Dynamic Meditation
“My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else concealing it, my heart will break.”
Mindfulness has been all the rage since before the pandemic, with apps like Insight Timer and Calm to help us sleep, restore our energy, get in touch with our highest selves, pray, focus, and generally improve our well-being. I have tried all of those apps, and I still use Insight Timer today, both for sleeping and restoring energy.
The pandemic has brought many of our deepest anxieties to the surface of our lives, and the traditional form of meditation has not worked to clear that stress and disquiet. Have you noticed that it works for a little while, maybe those few minutes you carve out to recharge, but the tightness in your chest and the uneasy feelings of apprehension beneath the veneer still linger.
For me, the bottled up feelings are expressed unconsciously - grinding my teeth at night, hunching my shoulders in a constant state of strain (mostly unconsciously until someone says “relax your shoulders”), and picking my cuticles. There are a myriad of ways we harm our bodies when there is anger, shame, or fear inside that we don’t release.
Shakespeare’s spunky heroine of The Taming of the Shrew, the irrepressible Kate, says “My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else concealing it, my heart will break.”
Yet again, Shakespeare goes right to the heart of the matter, and in this case, opened my eyes to another form of meditation that can touch those deeply held anxieties that In my experience, are not resolved in the tranquil solitude of a typical meditation or mindfulness practice.
My reiki teacher, Mona, suggested rolling the windows down in the car and screaming to beat the band as a stress-reliever, and I like that approach very much.
However, when stress, shame, anxiety, fear, and anger have really built up and not been released for a long time, something that involves the whole body is needed: Dynamic Meditation.
There’s a really interesting form of dynamic meditation that was created by a madman. At least that’s what he seemed like to me after watching the documentary Wild Wild Country on Netflix. I don’t care if he was crazy, though, because this dynamic meditation really worked to unblock and release all the stress, anxiety, fear, and especially anger that I had built up over time.
It involves five stages: 1) Forceful quick breathing for 10 minutes, 2) Freeform expressive movement (like kicking, throwing pillows, punching the air, etc.) for 10 minutes, 3) jumping up and down with your hands in the air, yelling “hoo!” as your feet hit the ground for 10 minutes, 4) freezing with your hands in the air and holding that position in silence for 15 minutes, and 5) feeling the flow of positive energy with movement any way you choose for 15 minutes.
The hardest part is freezing with your hands in the air and not moving for 15 minutes in stage 4. It feels like some kind of Survivor challenge. But if you stick it out, you will find (as I did) some amazing results.
Those in my generation have been taught to keep it together, stay calm, and not lose our temper. That’s alot of bottled up energy, and it needs to go somewhere. Stage 2 of this dynamic meditation gives us permission to have a temper tantrum of gargantuan proportions in a safe place and with a positive result. These forceful movements of the body allow us to get out of our heads and let the body feel and release what it needs to.
Below is a short introductory video on dynamic meditation.
This might seem weird at first, but it really works! The testimonials are very compelling and the feelings of release and clarity are sublime. There are shortened versions of the five stages, but I recommend the full hour. It’s worth it!
If you want to try the whole hour, there are lots of youtube videos with timed music for the five stages, as well as playlists with the five stages of songs on Spotify.
I’m so curious to hear your experiences with dynamic meditation! Have you ever tried it? If so, how did it feel?
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