Oftentimes we go through things and don’t fully digest them in our energy body. The energy body is where the psyche can be felt in the body, where experiential phenomena come up. Example: a feeling of tightness or constriction around the throat when you need to tell someone something very vulnerable or that brings up a hard emotion or blocked emotions. Heartbreak or falling in love. Butterflies in your stomach. Heat in the sexual center during arousal.
Digesting this kind of emotional or spiritual energy lets us assimilate the experience in the deep layers of our being, and lets us truly contain the emotions as they flow through us, so that they feel complete and there is a kind of mysterious closure that comes naturally simply when we hold space for the process.
Here is a simple practice that I learned from tantra teacher Hareesh Wallis on how to digest energy and emotion in the energy body. Here’s what he says about it:
“With a strong energy body you can digest challenging emotions and experiences. Even the most challenging experience becomes food. You can adjust to significant life experiences. It’s almost impossible to digest emotional energy if you’re too attached to a story around it. Otherwise, emotion is life force & food for the energy body. On the tantric path we don’t ‘let go,’ we digest it.” —Hareesh Wallis
The Practice
Lay down in any restorative pose such as legs up against the wall, or place a folded towel or blanket under your neck, back and knees.
Relax your breath. Place your hands on your body and start to feel … completely allow yourself to feel what comes up. You can place your attention on the heart space. Now, start to peel off any story that comes up around it. Without the mental story, just feel the raw energy and emotion.
Make the silent intention to yourself, “I can digest this.”
This is a tantrik practice and in tantra it is understood that in the same way that the body knows how to digest food on its own, the energy and emotional body also knows what it’s doing if we allow it.
Give as much time to this practice as feels comfortable, and if it feels overwhelming, allow yourself to come out of it and switch to more lighthearted, distracting activity such as calling a friend, watching a lighthearted movie, or a hike or walk in nature.
The idea is to keep coming back to the practice and doing it in the amount that feels right. Trust your body to guide the process.
Disclaimer: This ritual is not intended to be trauma therapy. If your anxiety is at a level which this practice is not sufficient enough to contain, please seek the help of a trauma therapist.
Tara Kimes uses embodiment and intuitive coaching to help women change their experience of “not enoughness” into a solid sense of belonging and abundance. Her tarot club offers card readings, monthly rituals, and moon phase advice videos. Follow her on Instagram at @readings_and_rituals or join the tarot club at www.patreon.com/mysticaljoytarot.