Alternative POIS Forum

Such notions and experiences are themselves a product of armouring. They show the extent of cut-offness from our heart, guts and sex. The mind is a bodymind - not a headmind - however'natural' it may seem to be 'in our heads'.One very common effect of working to melt the armour is that people's centre of awarenessshifts downwards, into the 'heartlands' of the body. We begin to experience our heads, weirdlyat first, as just another limb like our arms or legs. We start to realise how stiffly we have beenholding our head, so as to stay's' it; and how tension in and around our eyes represents theneed to 'hold ourselves up' through seeing, rather than through the support of our legs and feet- desperately gripping on to the world with our eyes, in the same sort of way that whenwewere learning to stand we kept ourselves erect by gripping onwith our hands.As well as being a vital channel for information and contact eyes and ears have also been asource of
threat
in our lives. Scary and existence-threatening energy has invaded us throughour sight and hearing - the coldness in the look of adults who should be caring for us, forexample, the anger or pain in their voices. Most of us came into the world in the agonisingglare of hospital lights, the cacophony of hospital noises, later, we may have tried to minimisedangerous excitement by 'not looking', 'not seeing' stirring images, 'not hearing' the confusingsounds of our parents making love.So very often the eyes and ears are in a permanent state of blocking which says 'I won't see -won't hear - won't understand'. Muscles inside and around the eye sockets, and at the base of the skull, are in constant tension, stopping us from really focusing on the world around us,from opening up to reality.
 Exercise 2
 Try an experiment yourself.. sit upright, and bum your head as far as it will comfortably go toone side. When it reaches a stopping point let your eyes carry on round until they too reach

 
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their comfortable limit - no need to strain, then bring the eyes very slowly back round until, asthey face forward again in the head, they 'pick up' the head and both continue moving back round to the front of the body. The illustration should make this clear. The point is that theeyes should move continuously, without jumping, so they 'sweep' the field of vision, carryingthe head along with them. Keep breathing while you do it!