Hello,
My name's Nathaniel and this is part one of a series on the story of your body and the practice of embodiment.
In the beginning of your life the mind and the body are one,
But the mind at some point in childhood realizes that the body is getting it in trouble.
The body is unmanaged and it needs management and we know that because all these adults,
All these grown-ups are telling us that we need to do this and we need to do that and we need to manage ourselves,
We need to control ourselves,
Control our impulses,
Our behaviors,
Our emotions.
For example,
It's not acceptable to bite and hit people,
It's not acceptable to yell and scream and squeal,
It's not acceptable to run and dance when we're supposed to sit quietly at the dinner table,
It's not acceptable to look away when someone's talking to us seriously,
It's not acceptable to be angry or sad or even to be too happy.
So as a child we begin to manage ourselves,
We manage our feelings,
Our impulses,
Our behaviors by pulling our body into line.
We mentally exert control over ourselves and we control our behaviors and impulses and emotions and our bodies and we do this by exerting muscular control because all these things are muscular outputs that can be intercepted or overruled by muscular tension.
So this muscular tension stops those behaviors and emotions,
Pulls them up and we see that in a variety of ways.
It might be an angry frown that becomes a fake smile,
It might be a desire to punch that becomes a shoulder twitch or a need to yell that becomes a choked or quiet voice.
If we fast forward a few decades and now you're excessively managed,
You've micromanaged yourself,
That is there's no more natural joy or outbursts,
Everything's now managed by the habitual synaptic impulses that were set in place long long ago long long ago and all our actions are now habitual.
All our emotions,
Impulses and behaviors,
None of it is new or unexpected.
We've micromanaged joy out of our lives.
There's none of the incredible color of chaos and joy or even sadness.
It's only a mundane monochrome reflection of life.
So what's the solution to this problem?
So the problem is boredom and misery due to the over-management of our body because of these cultural oversights by our parents and teachers.
So if that's the problem,
Well the solution is the freedom of the body.
The body set free of this management,
Free to do its own thing.
Within reason of course,
I'm not advocating wanton behavior because we've still got a society that we need to live in.
We need to be reasonable citizens.
However we have a lot more room to move than we commonly allow ourselves.
We also now have an adult mind,
Now that we're no longer toddlers and children,
That can control the body if it gets out of hand.
Whereas when we were young and pre-verbal we were born without control and literally had to learn to control ourselves.
So that's the process gradually limiting the mind's control over the body while also broadening its tolerance for the body's foibles and fun.
For example,
Dancing in the street may be looked upon as culturally crazy by some people,
But it might be a pure expression of joy in that moment that your body wants to perform.
Once those ingrained habits of control and management are released,
The body can express itself.
Well you might be saying to yourself,
Dancing in the streets for crazy people?
Why would I ever want to do that?
The point is it's not you,
Your mind,
Who wants to do that.
It's your body.
Because we've separated the mind and the body culturally,
Socially.
Once your mind gets used to this idea that the body is an organism of pure expression,
And once your mind develops a tolerance to that idea,
Then the mind can start reconnecting with the body.
Start working together rather than one being a domineering manager of the other.
At a certain point,
If the body wants to dance,
Then the mind allows it to dance.
And really,
It doesn't even allow it.
It's just there watching,
Enjoying,
Seeing if it needs to intervene if required.
And if the fun is happening,
Then the mind sits nicely in the background,
Having fun also.
It's observing.
We can let the body and the mind combination become unmanageable for a while.
A little bit chaotic.
The fun is that sometimes we don't know what the body will let out of the box.
And that's part of the practice,
Allowing the body to share its secrets while we watch,
Sitting on the sidelines,
Watching the body do crazy things,
Maybe thrutching or twisting,
Turning,
Sobbing,
Breathing,
Not breathing,
Sweating,
Cramping,
Grinding,
Remembering always that we,
The mind,
We're always there,
Ready to control if things get out of hand.
The body does all these things while the mind watches,
The mind watches while we watch.
We can develop a repertoire of tolerances,
Of expectations,
And we can disable the inhibition towards the uncertainty and novelty that might explode from the body.
This is part one of a series on the story of your body,
The story of our relationships with our bodies.
Join me soon for part two.
