Monday's Meme

We can only see the light we are capable of embodying.

Sometimes, I wonder if when God said, “Let there be light,” it was actually a request of each of us in the hope that we would become conscious of our own shadow.

We can only see through the amount of light we are capable of tolerating. When we grow in our capacity to comprehend more light, more light fills our body, and our capacity to recognize both light and shadow in ourselves and in others is refined. This kind of illumination is also called discernment.

Like the old scripture from the gospel of Matthew that promises: “…and that body filled with light comprehends all things.”

I have always had a visceral response to light.

It was my first word.

I love what light does for the body.

When a light is turned on, or the light of dawn gradually increases, we feel a flood of energy in the body. This physical response to increased light comes from our vagus nerve (one of the largest in our body that runs from the brain throughout the torso all the way down through the bowels). The vagus nerve links the gut and the brain, playing a role in what scientists call the gut-brain axis.

From the “Trauma-Informed Yoga” chapter of the Bodhi Yoga™ Teacher Training Manual that we covered this past weekend:

”In fact, the vagus nerve is the largest nerve of the body and the primary messenger from gut to brain.

Eighty percent of our serotonin is in the gut, which the vagus nerve sends up to the brain, so relaxation comes from the gut upward, and wellness recall comes from the brain downward. So the brain and gut feelings are actually partners (rather than segmented parts of who we are that have to compete).

This is why our mood lifts when we are exposed to natural daylight, springtime, outdoor activities, or people with a lot of light that the light in us recognizes.

Right now, there are some profound studies in epigenetics regarding the vagus nerve. Epigenetics is the study of how our behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way our genes (that also hold trauma) work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence. The vagus nerve plays a huge role in our environmental response.

We feel light in our gut first, which tells the brain it is happening, and then the brain gives us the cognition that light is good. We need them both, body and mind.

With trauma, the brain is used to repressing so we can function until we are safe, yet getting ourselves to safety also requires that we begin to change the reminders that the brian is sending to our gut. Here, we must learn to feel the body’s response and repurpose what it means. When we do this, we change how DNA sequences are read, in some instances, for generations past.”¹

I love this so much.

We may not be able to change darkness, but we can increase OUR light so the genes in our body can comprehend more of it. The illumination changes what we are capable of discerning, so we eventually recognize our triggers consciously rather than responding to them in chronic, unconscious ways, as though we have not grown beyond our initial trauma.

YUMMM!

As a student of both history and a lifetime of work addressing and healing trauma in the body, I have found that the suffering we carry is directly related to the shadows (in ourselves or others) that we are unwilling or unable to see. It is what we cannot or will not see that is the root cause of our pain. Oftentimes, these patterns are deep, embedded through generations of time, and passed down through DNA.

We may not be able to change our DNA structure, but science shows us that we can change how our body reads that sequence. Illuminate anything, and we will see increased color, textures, and depth perception.

The place we begin is to recognize our body’s response to our feelings.

“The vagus nerve plays a huge role in our environmental response.”

Healing trauma means seeing it. My poet Sister, Melody Newey Johnson, once said, explaining what it means to seek to become like God (evolve in any way): “God sees it (referring to abuse), and if we are to become like God, we must also see it.” This includes the darkness in ourselves and others. And we must keep seeing it, calling it out, naming it, and healing it. When we do, we become capable of changing our genetic rapport with our world, and the world changes.

Any discussion of light always reminds me of Chris Stevens, the D.J. played by actor John Corbett on the Northern Exposure T.V. Series. In this episode, Chis is obsessed with stealing everyone’s light bulbs, lamps, and signs to create a performance art moment for the small town where he lives, Cicily, Alaska. It is one of my favorite clips that I will return to from time to time to feel that visceral vagus nerve doing its thing:

When we learn that our very body craves light and choose to begin to respond to its visceral cry, we change everything. That’s what light does; it not only triggers feelings in the body but also the ability of the brain to remind the body what it means.

Light opens us up to be able to change everything.

This week’s Monday’s Meme is brought to us by the Moon Chakras™ App. A three-minute mind/body/spirit reminder that imprints increased capacity to hold light in our body. Download, subscribe, and enjoy right here.

1. Bodhi Yoga Teacher Training, Syl Carson, © 2005 All Rights Reserved.