Introduction : Relating To Base Impulses
Toward the end of the COVID pandemic (June 2022), well before I began writing on the topic, I began to weave a net to catch information about fear practice. I wanted to see what would fall into the lattice of my awareness. I began to talk about the topic with a variety of close friends and esteemed colleagues. Lots of influential conversations empowered me to wonder and re-wonder. What can I do to be honest with my fears? What denial systems do I have in place to protect my emotional wounds? How do I remove those denial systems? I read dozens of books to help me comprehend, how do other people work through pain and grief to become comfortable with the unknown? How do people strengthen their will power rather than succumbing to apathy and depression? How do people transform their relationships with emotional trauma from sorrow and anger, into understanding and acceptance? I discovered empathy everywhere I inquired, because the traumatic inflictions left on the mental health of our public reached far wider than my own personal experiences with depression and loss through the pandemic. I decided to engage in a new understanding of chaos and change as a force of the unknown. This process involved coming to integrate a cosmic rule, “The Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy”. Described by Manhardeep Singh in his book ~12 Laws of the Universe~, this relates to how energy is always moving and always changing. He quotes Victor Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”.
With initial confidence, I began to weave together references that appeared to reenforce a personal practice I was developing. A visualization for healing emotional wounds. At some point along the way, I realized that I had integrated so many facets of wisdom into this investigation, that I needed to step back, and reframe the many perspectives that I wished to present. So, I took time to reel in my net again, and harvest the knowledge that had been imparted. By allowing my perspectives to broaden as my research continued, I found many of my original positions transformed along the way.
To begin this journey, it is important I define a couple words. Impulse and Polar.
Impulse (noun)
1 a sudden strong and unreflective urge or desire to act: I had an almost irresistible impulse to giggle.
• the tendency to act impulsively: he was a man of impulse, not premeditation.
2 a driving or motivating force; an impetus: an added impulse to this process of renewal.
3 a pulse of electrical energy; a brief current: nerve impulses | a spiral is used to convert radio waves into electrical impulses.
4 Physics a force acting briefly on a body and producing a finite change of momentum: ability to communicate motion by impulse.
In the introduction title, “Relating to Base Impulses”, I am talking about our relationship with fundamental forces that drive us to stay and go. These base impulses are derived somewhere between our consciousness and subconsciousness processes, between our brains and the physical extremities of our nervous system. I am not talking about instinctual code inherited by our parents, though genetic memory can influence their states. These impulses are primal in nature. However, these forces can be influenced and effectively changed by learning, by training our minds. Visualization is a well established method for training awareness. I propose using active listening in conjunction with visualization to potentiate your ability to witness your base impulses. If our base impulses were motivated by inner voices, we might hear one voice calling us towards bliss and the other heralding agony. This is what I mean by ‘relating to base impulses’. Are we resonating with the inner voice calling us towards joy and harmony or that voice which reenforces the trauma laden path of fight or flight? Are our inner motivations confirming that ‘happiness is attainable when I direct my energy this way’? Or are your choices indicating that ‘conditioned suffering and dispute mechanisms must be maintained for survival’?
Polar (adjective)
• Astronomy relating to a celestial pole.
• Geometry relating to the poles of a sphere.
• Biology relating to the poles of a cell, organ, or part.
2 Physics & Chemistry having electrical or magnetic polarity.
• (of a liquid, especially a solvent) consisting of molecules with a dipole moment.
• (of a solid) ionic.
3 directly opposite in character or tendency: depression and its polar opposite, mania.
The concept of polarity is not only relevant in this manuscript from a magnetic perspective, but also from a psychological and physiological perspective. From a magnetic perspective, polarity determines whether we attract something or repel it. This is, of course, related by the polarity of the other body being engaged. From a behavioral perspective, polarity involves opposite tendencies or characteristics. We are going to explore both how our relationship to base impulses can attract or repel desirable outcomes (magnetic polarity), and how making adjustments in polarized psychological perception (what I call syntropic attention), begins to dissolve dualistic experiences of aggression. This causes physiological and behavioral patterns to shift into vibrations of love. I make reference to Yin Yang polarity in my discussion as well, defining how the force of Yin relates to our ‘stay’ impulse, and Yang relates to our ‘go’ impulse.
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