Inside of you there is a river – a river of energy, thought, and creativity. It is meant to flow freely and effortlessly as your life force expresses itself in the world. Unfortunately, many times your river gets dammed up and the great flow of your life energy gets reduced to a trickle.

Your world becomes constricted and narrow and everything seems like an effort. It’s time to add some tools to your toolkit for unclogging that dam.

How do you know when your river is stalled?

Symptoms that show up when your river is stalled include the following:

• Everything seems like a chore – you are frequently in “robot” mode – operating out of habit not inspiration
• You question every decision you make
• Each night as to lay down in bed your mind wanders back to the same topics and worries that you have rehashed endlessly before
• You don’t say what you want to say to others – you form the words in your head but they don’t come out of your mouth

If you look closely at the above list and think about what is going on by using an analogy of a flow of water, you will see that when your river is blocked your life energy (water) does not flow freely – instead it circles endlessly in backwater eddies or sits still in stagnant pools. Using this physical analogy to water can be very useful because it hints at the fact that releasing the river involves not just mental changes but physical changes as well.

How to release the river

Below are 5 key steps I have found useful in helping free up your river of stalled thoughts and energy:

1. Release physical energy

When you are under stress you “contract”: you hold tension in your muscles and you breathe shallowly or hold your breath. This creates a feedback loop in your body. As humans we tell ourselves how we are feeling by how we act. If we see ourselves cry we think we are sad – if we hold tension in our muscles or hold our breaths we tell ourselves that we are stressed. Thus to break the pattern you must do the opposite:

• Breath – breathing tells us things are OK
• Release muscle tension – (e.g., through massage, yoga, motion, etc.) – by doing so you tell yourself, “I am not under threat.”

When you act like a frightened, threatened animal you turn yourself into one. You hold your breath. You hold tension in your muscles. Let this become chronic and you create the negative feedback loop. You tell yourself unconsciously “I am tense – therefore things must be dangerous – therefore I should be tense – and so on.” Break the cycle. Think expansion – expand your lungs – be expansive in your movements.