Surviving what's in there isn't as easy as it sounds

In which I consider the risks -- and benefits -- of diving into the depths of internal experience

It’s all well and good for me to say, “Get into your body.”

It’s quite another thing for me to say, “And stay there.” Especially at those times when what’s in there is uncomfortable. Especially when what’s in there is unbearable. When all you want to do is escape your body.

And especially in a time of infinite distractions: devices, substances, information sources, TV channels, video games, tons of stuff to buy with a few clicks of a mouse. It’s like the air we breathe is distracting. Pulling us out of our bodies and into a world that promises not just escape but — maybe? — happiness. Success. A sense of self-worth.

Thing is our bodies are where it’s at. And being and staying in them benefits us in so many ways.

1) I’m going to make a claim that goes against what you might think (and what the current zeitgeist takes for granted): Our bodies are knowing organisms. They know. They know stuff our brains don’t know. They know stuff our brains, our consciousness, can’t afford to know. And our bodies don’t lie. While our minds can deceive us without a second thought, our bodies, ultimately, stay true.

We learn from our bodies most efficiently when we stay in them. Woe to those who don’t — or can’t — listen to their bodies, because they eventually get fibromyalgia. Or, if they’re like me, painful neck and back aches. Or ulcers.

(I’m not saying fibromyalgia or neck aches or ulcers do not have medical origins. I’m saying stressed, distressed bodies get sick. And a body can take stress and distress for only so long without giving an ultimatum.)

2) One way our knowing bodies communicate is through feelings. Emotions. Physical sensations. These experiences, our emotions and sensations, are meaningful. And highly accurate.

When I feel anger, for example, I look for a boundary violation. Is someone stepping into my space? Into someone else’s? Where’s the invasion? Where’s the injustice? Thank goodness for my anger. If I didn’t feel it, I wouldn’t know something was wrong. Diving into it, I can figure out exactly what the wrong is.

3) Our bodies are structured to cull certain information from the world around them. A certain color spectrum. A certain range of sound. We can’t see and hear everything, but what we do see and hear is useful — meaningful — to us.

Same with our psychic structures. If my earliest relationships taught me to be hyper-vigilant, I pick up on super subtle signals people give off about their emotional states. And I interpret what I pick up on — make it meaningful — through the filters of my psychic structure. So, for example, if I’ve grown up believing I’m stupid, I will find evidence as I anxiously scan the world around me that I’m stupid.

And, again thank goodness, I probably won’t feel good about it. (That is, my body knows what’s true: I’M NOT STUPID. Living out that belief feels terrible. Paying attention to that terrible feeling can lead me to this self-undermining negative belief. So I can work to change it.)

I talk about “psychic structure,” but I have no idea where our “psyches” exist in our bodies. (This is a version of the fascinating “hard problem of consciousness” which wonders what the relationship is between our awareness of our experience and our physical substrate.) This is where metaphors come in so handy! Because I get to think about psychic structures however I want to. John Bowlby thought of them as Internal Working Models. (Interesting and important concept. Boring metaphor.) I choose to think of them as mines. As figurative tunnels with veins of emotional and relational data running through hard, rocky psychic infrastructure. Veins of truth that, if we stay in our bodies long enough and do the right work there, yield nuggets of gold and prisms of diamond.

I also get to mix metaphors. With thoughtless abandon. So I get to think of negative self-beliefs, beliefs like “I’m stupid,” as rabbit holes that veer off from the main mine shaft of our internal experience. Rabbit holes that are so well-worn we don’t even notice we’re scurrying down them, making ourselves miserable. Except for the bad feelings that come up when we’re deep in those depths. Bad feelings that are so familiar that we either don’t pay attention to them or — here we are, back at the beginning of this post — do whatever it takes to escape them.

But, I insist once again, it is these feelings that illuminate our rabbit holes, our negative self-beliefs, and that invite us, paradoxically, to accost them and change them. Or, as Fantastic Mrs. Fox did, to confront them in others. (Note how sparkly that cave is. Mrs. Fox is doing good work there. Mr. Fox would do well to reconsider his fundamental belief that he is nothing but an animal. Gems await.)

4) Our bodies, as living organisms, as miraculous living organisms, channel the divine. Again, I don’t know where souls or spirits live, but our contact with them, some claim, begins in our bodies.

Point being: Figuring out how to get in there and stay there, figuring out how to survive and use what our bodies are telling us, is the path to being — and feeling — better.

And, of course, we won’t know we can survive being in our bodies unless we practice being in our bodies. Here’s a great way to do that.