Emotional Posture

The nervous system is intelligent and becomes entrained to the emotional state most frequently experienced. Thus, people essentially become their dominant emotion. As such, an individual’s dominant emotions impact their perception, physiology, and influences the circumstances of their life. By changing your dominant emotional state, you have the ability to change multiple aspects of your life, resulting in psychological and behavioral improvement, and increased states of awareness and spiritual development. The nervous system continually seeks out a "status quo", being the most frequently experienced emotional state. Thus, one may conclude that the key to changing a dominant emotion is in the act or practice of applying a new emotional state. Through the dedication and discipline of practice, people can cultivate and hold specific emotional states or “postures”, thereby making leaps in development of consciousness, leading to greater spiritual development. (For the purposes of this book, spirituality is defined in a universal sense and is assessed according to states of awareness, remaining perceptually unique to the individual.) Science has demonstrated that changing one’s psychology changes one’s physiology. Similarly, a causal relationship exists between emotions and physiology. Negative emotions have been equated with destructive or non-functional physiology. Stress and negative emotional states decrease brain function, including negative changes in neurobiology such as inhibited activity in the prefrontal cortex, dysregulated activity in the hippocampus, and disruption in neurochemical signaling. This type of nervous system dysfunction changes personality traits, thus locking in maladaptive states. Similarly, positive emotions have been linked to healthy brain function and physiology. The relationship between thinking and physiology, emotions and physiology, and improved physiology (specifically autonomic stability and cardiac coherence) is well established in the field of behavioral science. The mind body connection was established through research on mindfulness practices and sound frequencies, and demonstrated a positive relationship between physiological regulation and internal reflective or meditative practices. The evolution of this research is that by harnessing thought and emotions, we can change our brain’s functioning. The principals of quantum entanglement support changing matter with our thoughts, beliefs, and observations. Research in cellular biology has shown us that one’s beliefs impact one’s cellular function (Lipton 2016). Many the scientists have proposed and demonstrated that by shifting our inner world, we shift our outer world (Leaf, 2013). This philosophy crystallizes as fact when cast against the backdrop of the natural laws that govern the Universe, such as those that govern physics. This book seeks to build upon the existing knowledge and known relationships in mind-body science, expanding the discussion, to practices and a methodology that focuses on emotions and fast-tracking spiritual development through emotional postures. There is an increasing demand for approaches that accelerate healing in the mind and spirit. Breathwork, sound healing, biofeedback, brain hemisphere integration, and psychedelics are all currently being used to increase consciousness and accelerate states of healing. Medical models are striving for integrative and collaborative practices. A variety of external interventions, both natural and synthetic, are leading to leaps in consciousness, and measurable reported shifts in thinking and behavior. Similar data is yielded in the therapeutic arena, whereby there is an increasing body of research on the application of internal, self-induced interventions. (Such as breath work and meditative practices.) This book explores a specific subset on internal states, specifically emphasizing the relationship between emotional states and the resulting external expressions. The impact of cultivating higher level emotional states, and how holding such dedicated states or emotional postures impacts consciousness, has the potential to create shifts in awareness that can be evidenced in behavioral, psychological, and circumstantial change. Furthermore, such deliberate and habitual states create sustained changes in consciousness, such that facilitated states do not. The method proposed herein invites people to explore changes in one’s levels of awareness and spiritual development following a practice of emotional entrainment, or more specifically, holding a predetermined emotional state over a prescribed period of time, hereto referred to as Emotional Posture. [Taken from Chapter 2 The Science of Emotions, starting at second paragraph]