Consider you greatest strength, greatest weakness, and blind spot from last week. Can you connect to the collaboration that must be present for them to continue to exist? Deconstruct the three and see how much collusion you can identify (what are the parts and how do they cooperate).

In previous layers, we talked about bodies, components, and the myriad of ways you can become unbalanced. The reason you don’t dissolve into a blubbering, dysfunctional mess is because consciousness and collaboration exist at every level of each of the five bodies and all seven components.

Some of the collaboration is straight forward; the physical body displaying strength or endurance. Chopping wood takes on a life of its own. Some collaboration is more convoluted like endurance, strength, flexibility, and focus coming together to help you tolerate high levels of intimacy.

The consciousness in each of the bodies and components might be a bit harder to fathom. Have you ever felt like your stomach has a mind of its own? When you feel determined, does determination feel like it is somehow disconnected from the rest of you? If you consider yourself a runner, motorcyclist, bird watcher, basket weaver, etc., can you feel the consciousness or energy configuration to each of those?

Consciousness and collaboration. Let’s start with the bodies.

Physical Body:

At the cellular level, each cell reacts as an individual. It has a primary intention, to survive and a secondary intention to work in conjunction with its neighbors.

The primary intention, survival, includes threat assessment and rejuvenation. First and foremost, the cell is checking to confirm that it is internally safe and fed. Once that is established, the cell assesses its environment proximally to distally (near to far). What are the abutting cells and intercellular fascia doing? Are they safe? Are they pulling or pushing on it? It verifies its food chain and the information highway. It feels the energy of its surroundings and then, if all feels safe, expands its energy in ever widening spheres looking for safety verification and potential fuel delivery.

The cell’s secondary intention is to fulfill its destiny; it gets ready to work. As it expands its sensing mechanisms, the cell begins communicating back up the line. It feels the surrounding tissue, then surrounding organ, fascia, connected structures, relevant organs, proximal appendages and on up to the whole physical body, emotional body, mental body, energetic body, and then the surrounding environment. The cell waits, listens, and feels for a signal to do its job.

Each greatest strength, greatest weakness, and blind spot has its own consciousness and energy configuration. Bring your awareness to each and feel for its qualities.

So, the cell has a consciousness. The tissue the cell is a part of also has a consciousness, as does the next larger structure and the next on up to the whole organism. Generally, our individual liver cells work together to ensure their existence, the continued existence of our liver, and the on-going health of our body.

One of the intentions of your body is to ensure that other, similar, bodies survive and thrive. We want our friends and family to be healthy. That shared consciousness leads to survival, success, and improvements of the group.

The shared consciousness progression is self, family, group, community, religion (if applicable), ethnicity, country, and, of course, global. So, in essence, the inherent desire of one of your liver cells to be healthy will affect the entire planet.

And remember, we started at the cellular level, but the progression goes toward the smaller too. There are gazillions of parts and levels that make up a single cell and all of them collaborate to survive and thrive and to ensure the continued survival of the cell.

Examine your dominant hand. Look at it, feel each of its parts, and move it around. Experience the collaboration taking place to bring about movement. Consider the teamwork required to rejuvenate each cell. Feel the cooperation and relationships between muscle, tendon, blood, and skin.

Mental Body:

When you give birth to a thought, that thought takes on a life of its own. It may only live a moment but it lives. If you feed it, it will continue to exist. If you don’t feed it, it will atrophy and die.

You may feed it by combining it with another thought. When two thoughts come together, they give life to a new thought that individuates. Two thoughts become three. The third may consume one or both of the first two.

I am hungry. It is dinnertime. Tacos!

In this scenario, the third thought will change the value you place on the first two. When you decide you are hungry, that becomes your primary focus. The realization that it is dinner time supports and lends value to being hungry. As soon as you think TACOS, you will place less value on hungry and dinnertime and focus your intention on securing the pure deliciousness that are tacos. There is a progression, collaboration, and intention in our thoughts. Our thoughts naturally collaborate to help us secure our intentions.

When you realize that you promised your wife that you would have a late dinner with your mother-in-law at your least favorite vegan microgreen restaurant, that thought (realization) would trump the first three and instigate a cascade of other thoughts.

Thoughts are an expression of energy. The energy you give to your thoughts creates potential. Thoughts are alive. They influence your internal and external environments. They exist as completely as a butterfly, giraffe, or submarine.

Connect again to your dominant hand and sense for the layers of consciousness that exist. Can you feel a different consciousness in each of your fingers? Your palm? Thumb? Fingernail? Skin? Can you feel a separate consciousness in the front and back of your hand?

Emotional Body:

As we have discussed before, emotions are the label you give to your energy configurations. You feel something, or really a bunch of somethings, and your subconscious mind assigns a label. As that label is attached to your sensations, the emotion(s) comes into existence. Before the label, that specific emotion in that specific time didn’t exist. You brought it to life by connecting those momentary energy configurations under one name. Your emotions interact with all the parts and cells of your body. When you assign a label, your body reconfigures itself to co-exist with the label. When the label is compressive or distancing, your body contracts and stagnates.

The same thing happens in your environment. The energy, things, and people around you begin to reconfigure when you project your emotions into and onto the space around you. As you change, your environment changes. Your local environment influences your non-local environment. If you are angry, the people around you change.

They might not get angry, they might get defensive, combative, reclusive, or submissive. That change affects the people around them and so on and so on. (You tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on … I was going to link the Faberge Shampoo commercial, but once you start watching old commercials, it is a black hole that is hard to climb out of)

So, you influence your immediate environment which influences the next biggest environment until what you do, how you feel, and the labeling of your energy has global emotional implications. Whoa!

Energetic Body:

That global or planetary consciousness has a comfort zone and its intention is to maintain its continued existence, to grow, feed itself, and thrive. That desire influences each layer and level of organization smaller than it … down to you and your, aforementioned, liver cell (Monday’s Concepts)

When people talk about getting grounded, they are talking about matching their energy configuration to the foundational energy configuration of the planet.

To the degree you are able to get grounded (centered and balanced), you will be connected to the planet and to every one and every thing on the planet. A misconception about grounding and being grounded is that it is static, still, or somehow ubernaturally calm. When you realize that being grounded means being in sync with the entire planet, you will realize that grounded is a very fluid and a very alive place.

Again with the dominant hand, feel for each of the bodies as they exist in your hand and the layers of your hand. Physical will be easy. Can you connect to the current emotional configuration of your hand? Can you feel the intelligence of your hand? The energy flowing through? Can you connect to the ability of your hand to have relationships with things and people in your environment?

Environmental Body:

When you emotionally collaborate with someone, it changes the nature of your relationship forever. And the new nature will have a life of its own. It will be different than everything else. It will be singular … until it changes by interaction with something else. Each time you collaborate with a person or group, you increase the potential of that relationship and the consciousness of the collaboration.

My good friend Brian introduced me to Jason. Brian thought we would be good riding partners. Brian has a business, Atomic Moto, that sells off-road and adventure motorcycling gear, supplies, and accessories. Jason and I met for a ride, we rode, we talked, and we experienced each other’s way of being.

We had a ton of things in common. Now, we are great friends. We talk and get together regularly for rides, hikes, meals, and conversations. That initial meeting gave birth to a new set of possibilities. Each time we talk or get together, we increase that potential.

My friendship with Jason also changes the nature of all my other relationships. My experiences with him provide context. I know now that I can build a lasting, mutually beneficial, relationship with someone I meet at a friend’s business. Our collaboration gives me a model I can use with others. When he does something that I appreciate and respect and I mimic him, he has influenced me. When I mimic him, I am influencing others, who influence two friends and so on and so on.

Our friendship has a consciousness. The friendship exists. It has a personality, an energy field, and a set of intentions. It has a will to survive, I can feel it.

Next to last time with the dominant hand, how do the seven components individuate themselves in your hand? Can you become aware of the individual and collaborative energies of speed, focus, stability, strength, flexibility, endurance, and rejuvenation?

The underlying energy that drives the universe is expansion. The “I told two friends and they told two friends” effect. Thoughts give way to more thoughts. Emotions combine and contrast to form new emotions. Opportunities multiply into new opportunities. Experiences lead to other experiences. The accumulation of data is expansion.

One of my favorite computers was the Macintosh IIci. It came out in 1989 and offered a 40MB or 80MB hard drive with a 25 MHz processor. I ran my entire business from a few of those computers. Now, not a single video file for any of the exercises would fit. My cell phone has 100 times the memory as the IIci. The current crop of Macintosh computers has 25,000 times the memory.

The possibilities, opportunities, and potential that exists today could not exist if my universe hadn’t expanded exponentially.

Let’s talk about the components.

Each of the components each has a consciousness too. When you are focused, Focused exists as a configuration, outside of, and a part of everything else. Combinations of bodies and components also combine to form individuated consciousness. Mental focus exists outside of and as a part of all other things.

When you are mentally focused on solving a problem, you are creating a relationship between the unresolved issue, the potential solution of the problem, your mental body, and the component of focus. Your other bodies and all the other components will also play a part and become part of that relationship. Your emotional body will create a fear/benefit potential, your physical body will help determine the action viability, and all the other components will add their flavor.

Consider the collaboration necessary for rejuvenation to take place. In your body, rejuvenation requires that a configuration exists between all the component parts. From your heart, to your brain, liver, blood down to the hydrogen receptors in each cell that transport glycogen through the cell walls.

Endurance, stability, speed, strength, and flexibility will follow a similar path.

Following this model, evaluate the relative balance and imbalance of, you guessed it, your dominant hand. How do your results differ from the results you got last week? Why do you think that is?

And consciousness compounds. When Jason and I are hiking, our friendship consciousness is combining with our endurance consciousness to form a new, more complex, consciousness. Our discussions add additional levels of consciousness as we mentally enunciate and emotionally disseminate. What we are seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling add depth to our experience. That depth will expand the nature of our relationship.

This amazing network of communication and collaboration that happens instantaneously between every cell, every thought, every emotion, and every interaction ensures some semblance of basic balance because everything shares the same foundational intention. We are drawn to collaborate because from the smallest and largest structure, the intention is to survive and thrive.

So, you might be asking yourself, why don’t we constantly expand, grow, thrive? Why do we kill, harm, pollute? Why do unkindness, intolerance, and hate exist?

Your subconscious mind is always trying to limit, constrain, and moderate. Its goal is to create habits, to repeat your actions, movements, and decisions because your subconscious mind assumes that if you have survived it once, you can survive it again. The unknown, doing anything for the first time, going past your previous limits, or adding a new complexity doesn’t have a track record.

Your subconscious mind in its efforts to limit your exposure to the unknown creates fear scenarios that trigger survival reactions. At the cellular level, that can be anything from knots in muscles to cancer. At the level of the organs, it can be indigestion or liver disease. Non-beneficial energy configurations are triggered by fear scenarios generated by your subconscious mind. Greed, hatred, and condemnation are reactions generated by a lack of conscious awareness.

Feel into the times you have been less than kind and you will always find some sort of fear. Think of the worst thing that is happening in the world today and you will find massive amounts of fear.

Step 1 – Find a comfortable seat.

Step 2 – Take a physical, mental, environmental, and emotional inventory.

Step 3 – Acknowledge your sensations, allow yourself to settle, your mind to quiet, and breathe normally.

Step 4 – Set an intention to connect to each individual cell in your body.

Step 5 – If it feels helpful, pick one cell (like a muscle cell in your calf) and set an intention to center and balance the energy of that one cell.

Step 6 – When that cell feels centered and balanced, set an intention that all the other cells in your body will mimic that one cell.

Step 7 – Confirm your intention that, on a cellular basis, every cell in your body is centered and balanced.

Step 8 – Next, connect to a larger structure (like the entire calf muscle), and set an intention to center and balance the energy of that entire muscle.

Step 9 – When that muscle feels centered and balanced, set an intention that all the other muscles in your body will mimic that one.

Step 10 – Intend for the bones to mimic that one muscle and be centered/balanced.

Step 11 – Intend for your organs to mimic that one muscle and be centered/balanced.

Step 12 – Intend for your skin to mimic that one muscle and be centered/balanced.

Step 13 – Set an intention to center and balance the energy of your right leg, then left leg, right arm, left arm, torso, and then your neck/head.

Step 14 – Center and balance your entire physical body, emotional body, mental body, energy body, and the environmental/relationship body.

Step 15 – Connect to the space around you encompassing the building you are in. Set an intention to center and balance the energy of your building and everything in and around it.

Step 16 – Become aware that the center of your building is different than the center of your body. Feel yourself balanced within your building.

Step 17 – Increase your visioning to a larger area (maybe 10 miles in every direction). Set an intention to balance and center the larger area and to balance yourself within that area.

Step 18 – Increase your visioning to an even larger area (maybe the state or province you are in). Set an intention to balance and center the larger area and to balance yourself within that area.

Step 19 – Increase your visioning to the continent you are on. Set an intention to balance and center the continent and to balance yourself within that area.

Step 20 – Increase your visioning to include the entire planet. Set an intention to balance and center the Earth.

Step 21 – In this order, feel each of these as centered and balanced; the Earth, continent, state, city, house, and yourself. Acknowledge, allow, and feel how their centers can co-exist and stay balanced. Feel how you, balanced and centered, exist within them.

Why it Matters –  This meditation will lead to the ability to be centered and grounded regardless of where you are, who you are with, or what you are doing. It will give your bodies and components the felt sense of tolerance by allowing that not everything has to have the same configuration you do.

Everyday Usability / Progression – This meditation will help you develop your ability to be empathetic. As you get better at feeling the energy configuration of your environments, you will be better able to feel the energy configurations of individuals and groups. When you can feel the energy of those around you, you can feel where their balance and imbalances are. This will help you understand them more fully. You will be able to feel not only their fear but where and how that fear is unbalancing them. Look for much more on this in Layer Seven.