three or four extra bites of food.

I’ve learned that there are lessons and blessings living behind most challenges, difficulties, and imbalances of our bodies.  When the lessons and blessings are recognized, in this case, the tightness can be relaxed, as the soul no longer needs the karma of the body to bring it’s destiny to fulfillment.

Please share any “ahha’s”, and any mantras.