Uddiyana Bandha, Boundary Setting and Gabor Maté
November 17, 2024
8 min read
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Newsletter
{Body}
Uddiyana bandha
Imagine you have a garden hose that is directly connected to an abundant reservoir, meaning water is flowing through it effortlessly and incessantly. How wonderful 🤩
Now what happens when you step on that garden hose? Well — though it’s technically still connected to its source — water will trickle instead of cascade. How dreadful 😖
This is a great metaphor for what happens energetically to one with poor posture.
Obviously, a tube that is bent or restricted in any way will have less substance moving through it, or will require a lot more pressure to get things flowing properly. If you have fully dilated pipes, on the other hand, you won’t need almost any pump system for free-flow to occur; it will happen without any extra help.
Ideally, your spinal cord exists like this — as a kink-free cord from bottom to top. That means zero blockages from your pineal gland, pituitary gland and medulla oblongata all the way down to your pelvic floor, anus and gonads.
Realistically, due to the physical and emotional traumas you’ve incurred in this and prior lifetimes, it’s probably not very kink-free. The more likely scenario is that it’s currently a knotted mess of tangled wires and laggy connections.
This is where uddiyana bandha (I call it c-Lock) comes in handy. It is a phenomenal technique for improving your posture — aka straightening out your spine — so that qi or prāna can circulate more easily.
{Mind}
How to set boundaries?
I have argued that living an abundant life is all about saying yes!
Yes to opportunity! Yes to joy! Yes to truth!
And yet, a case can be made for the opposite, too: that living an abundant life is all about saying no.
No to distraction! No to experiences that bring you down! No to ignorance!
Of course, both are necessary for a well-balanced and rich life, but without setting strong boundaries of what is acceptable or desired, you will inevitably find yourself saying yes to things that pull you down.
How to set boundaries? It’s is all about aligning your decisions with your values, goals, and energy levels. Here are some points to consider when trying to determine whether an opportunity should be rejected or not:
Identify Your Core Values: What matters most to you? Health? Freedom? Security? Family? When an opportunity arises, check that it aligns with these values. If not, it's a clear signal to pass on it.
Define Your Non-Negotiables: Write down the things you will not compromise on — time for personal projects, self-care routines, or financial boundaries. Any opportunity conflicting with these non-negotiables is a no.
Check for Excitement and Curiosity: Notice how you feel about the opportunity. If you're feeling drained or hesitant instead of curious or excited, that’s often a sign it's a no.
Practice Saying No: Start small by declining low-stakes offers, and build up to bigger decisions. Show yourself that you can protect your time without guilt.
{Soul}
You are not addicted to things — drugs, porn, news, knowledge, conflict. You are addicted to the sensations they bring.
This can seem like unimportant point to make, but I assure you it’s not. In fact, this realization must be totally embraced for any kind of healing to occur.
Pleasure-seeking behaviors, however destructive, are always in service of escaping uncomfortable feelings. The headache, the boredom, the grief, the resentment, the fear. Not wanting to experience the lows, we turn to artificial highs, temporarily delaying our inevitable confrontation with Truth.
So again: the question is not why the addiction, but why the pain. What trauma did you incur? What shame are you avoiding? What toxins are in your cells?
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