Something that I find endlessly interesting are the expressions that different languages use to describe feelings via the body. In Cantonese, we say that our eyes and nose are being poked when we feel annoyed by someone or something; a literal eye and nose sore (篤眼篤鼻). The saying to describe stubbornness, is that someone has a ‘hard or stiff neck’, presumably because they refuse to turn their necks to see a different perspective (硬頸). When you are hungover, the French will tell you that you have a wooden face (Avoir la gueule de bois). Our skin crawls when we are disgusted and our heart feels like it is about to burst when we are full of joy. We are left breathless in the face of beauty and our stomach drops when we receive a fright or shock.
These expressions and metaphors are not a coincidence. They exist because there is a clear link between our internal state and how we experience it physically in our bodies. There is a connection between our inner psyche and our bodies.
However, most of us spend much more time in our head. In the many years we spend at school, the focus is on learning how to learn and gather knowledge in order to hone our intellectual capacities. The commonly accepted belief in society is that our minds carry us through life and it is mostly our ‘smarts’ that determines our success. So for good reason, we have a tendency to emphasise our mind, the value of intelligence and pay far more attention to what goes on in our head.
Over time, we relegate our bodies to the background, reluctantly noticing it only when really called to, such as when it is in critical pain or in need of urgent medical attention. However, our bodies are the seat of our emotions and as Bessel van der Kolk writes in The Body Keeps the Score, “Emotion is not opposed to reason; our emotions assign value to experiences and thus are the foundation of reason.” We reason and make sense of life not just from our ‘brainy’ brain, but also our ‘gut brain’ which provides another rich source of information in the form of emotions. When a ‘gut feeling’ that a dark street alley is unsafe, our emotional brain is signaling us to beware and maybe consider a different path. When we lose connection to our bodies, we risk losing the kind of knowledge and wisdom that comes from messages channeled through the felt sense of our physical bodies.
Basic human functions such as knowing when to rest, when to eat, and when to protect ourselves from danger all involve being attuned to our body. When we can sense our energy levels dropping, we can either rest or eat if we’re hungry. When we sense fear, we can take action to ensure our safety. In being attuned to these subtle messages from our body, we are able to follow it up with our minds and use it to help us decide what action to take. This is why when we are disconnected from our bodies, we lose our natural sensitivity to the signals it provides to help us navigate through life. Being out of sync with our bodies means homeostasis and thus, harmony within is disrupted and we become dysregulated. The result is an upset in the usual order of things. It becomes what we manifests as dis-orders; disordered eating, sleeping, or disorder with tuning into our emotions: numbing out to any feeling or it’s opposite, being overwhelmed because of too much feeling.
When asked how we feel, it’s not uncommon for us to share our thoughts instead of what we actually feel. Describing the reasons why we are annoyed at someone is very different from experiencing the feeling of tightness in our chest or the tension in our shoulders when we are in the presence of that person. The former comes from our minds; the narrative we have about the person, the expectations we have about them and the perhaps ways in which those expectations were not met. The latter is the felt sense of what it is to be in the presence of someone we feel annoyed by.
There are many reasons why we become disconnected from our bodies. It may be due to the lifestyles we lead where logic, reasoning and goal oriented thinking is the norm. However, it can also be the result of the way that we cope with the stresses and traumas, big or small, in life. When we lack the knowledge, emotional and intellectual, for how to fully process and make meaning of suffering, pain, and fear we are caught in overwhelming helplessness or a sense of ‘stuckness’. Separating our minds from our bodies makes perfect sense in our attempts to seek relief and dissociate from the source of pain. But this is only a quick fix as we realise that cutting off our connection to uncomfortable feelings comes at the cost of also shutting out the experiences of joy, happiness, and satisfaction; feelings that make life worthwhile and vital.
What we mean by ‘reconnecting with ourselves’ often means to reconnect with our bodies. Talk therapy and other therapy approaches such as somatic experiencing, EMDR as well as developing mindfulness as a life-long practice all aim to help us rediscover those connections. By learning to pay attention to the sensations in our body and identify the emotions behind them, we are able to connect and place ourselves in our experiences. Fully sensing our bodies in each experience, whether it is pleasurable, mundane or painful, means we are connected to life from the inside (our inner world) and outside (external circumstance and relationships with others). This helps to orientate us and give us a sense of safety and groundedness. This feeling of being at ease ‘in our own skin’ as well as with the world around us is crucial to our sense of wellbeing.
We can begin to strengthen this connection by simply bringing your attention to your body right now. Wherever you are as you read this, notice what is going on in your body. As you bring your awareness and scan your internal felt sense from head to toe, what are some sensations that are observable to you right now? Try to see if you can name them without making a judgment about it or explaining it away. What do you notice and how would you describe it?
When we pay attention to our bodies, we are on the receiving end of an unfailing source of wisdom that comes from within ourselves. Our body and inner psyche has our back and if we pay careful attention to it, it is always guiding us towards balance, health and vitality in life.