Sunday’s Focus

Spend the day feeling for oppositional energy. Feel the ground pushing back as you walk. Feel resistance in your body, emotions, and thoughts. Feel for the counterbalancing tension that makes energy isometric. (This week, the Focus and the Movement are aligned. Watch the video below for a overview)

Sunday’s Concepts

This week, your explorations will include Isaac Newton’s Third Law and the energy configurations of Isotonic, and Isometric – which you can review in the movements for Layer 17, Week 4, scroll down to Isometric and Isotonic.

Newton’s Third Law basically says that if there is energy, there is energy in opposition. You type on your phone and you can feel the phone screen resisting. The screen opposes your energy in equal measure to the amount of energy you are exerting.

If you step on a rock barefoot, you might say the rock bruised your foot or you might say you bruised your foot on the rock. The result is the same but the blame shifts. The energy transfer is also the same. Your foot exerts a force on the rock and the rock resists your force.

If you are wearing hard-soled shoes, you might not move the rock and the rock might not sink into your foot. This is Isometric – two opposing forces coming together without movement. The example you have read before is when you push your palms together equally in front of your chest. If you push equally, no movement happens. Push really hard and still no movement happens, even though you exert more energy with one side of your body.

When you step barefoot onto a rock, the rock sinks into your foot. Your foot’s ability to resist the rock is overpowered and the rock contuses and bruises the tissue. Overpowering resistance is Isotonic.

So, in the nature of energy configurations, isotonic and isometric are movements happening against resistance. In some way, every movement of everything is isometric or isotonic because there is always some degree of resistance.

Monday’s Focus

Feel for asymmetrical energies. What can you identify in your life that moves isotonically? What do you do that you don’t feel like doing? What movements feel sluggish? Where do you overcome your resistance?

Monday’s Concepts

For our purposes, let’s refer to isometric and isotonic more broadly. Let’s say you want to lose weight, but you don’t want to alter your current level of exercise and calorie consumption. The desire to change will battle the unwillingness to change. If the energies for each are equal, no progress will be made. You will maintain your current weight, exercise, and food habits. This is isometric. You will be spending a ton of energy wanting and not wanting to lose weight.

The common denominator is resistance. Resistance is the offsetting of two or more energies. Resistance with movement is isotonic, resistance without movement is isometric. You want something BUT there is something in the way. Resistance isn’t a wall, it is a teeter-totter. It has the qualities of isometric and isotonic energy. Resistance is the energy held in opposition. That opposition stops or limits movement. Resistance is the result and by-product of offsetting energies.

Equal offsets are isometric. Unequal but still offsetting energies are isotonic. Isotonic resistance allows movement. The shift from isometric to isotonic requires that the equation become unequal. That one side or the other transitions to have more or less energy than the other. Push your palms together in front of your chest with equal force. Double the force and twice the energy is expended but your hands still don’t move. If you increase or reduce the amount of force on either hand, movement happens.

If you want to evolve, transform, alter, or innovate – your success is dependent on something changing. The Status Quo is isometric, change requires that existing energy configurations shift away from isometric. Isotonic energies allow change but at a price – the continued resistance to change is draining.

Couples trying to overcome infidelity might be a good example. Let’s assume the intention of the non-cheater, Sally, is to forgive, reestablish trust, regain intimacy, and remain together. Sally will have lots of reactive energy tied up in blame, suffering, distrust, anger, etc. That held energy will have a value and the desire to move forward will have a value. If those values are equal, they will offset each other and there will not be a resolution – the suffering brought on by the infidelity and the offsetting energies pushing and pulling at each other will persist.

Sally will hold onto the pain and it will smolder. It is isotonic if it gradually fades over time. Resentment is smoldering anger and pain. It is isometric or mildly isotonic. There is energy there that is being offset by some other energy. Sally wants to forgive but can’t seem to. If there wasn’t an offsetting energy, the resentment would pass.

Tuesday’s Focus

Find something you identified as isometric or isotonic and begin the search for the offsetting energy. What is the oppositional fear that creates the resistance? Generally, is it too muchness or not enoughness?

Tuesday’s Concepts

What do you think the offsetting energy might be to resentment? Look inside yourself and find some lingering resentment. What is holding it in place? What is the isometric equivalent that keeps it from transforming?

It is almost certainly fear. All isometric and isotonic energies including resentment, anger, jealousy, blame, intolerance, phobia, and every limiting belief is held in place by some offsetting fear. Memories and suffering that fade over time are isotonic – they gradually lose their charge because the fear energies fatigue and weaken.

Anything and everything you are holding onto persist because of fear – even the good stuff.

Feel into that. Have a cherished memory? Can you identify the fear it holds? Think back to something super fun you experienced. Does it still hold a charge for you? Do you smile and feel that warm tingly feeling? If so, there is also fear present. The only way energy can remain in place is if there is an offsetting, isometric, energy.

In any given moment, you have thousands of isometric and isotonic energies held in each of your bodies. We call that tension, resistance or stress. Depression is the value you assign to the heaviness of those held energies. Ever wonder why sensations like elation don’t last? It is because there isn’t a corresponding fear. There is an absence of resistance when you feel elation. That is why it is hard to recreate the feelings of elation.

You will explore offsetting energies in this week’s Focus and in much more depth starting with Layer Eighteen, Week One. Until then, be curious, do the Foci, and see what you can discover about yourself.

Wednesday’s Focus

As you make your way through your day, feel for the fear of the oppositional energy you identified yesterday. Feel for the background or subliminal fear of too much or not enough.

Wednesday’s Concepts

Back to how Essence and Hara play in helping you to transition out of your isometric and isotonic energy configurations.

Isometric and Isotonic energy configurations are the manifestations of your resistance. They can happen concurrently with the other configurations because the others all have some degree of resistance.

If Sally from Monday’s Concepts begins to value the reactive energy (anger, pain, or jealousy) more than the desire to remain in the relationship, change will happen. If she completely devalues remaining in relationship while increasing the value of the reactive energy, change will happen FAST … because there is no resistance. The values are no longer offsetting. It is like one person getting off the teeter-totter. The anger will create a trajectory without impedance.

Things feel hard. You have suffering. Pain, injury, and disease exist in the world. Unkindness, distrust, violence, and intolerance happen. All are the result of isotonic and isometric energies configurations and the offsetting energies of fear and resistance.

As you’ve read before, Enlightenment is the absence of resistance. Approaching Enlightenment happens as you begin to identify your isometric and isotonic energies and remove the offsets. If you feel stuck, depressed, or overwhelmed, it is because you are valuing offsetting energies equally to your intentions. To get unstuck, find a way to value one thing more and/or the other thing less. Create movement by transitioning away from your isometric and isotonic patterns and habits.

Thursday’s Focus

Get specific with the offsetting energy from yesterday’s Focus. See if you can construct a sentence that starts with My subconscious mind is afraid that … Be explicit, detailed, and precise. Read your sentence out loud and feel for the resonance in your body. If you can’t feel it, it is probably not the offsetting energy.

Thursday’s Concepts

Let’s talk about how you can infuse your isometric and isotonic patterns with Essence and Hara as the healthiest way to initiate beneficial change.

Essence will add weight and value to the beneficial or intentional side of the teeter-totter. Hara will help you know which side is beneficial and in-line with your intentions. Essence will also add mass and volume. As you infuse Essence into your life, the things you love will have more energy and sensation. You will feel them more. They will feel more precious and compelling.

Weight loss is a very complicated undertaking. There are a lot of factors that determine whether or not your system begins to burn more fuel than it is absorbing. If weight loss, or more accurately fat loss, is your goal, get to know the variables and begin to shift the isometric and isotonic energies that have kept you at your current fat level. Infuse your intention with Essence. Allow yourself to add value to the choices that will encourage your system to respond. Celebrate your successes as you bring awareness to the healthy discomfort and incremental accomplishments. Congratulate yourself every time you make a beneficial decision, lose a pound, or go an extra few minutes on the treadmill. Create a plan. Use your Hara to map out your objectives and the factors necessary to meet your goal.

And then, and most importantly, identify the isometric and isotonic energies that have kept you from losing fat sooner. What are your habits, patterns, images, and beliefs that don’t seem to move or move glacially? What are the offsetting energies? As a reminder, offsetting energies are the oppositional resistance that stop or limit movement. Offsetting energies are largely subconscious and are usually accepted as a default.

What fears do your offsetting energies hold? Since most of your offsetting energies will be subconscious, they will be shadows that whisper. As you bring them into the light, you can evaluate them in your current context. Old patterns, wounds, and experiences are rarely relevant today.

For years, I went to the gym five days a week and lifted heavy weights, adding muscle. It was a habit with a very strong pull (pun intended). Eventually, I realized I was bulking up because my subconscious mind believed it would keep me safer. For it, muscle equaled armor. It wasn’t accurate. My mental and emotional bodies seemed vulnerable, weak, and unprotected. My subconscious mind tried to offset those feelings with more physical strength. As I acknowledged that muscle didn’t equal safety, weightlifting didn’t interest me. I transitioned to yoga and meditation. I addressed the underlying mental and emotional fears by accessing deeper understandings of my psyche and releasing long-held tension deep in my tissues.

I worked through my fears was by bringing Essence and Hara to my yoga practice. As I gained knowledge and experience, I grew to love the dedication, determination, and exploration that yoga offered. The yoga studio became a refuge where I could allow myself to be myself while being supported by others with similar intentions. My physical practice deepened as I increased the emotional energy I allowed. As I gained knowledge, I was able to focus more specifically. As I felt my energy body, I could begin to discern the energies of others more effectively and genuinely.

Essence and Hara allowed me to challenge my edges, to embrace healthy discomfort, and to understand the power of kindness.

Friday’s Focus

Search for other areas of your life where the sentence you wrote might also apply. If it is accurate, there will be tens, if not hundreds, of other examples.

Friday’s Concepts

Alright, let’s look at the influence the isometric and isotonic energy configurations have on your components.

Focus: Isometric and Isotonic configurations restrict and limit your focus to the offsetting energies and away from opportunities that aren’t associated. When you have two kids in your kindergarten class eating fistfuls of Playdoh instead of crafting clay animals, the artistic successes of the other kids will probably be ignored.

Essence shifts the equilibrium of offsetting energies and allows for the possibility of change. Hara provides the trajectory for your focus aligns with.

Stability: Isometric and Isotonic energies have mock stability. They seem stable but are actually just unmoving. Stable is fluid. People with strongly held principles may seem stable because they don’t seem to change, but in reality, they are just intolerant of everything outside their narrow beliefs. They are entrenched, not stable.

Essence provides stability by creating an atmosphere of enlivened neutrality. When you are truly stable, you are centered and invigorated with the potential, possibilities, and energy around you. You blossom away from the familiar and limiting.

Speed: As you can probably guess, isometric and isotonic configurations are slow and heavy. They have a lot of potential, but that energy is not available because it is busy offsetting.

Essence creates the opportunity for momentum to generate. As you infuse Essence, it decompresses stuck, tense, and fearful energies and allows them some space to begin to move. Once those energies begin to gain speed, Essence gives them as much supporting energy as they can manage. Hara provides the direction of movement. Speed is only beneficial when it is moving you in the direction you want to go.

Strength: Isotonic and Isometric energies create weaknesses because they tie up current potential. If you have an overwhelming desire to be in a loving, intimate relationship and are constantly worried that any future relationship will catastrophically fail, you aren’t going to have much energy left to attract or detect a future partner. Your desire and fear will offset each other, negating the strength of your intention.

Essence consolidates the totality of your strength without regard to existing patterns, images, beliefs and habits. Hara is the general directing your troops toward victory.

Flexibility: This one might be obvious. Isometric and Isotonic energies lack flexibility. They are entrenched, rigid, and stubborn. If you strongly believe that God put animals on this planet for your eating pleasure and your offsetting energy is a fear of starving to death, the chances of you exploring fruitarianism is extremely low.

Essence allows the entrenched offsetting energies of isometric and isotonic configurations to begin to decompress. Essence allows the space to move. It also allows a lowering of the conflicting energies. As offsetting energies lose their power, other options are more easily taken. Hara helps to identify which option is the most beneficial.

Saturday’s Focus

Sit in meditation while holding your sentence. Feel the resonance in your body, explore its qualities, and give the energy the opportunity to move.

Saturday’s Concepts

Endurance: If most of your energy is being spent to maintain your offsets, you won’t have much left over. Your endurance will always suffer when isotonic and isometric configurations are in play. Last weekend, I watched a runner drop out of a 100-mile race because she had a few wasp stings. Having followed her through the wasps, I know what she was feeling. I chose to ignore my stings and keep running. She gave her stings half of her energy and the other half went to her offsetting and projected fears. Her subconscious mind totally convinced her that she couldn’t continue, that she had no more endurance, that all her energy was necessary to deal with the discomfort of the stings.

I don’t have a fear of wasps. I’ve been stung a few times in my life without lasting drama or trauma. Her experience was different. She distorted her energy into only the possibility of pain and fear. Essence allowed me to feel the stings and not generate any overwhelming offsetting, isometric or isotonic, energy. I accepted and tolerated the sensations and kept running. Engaging my Hara allowed me to endure the pain and maintain mobility.

Rejuvenation: This is interesting. Isometric and Isotonic configuration require a lot of energy. They monopolize rejuvenation. Most isometric and isotonic patterns are efficient rejuvenators, but that rejuvenation is not available. It is directed to maintaining the offsetting energies. Depression feels exhausting because all your energy is being spent on maintaining your offsets.

Essence allows your rejuvenations to flow where it can be best utilized. It radiates your rejuvenation spherically to every part of your bodies. Hara plays traffic cop and ensures that the offsetting energies don’t create traffic jams.

Next week, you will explore how accumulating and percolating energies are influenced by Essence and Hara.