Dragon's Hidden Vigilance

Owner

JerkyTreats

Qigong Energy Work

Those components of the “cognitive framework”- the pre-frontal cortex, subconscious, and lizard brain- they are not really separate things. They all work together and are all dependent on each other to work.

Which reveals a question: Where does the brain end?

If you have neural circuits that require the spine to work, then your brain includes your spine.

For your spine to work it needs connections to the organs, so your brain includes your organs.

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There is evidence your stomach has actual neurons- its own separate brain. Consider that next time you have a gut feeling about something.

Point is, the body is the brain, the brain is the body. Separation of its parts is nothing more than a categorization game.

The deeper point is that synchronicity between all the parts of your body-brain is the path to good health.

Qigong (”Chee-Gong”, loosely translates to “Energy Work”) is a method of body-brain synchronicity.

There are many methods, but my discovery of “Dragon” came through this method.

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When I say Dragon, I mean the spirit animal. As in, the spirit of the animal.

It's a cleaner metaphor when the animal exists, like in 🦢Crane Stands Tall or 🐅Tiger Is Heavy.

That Dragon's don't exist won't stop me. In many ways, that in one of Dragon’s lessons.

Anyways, the qigong exercise is physically simple: Standing naturally, hands hovering comfortably at solar plexus height. You take one hand, and slowly arc it behind you, allowing your body to rotate naturally as your arm completes a circle back to the starting solar plexus position.

But qigong is a body-brain practice.

You don't just swing your hands in an arc behind you. There is specific cognitive associations you attempt to embed into the movement.

For this exercise, the instruction was not to reach behind you, it was to reach into the unknown.

Entering the Dragon's Layer

This part is much harder to rationalize in a western cultural context. It's even hard to even communicate- both because of my own ignorance, but also its from an eastern cultural context.

The instruction wasn't just to reach behind me, it was to associate the movement I was making with < behind me, the unknown, fear and willpower, kidney health >

If western interrogations into the bodies mechanics boils down to categorization and isolation, the eastern mechanism is one of association and unification.

That's an oversimplification, but explains the odd association I was to make in this exercise.

Point is, I wasn't just reaching behind me. I was trying to believe that I was reaching into the unknown.

And associating that the unknown and fear are intrinsically linked.

And associating that danger coming from behind me is terrifying.

It's usually not too interesting. You do the movement, breathe deeply, feel better than when you start.

But in this instance, I just happened to be in an emotionally vulnerable place. And for whatever reason those associations snuck through the rational safeguards of my pre-frontal cortex.

Conversing with the Subconscious

Ever get the chills? Something you perceive that sends a rippling shockwave through your body?

I call it an “Emotional Resonance”, and I have the ability to trigger an emotional resonance at will.

Well, that's not quite right. It's not that I can trigger it, it's more that I can access it.

I discovered this skill during a difficult time in my life, trying to recover from sustained burnout from decades of toxic work environments.

I remember the day it first happened.

I imagined my emotional core like a nuclear reactor, surrounded by an incredibly heavy containment device. A massively heavy lead box with a lid. Imagine now you can lift that lid, but it's so heavy that putting your entire body weight behind it will only open it a crack.

If you do manage to open it a crack, pure unconstructed emotional energy rushes out, the act of which slams the box back closed.

At the time, there was too much pressure in my emotional core- as dangerous to me as a nuclear reactor under too much pressure. I had discovered a mechanism to release that pressure. A way to let off steam.

It's not the kind of steam you want to release all at once. Rip the lid off the containment device and the reactor explodes.

And the emotional resonance I felt that day- just cracking the core open an inch- was overwhelming. Chills so intense it stops you in your tracks and drives you to tears.

And just like chills, fades away as quickly as it came.

I am convinced that this is a feedback mechanism with my subconscious.

Because ever since, that same emotional resonance now triggers when I hear an especially good point in conversation, or stumble upon a random thought that my subconscious says “this requires further reflection”.

The result is I have developed a skill to essentially converse with my subconscious. I can access this part of the body-brain and the resulting shiver tells me a whole lot about my current disposition.

The Resonance of Fear

So when I tell you that this qigong exercise to “enter the unknown” was as emotionally resonant as the first time I opened my emotional core, you understand how important this was to my subconscious.

Allow me to be very specific about the feeling I felt:

The exercise wasn't just to enter the unknown, it was to gather the unknown and bring it into yourself.

The feeling was the overwhelming sense of just how much unknown there was.

That there was so much unknown to integrate into my subconscious.

That I had been missing this massive piece of the puzzle this whole time.

But the really interesting thing that happened was that the lizard-brain shifted.

Lizard-brain, being an older operating system in the cognitive framework, deals with danger.

I made the association that “that which is behind me is unknown, and dangerous.”

Lizard-brain, true to form, shifted to account for this danger I was now aware of.

And the most amazing thing happened. It sounds ridiculous, but it is amazing: My shoulders rolled back.

Always Hunching Forward

In 🦢Crane Stands Tall, Crane taught me that proper body alignment is the most comfortable.

And yet my shoulders, always, are hunched forward.

The amount of mental energy I put into continuously self-correcting shoulder position is infuriating.

But when I considered the “unknown danger which is behind me”, Lizard-brain rolled my shoulders back.

The thing about Lizard-brain being at a lower level in the cognitive framework is that the energy it needs to function is “lower cost” than the pre-frontal parts.

The cost is much less variable, and is essentially baked-in- you don't feel tired paying for Lizard-brain's processing.

So when Lizard-brain sprung into action to watch my back, my shoulders rolled back “for free”.

I cannot underscore how important this is.

I've been fighting for proper body alignment for years. As soon as I shifted my awareness of fear to “behind me”, my body aligned to the correct positioning by itself.

Fear is not the problem. It is not weakness. It is not a moral failing. This is proven to me now. By directing fear behind me, I use Lizard-brain's fear-response to my advantage.

Dragon is the Lizard-brain

For myself, I am associating the spirit Dragon to the Lizard-brain.

This may not be “correct” from traditional interpretation of Dragon spirit. I haven't actually researched Dragon in eastern traditions.

But for me, Lizard-brain and Dragon are so obviously related that I will refer to it as Dragon from now on.

So the lessons of Dragon.

Dragon is an ancient spirit. It is a connective through-line to the evolution of all vertebrates.

Dragon is a guardian. It is the fear response, reactionary to the knowable world.

Dragon's domain is that of the unknown, it is proactive in the unknown places.

Dragon is tied to willpower, in ways I have not yet divined.

Dragon lurks just out of sight, ever elusive, alway vigilant. It teaches me to see with my whole body. It taunts me to continue seeking.