The Human Energy System

It is simplistic to say that everything is energy, yet it is true. For the bonafide scientist, perhaps this is easy to comprehend. But for the majority of us we need to contemplate what this really means for years to really come to the fact of it.

Everything being energy, what does this mean for us as humans? The body is one complete and complex energy system. We have broken the body, brain, mind, spirit into pieces in order to explain, communicate, teach, learn. We have taken the human being and fragmented ourselves into systems. Muscular-skeletal, nervous, circulatory, digestive, lymph, to name but a few. These systems are important and they lie within the truth of the make uip of the being. But what all of these systems leave out is the human energy system.

Energy can be difficult to define. When I think of the sun, I consider it to be a ball of energy. According to NASA, hydrogen makes up 92% of the sun's gas. The sun is viewed as a large ball of gas and plasma. Apparently the gas is 'converted into energy' at the sun's core and this energy moves outward and is released into the solar system as heat and light. The gas itself is energy, but it seems it is inert until it reaches the sun's core where it begins to energise into heat and light.

Using the sun as my explanation around energy, I would like to connect its energy and potential energy to our human experience. This is clearly not my subject, but my work, experimentation and research have led me to experience my own energy and I liken these explorations to the pulsating, moving, chaotic energy that is the earth's sun.

According to Eastern Philosophy, in particular that of India, the body contains the chakra system. In simplistic terms, Chakra's are areas of energy. I have considered the Chakras for many years in many different ways. I have practiced yoga for decades and several years ago took part in a teacher training. Chakras are often identified through symbols. Triangles, circles and lotus petals. It is explained that they spin. The seven primary chakras are given positions and names from root to crown.

It is easy to relate these locations to nerve plexuses. There is a plexus at the sacrum, behind the naval, at the solar plexus, at the heart, at the throat, brain. Not only nerve, but these centres also lie along arterial, lymph and endocrine systems. We can even see the respiratory system at these junction if we look carefully enough.

The chakras are imbedded deeply below muscle. The solar plexus or third chakra appears to be a strong hub of this musculature. Deep to the body is the diaphragm and psoas. Both relate to this chakra. Overlying these, we have the obliques, rectus abdominis and transversus in the front and the latissimus dorsi. top of the lumbar-dorsal fascia, quadratus lumborum and tip of the lower trapezius at the back. These are all extraordinarily strong muscles due to their position in the centre of the torso. They connect the ribs to the pelvis and protect the viscera that lie below.

It is important that these muscles stay toned and balanced in order to support the chakra or energy centre. All of our muscles need to support the various energy centres. When the energy centre and the musculature are balanced, the body will experience tone and strength naturally.

It is extremely difficult to know if the energy centres are balanced. Oftentimes they are constricted, restricted, ill at ease. We have become used to holding onto these centres. The holding makes us feel secure under uncomfortable circumstances. The mind, body (in terms of musculature and fascia) and energy centres organise around each other. Anxiety in the mind is generally (but not always) experienced as a contraction around the solar plexus. People who feel anxiety somewhat perpetually, might find release if they are able to find release around the solar plexus.

Stress, it seems, might connect with tension around the heart chakra. When a person is often stressed, they do not realise that they are literally closing down their heart. Finding the potential for release at the heart chakra is infinitely more difficult than the solar plexus.

Perhaps shame, distrust, dislike of oneself, connects more around the naval and root chakra. I am currently exploring these centres and examining how they interact both with the mind and tensing muscles.

One of the startling factors surrounding the chakra or energy system is that we have created exercise programs that consistently and regrettably ignore these centres and the energy system as a whole. When the body is out of balance on a physical level, we tend to think of it as an imbalance of musculature. Of course, this is not untrue, but it paints only a fraction of the picture. It also leads to the expectation that one can train an opposing (antagonist) muscle or a weak muscle in order to bring back balance. This simply provides a bandaid for a larger system-wide problem.

Unfortunately I do not have silver bullet as a remedy for the overall systemic imbalance in the physical body of the human being. The entire system needs to unfold in its own ways. The human mind with its ability to become conscious of objects, feelings, comforts and discomforts, pain, tension and patterns is a good starting point. This same mind that can unravel is also the inherent raveller so we need to proceed cautiously.

The beginning is to understand how different types of tension act on and affect our energy system. Because I am a manual therapist and a movement teacher, I begin with finding tension in the body. This is a particularly difficult exploration because our tension patterns are part of us and therefore incredibly hard to detect.

For now I use the energy centres, the chakra system as our pathway to detection. We can begin anywhere, but currently I find the centre, the solar plexus, a really good place to start. Truly, everything we think, do, feel, our opinions, biases, perceptions and concepts all affect the solar plexus. Being at the centre, as I pointed out earlier, strong musculature surrounds this energetic region. We have trained these muscles to pull us up into a sit up, to tighten so that we can do a bench press, to hold the ribs together so that they don't pop in a Pilates exercise or in yoga practice.

To return to balance, this area needs to be free. The energy, like the sun, flows outward. Be aware of how you keep this energy to yourself, holding it inward. When any one of our energy centres is not free flowing, then none of them are. The costal arch area affects the neck. The upper adductors affect the costal arch which affects the neck, and so on and so forth.

It has long been suggested that 'heart openers' open the heart. If you do heart openers, really feel your heart. Not the stretch that the so-called opener is producing. This is not opening. In general, a stretch or the feeling of stretch is not opening an energy centre. I believe it is often doing the opposite. The centre we are attempting to open should feel not unlike how we might imagine the sun. A bubbling, exploding, unending, chaos of expanding energy.

Often when a yoga student moves into a heart opener, they over engage the muscles behind the heart or they pull the chest open. This closing of the back will trap the very energy you are attempting to open to allow flow. In fact, any specific muscular engagement has to potential to inhibit the flow of energy through these centres.

This is a huge subject. One I continue to explore and will bring to Instagram and maybe YouTube. We can use the energy centres as a barometer for all movement, thought, daily life.