- The Prison of Body Resistance — Set Yourself Free Series
- Prisons of the Spirit — Set Yourself Free Series
- The Prison of Imagination — Set Yourself Free Series
- Breaking Through Beliefs — Set Yourself Free Series
- True Intimacy — Set Yourself Free Series
- True Liberation — Set Yourself Free Series
True intimacy is found as we let go of our dependence on our minds, and begin to add in a body based focus.
PDF downloadable book and online videos. More info here.
“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.
PDF downloadable book and online videos. More info here.