The Inner Child 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqfXO2GQZrc

Do you ever feel like your brain has been hijacked by a child? Studies suggest 95% of the things we say and do as adults comes from impressions we felt during the first five years of life.¹   

Based on these data, we live most of our lives in a somewhat unconscious state 95% of the time. Thousands of years ago, Ayurveda recognized this and designed an entire system of medicine to help us become conscious.¹ 

Sadly, as unconscious beings, we carry protective emotions, created predominately in childhood, into our adult lives, which encourage us to make the same mistakes or react to the same stresses in the same ways over and over again. 

Rites of Passage 

In our formative years, we are all hard-wired to need, and sometimes demand, the approval and attention of our parents. This is a natural survival instinct alive and well in every child. If a child does not care or need their parent’s attention, they could easily wander off into unsafe situations that could put their survival at risk. 

As children, we are completely dependent on our parents for survival. A parent keeping one eye on their child at all times ensures the safety of that child. Over time, the child naturally becomes attached to their mom and dad’s watchful eyes, love, and attention. 

In the animal kingdom, this happens in much the same way. A baby leopard cub will depend on its mother for all its needs, but one day (at around 12-18 months of age), when mom feels the young leopard is able to survive on its own, mom will separate from the young leopard with no plans to meet again. Like a rite of passage, the young leopard, now on its own, cannot rely on someone else to survive and therefore naturally lets go of the need for external approval. 

It is forced to become, in a sense, “conscious,” by breaking the unconscious need to be loved, approved of, and watched over. 

Traditional cultures around the world imposed grueling and sometimes even life-threatening rites of passage to transition children into adults, but most of these traditions are now long-gone. We are allowed to stay children, to stay unconscious, for far too long. Instead of being forced to shed our need for approval in our adolescent years, we replace parental approval and attention with other means of external validation and satisfaction. 

From ice cream cones and candy to new bicycles, video games, and cell phones, children seek satisfaction and fulfillment in the form of sensory stimulation. As we grow up further, we find fulfillment and contentment in the safety and approval of a boyfriend or girlfriend. The brain quickly replaces parental approval with material gains and sensory stimulation, such as a new job, more money, a new car, a bigger house, and recognition from a boss or spouse. 

These factors drive us to continue to seek approval and the feeling of reward that comes with it. 

Old Emotions Stored + Recorded 

Ayurveda describes how emotional impressions are recorded in our brains as a way of protecting us and the species from possibly life-threatening traumas. Emotional traumas are felt by the sadhaka pitta aspect of the heart, then carried to the brain via the prana vata, and are finally recorded in the brain’s white-matter myelin sheaths, called tarpaka kapha.² 

Tarpaka means to record. Tarpaka kapha records by allowing prana vata to etch emotional impressions onto the waxy myelin sheaths of the nerves deep within our brains. One of the main goals of Ayurveda is to erase old impressions and rewrite new impressions in the brain’s white matter, thereby freeing ourselves from old traumas. 

To accomplish this, the brain’s detox pathways must be optimal, as they too are governed by tarpaka kapha. These pathways are the ventricles of the brain, where cerebral spinal fluid acts as brain-washing fluid. Studies suggest that some three pounds of toxic chemicals and plaque are detoxified from the brain each year during sleep through the brain’s lymphatic system, which Ayurveda calls tarpaka. 

We recommend "Cleanse Emotional Trauma with Ayurveda": https://lifespa.com/ayurveda-trauma-cleansing/

Nasya, Herbs + Pranayama for Emotional Transformation 

Ayurveda discovered the brain’s lymphatic system thousands of years ago and also designed therapies to flush brain lymph. When Western science recently discovered the brain’s glymphatic system, they also found that 40% of brain toxins dump into the paranasal lymphatics from the glymphatic system.³  

To cleanse the brain lymphatic system or tarpaka, Ayurveda employs a technique called nasya, an elaborate procedure involving a deep head massage and nasal inhalation of detoxifying herbs and oils, such as eucalyptus. I administered this technique in my panchakarma practice for 26 years and found it to be the most transformational technique for my patients on their journey to becoming conscious. 

The long-term success of cleansing the brain’s glymphatic system is supported with Ayurvedic herbs, such as manjistha, brahmi, Lymph Vein HP, and LifeSpa’s Lymph Cleanse. Nasal breathing exercise and yoga are also important therapies to increase cerebral spinal fluid flow and effective detoxification of the brain’s lymph. 

Pranayama breathing techniques are well-documented to support healthy brain lymph and cerebral spinal fluid circulation, but perhaps they are most effective in erasing old unwanted impressions scribbled into the tarpaka kapha, or white matter, of the brain. 

Steps to Becoming Conscious  

1. First, support healthy detoxification of the brain’s glymphatic system, aka tarpaka kapha. This can be done with nasya, herbs, and pranayama. 
2. Once the brain’s lymph is moving, vibrational techniques, such as pranayama, humming, chanting, and meditation⁴, along with breath-retention pranayama techniques⁵ are used to erase impressions written into the white matter. Like words written in sand can be erased by vibrating the sand, it turns out these Vedic vibrational therapies have been used for thousands of years to erase old impressions and become conscious. 
3. Finally, using these same therapies with intention, a higher vibrational frequency can be established, allowing the brain to access very slow delta and gamma waves, considered brainwaves for enhanced neuroplasticity and the perception of expanded consciousness.¹³ 

We recommend "Emotional Trauma Cleansing with Kaya Kalpa": https://lifespa.com/095-trauma-cleansing/

Using Biophotons + Intention to Heal 

Recently, researchers discovered subtle energy particles, called biophotons or bioelectrons, which are the body’s subtle energy information carriers. Many researchers believe biophotons make up the body’s energy system and are the mechanism for energetic healing and prayer.⁶ Biophotons, or ultraweak photon emissions (UPEs), are light particles emitted from most living systems. 

Studies find biophotons can be altered with intention, which may explain distance healing, prayer, laying on of hands, and many other modalities once considered “faith healings” lying outside the realms of science. 

According to what is called Bókkon’s hypothesis, intention can produce biophysical images in the brain associated with increased emission of ultraweak biophotons.⁷ 

According to the theory, biophotons emitted from the body with intention can interact with other biophotons at great distances related or entangled with that intention.⁸ This is related to Einstein’s theory of “spooky action at a distance,” in which entangled photons change instantaneously over very large distances. 

Human skin has been found to be a UPE-trapping system, suggesting humans both emit and receive biophotons, which we now know can be changed or altered by intention and carried over long distances. These UPEs can have therapeutic effects when intention is applied, as seen in studies on yoga and meditation.^9-12 

There is much to learn about the power of intention, moving prana, and biophotons, as they all seem to function at the junction where frequencies and quantum particles meet. With intention, I believe Ayurveda’s vibrational therapies can erase emotional patterns from the storage centers of the brain and rewrite new impressions without the weight of a lifetime of emotional baggage.