The following points are taken from Mario Martinez’s book “Mind-Body Code,” that I used for Wellness Meditation to ReNu & Revitalize.
THE FIVE PORTALS OF WELLNESS
A biosymbol is a word, image, memory, or belief that has been given a cultural interpretation that affects our biology.
We say things like “I can’t stomach that,” “My heart’s not in it,”
“I want peace of mind,” and many other expressions representing the mindbody biosymbols we use to convey our inner and outer world.
I propose five areas of the mindbody space that manifest our most essential biosymbols. These range from our need for safety to our quest for spirituality. I call these areas portals because they are gates of expression of the total being: causes that cannot be attributed to specific physical locations.
The First Portal: Safety
The first portal covers a biosymbolic area from the feet to the belly.
The physiological expression of this portal is most evident when there is a threat to our physical or emotional safety; a fight-or-flight response is triggered to stop digestion and send extra blood to the legs. In times of perceived danger, the mindbody code determines that fighting or running away is more important than digesting food.
The positive side of this portal is the sense of comfort, delight, and calmness we feel at the end of a lovely meal with close friends.
The Second Portal: Love
The second portal extends from the solar plexus to the upper chest, and it expresses the biosymbols of love. There is a strong correlation between heart conditions and emotional losses. The biosymbol of a broken heart can be more than a poetic sentiment; the loss of a partner can increase the onset of cardiac abnormalities.
Conversely, experiments show that love and other positive emotions increase coherence in the rhythmic patterns of the heart rate, one of the indicators of cardiac health.
The Third Portal: Expression
The third portal reflects the biosymbols of expression and emotional freedom. It extends from the neck to the eyebrows, as well as to the arms and hands. Our facial and hand expressions and the tones of voice we use are all examples of how the third portal manifests biosymbols related to expression.
The Fourth Portal: Peace
The fourth portal encompasses the area from the forehead to the crown of the head. We experience our thoughts as if they were coming from inside our heads. And although cognition is a collaborative function of mind and body, the forehead seems to be the biosymbolic portal of our mental processes. Expressions such as “I am thinking so much that my head hurts” and “My mind is at peace,” as well as tension headaches resulting from excessive worrying, are but a few examples of fourth portal manifestations.
The Fifth Portal: Spirit
This spiritual portal is the most difficult to describe using linear language because of its nonlocal essence. In other words, it does not have a set location, and it does not travel through time and space. Yet we can still give the spiritual portal a metaphorical presence to unify the mental activities emanating from our physical body with a metaphysical entity that transcends our mortality.
The Contemplative Method
The key to reaching a contemplative state of serenity is to not try to relax! If you try to relax, most likely it will have the opposite effect because to “try” is to concentrate on a goal rather than to witness a process.
The object of this contemplative method (observation, not interpretation) is threefold. It will enable you to:
- witness for yourself the portals of safety, love, expression, peace, and spirit
- learn to access the mindbody code
- identify patterns of stress and their biosymbols
Mario Martinez’s book
“The Mind-Body Code: How the Mind Wounds and Heals the Body”
You know that your mind influences your health-but what’s influencing your mind? Unless you answer this question, teaches Dr. Mario Martinez, you may be missing a key component on the journey to health and personal excellence.
In The Mind-Body Code, the founder of Biocognitive Theory presents his first audio curriculum about the dynamic interplay between our thoughts, our bodies and our cultural history-and how to unlock this powerful doorway to wellness and fulfillment.
