Taking Satan Out of the Room
Taking Satan Out of the Room
Series: Breathing, Body, Consciousness, and the Shifting of the Tensional Selves (Eus Tensionais)
Introduction — Brain Bee (first-person consciousness)
Sometimes I walk into a room and something feels heavy.
It isn’t the place.
It isn’t the people.
It’s me—but not exactly “me.”
My body is too tense for the situation.
My breathing is short.
My heart feels predictable.
And then I realize:
there is a Self here that I did not consciously choose.
That is what, in this text, I call Satan in the room.
Satan as a physiological metaphor, not a moral one
Here, “Satan” is not an entity, a sin, or a spiritual opponent.
It is a functional metaphor:
the Tensional Self hijacked by rigid ideologies, beliefs, or narratives.
This Self:
occupies the body,
locks breathing,
impoverishes variability,
silences feeling.
It is not evil.
It is simply too dominant.
Zone 3: when the body loses variability
In Zone 3, the body:
holds continuous tension,
maintains rigid breathing,
reduces HRV and RMSSD,
loses access to fine interoception and proprioception.
Consciousness narrows.
The body reacts before it perceives.
Narrative governs physiological rhythm.
In this state, the Tensional Self:
believes it is right,
feels threatened,
defends itself all the time.
That is the “Satan”—
not because of malice, but because of lost bodily freedom.
The central point: the physiology is the same
This is the most important aspect:
Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3 unfold over the same basic respiratory physiology.
What changes is not the lung.
It is how the body uses breathing.
In Zone 3:
breathing sustains rigidity without choice.
In Zone 2:
breathing allows variability, listening, and regulation.
In Zone 1:
breathing sustains tension by conscious choice.
No system is replaced.
Only the relationship to the same system changes.
Zone 2: regulation without collapse
In Zone 2:
exhalation regains space,
RMSSD rises,
the vagus nerve acts,
feeling returns.
Here, the body:
does not deny tension,
does not escape action,
but recovers the ability to vary.
It is the state of fruition, presence, and reorganization.
Not passivity—
physiological freedom.
Zone 1: tensing by choice
Zone 1 is not the problem.
It is necessary to:
act,
work,
decide,
protect.
The difference is that here:
tension is assumed consciously,
breathing adjusts to the goal,
the body knows it can return.
Healthy Zone 1 does not imprison.
It serves—and then it leaves.
Faith as a bodily mechanism (Yãy hã mĩy)
The concept Yãy hã mĩy, originating among the Maxakali people, originally describes:
the act of imitating oneself into being what one intends to become—
a bodily process, not merely symbolic.
In an expanded sense, faith works like this:
the body sustains a way of being,
breathing follows,
posture confirms,
the Self organizes.
When faith:
expands variability, it liberates.
fixes the body, it imprisons.
The difference is not in belief itself,
but in the bodily effect of belief.
Freedom of expression as a biological demand
Freedom of expression here is not a political slogan.
It is a requirement of DNA.
The body needs to:
vary tension,
signal needs,
change rhythm,
reorganize metabolism.
When ideologies, beliefs, or cultures:
forbid feeling,
block movement,
demand constant rigidity,
the body defends itself by fixing Tensional Selves.
“Satan” is born from the repression of variability,
not from the presence of conflict.
Taking Satan out of the room is not expelling anyone
This is not about eliminating Tensional Selves.
They are necessary.
It is about:
removing the monopoly,
returning the body to choice,
allowing alternation between zones.
When that happens:
breathing loosens,
the heart varies,
feeling returns,
consciousness expands.
Nothing mystical.
Nothing violent.
Just physiology recovering freedom.
Recognizing the moment of the shift
Simple questions:
Am I tense without knowing why?
Could my breathing vary more?
Can I leave defense without disappearing?
Can I act without imprisoning myself?
When these questions arise,
“Satan” has already begun to leave the room.
Closing — the ending of the series
“Satan” is the name we give
when we forget the body can vary.
Zone 3 is not sin.
Zone 1 is not virtue.
Zone 2 is not escape.
They are bodily modes of existing.
True faith does not fix.
True consciousness does not imprison.
True freedom is the ability to vary.
To breathe, to feel, to tense, and to release—
by choice.
This text is part of the series Breathing, Body, Consciousness, and the Shifting of the Tensional Selves (Eus Tensionais), where different aspects of the same living system are approached from complementary angles.
References (post-2020)
Thayer, J. F., & Lane, R. D. (2021). Neurovisceral Integration and Self-Regulation. Biological Psychology.
→ Grounds the link between autonomic variability, rigidity, and flexibility of the embodied self.
Laborde, S., et al. (2022). HRV as a Marker of Self-Regulatory Capacity. Biological Psychology.
→ Relates HRV and RMSSD to the ability to shift states without collapse.
Seth, A. K. (2021). Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. Faber & Faber.
→ Frames consciousness as a predictive bodily process rather than an abstraction.
Berntson, G. G., & Khalsa, S. S. (2021). Interoception and Autonomic Regulation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
→ Shows how bodily sensing regulates states of consciousness.
Mashour, G. A., & Hudetz, A. G. (2021). Disconnecting Consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
→ Analyzes how rigid states alter conscious integration.
Critchley, H. D., & Garfinkel, S. N. (2021). Interoception and Emotion. Current Opinion in Psychology.
→ Links interoception to freedom of emotional response.
Porges, S. W. (2021). Polyvagal Theory: A Science of Safety. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience.
→ Grounds bodily safety as a prerequisite for autonomic variability.
Varela, F. J., et al. (recent editions). The Embodied Mind. MIT Press.
→ Supports cognition as embodied experience, aligned with Taa and variability.
Taa: Knowing That Comes From the Body
Pressure, Posture, and Heart Rate Variability
When the Heart Stops: EEG, Gamma Activity, and Transitional States
From the R of the QRS to the Brain: The Heartbeat as Information
The Full Respiratory Cycle and RMSSD
Whole-Body Breathing: A Bridge Between APUS and Tekoha
Fasting, mTOR, and Metabolic Rhythms
Tekoha: Interoception, pH, and the Microbiota
Strength Training, Force, and Memory in APUS
Breathing as a Regulator of the Autonomic System
RMSSD and HRV: Variability Is Health
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