Your Inner Physician

In yoga and meditation it is best to allow your body to breathe you. Every time you come to the mat or cushion, allow your breath, blood, pulses, heart-rate and cranial motion to move of their own accord. Each of us has our own inherent biorhythm, a continuous, vital force that moves like the ocean inside. The art of practice is to get out of your own way and to let the cadence and tempo of your own inherent motion move freely. John Upledger, one of the early craniosacral gurus in America, called the intelligence of the body’s bioenergetic system the “inner physician.” To heal body and mind, you have to let your inner physician do its good work. In each practice, sense and feel the natural, organic  motion of your lungs, heart and brain. Note that the inflection of your pulsatory rhythm is unique to you. We each have our own signature pulse.

In seated meditation, trouble arises when we talk over our inherent biorhythms. Thoughts, plans and rehashed memories interrupt intrinsic motion of the blood, breath, heart beat, and cranial wave. When you yip and yap, chittering and chattering to yourself, you override the delicate timing of your essential life force. By slowing the rush and tumble of thought and turning your lantern of awareness inside, you yoke to the animating force celebrated in all the yoga texts, the supreme in-dwelling spirit.

So when you practice, have a quiet, receptive state of mind. When you listen inwardly, you honor the presence of your own unique pulse. When your thinking, planning scheming mind subsides, you come into synergy with the vital tick of the creator. It is then that your inner physician can work its own magic.