Day 15 The Mental/Emotional Body

“Verily the most necessary thing is contentment under all circumstances; by this one is preserved from morbid conditions and lassitude. Yield not to grief and sorrow: they cause the greatest misery. Jealousy consumeth the body and anger doth burn the liver: avoid these two as you would a lion.

- Bahá’u’lláh (Tablet to a Physician)

Integrative yoga therapy works with the five Koshas, meaning layers or sheaths of the human body, 

• The physical body – Anna-maya kosha, 

• The energy Body – Prana-maya kosha 

• The mental and emotional body - Mano-maya kosha 

• The Witness body - Vjana-maya kosha 

• The bliss body - Ana-maya kosha 

In order for purification to happen, first you need to know that you have all these layers to begin with, second you need to know what exists in each of these layers - which of course is a never ending discovery process.

We take our life-times discovering here, the same way the discovery channel is on 24/7, sometimes even on repeat ;)

Each layer of the human body requires nurturance, connection and love to thrive, essentially the healing of one layer has an ultimate influence and well-being on the whole. You don’t have to work on all layers at a once to heal.

For the next three 19 day purification series, I’m going to describe, what each layer of the human sheath actually is, where problems arise in these layers and how to fix it. 

The Mental/Emotional Body

The mental emotional body is like the energy body, in that it is also invisible ‘naked to the eye’, but is quite real / felt.

Whether you want to categorize this as an entire layer of the human body, or a subgroup of collected emotions like love, compassion, gratitude, anger, jealousy, fear, they can easily be felt by the average joe and you instantly know what I’m talking about.

Now, just how real do emotions get in your body?

Where attention goes, energy flows. 

Yes, emotions vibrate at different frequencies, positive ones like gratitude, love, and joy have high frequencies and negative ones like anger, jealousy, fear vibrate at low frequencies.

Emotions therefore vibrate and create a distinct energy, and they do flow, move, get blocked, get trapped in certain areas of your body.

It is not a random thing that certain areas of your body get sick, why the liver and not the pancreas? Why the heart and not the kidneys? Why the uterus and not your breasts? All illness is directly correlated to an emotional energetic charge and intensity that gets trapped in that specific correlated area or organ. The part of the human body are symbolic in a way.

All diseases stem from the mental/emotional layer of the human body. 

Isn’t this kind of like a revelation in itself? All diseases stem from this layer alone.

However… However… however….

Let me give you the caveat, this applies to diseases that stem from the SELF and not those that are given to us by God <- that is a mystery for our perfecting.

Since thoughts are relevant to the health of your body, directing your conscious attention and awareness to parts of your body whilst doing yoga is half the trick, what you think actually impacts your health!

Emotions matter, that is of course important.

it is also has a double meaning in that emotions are actually matter , it is a substance, a material thing. Thinking creates energy, and energy becomes matter. 

 Can you tell me what is the most famous formula of all time?  

E = mc^2

kinetic ‘E’nergy = mass * speed of light (c) ^ 2

Moving the formula around to the other side to isolate mass you get: Kinetic energy over speed of light squared equals a mass.

*Kinetic Energy/ speed of light (c)^ 2 = mass

Your emotions have a kinetic energy linked to it, energy that it possesses due to its motion.

Emotions eventually become a substance (mass) if speedy and strong enough - such as a stress hormone, a chemical signal in your body secreted by the adrenals (glands on top of your kidneys).

Two suggestions in particularly that come to mind as an integrative yoga therapist to ensure the hygiene and health of the mind and emotions are meditation and reflection. 

Meditation

Not many people discipline their wandering mind, and boy will it go places, places where they don’t even adhere to human dignity, and without conscious awareness, you are going to think that the wandering mind is your reality, your true-self.

So get to meditation, and get to learning how to create that quiet space for your mind to rest – this takes skills and nothing in our world provides a system for us to collectively learn how to meditate, so this has to be our own initiative for now.

As an integrative yoga therapist, I don’t always recommend people to do yoga, especially if it is not something that doesn’t brings you inherent joy, but I unanimously tell people to meditate, because you are human, and you have a soul, and if you have a soul, you gotta nourish it or basically it dies.

What you feed grows and what you starve dies.

Reflection

Reflection will help to get to know your own thoughts, what you think in your own mind, to clean it up to communicate effectively with others.

Most people don’t intentionally create a space, and I mean quite literally an intentional space, like a building, like an architectural mind space that you can, share anything you want and need – where all thoughts and emotions are accepted for themselves. They are left with countless thoughts, emotions and feelings that are bottled up inside, never to see the light of day (in order to ultimately be released).

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, so the emotional energy is not going anywhere if you don’t channel or redirect it.

You see, we pick and choose, curate our thoughts, sometimes to only write those things that are worthy of human dignity. The problem is that when you don't’ clear out negative energies or deal with difficult emotions in your own time, and give your self the opportunity to say whatever you want to say in the crass way that you felt it in that moment, your most precious ones (children) gets the brunt of it later, given the proximity, physical, emotional and spiritual closeness that you share.

So this is really just about taking responsibility for your thoughts, so that you are able to truly communicate effectively what you are saying.

If you would like to work on this area with Yoga Avec Moi, we would love to be your mental and emotional guidance coach! Check out our booking services to find out more.

To receive personal updates on classes, workshops of Nahal that she doesn't share anywhere else, get on her mailing list on her website www.yogaavecmoi.com/subscribe

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Introduction to the Author 

作者简介

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Nahal Haghbin's Chinese name is Chen Nana, a Canadian-born foreigner who grew up in Tianjin, China. She is an Integrative Yoga Therapist (IAYT) in training. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Life Sciences from the University of British Columbia and a Master's degree in Control of Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In 2014, Nahal worked with the World Health Organization on the H7N9, MERS-CoV and Ebola global outbreaks whilst serving in the Assistant Director General's Office Taskforce. It was her teenage experience of SARS in 2003, that led her to choose her eventual profession and future career in the control of infectious disease outbreaks. 

作者简介：Nahal Haghbin 中文名字：陈娜娜，出生于加拿大，在中国天津长大的外籍人士。她是一名在训的综合瑜伽理疗师（IAYT），她拥有英国哥伦比亚大学生命科学学士学位和伦敦卫生及热带医学院传染病控制科学硕士学位。2014年，Nahal与世界卫生组织合作处理H7N9、MERS-CoV和埃博拉全球疫情，同时在助理总干事办公室工作组任职。正是2003年她十几岁时的非典经历，让她最终选择了她未来的职业方向：控制传染病的爆发

Nahal has found that she can best be of service to mankind by combining her passions of global health and integrative yoga therapy. To her, both serve as complementary systems of knowledge to interpret the world around her. Nahal has found that by bridging the two disciplines, it broadens the availability of language and understanding that she can access, to share her interpretations of various health conditions. 

Nahal发现她能结合自己对全球健康和综合瑜伽理疗的热情，为人类提供最好的服务。对她来说两者是互为补充的知识系统，可以用来帮她解读周围的世界。Nahal发现连接这两个学科拓宽了语言和理解的可用性，使她能够分享她对不同疾病的理解.