The “Capacity” for staying present to what is determines how integration can occur. Capacity is developed through witnessing the enactment of the third force of creation: The reconciling force.
The receptive force of creation (the first force), and reactive force of creation (the second force), are balanced and intrinsically connected by a third force of creation called the reconciling force.
Overall, we are receiving a multitude of impressions per millisecond, yet, we can only perceive a limited number of them in our conscious awareness. There is a hierarchy in the lenses of perception in the brain structure, determining which impressions are given priority. Fortunately, whoever or whatever created us knew what they were doing.
The first impression prioritized by the brain is the need for survival, the somatic or” felt sense” lens of perception is how the impression regarding our safety and state of well-being arrives in the subcortical aspect of our brain and the automatic reaction via the survival reflexes is generated. What this means is that these processes do not actually require our awareness, they are running in the background subconsciously or unconsciously, so to speak.
For instance, it doesn’t require conscious awareness to breathe, for our heart to beat, or for our bodies to regulate our moment-to-moment survival needs. The nervous system can only conduct a limited “charge” before our defense structure, including our adaptive strategies, comes into action, with the aim being to protect the integrity of our physical reality. Our defense structure walls off the charge and keeps it contained to a limited area within our bodies. This occurs in lieu of it being able to continue to run its course fully when it is perceived as overwhelming and as such, something that may short circuit the nervous system.
This (our body’s central nervous system) is a highly intelligent organizational system, but at the same time, it comes with a cost. Our bodies will actually contain this charge without having a conscious awareness of this having happened. It’s only when our conscious attention is placed on the tightness or tension in the body, through the lens of “felt sense” awareness, that we can locate what’s being contained somewhere in the body. We can then place our attention on the contained charge, and consciously experience it.
When overwhelm or hyper-arousal is experienced (in the body), our defense system wants to come in to “boot” us out of it by taking our attention away from the part of us that is in pain and is suffering. The cascade of the familiar adaptive strategy once again is enlisted and we are repeating the pattern we have become accustomed to. If we recognize this pattern that repeats all the behaviors automatically and takes us away from the part of us that needs us the most, we can then instead choose to place our attention skillfully from placement on the contained charge to the open space around it. This open space “is open” and free and not contracted nor overwhelmed. The breath is simply flowing freely around the contained charge and informs our brain that we are alive and have survived. This is what’s called “a place of resource.”
Then, the nervous system responds with a calming of the alarm and settles. By sustaining our placed attention on what is already resourced within us, a greater capacity has been created in the nervous system so we can choose a second turning to the highly charged, contained area, which makes it now possible for the charge to be discharged safely and a return to the open and free-flowing life force ensues.
The increased capacity of the receptive force is able to meet the greatly charged area, the balancing, reconciling force now enacted allows us to become more present to reality in a given moment.
Building our capacity to stay present to what is, in a sustained way via the Inner Observer, is what leads to more and more mental-emotional-somatic flexibility and greater capacity for receiving spiritual awareness.