Last night I was reading Tibetan Relaxation by Tarthang Tulku. I think this book has some insights into the throat chakra that I had never read before. The section of the book was called sensations and breathing. As I feel that there is much merit to feeling the sensations in your body and breathing into these sensations in moments of intense reaction, I was curious. The name given to working in this way is Kum Nye. I am finding this a very effective yoga from the Tibetan tradition. "The breathing of Kum Nye is a gentle form of breathing that enables us to contact the energy of the breath, which is itself inseparable from the subtle mental and physical energies that prevade the body. Located at the various points down the centre of the body, from the top of the head to the base of the spine, are a number of energy centres,which include the head centre, the throat centre and the heart centre." These are the chakras and it is in these places in the body that we can feel intense constriction when we care having emotional reactions. Some times it feels hollow, sometimes hot, sometimes tight....but we label it all as pain....I don't really feel this is helpful and would encourage a more careful observation and "true to the experience" label. What does it really feel like for you? I know for myself, my throat is quite often where some of this intensity lands. As I was pondering "why the throat",and I observed that this reaction is reported to me quite often, I found the article. "The energy of the breath is particularly associated with the throat centre, with both evokes and coordinates the flow of the energy throughout the body. It is through the throat centre that we can most easily learn to contact and balance the energy of the breath and the other subtle energies of the body. The throat centre is traditionally pictured as a sixteen petalled flower with two blossoms connected back to back. One eight-petalled blossom in directly linked to the head center, the other to the heart centre; as energies pass through the throat centre, they flow outward to these other centres. When the throat centre is settled and calm, the energies flow in a balanced and coordinated way, resulting in the integration of the mind and body. All too often the throat centre is agitated and the energies of the body become imbalanced. When this occurs we tend to lose touch with our feelings and sensations.This in itself makes it difficult for us to move towards balance within ourselves because it breeds the sense of dissatisfaction that leads us to look outside ourselves for fulfillment. When we are in this state, our feelings are actually secondary feelings, interpretations of mental images, which we then feel back to ourselves. We live predominately in our heads, our awareness focusing on memories of past experiences. The flow of energy to the head centre increases and the energy flow to the heart centre lessens. No longer able to contact the nurturing feelings of the heart, a sense of almost continuous dissatisfaction arises- a subtle form of anxiety felt in the throat centre as a kind of tightness, which results in the self reaching out for experience." The article goes on to explain how Kum Nye breathing helps us dissolve this pattern of anxiety and leads us back out to direct experience. Breath slowly and mindfully into the throat and release the tightness. When in conflict, move to a place where you can be alone. Stay with your body sensations, lose the story, and breath until the conflicted energy transforms. Many blessings in the practice.