Messages from our Body

Swiss psychologist Alice Miller wrote:

“Ultimately the body will rebel. Even if it can be temporarily pacified with the help of drugs, cigarettes or medicine, it usually has the last word because it is quicker to see through self-deception than the mind. We may ignore or deride the messages of the body, but its rebellion demands to be heeded because its language is the authentic expression of our true selves and of the strength of our vitality.”

This is a very powerful statement. Our true sense of self is rooted, not in ideas or thoughts, but in a “feeling of what happens” that is experienced at a bodily level.

Because this statement is so powerful, I also want to be careful to point out what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t negate the value of ideas and rational thinking. This would be absurd. It’s just that, if we were to only pay attention to logical thinking, we’d be cutting ourselves off from a major portion of our resources. Our goal is to combine both.

This is the power of Focusing. We can take an issue that we are thinking about, a feeling or an emotion, a situation and sense inwardly all about how our body holds this too. We come into balance in the considering of all the data that is entering our field of awareness. If we just “think” and use logic then we become top-heavy. All of our energy stays in our head. If we just follow feelings we can become blown about by emotions which come and go, we can start to believe we are our feelings and we lose our stability. If we combine all 3 ways we are designed to process information we become stable. It is like the process of “triangulation”. The term triangulation originated in cartography where two or more reference points are used to locate an exact position.

Most of us spend so much time thinking about our problems and some of us spend time overwhelmed by the our feelings about our problems  that almost forget to be in touch with how our body is carrying the issue. Sometimes thinking and feeling don’t even connect to each other. have you ever been dissuaded from feeling a certain way through the power of logical arguments – or does that just leave you feeling unheard, invalidated or labelled as emotional.

The felt meaning your body carries enables you to listen to the story within that, at the same time, needs to be told and heard, by you. This is your own story. This is the key to Focusing and is what Gene Gendlin found was an important clue that unlocks the mystery of how change happens in people.

He discovered that:

Our bodies hold the key to transformation

when we can allow

the felt meaning to unfold

and tell its story.

Emotions such as fear, anger, confusions are just the easily-recognised tip of how our bodies carry felt meaning. Your issue speaks like a story by moving forward in the changing body feeling of it.

Connecting with care and curiosity to our own story as it is known by our living body connects us to our own inner wisdom. We become both the author, the reader and the listener to our experience. And it is through the felt meaning held in our body that we are able to move beyond (yet still include) our minds (ego, will, pre-written story lines, and inner critics) and our emotions (moveable and reactive) to a more stable place within that can lead us to an undivided life of self-trust, self-respect and self-connection.