Your floating head may be zapping your energy

I’ve recently been hearing a lot of people refer to themselves as floating heads: stuck in their heads and unable to move out of it and into their bodies. It’s no wonder that so many of us feel overwhelmed and unfulfilled in our lives; the deep sense of joy that you so want to experience is felt in your body. 

The head is defensive by nature when it takes on a predominant role in your life, even when you’re feeling proactive. The body, on the other hand, wants to simultaneously explore the world and your capacity for joy. It communicates with you through your heart, emotions, muscles, and nervous system. If you’re feeling inauthentic and achy, you might want to learn to connect your head back to your body and put your body back in charge. 

Just as you treat medicine as urgent when you’re sick, learning to connect with your body is of utmost urgency if you want to increase your sense of health and wellness. The medicine is quite simple: daily practice, both on your meditation cushion and off. 

I’d like to share just one simple on-the-cushion exercise to begin with: the Ego Eradicator. 

You’re not trying to eradicate the ego so much as dethrone it and have it serve your highest authority: your Soul, your truth, your body. 

The answers to the most important decisions that you’ll ever make in your life lie in your body’s intelligence. When you betray it, it aches and it fights against itself. When you follow it, it relaxes, moves, and fights on your behalf. The Ego Eradicator uses a breath called the Breath of Fire that detoxes your system both physically and mentally, activates your personal power (your third energy center), expands your magnetic field (your eighth energy center), and strengthens your nervous system. And you can do this in just 3 minutes (up to 11 minutes) a day. 

Past, Present, and Future

The past reveals to you the stories you've held onto, and where you might wish to change them. They give you contrast and comparison. They weren’t meant for harboring regrets and resentments and projecting stories and conclusions on what’s in front of you today. The mind wants to do that out of fear you'll get hurt again. The heart knows you've grown from it and wants for you to live to your fullest.

Presence is located in your body. It can only physically be in the present moment, and it will cry if you take it elsewhere. You'll feel the exhaustion, the tantrums, the stress. When you come into the present moment, you relax into yourself. If you haven't noticed this, take note throughout the day today. To the contrary, your head is mostly in the past or future unless you’re using it to exercise a skill you’ve learned, and even then, those skills are embodied. Your body knows what to do right now. Your body is your navigation system and personal expert. 

The future: you’re a steward of everything that surrounds you. You weren’t meant to dwell in worry, victimhood, and powerlessness. You know what you enjoy and what feels good to you. Use it to plant seeds that heal and grow. Get curious about waking up in the morning to see what you can do today. Remember that you seed for tomorrow what you focus on today. You create in the future the experiences you choose, and the stories you affirm, right now. This is your daily off-the-cushion practice: to consciously choose to focus on the stories you want to continue on. 

We confuse our story-based experiences for reality. We insist on it. And then we wonder why our presence isn't so great. We complain, we self-abuse, and we become our own victim and perpetrator. Eradicate the ego. Take off the prickly crown and wrap your entire self in your royal robe. Hug that body of yours and love it like the queen that you are. Include a forward fold in your morning and in the day, letting your head bow below the level of your heart. Strengthen those legs to hold you securely so your back can stretch and relax, allowing your truth to reign, loosen up the contractions, and harness your fears. Breathe into your solar plexus to breathe life force into your personal power. Exhale out the heavy weight you’ve been carrying for too long. Drop into your body, your super intelligence, and re-attach that beautiful head; connect it to its home.  

Love, Savitree