Hi LJ, What is tightness - what is a distortion? Then how to work with them? Good questions, and indeed they are fundamental to understanding the Openhand Approach to spiritual evolution. Let's get into it... First is to understand who you really are, and the nature of reality. Briefly, I put it to you that what you really are, underneath it all, is Pure Presence - the infinite potential of the One. It can be experienced within in you as a sense of absolute clarity. It is pure potential at the source of all your thoughts, emotions and feelings. People who have touched this place in the course of history, have tended to refer to it in similar ways - an inner sense of 'crystal clear clarity', as if 'no one is here'. This video explains what I mean by that... Pure presence in the universe essentially comes into being as two relativistic flows of consciousness: there is the flow outwards from the source, which we call "Separation Consciousness"; and there's the flow back inwards again called "Unity Consciousness" (kind of like gravity). This "relativity" causes consciousness to condense into form - first light, then gases, then liquids, then solids. This process is what cosmologists have observed as the "Big Bang". The condensation into form, the continual rearrangement of matter, and the yearning to flow to ever higher states of harmony (universal increase in order), causes the process we observe as 'evolution'. This overall process is actually replicated throughout all parts of the universe, including you. Inside of you at any one moment, this pull to break down old consciousness structures, and to flow to ever higher states of harmony is active: the relativity of consciousness (Unity and Separation: Love and Fear) creates every thought, emotion and feeling you have. It creates your reality (basically you are either making choices from the unity aspect - love; or you are making choices based on the separation aspect - fear). What we're moving towards, is a fully balanced, fully harmonious expression of the One Self in any moment; this is the purpose of your soul...

To be a living, breathing expression of the One in any moment, constantly seeking out ever finer ways to be, and express, the One

Your soul is a streaming flow of Unity Consciousness flowing down from the source (through you) and back to it. It is seeking to be 'self-realised' - which means to be realising of the One Self in every moment. In the way of this divine purpose, is the ego. Understanding the ego, is critical to understanding why one's life is fulfilled or not. The ego is where the soul attaches to the experience of reality. As the soul flows into you, depending on its level of self-realisation, fragments of it 'break off', get lost in your inner density, then create eddy currents of programmed behaviour. These programmed behaviours build up at many levels: your physical body (in the brain with fixed neural pathways), in your emotional body, subconscious mind and your causal body (where your karma is stored). I have explained the various bodily vehicles there are in detail in this article... Being Human. Most people think they are free and are making free choices in life, when really, they're mostly coming from some form of conditioning - they're making choices out of fear and the need to control - there are often many existential concerns that shape the choices people make. So as the soul flows into the bodymind, it gets stuck in these programmed loops of behaviourisms - what we call "distortions" - because they are distortions of authentic beingness of the soul. When these distortions are active in your life, they create observable "tightness" within. It's where you go into fear, control or resistance: essentially where you think you need a particular outcome from the moment, or are resisting another...

Let us be clear, the One in you - who you really are - wants and needs nothing. Because it already has everything! And the soul is yearning to express this completeness in every moment. It's singular purpose is to be realising of the One Self. But where ego forms, and the idea that you need a particular outcome, this creates resistance inside, felt as tightness.

How you experience this tightness, depends on where it is active. If active in the mind, you may experience it as constant questioning thought processes or doubt - you can't seem to switch the mind off. If it's emotional tightness, you might experience it as jealousy, emotional attachment or fear (for example). If it's subconscious, you'll likely be projecting filters of neediness onto your relationships with people. Or issues of self worth, lack of self love for example. How you deal with this tightness is crucial to your ability to progress through it. The spiritual mainstream approach tends to be either the avoid it, or somehow take the pain away by using some technique to move into bliss. But this only postpones dealing with the true issue.

The way to deal with it, is to deeply feel into the tightness when it comes up; to explore your neediness in it - what is it you think you need from the situation? What are you resisting? Remember, the One in you needs nothing from the situation, only another experience through your soul.

So the key is to confront the tightness, regress yourself into it - feel into it; then to honour the pain by allowing yourself to express it - to let it out. Then you work to unleash the soul through it, by finding a higher sense, a more connected sense, a more expanded one. Essentially you open a space through the tightness and let the soul flow through - to liberate the soul. Upon which, you actually become who you truly are - the One, expressing in that moment authentically. The approach is dealt with basically in this video... For someone only beginning to truly confront their tightness, this is quite advanced work. And it will take some guidance to truly master it. That's why we recommend either coming on the Openhand course program (where we go into it experientially in detail), or else by working with one of our facilitators, who have all been trained in it. You can see the list of facilitators in our network here... Openhand Facilitator Network I trust this gives both you, and others new to the Openhand work, some initial insight in dealing with distortions. Do feel free to ask further questions. With very best wishes Open