Waking Up
While you use your smart mind every day, you hardly use your smart body at all. Even if you’re moving around, physically fit and functioning, there’s more you need to know about living in your body. Did you know that your body holds an innate intelligence and ancient wisdom that is wholly separate from your mind? This part of you has been there all along. Yet if your thinking mind dominates the scene, it probably feels as if your body is dumb or numb. To access your full potential, you need to wake up and really feel your body. You can then begin to use your smart body’s vast resources for awareness, vitality, healing, balancing, communicating, intimacy, intuition, and quality of life.
For most of human existence, life needed to be oriented around physical experience in order to survive. But as less time was spent in nature (hunting, gathering, and surviving) and more time was spent pondering the nature of things, the primacy of the body began to diminish. In the seventeenth century, Descartes argued convincingly for the separation of psyche (mind) and soma (body), and since then, the body has been relegated to something mechanical and devoid of intelligence, personality, or spirit. As scientific studies focused on the body machine (digesting, working, performing, reproducing), the connection to the sensible body (experiencing, reflecting, connecting, knowing) went to sleep. Now, in the twenty-first century, we need to take another look at the body and wake up in order to survive.
Using the latest technologies and cutting-edge physics, scientists are unraveling the mysteries of the body and finding a new application for the old adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Take a look at a bio-imaging scan or biochemical map and you’ll see an intricate link between psyche and soma, mind and body. In addition to a magnificent machine, the evidence seems to imply that your body is also smart. It’s time to change your mind and cultivate some body wisdom. To do this, you don’t have to go into a lab for proof or understand a complex equation. All you have to do is shift your perspective a bit and pay attention to the obvious.
How Do You Relate to Your Body?
Take a moment right now and see where you stand with your body. Do you feel intimate and comfortable or distant, disappointed, and awkward when you focus on your physicality? Do you trust your body as an ally and reliable partner, or do you need to direct and manage it all of the time? Are you as kind and loving to your body as you are to a dear friend? Do you speak about your body in ways that reflect respect and understanding? What you say and think about your body could be perpetuating old belief systems. To see where you really stand, ask yourself one more question: “Do I trust my body to guide my decisions?” Your answers tell you a lot about the status quo. Follow your relationship with your body over the next few days and you might be surprised. When you say me, do you mean your body, as well as your intellect, personality, and feelings? When you talk about your body are you possessive (my arm, my movement) or objective (the jaw, the illness)? Do you feel insecure about your health and need reassurance from professionals for the slightest disturbance or discomfort? Do you see your body as something that needs to be managed, corrected, and improved?
The way you think and talk aren’t random. Listen to yourself. Your words can tell you a lot about your intimacy, connection, and identity with your body. Here are some reasons why it’s important to wake up and pay attention to the words you use:
- Your body is listening to everything you say and think.
- When you dismiss your body, you diminish the potential for health and happiness.
- When you boss or bully your body and deem health and fitness as chores, you’re negating a willing and eager partnership.
- When you criticize your body for genetic or circumstantial imperfections, you’re implying that it’s the enemy and not trustworthy.
- When your words aren’t inclusive and respectful, your body wants to check out.
- When your smart body is out of the picture, you aren’t cultivating your most valuable resource—body wisdom.
In order to change the program, you need to change your tone. Stop dissing your body—end the dismissing, disrespecting, and disregarding. Start “inning”—including, incorporating, and investigating. This is a big paradigm shift. It means your body is you. It means relating to yourself and the world from the inside. This is a brand new approach and something you’ll need to practice.
If suggesting there’s more to being awake than getting out of bed, going, and doing seems like a riddle from Wonderland, you’re not alone. To your mind, the idea may seem like a fuzzy dream or mere semantics. Don’t be discouraged. Waking up is a simple segue from here to there. Waking up is seeing the world from a different angle. Waking up changes your perception and presents new insights, new creativity, new solutions, and renewed enthusiasm. Waking up is a new way of living in your body. Slowly but surely as you wake up, your mind will start to understand your body and be delighted with its new partner. Slowly but surely as you wake up, your words will begin to reflect a new respect. Slowly but surely, your feelings will register compassion and love for your body. Your body is the untapped resource that offers you the input and expertise that will guarantee true health, happiness, and fulfillment.
Pause for a moment to drop in and see how your body feels; close your eyes and look inside; tune in to your sense of space and sensation. This is your kinesthetic sense and we’ll be talking a lot about it in this book. Feel what’s happening inside and ask yourself the following:
- Am I comfortable?
- Is some part of my body tightened up, squeezed off, or tucked under?
- Is my belly moving with each breath? Does this feel easy and rhythmic?
- Are my hands gently holding or tightly clutching the book?
- Is my primary focus in my head?
- Is there more awareness in my upper body than my lower body?
- Do I feel my pelvis on the chair, my feet on the floor?
As you do this body survey, notice what your mind was up to. In addition to recording the physical sensations and pondering the questions, was it carrying on a conversation of its own? Was it surprised? Did you learn something new? Did your mind seem to doubt, judge, or dismiss this exercise? Maybe your mind needs something to do.
Give Your Mind Something to Do
Your mind likes to be busy. Let it follow its natural inclination to observe and evaluate while you explore the talents and intelligence of your body. As you read, pondering new concepts and participating in intriguing exercises, invite your “curious observer” mind to follow along. Let it be enticed by the fascinating facts, anecdotal stories, personal discoveries, and novel approaches. Let it evaluate what works for you or what doesn’t work for you. Some topics covered in this book may resonate, others may amuse, and still others may be completely off base for now. Your mind and your experience will help you sort out what’s relevant and useful. This is what makes A Guide to Body Wisdom so very personal.
Take a few minutes to be in body-space and take your curious mind on a tour of the premises. Imagine you’re visiting different rooms of a house as you go from your head to your neck to your upper chest, et cetera. As you pause along the way and take stock, make a note of varying qualities—awareness, comfort, familiarity—and answer the following questions:
- Are some places so remote that it is hard to gain entry?
- Do some places feel more welcoming than others?
- Are some places bright, shiny, warm, cozy, dusty, or cobwebby?
- Are some places holding emotions or memories you’d forgotten?
- Do some places have something they need to say or want you to hear?
- Does the whole place seem numb or empty or overly crowded?
There’s a lot of rich information here. What did you discover about yourself? In a profound way, your body holds your story. Even if it feels numb or blank or it couldn’t sustain your attention for more than ten seconds, your Body-Home Tour is telling you something. Record your experience in your Body Wisdom journal. If you want, you can draw an outline of your body and color different areas to represent your findings; even your drawing has something to tell you. Jot down some descriptive words to note how you felt as you toured your interior spaces. Be sure to include anything that surprised you and everything your body had to say. Taking this tour gives you an idea of the work to be done and a reference point for comparison later on.
Touring your body home is a spot check you can do anytime. It’s like checking in with your authentic inner self. You might be surprised by the depth and complexity of your body’s truth. For instance, the experience could have been the first time you explored the territory and had a delightful adventure … or you might have felt awkward, silly, or self-conscious. Along the way, you may have found whole areas that were relatively silent, isolated, and dormant—as if in a deep sleep. You could have stumbled upon some old memories and long-forgotten associations. You could have uncovered places that felt wary and reticent; maybe others were tight and nervous. You might have sensed some stubbornness or defensiveness here or there. All of it has a story. Many body therapists believe that the body acts as a storage chamber for your personal history. No matter what, how you live in your body home has something to tell you, and it’s a very personal message.
Your body has been with you every single day of your life. It’s easy to take something so familiar for granted. In order to see and feel clearly, it may be time to take a fresh look. All you need is sensory awareness. Your eyes are already trained to glance at every mirror you cross, so take a look. See what your body is telling the rest of the world about your comfort, effort, or self-esteem. What do you hear? Listen to the sound of your feet as you walk, the sound of your hands on the keyboard, the sound of your voice in conversation. Open your ears and listen to the sound of your patience, emotional state, or confidence. Tune in to space and place with your kinesthetic sense. Feel the emotional resonance and intuitive message. Let your curious mind utilize this sensory input to evaluate the inner-outer dynamic.
Your everyday awareness lets you know if you’re in sync or out of touch. It helps you match your body effort to the task at hand. For instance, sometimes it makes sense for your muscles to be pumped for a difficult task; other times it makes sense for your muscles to be more relaxed and pliable for an easy load. Paying attention will help you adjust when it’s leisure time and your muscles are still geared up for heavy lifting. Being aware of your body also helps you match your expression and responses to the emotional tenor of what’s happening. Tune in to your sensory body for good guidance and intuition. For instance, if your stomach is full of butterflies or your jaw is clamped down, your body knows what’s going on. If there’s danger afoot or love in the air, your body knows what’s going on. Waking up is paying attention.
Being Present
A good time to tune in and be present is at the beginning of the day, the beginning of sleep, or the beginning of anything. No matter what you’re doing, pay attention to your body and you become more aware. Take a minute or two to see, feel, and be present in your body when you shift from one activity or place to another. Beginning a task or conversation with body consciousness makes it a fresh and full experience. So, let’s start with the beginning of your day.
- What is your morning routine?
- Do you get nudged from sleep by the sound of an alarm clock and move into your day creaky and groggy?
- Do you gradually get it going as you shuffle through washing, dressing, eating, and morning news?
- Do you steel yourself and crash out of bed hurrying around like a mad person on steroids to meet the deadlines and match the intensities of the day ahead?
If you change your routine at the very start of each day, it changes the trajectory for the entire day. Perhaps tomorrow instead of being on autopilot, you could give yourself time to let your body wake up before you get up. This simple change could make a huge difference in how your day proceeds. No matter what’s on the schedule, wouldn’t it be more agreeable to start your day in your body with ease and lightness? Give it a try. Remember, how and where you begin a journey determines where and how it’ll end.
Instead of popping out of bed in your usual manner, take a few minutes (like three) to wake up to the day and wake up in your body. At the very moment your mind begins to stir, send it directly to the world of your senses. What do you hear, smell, see, and feel? Your senses are the bridge between your body and the external/internal worlds. Now bring your focus to your inner space and begin to move each part of your body gently through its natural range of motion. Start with your fingers and toes and let the movement spread to include your ankles and knees, wrists and elbows. Let each part move in its own way (including your eyes and jaw) until you’ve loosened up your whole body. Now you’re ready to get up. You’re beginning your day, bringing your awake-and-aware body with you.
Another natural time to tune in is when you’re going to sleep. This is the beginning of your rest cycle. Here, rather than enlivening each part of your body, you’ll want to quiet down and relax. Just remember, when you get into bed, get into your body! Try this out tonight. It’s a tried and true way to let go of the day and set the course for a good night’s sleep. Let your mind focus on your body as you check through to make sure it’s comfortable. Then, scan around searching for pockets of busyness, intensity, and tension. Jiggle or breathe into these pockets and let them release. Your breathing can help you let go of density and fill up with lightness. With each exhale let go of the remnants of your day (physical tension, emotional issues, ideas, problems, and projects). Don’t worry—if you need it, you can pick it all up again tomorrow. Feel the comfort and cozy support of your bed with each inhale. (Note: if your bed isn’t comfortable, do something about it!) Feel your muscles melt and your bones float along on the gentle motion of your breath. Paying attention to the beginning of sleep is a good way to enter a restful, nourishing sleep.
You can tune in and check in with your body at the beginning of anything. As you shift gears in your busy schedule, go from one task to the other, or transit from the parking lot to the office building, bring your conscious body along with you. It’s a new beginning whenever you take on a new task, start an interview or assignment, skirt a roadblock, need to change course, or tackle an emotional issue. Instead of plowing through these times on autopilot, use your everyday awareness and bring your body along. It just might have something helpful to offer.
As you go through your day, check in now and then with your body. For the time being, in order to wake up, you’ll need to practice some body awareness. Pay attention as you note how you think, feel, and live in your body. Listen to your body and invite it to be a part of whatever you’re doing, because this is about developing a new skill. Like most people, your body is probably on automatic pilot most of the time. Your mind sets a course for action and your body simply does it. Following are some in-between times to wake up and practice body awareness:
- Anytime you’re waiting in traffic, in line, or at the doctor’s office
- When you’re listening to a friend, the news, music, or children playing
- When you’re watching a sunset, the TV, a movie, or birds in flight
- When you’re walking from car to office, in the park with your dog, or at the beach
You may be surprised to discover what’s going on in your body while your mind is off thinking and strategizing. To increase awareness of your body, where it is, what it does, and how it feels, take some time over the next few days to do the following:
- Check out what your feet or hands are doing when you’re waiting or idle.
- Monitor tension in your stomach or jaw during an emotional conversation.
- Observe what your tongue is doing while you read this book.
- Measure the tension in your neck and shoulders while driving.
- Feel the map of tension when you’re faced with a deadline.
If your body isn’t engaged in physical labor, why is it poised for action? If you want to communicate confidence, why is it so nervous? If you intend to be effective, why is it so checked out?
Your Conscious Body
When you begin to be more aware of your conscious body, everything you do will be affected. Naturally, taking care of yourself will be easier and have a higher priority. You’ll know how to get healthy and what to do when you’re injured or sick. Work, play, and rest will be more satisfying. Your own wise body will be a resource when you encounter challenging times, and since your body moves slower than your mind, life will slow down. You’ll actually have time to be in the moment and enjoy it.
Waking up and developing body consciousness may also uncover some old wounds and issues. As long as you’re unaware, unfinished, or uncomfortable, your unfinished business may just feel normal. But once you make the connection and feel the drag, you’ll want to do some house cleaning. Pause for a moment right now and reflect back on your Body-Home Tour. Did you run into any clutter, numbness, blockage, or resistance that may have emotional roots? Your emotions aren’t separated from your body. They’re the expressive link between your body and mind. And, when they’re repressed and buried in your body, they live on and on in your body … wreaking havoc! Ask yourself if some of your body’s current issues (discomfort, tension, pain, numbness, weakness) have an emotional overlay. I often tell clients that the pain could actually be the pain. Paying attention to your body shows you both the work and the way to your emotional healing. It’s worth the effort. Clearing out the past means you can stand on the threshold of your future.
When you wake up and get to know your body, you establish a good sounding board for decision-making. Your mind can make a case for just about anything, but the choices you make will either resonate with your body or not. As long as you’re oblivious to the signals coming from your body, your mind (will and desires) calls all the shots. But, once you feel resonance in your body, your choices of food, exercise, scheduling, partnership, investment, aesthetics, and more will reflect your body’s wisdom. Your body will either say yes or say no, it’s that simple. Test this out. The next time you want to make up your mind, check in with your body. When you consider a particular option, does your body feel pulled toward or pushed away? Let your body weigh in and you’ll make more successful choices and fewer mistakes.
When you wake up and get to know your body, your confidence and self-esteem will improve. Not only will your body help you know what you want, it will help you get it. It’s easy to be sure of yourself when your feelings, words, and intentions are in sync. Communication has a reassuring authority if it’s aligned with your body. For instance, if what you’re saying carries the authority of your body, your words will be grounded and clear. If enthusiasm and certainty resonate with your posture, your eagerness will be convincing. If loving words come from your open chest, your sympathy and compassion will be felt. No matter what words come out of your mouth, the nonverbal message comes through loud and clear from your body. If the message doesn’t match the body, it’s unsettling and confusing for you and everyone else.
Once you wake up and live in your body, you show up for life. As the spiritual counselors and motivational speakers say, “The only moment that counts is the present moment.” Your body is your ticket to be in this moment. This is why many approaches to higher consciousness strive to quiet the overactive mind and engage a mindfulness that is focused on sensual experience: breathing, sounds, mantras, and so on. These techniques are based on the idea that paying attention to your body and engaging in word-thoughts are mutually exclusive. Try it out.
Put this book down and close your eyes. Tune in to your interior space and relax a bit. Now, string together five breaths, inhale and exhale, and keep your sole attention on your body breathing. Notice when your busy-bee mind starts buzzing—did your focus drift away from your breath? If you keep your focus on your breath, your mind will be quiet, yes?
Your mind just can’t be aware of sensory input and word-thoughts at the same time. Focusing on the simple sensations of breathing helps your curious mind circumvent your analytical mind. Once you start to describe the sensation or experience with words, however, your mind has taken over again! When this happens, tune back in to your aware body to get in the present moment and quiet your mind again. Being in the moment is both a gateway to serenity and an essential element for intimacy and intuition. Here, your quiet, spacious body can be a bridge from sensory to extrasensory perception.
Expanding Your Understanding
The everyday way you live in your body tells you a lot about who you are and where you’ve been. It tells you about your attitudes, self-talk, feelings, tensions, attractions, and shortcomings. Your body is you. Not only does it hold the shape of your past, it continues to shape the future. Your body has its own separate intelligence and you can use it to expand your understanding.
Like many people, when you tune in and connect with the gifts your body has to offer, your first response might be: Why has it taken me so long to find something so obvious? Where and when did all the shaping and shutting down take place? How can I use this precious information to find out more? Answering these questions is a good way to understand why you’ve been asleep for so long. If you look at the long trail of human history, at the beginning you’ll see many years of pure physicality with food, shelter, and survival ruling the day. When humans had these essentials managed, they began to be more mental—thinking and analyzing, inventing and devising. For much of recent history, the scope of the mind has seemed limitless, superior, and smart … while the body was viewed mostly as a liability—inferior and dumb. In recent years, science and technology have blown this way of thinking wide open with new findings about the interplay of body and mind. There are even some studies that suggest your stomach has a mind of its own. This is a good time to re-evaluate your assumptions and explore the new frontier of living in a wise body.
Where Did It Come From?
Perhaps, similar to legend of Rip Van Winkle, who took a nap and ended up sleeping for one hundred years, waking up may mean reuniting your mind and body after a long sleep. You might wonder what happened. Finding your body hobbled with tensions and burdened with outdated attitudes isn’t just a historical/philosophical disconnect between mind and body. It affects the very way you live and breathe each day. There could be some very real reasons why you feel numb and on guard. It’s logical to wonder where it all came from. The formation of your particular attitudes, tensions, and habits is a cultural story, but it’s also a personal story. In order to catch up and cultivate your full human potential, you’ll need to look at how your family, life experience, and culture have influenced how you think and live in your body. In a very real way, everything that affects you shapes you.
Try This: The Shape of History
To see where your personal history lives in your body, remember something significant and emotional from your childhood. Your memory could involve a mega-theme (betrayal, abandonment, cruelty, trauma) or be simply circumstantial (minor injury, hunger, childhood loss, or illness). Remember how you felt and how your body reacted to this event or situation. Let your body take on the likely tension of this event. Is the shape of this tension familiar to you today? Is a defensive posture still armoring your shoulders and back? Are your legs still carrying the tension of wanting to flee? Is your belly still contracting with the recoil from pain? In times of tension or trauma, the body returns to its familiar response pattern over and over again. This is how your personal history has shaped your life. Another person will have a different history and a different pattern of tension. Freeing up this “shape of history” is a major theme of this book and will be covered in depth later on.
Your body’s not just carrying the template of your immediate personal history—your familial history has an influence as well. Formative physical and emotional influences (nature and nurture) have literally shaped you over centuries. Waking up is not just noticing how uncomfortable or unconscious you are in your body today, it’s also waking up the ghosts of the past and feeling where they live in your body. As you unravel the story behind your postures and habits, don’t be surprised if you uncover some assumptions, attitudes, and beliefs that took root before you were even born. These generational holding patterns and agreements need to be deconstructed in order to liberate your ideas and expectations, as well as your muscles and bones.
Explore: History Leaves an Impression
What are some historical elements that shaped who you are? Take some time to think about it and give yourself permission to speculate and fill in the blanks. You don’t have to go all the way back to ancient history. Just imagine a generation or two. What were the formative events and emotional circumstances that touched and shaped the lives of your parents and grandparents? Remember the stories and look at old photographs. Get out your Body Wisdom journal and construct a family tree of your key predecessors. Jot down a few notes as you ask the following questions:
- What was the theme running through their story (hardship, fame, betrayal, exile)?
- How might this have shaped the way they felt about themselves, their prospects, and their future?
- Did these circumstances leave them beleaguered, arrogant, defensive, or fearful?
- How could this experience have influenced the way they walked in the world?
Now, pick an important person in this lineup and describe their particular circumstances. Imagine how the emotional impact of these circumstances might have impacted their body and self-image. This is easy if you bring your own body into the picture. Just put the story of your grandfather/father/mother on like a coat and let their history shape your jaw/shoulders/back. How does this feel, physically and emotionally? Now, make a sketch of what you felt in your journal and shade in areas where the family history carries on. Where does the shape of their history live in your body today? Maybe some of this (tension, attitude, posture, and so on) doesn’t actually belong to you.
Often, familial tension patterns are both unconscious and repetitive. We learn through imitation and one generation passes it down to the next. Each family has its own variation like a fingerprint, and carries tension (emotional and physical) differently. Scanning the old photographs may have shown you yours. It is an important point of departure when you realize that the way you walk through the world took shape before you were even born. In order to stand in your full stature and walk unencumbered, you’ll need to wake up and take off your ancestral suit. Here’s how Joan used her family album to recover her true playful self:
Joan questioned why she always felt driven to succeed and at loose ends whenever she was on vacation. In her body, purposeful activity felt safe; casual fun felt awkward and scary. Exploring her family history told her the underlying story. Joan’s ancestors, like many, had worked hard to make a better life and held strong philosophical beliefs about “idle hands.” For her people, having fun was self-indulgent and suspect. As she scanned through the family photo album, she saw grim expressions and squared-off shoulders. Both men and women in the photos looked like they had never known a day of frivolity in their lives. They probably hadn’t. This look was familiar to Joan. She saw it every morning in the mirror. In order to soften up and lighten up, Joan needed to shake history off her shoulders and release the habitual scowl from her facial muscles. Just shaking and smiling helped Joan free up her workhorse body and discover its playfulness. Her old photos had shown her where it all began so she could shake off the shape of the past.
Of course you’re not only shaped by your family’s history and predisposition, you’re also shaped by anything that impresses you. This could be an older sibling, teachers and coaches, celebrity and fashion, friends and lovers, and the seemingly random course of injury, success, illness, and attraction. It might be enlightening to take a look at these and add them to the underlying story you’ve just recorded in your Body Wisdom journal.
You are definitely on the way to waking up when you can track the shape of tension in your body to its underlying story. As you’ve discovered, some emotional events, family history, and influential relationships have a tendency to grab hold and live on way past their due date. Once you wake up, you can clean up and free up your body. Like sorting through the closets of your house, when you jettison what doesn’t fit, you won’t have to schlep old baggage from the past. You’ll feel lighter and more relaxed. Without the historical overlay, you’ll be able to work better, play spontaneously, and show up for life as your own unique creative person. Although old patterns might feel entrenched and hard to budge, you’ll be delighted to know that your body was designed to change, grow, and heal.
Cleaning up and freeing up doesn’t mean we’re all going to look or move alike. You’ll still be yourself. You’ll have your unique postural expression, individual personality, and a familiar muscular tension. You won’t lose your sense of self, you’ll just loosen the mold a bit.
Becoming conscious of your postural patterns and habitual attitudes does not mean trading them in for some template of mechanical correctness. It means embracing your body as a work in progress. As you wake up, you’ll change but you won’t lose the art of being you. You’ll add the benefits of more choice and less rigidity, more ease and less “dis”-ease, more consciousness and less helplessness. Just think, if you unlock the hold of habit and history, you might find two or three (or twenty) more ways to express yourself, do your work, be creative, approach opportunity, enjoy pleasure, or find happiness.
Watching the fluid movements of a baby’s body gives you an idea of how muscles and bones are innately designed to move easily from one expression to the next, gracefully and resiliently. Like a baby, you have the potential to be responsive in the present moment and open to the future. This is a good goal. As psychologists and health professionals have discovered, this kind of resiliency and spontaneity is equated with happiness and wellness. Stuck behaviors and rigid bodies correlate with emotional distress and illness.1 For more than fifty years, mind/body healers have been touting the importance of cleaning up and freeing up, saying that disease is simply stagnation and “not being at ease.”
Now that your body has your attention, it’s time to pay attention. Understanding the situation in the context of the whys and wheres, you’re probably eager to mitigate the past and explore how you can live fully in present time. Your body knows the way. Invite your curious mind to follow along as you take a fresh look at how you do things, and remember that you’re a work in progress.
Your posture is more than physical alignment and muscular tension. Your posture is also how your body represents you. It determines not only how you see yourself but also how the world sees you. Even though it may feel set in stone, waking up your posture invites options. After all, if your body was meant to be rigid and set in its ways, you’d have more calcified parts. Your body was designed to move fluidly, respond accurately, and access the full awareness of your senses. When old habits, emotional experiences, cognitive beliefs, and unfinished business get stored in your soft tissue, the resulting postural/muscular tension will hold you back. Waking up your posture is about having options.
You can even see the burden of unfinished business just by looking around. Check out the postures of perfect strangers on the street or in the marketplace. To be comfortable and respectful in your observations, you’ll want to do a quick scan or use your peripheral vision. Could the postural expression you see be an emotional statement? Does it communicate a certain attitude? Go ahead and play junior psychologist—construct the underlying story of what you see. Imagine you’re looking at actors on a stage. Can you identify the collapse of disappointment, the armor of fear, or the clench of anger? Now, take a look at a candid photo of yourself and apply the same scrutiny. Unless the source for anger, disappointment, apprehension, etc., is in the frame, the bodies you’re looking at are carrying the past (even if it was as recent as twenty minutes ago). As you go through life, it’s hard to be open to new things and be in present time when your body is at cross-purposes—living in the present yet holding onto postures from the past.
Make no mistake, your postural expression has a lot to say. Even though the communication may be nonverbal and bypass the cognitive mind, it influences what people think and feel about you. How does this happen? There’s a whole lot of information that reaches the brain through instinctive and intuitive channels. As part of your survival wiring, this information tells you whether to trust or distrust, to move closer or further away, to embrace or reject, and so on. These seemingly subtle differences profoundly affect all decisions, attractions, and beliefs. The body is one huge nonverbal broadcaster. You pick up postural statements from other people and they pick them up from you. Waking up your posture is about clear communication.
Stand up in place and feel how your feet interface with the ground. Think of your body as a multistoried structure, and maximize your base as you distribute your weight evenly through your whole foot. Now imagine that each part of your body stacks one upon the other from bottom to top, like the different floors in a building. As an architect would tell you, “You’ll have the support you need with a good foundation and stability when the top is aligned with all below.” Check your alignment many times during the day, even when sitting because the foundation includes your pelvis and feet. Make sure that your posture is giving you the support and stability you need. Once you veer away from this alignment, it’ll be easy for gravity to pull you into an old habit (slouch, brace, curl, or tilt). Notice how you feel with aligned versus collapsed posture. What impression or nonverbal message do you think your posture habit conveys to others?
Brian. For many years, Brian’s parents told him to sit and stand up straight. He thought this was simply a matter of manners, but when a personal trainer told him that his postural habits influenced his ability to perform and present well, it gave a whole different spin to the issue. He had a PhD in Earth Sciences but had never applied the “form follows function” principle to his own body. Not only did his new body awareness serve his future, but coming out of the slouch made a good impression in job interviews.
If you’re tuned in to your posture, you have a choice. You can let go of the old habits and line up with your best self. You can also be a lot more comfortable as you release unnecessary tension in your scrunched shoulders, tight glutes, and pinched lips. Standing up for yourself happens automatically when you wake up your posture. Waking up means being on top of your game.
By now, you’ve lived long enough that your ways of moving are well-worn pathways. Paying attention to your body lets you evaluate the efficiency and comfort of your movement patterns. After all, how you move is where your mind and body partner up for action. Being mindful of your moving body’s routes and routines will help you observe how conscious (or not) you are in the most mundane activities. To do this, you’ll need to turn on your kinesthetic sense—your “body sense” that registers place and space in your body. Even with your eyes closed, this sense informs balance and movement.
Your kinesthetic sense was in place and recording information when you were in utero and at birth it was already pretty well established. Because it’s always been there, this body sense can easily be overlooked. But, just as your auditory sense helps you hear things accurately, your kinesthetic sense helps you move gracefully and know where you are in space. People with good timing and coordination (athletes, dancers, actors, and physical laborers) have a highly developed kinesthetic sense. And, people who are klutzy and awkward often have a diminished kinesthetic awareness. Whether gifted kinesthetically or not, you can always improve this sense if you use it. Activities like yoga and tai chi improve function, self-image, and balance in large part because time is spent tuning in to the “body sense.”
Try This: Do You Have Body Sense?
An effective way to evaluate your body sense is to take vision out of the equation. Simply close your eyes when you brush your teeth or find a light switch in the dark. Let your body sense direct these activities rather than your sense of sight. You may be surprised by how unsure and uncoordinated you feel at first. If your body (kinesthetic) sense is seldom used, it becomes dull, movement is unconscious, and you may feel detached from your body. Over the next few days, tune in your body sense when you tie a shoelace, wipe down the kitchen counter, or touch a loved one. Like a skill that gets rusty, you may need to practice a bit.
To be aware of how you move and move with awareness keeps you focused on the task at hand, whether it’s physical, mental, or spiritual. Your sensible body is the doorway to your smart body. No matter how trivial or complex the task, whenever you want to be more alert, efficient, and graceful, just tune in to your body sense. Track your movements throughout the day and make sure you invite your moving body to come along. When you towel yourself off, hand papers to a colleague, pet your dog, or get into your car, let your whole body participate. Some things to be aware of:
- When you turn to look over your shoulder, does your whole body turn or just your neck and head?
- When you wipe down the counter in the kitchen, do you use your whole body or just your arm and hand?
- When you stoop down to pick something up, do you bend your knees and hips or just from the waist?
You may think it saves energy to use fewer body parts when you move, but the opposite is actually the case. Haphazard, sloppy, or abbreviated movements indicate that your body sense is sleeping. The old adage “use it or lose it” applies to your body sense.
In order to reconnect with your moving body, experiment with some new routes and routines over the next few days. For instance, if you usually turn right when you go into a store, try going left. If you go to the fresh produce area first, try frozen foods instead. If you put your left leg in your pants before your right, do the opposite. If you always open a door with your right hand, try your left. If you walk along one street to the subway, walk along a different street. Challenge yourself to find equally good alternatives to the ways you habitually move through life. Waking up means being in life.
In order to wake up and be a loving steward of your body, you may need to interrupt a subliminal message and change the way you think. Listening to your internal dialogue and hearing what you say to your body can reveal subconscious beliefs that keep you stuck and disconnected. In order to change the way you live in your body, you need to change how you think about your body. Your mind/body relationship is your most complex and long-standing relationship. It has been shaped, set, and reinforced by years and years of interaction. Some of the ways you relate to your body were even formed without cognitive awareness. They were simply downloaded from your family and culture. Just like postural habits, thinking habits can be limiting and destructive. One important strategy for waking up is to change your mind/body relationship. But first, you’ll need to know what’s up.
In order to identify what needs changing, take a few moments to ponder how you think about your body:
- Are you the coach and your body the (reluctant or star) athlete?
- Are you the parent and your body the (obedient or spoiled) child?
- Are you the boss and your body the employee, underling, or servant?
- Are you good buddies? Or, are you strangers?
- Are you reliable partners? Or, do you feel at odds with your body?
- Are you compassionate and trusting companions on life’s journey?
Your body/mind relationship probably has many facets and they all stem from how you think about your body. But unless you are compassionate and trusting companions, your body often ends up being dominated and dismissed by your mind.
Begin to notice the words and phrases and expectations you hear when you talk about your body: appearance, talents, style, abilities, habits, appetites, and so on. Self-talk is so habitual that you probably didn’t even realize how pervasive it is. For now, don’t judge or try to change anything, just notice the words you use. Write them down in your Body Wisdom journal so you can reference them later. This is your very own unique collection of self-perpetuating, hypnotic messages. As you read on, you’ll learn ways to rewrite the script so you can truly cultivate and access your deep body wisdom.
Words are powerful and formative. To change the way you think about your body, you’ll need to change the way you talk to/about your body. It’s hard for your body to be smart when your mind keeps sending the message that it’s stupid, stubborn, lazy, weak, or simple. It’s hard for your body to become wise if it never has a chance to show up and deliver. It’s hard for your body to feel appreciated when your words negate its beauty, perspectives, and talents. The message your mind broadcasts is like a trance chant that keeps your body subdued and asleep. The internal language you use shapes and perpetuates how you feel today and how you’ll feel in the future. Tune in and you might be surprised to hear the pervasive and unproductive “notes to self” that get transmitted daily. Waking up means taking control.
Feeling Emotions
When you wake up your sensory body, you feel your feelings more clearly. After all, emotion happens in your body: your scared belly flutters; your angry jaw clenches; your happy heart swells. Part of waking up is feeling where and how your emotions live in your body. Of course, the assignment can be challenging when emotions (even joy and excitement) feel unsettling, uncomfortable, or unacceptable. Chances are, since you were very young, you’ve asked your body to do the impossible and hide your feelings. You’ve buried, blocked, hidden, sidelined, squeezed off, and tried to forget. In order to wake up, you need to tune in, trust, and let it flow.
Try This: Follow Your Feelings
Emotions are called feelings because you feel them. They hook in, stir up, and move through your body. To follow this natural progression, create some private time and let yourself think of something that infuriates you (politics, the economy, social injustice, a recent insult). Where does this activate your body? What does it feel like, look like, and sound like? Feelings of anger can tighten your jaw, send spikes of energy down your arms, and sound like a low growl. Now think of something profoundly sad. Perhaps sadness can feel heavy in your chest, tearful in your eyes, and sound like a soft sigh. Like many people, your emotional expression might be awkward, resistant, or muted. Is it easy to give voice to that growl or sigh? Can your arms find an appropriate gesture to express anger or sadness?
If emotions are stuck, tucked, and stored in your body, they’ll muffle your senses. You know how hard it is to see, hear, or feel clearly when your feelings are triggered. It’s also hard to think clearly and make sensible decisions. This is how the past confuses the present and confounds the future. Demystifying your body’s emotional process helps you feel more comfortable with your feelings and make sense of the world. As you awaken your emotional body, you may find some emotions more familiar than others. Perhaps some feel nonexistent. Can you access a full spectrum of emotional feeling in your body? Can you express all of your emotions with sounds and gestures? Can you feel where certain emotions live in your body? For instance, you might find the emotional feeling of gratitude (loving, caring) in your chest, and the sound could be a soft aaah. It makes it all more manageable if you see your emotions as just another part of your sensitive body. Waking up means emotional intelligence.
Seen from the perspective of your body, there wouldn’t be life without spirit. When someone is spirited, we mean they embody a certain essence that’s associated with being vibrant and animated. But even in your quietest moment, spirit is the essential ingredient for being alive. Yet, most people think of spirit as either a philosophical construct or an ephemeral (out of body) experience. Being spiritual is both intimate and personal when you find it living right in your own body. What a gift, then, to discover that your connection to spirit is actually as easy and normal as breathing.
The Latin spiritu is the root word for both “respiration” and “spirit.” With each breath you take, you become spirit with living. One way to view it is that each cycle of respiration (inhale and exhale) is re-spiriting your body. In this simple, physical context, you actively partake in the miracle of life and connect up with all life. You’re in the spaciousness of the present moment. It’s not surprising, then, that many spiritual seekers use the breath to help them quiet the mind and be more conscious. And as you’ve already discovered, focusing on any aspect of your sensual body can quiet your mind and focus your awareness to be in the now. Seeking consciousness is not just for adepts and gurus. It is about waking up and showing up for life at its most mundane, as well as its most sublime. Waking up means showing up—body, mind, and spirit.
Now that you’ve explored the what, why, where, and how of waking up, you’ve taken significant steps towards living in an awakened state. Operating on autopilot is no longer an option. Your entire perspective shifted some pages ago when you began to change your mind about your body. If this shifted your idea of who you are and where your body fits in the picture, it’s time to use your new perspective and take a fresh look at your health and health care, your relationships and feelings, your strengths and assets, and the meaning of life.
You can be smart without being wise. Waking up is not enough, so where does body wisdom come into the picture? Won’t people just get wiser as they get older? Not necessarily. We all know some oldsters that seem pretty out of it and foolish. This is easy to understand from the body’s point of view. If you get mired in years and years of negative patterns and pervasive habits (both physical and mental), you’re stuck. If you stop moving forward and get set in your ways, life becomes pretty predictable and static. This is both painful and boring. The detritus piles up, rigidity gets entrenched, and you have fewer and fewer options. All of your experience and understanding comes from viewing the horizon from the same perspective. You’ve stopped growing and exploring your edge.
The first step to getting unstuck is to get moving. Change a pattern, break a habit; do something—anything—differently. Stand up straight and look at the horizon. Instead of plugging into TV or social media, read or just be quiet. Find a positive affirmation and say it each day. Validate your feelings. Take time to be in life and feel some joy. Challenge yourself to take a risk. Change the trajectory and explore the edge a bit. Hey, you’ve already done a lot of new, edgy things just in reading this first chapter. You’ve tried things you never thought of before.
The gift of wisdom will be given over time to those who wake up, show up, and stand on the edge—where all growth happens. Your personal edge is where life is examined, wounds are healed, and experience teaches compassion. When you challenge yourself to stand on this edge, your life is an unfolding process where you can say, “Oh, this choice (decision, relationship, or idea) didn’t work out so well,” “What did my body know [see, feel, or learn]?” and “How can this experience help me be wiser in the future?” As you go through life, being awake means staying current and learning from your mistakes. It also means being true to yourself and your body. It means logging in experience and acting from your heart, as well as your mind. Eventually, you’ll come to a place of enlightenment and grace. It is a journey up the mountain that your awakened body, mind, and spirit are taking together.
Just like the wise old man/woman in fairy tales, the face of wisdom is full of scars and lines that tell of a life lived. True wisdom also has a way of perceiving that looks into the soul and sees the eternal journey of humankind looking back.
1 “Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes,” HelpGuide.org, accessed May 2016, www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-symptoms-signs-and-causes.htm.