Lately, my team has been receiving a lot of questions from people new to the work about their interactions with energy. Specifically, they want to better understand the involuntary movement and sensations that sometimes occur in their body during meditation. Here’s one example:

I have been steadily meditating with Dr Joe’s meditations as of the beginning of this year. Sometimes, while doing it, I feel an energy moving through my body that makes it move completely on its own. I am aware that I am not voluntarily moving my body. ... Actually, it feels that it is this flow of energy that is moving it. Is this my physical body releasing energy? Or is it the life force energy moving through me?

It's such a great question; one that so many can relate to. So, in this post, we’re going to take a closer look at how and why this happens.


Breaking Patterns and Moving Energy

We often forget the body is, essentially, organized information. And information is energy. And all of the events of our lives – all of our memories and experiences, and all of our emotional reactions to them – are stored in the body in physical and chemical form.

This should help us better understand, then, what happens when we begin to work with energy in our meditations.

Recall that we do these meditations not to change something in our external environment or circumstances; we do them to change ourselves. And to do that, we have to change the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we act.

So, in meditation, we practice no longer thinking the same thoughts that fuel the same feelings – therefore making the same chemicals that inform the body. At the very least, we practice inhibiting our old programs by focusing on “nothing,” which silences the thinking neocortex. By doing that, we’re training the brain to no longer think the same habituated thoughts – thus training the body to no longer receive the same corresponding chemicals that condition it in the same way.

In a sense, if we’re no longer thinking and feeling within the consciousness and energy of our first three energy centers, it stands to reason that energy will begin to travel back to the brain (to understand this better, I suggest reading my recent blog series on the energy centers – Part I and Part II). And so, if we do that successfully – inhibit the thoughts that are related to memories, and the emotions that are associated with them – there will be a natural movement of energy.

That’s because one of a few things could be happening when we’re experiencing these big internal shifts. We might be liberating stored emotions – as energy – and releasing that energy out of the body or directly to the brain. Other times, when we’re in coherent theta brain wave states during deep meditation, we’re open to information carried on frequency from the field. In other words, we’re receiving a “download” of new energy, or frequency, as new information that exists beyond our senses.

And in some cases, this movement of energy could be a combination of the two: energy is being liberated from the body to the brain, while at the same time, a new energy comes in – and they connect in the limbic brain. When that intersection and exchange happens, it’s a lot of new information for the body to process.


A ‘Chain Reaction’ in the Body

Going back to some fundamentals in this work, think about what it means to create a new personality – and, therefore, a new personal reality. It means breaking the pattern of overlaying the known past onto a predictable future. It means breaking the habit of being ourselves.

So, just imagine what’s happening in the body – as the container of all the information that led to the person you are the moment you enter a meditation. Imagine what it takes to override a lifetime of programming – all your habitual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors – and set about the chain reaction that’s liberating old energy.

It’s a big moment. It’s not surprising that, sometimes, you’re going to feel it when it happens. The body wants to be joyful and free, and this release of old information can be powerful.

The energy might move in small or large ways. When it moves in large volumes, it travels through the “fiber optic cable” (the spinal cord) of our central nervous system and its associated peripheral nerves that innervate the entire body – as well as through the liquid crystalline structure of our connective tissue. The connective tissue is that white sheath that envelops the entire body. It wraps around the head, neck, and shoulders; across the lower back and down the legs; across the abdominal area; across the chest; along the spine. That sheath holds stored information and also transmits energy like a crystal – like a superconductor.

And when these shifts and transmissions start to occur, it’s like a cascade of energy; energy that’s looking for an avenue to move and release old patterns.

Sometimes, the movement is very gentle. You might feel tingling throughout your body or extremities. You might notice the most subtle, smooth movement or involuntary twitches.

And sometimes, the movement isn’t continuous or smooth at all. If energy moves in bigger ways, it can be very abrupt, aberrant, and profoundly intense. That’s because it’s trying to find a pathway. It’s trying to find an opening, especially if there is stored information that’s been there for years – and is blocking energy. Often, it quivers and shakes the entire body.

It takes an energy greater than the energy that’s been holding the body in the same patterns to liberate us from past experiences and traumas – and our reactions to them. And so, as the body trembles and reacts, it’s trying to free itself from the subconscious conditioning of that familiar past – and the habituated programs of the predictable future.


Pathways and Practices

Before we explore how to work with this energy movement when it happens – which I’ll talk about in Part II – I want to focus on a few important points.

First, there are numerous ways to liberate and move energy. Sometimes, it’s through the kind of involuntary, somatic (felt in the body) expression and movement mentioned in the question that began this discussion. But it also can happen through tremendous inner focus and stillness. Some people use the “Pulling the Mind Out of the Body” breath to liberate energy.

Others focus intensely on becoming no body; no one; no thing; no where; in no time. And, as they overcome their body, their environment, and time, they surrender – and the energy moves. There are many ways to liberate energy, and it’s important not to compare your experience to others’.

Second, every meditation is different – so the movement of energy is different every time, too. As I mentioned before, it might be just a subtle, gentle shift. Other times, it might be like a freight train or rocket ship. Sometimes, you might find that not only does your body quake; you might also make involuntary sounds and vocalizations from these types of arousals.

However those channels are opened, once the latent systems are switched on, and energy reaches the cells and tissues and organs of a different part of the body, a powerful release occurs. Sometimes it’s very loving, and very coherent, and very lifting ... and other times it’s very forceful and jarring.

It’s important to remember: it’s all information. The body is trying to liberate or free itself from old, stored information – or transmute it – or receive new, illuminating, transformative energy from source.

Finally, the phenomenon itself is not the goal. I encourage you not to get lost in this part of the process. It can be powerful and very moving – but it’s not the target. It’s not necessary to having a transformational experience. It’s simply an occasional, involuntary response to working with energy and information.

Now that I hope you have a better understanding of what’s happening in these moments, and why, the next steps are to learn how to work with the energy when it moves. We’ll talk more about that in Part II.

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To learn more about working with energy movement in the body, please review these videos from Dr Joe and Dr Carla Stanton from the FAQ pages on our website.