True Intimacy — Set Yourself Free Series

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True inti­ma­cy is found as we let go of our depen­dence on our minds, and begin to add in a body based focus.

“Enlight­en­ment must be lived here and now through this very body or else it is not gen­uine. In this body and mind we find the cause of suf­fer­ing and the end of suf­fer­ing. For awak­en­ing to be an open­ing into free­dom in this very life, the body must be its ground.“
After the Ecsta­sy, the Laun­dry, Jack Korn­field, p. 178

So, I really still amaze myself over the reluctance most Westerners have to being fully in their bodies — to learn to simply listen to the wisdom of their bodies.

Some are in total denial — are unaware of the quirks and block­ages that are mess­ing with their free movement. 

Oth­ers are stuck in blame. 

One of the most inter­est­ing Body­work moments is when a recip­i­ent suf­fi­cient­ly lets go of their pain and dra­ma. Ener­gy begins to flow, and a look of sur­prise fills their face. 

It’s like they can’t believe their body could feel so good, so alive.

I get it. It was all new to me once, too.

I had “clas­si­cal” train­ing in psy­chother­a­py. I did aca­d­e­m­ic cours­es for two years, and dur­ing that time was also an Intern at a coun­selling cen­tre. There, the tech­niques of coun­selling were taught; there, I earned my spurs work­ing with clients, using the tech­niques I had learned.

We had a week long train­ing in “Bioen­er­get­ics,” a style of bodywork/counselling devel­oped by Alexan­der Lowen,​ and built upon the work of Wil­helm Reich​. We breathed, a lot, and we stretched, and tried var­i­ous pos­tures to get our bod­ies to shake. 

I can clear­ly remem­ber doing the stuff under protest — I could make nei­ther heads nor tails of the whole process; I was firm­ly in the “head” camp of psychotherapy.

No, I “knew” that the key to unlocking the knots of despair that my clients were feeling lay in helping them to understand — they simply needed to learn how to better use their minds.

I grad­u­at­ed in ’83, and got my Mas­ters’ degree… and I just kept talk­ing. What was hap­pen­ing for me, and for my clients at the bod­i­ly / feel­ing lev­el was the last thing I was inter­est­ed in.

My goal was to “fix,” and to have every­one think I was smart.

In ’96, when I was still in the church, “play­ing Min­is­ter,” my body gave up on me. And for good reason. 

My church approach was like my coun­selling approach, back then, was quite West­ern. (By the bye, West­ern and East­ern are not geo­graph­i­cal but ide­o­log­i­cal.) I would work and work and work, then get the flu or hurt my back… or some­thing… and have to stop. 

I’d go for acupunc­ture and herbs, get strong, and start work­ing again.

Any­way, in 1996, I real­ly had done a num­ber on myself — 2 church­es, hours of extras for Advent and Christ­mas. Then, I set up a huge amount of extra activ­i­ties for Lent, dou­bled my client load at my coun­selling cen­tre, and made it to the morn­ing of Ash Wednes­day, the begin­ning of Lent.

I woke up in a black, dark fog, and my body would bare­ly sup­port me. With great reluc­tance, I announced that evening that I was putting all the extras on hold. I need­ed a break.

I had it almost right. I was actually broken.

I went to see my ther­a­pist the next day. She sug­gest­ed that after I recov­ered my phys­i­cal strength, I go off to The Haven to do Phase 1 that July. I signed up imme­di­ate­ly, expect­ing a whole lot of the­o­ry — talk­ing, etc. I was plan­ning on being wise.

Imagine my chagrin, a day into the Phase, being “invited” to lie down and breathe. To do Bioenergetics. And, horrors, they expected me to receive Bodywork. I “knew” nothing would emerge from my body. Right.

Two thumbs, ele­gant­ly and deeply applied, and I was deep into my body, scream­ing, “What about me?” My body shift­ed, drag­ging my mind, kick­ing and scream­ing, with it. My mind was ini­tial­ly embar­rassed about my body’s deep feel­ings, then resigned, then inter­est­ed, then ecstatic. 

I may be slow and stupid, but at least I’m “flexible.”

My body and lan­guage shift­ed so much that I was “kicked out” of the Church with­in 6 weeks of return­ing from Phase. Best thing that ever happened.

I did stress myself, so I want back into ther­a­py. My ther­a­pist gave me the gift of what I call “the final piece.” 

As I tried to use my mind — to be smart, to fig­ure out what was up, she stopped me. She then sug­gest­ed I take 6 months and sim­ply say, “I don’t know.” Hard­est thing I ever did, and the most rewarding.

I can cheerfully say, all these years later, “I still don’t know.”

I am, how­ev­er, excru­ci­at­ing­ly aware of my thoughts, feel­ings, ener­gy, and the move­ment of my body. As I sit, as I focus my atten­tion with­out play­ing men­tal games, I some­how know, and know what I do not know.

Back in the day, clients ini­tial­ly want­ed expla­na­tions for every­thing. “Why do I feel this?” “What does this mean?” They were tak­en aback by my dis­in­ter­est in their “head” questions. 

Instead, I would won­der what they were feel­ing. I’d won­der what needs to get “out” of their bod­ies. I’d won­der who is buried in there, under the sur­face, dying to emerge.

I’d wonder, in short, if they were courageous enough to enter into themselves fully, as opposed to stopping at their heads.

I am still dis­in­ter­est­ed in what friends tell me is going on up there in their lit­tle heads. All the sto­ries, the dra­mas, the stuck-ness. It does­n’t mat­ter how edu­cat­ed they are: all that gets them is “dumb, but with big­ger words.”

I invite my frieds to find some­one to do Body­work with them. I invite them to meditate. 

I won­der with them how freely they give them­selves over to the ecsta­sy that is a part of our nature. 

I won­der, often, about their will­ing­ness to feel the depths of their pain, so that they will also be able to feel the heights of their passion. 

How scared of their pow­er, pas­sion and ener­gy are they? What would it be like for them to enter into a world that is alive and filled with feel­ing? Will they “go there?”

Ulti­mate­ly, there is a choice to be made here. The choice is to aban­don know­ing any­thing for under­stand­ing every­thing. It’s let­ting go of the need to be right, replac­ing that with the need to sim­ply be.

It’s about being whole — feel­ing, reflect­ing, act­ing, chang­ing as the world about us changes, as we our­selves learn to mke bet­ter choices.

An inter­est­ing walk, for the coura­geous explor­er. Wel­come aboard.

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