The Prison of Body Resistance — Set Yourself Free Series

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The Prison of Body Resis­tance — we find our­selves trapped in a body that seems for­eign to us. Here are some sug­ges­tions geared toward let­ting go.

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Our minds can be quite locked up. Because we’re used to the games our minds play, how­ev­er, we’re com­fort­able liv­ing between our ears.

A strange thing happened at the time of the Enlightenment. People were split in three.

Pri­or to this time, life in the West was pret­ty reg­i­ment­ed. The Church held sway over pret­ty much every­thing. Sick­ness was thought of as a sign of sin­ful­ness. Health care was a joke — the town sur­geon was like­ly the barber. 

If you need­ed med­i­cine, it came from a woman versed in herbs — and she need­ed to keep her head down, as the Church did­n’t like intru­sion. She could eas­i­ly be brand­ed a witch.

The Enlightenment was an opening of the mind.

Edu­ca­tion rose in impor­tance, as did fledg­ling Uni­ver­si­ties. Med­i­cine became a sci­ence, and was taught to doctors. 

Some­how the Church came to its sens­es long enough to real­ize this “new­fan­gled edu­ca­tion thing” was­n’t going away. The Church agreed to a division.

The Church got the Spirit. 

The doc­tors were assigned the body. The edu­ca­tors got sole pos­ses­sion of the mind (until psy­cho­analy­sis came along — a divi­sion again hap­pened at that point.)

The edu­ca­tors quick­ly rose to the fore, as change was com­ing from this part of the tri­umvi­rate. Sci­ence was plot­ting the uni­verse, cre­at­ing machines, pro­mot­ing log­ic — and shunt­ing the Church off into a cor­ner from which is has yet (thank­ful­ly) to return.

And med­i­cine decid­ed that, like all sci­ences, divi­sion led some­where. Once dis­sec­tion was approved, med­i­cine built its bones on the idea that if only we look to the small­est, we will under­stand the whole.

The Mind was elevated

The Spir­it was seen as quaint. The Mind was seen as the prin­ci­pal aspect that made humans human. 

The anal­o­gy of horse and rid­er pre­vailed — the mind was like the rid­er of the horse — in pos­ses­sion of knowl­edge, intel­lect, wis­dom, and direction. 

The horse (the body) was the dumb beast that got the rid­er from a to b.

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Many of my clients had difficulty believing their bodies have a voice

And this is even when their bod­ies went quite dra­mat­i­cal­ly out of control. 

One client espe­cial­ly was fas­ci­nat­ing to do Body­work with. I’d touch her shoul­der, and she’d say, “I feel that in my toe. What does that mean?” Or I’d press on her ster­num, and she’d start to cry, and I’d almost hear a click as she popped up into her head, and told me a story.

Bodies are treated with disrespect

Body­work is real­ly about break­ing down the walls that sep­a­rate us from our­selves. The walls are 1) tight­ness, and 2) reluctance.

• The tight­ness is what we learned to do to “get our­selves under control.”
• The reluc­tance is the cen­turies long aver­sion we have to think­ing that our bod­ies have intel­li­gence.

I remem­ber my first Body­work ses­sion, out at Haven, with David Raithby. 

I had a lot of tears and anger. I was also out there right before I got “exit­ed” from the Church, although none of us knew that at the time. 

David had just about fin­ished. He asked me to sit up, and dug his fin­gers into my side intercostals.

I let out a howl, and real­ly kind of lost it. He extend­ed my arms out from my sides. He said,

“We’ve already had one Mes­si­ah, and look how it turned out for him.”

I, in that moment, had a whole body reac­tion. I thought about how my body had col­lapsed on me a few months ear­li­er … a prime moti­va­tion to go to The Haven. I thought about how I kept demand­ing that my body do what it did­n’t want to do any more. All for the “right” rea­sons: my “call­ing,” pres­tige, money.

I’d stayed and stayed, and my little legs were pumping in the air. Trying to run out the door.

I don’t know how David saw what was up for me, although as a Body­work­er, I “saw” stuff all the time. I’d get a flash, an intu­ition, and I’d fol­low it. 

I’d “push here,” as if it’s writ­ten on skin. I’d see what the recip­i­ent is resist­ing (often stuff to do with pelvic / sen­su­al / sex­u­al resis­tance,) and I’d go for it. 

Because the body has a voice.

The body is screaming its message, and we ignore it at our peril

If you want to learn to lis­ten to and work with your body, you’ll have to get in touch with what you are feeling.

As you feel your feelings, watch. See what you do next.

1. Intel­lec­tu­al­ize – ask for more infor­ma­tion, pop into your head and try to “fig­ure it out.” In the mean­time, stuff the feel­ings back down.
2. Fan­ta­size – leave your body by com­ing up wit your favourite sto­ry — prefer­ably one where you get to check out of real­i­ty and play around in your head.
3. Patch the wall — you start to feel, start to “see” what’s being held in / down / back. You start to dig in, and then, poof, “shields up!” The mus­cles are re-tight­ened, and feel­ings dis­missed, and all is “nor­mal” again.

Or:

1. let go – ask your body what it needs — it may need to yell, pound, cry… and then, as one client put it, it may need to com­plete­ly release. If you block your­self from doing what your body needs, you will pay the price.
2. wig­gle / move — your body wants to express itself, so find ways. Dance, wig­gle, move your pelvis, stretch, do yoga. Exer­cise your need to let your body loose.
3. Emote — set aside time to feel your emo­tions ful­ly. Cre­ate a space to let it all hang out. Find a core group of peo­ple you trust enough to be yourself.
4. Find alter­na­tives — do Body­work, get acupunc­ture and Chi­nese herbal remedies.

You are not the vic­tim of your body. You are your body, as much as you are your mind. Your body is talk­ing to you, all the time, and usu­al­ly is aware of “dif­fi­cul­ties” long before your brain clues in. :earn to pay attention.

Ask your body, “What do you need? What can I do so toast you can let go and come back into bal­ance? What needs to hap­pen, be let go of, danced with? And then, listen.

I sus­pect you’ll dis­cov­er that the answer(s) are obvious.

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