What are energetic and emotional blocks? They are obstacles that prevent the natural flow of energy and prana or life force in the body, affecting both one’s physical and one’s mental health. They may prevent one going deeper into a yoga pose, or deeper into life’s experiences. They are barriers that stop the flow of our journey forward.
The obstacles we face may be born out of our desires. Desire is like a seed. Impressions and experiences are drawn in through the five senses and then planted within our first and second chakras. As the seeds of desire begin to grow, quite unconsciously, we experience them as a gut emotion – a feeling and willing state, an emotion of “I want it now.” We have all experienced that anxious feeling in the belly, when your desire becomes an urgent need.
Desire is then fed by the fire of our mind’s meditation, as one contemplates how to achieve satisfaction. As the hunger of desire grows from our solar plexus, it slowly enters the heart, where it is stored. We tend to nurture and protect what is within the heart. We safeguard ourselves from others who may intrude into our space, or threaten our heart’s desire. The heart becomes the home of desire.
Although residing in the heart chakra, desire defuses into the throat area and manifests itself in sound, becoming vocal. When our heart’s desire is threatened then we become defensive, beginning with our words. Sound reflexes our state of mind and heart, as we interact with others and the world around, our vocals are a pivot to achieving our goals.
The third eye or sixth charka becomes blocked. Instead of the intelligence being the power to discriminate between good and bad for the purpose of self-discovery, it is used to manipulate material nature (praktri) in order to fulfill what is residing in the heart chakra. Fear and anxiety may overcome the consciousness due to our deep-rooted attachments, and our words and actions permeate our prana maya kosa or energetic and emotional body. In this way, our deeply rooted attachments in the heart, and our personal motives to fulfill our desires, cause blocked and stagnant energy within the body.
Healing desires
Desire is a natural function of the self. It is not that we can become desire-less, or free from feelings and emotion. Unfortunately in many cases we have become self-centered and selfish, not self-less. In any activities we do or any interactions we have, the mind thinks “what’s in it for me” or “what can I get out of this”. Thus the false ego becomes a driving force in our actions.
If the pivot of our desire were to change to “ what can I give” or ‘how can I serve and help others”, then the heart opens up to feel what another is feeling, and to experience life from not just your limited vision, which is often clouded over with personal motives, but from a broader perspective.
