I am a studied physicist and now a bodyworker and trauma coach. As a physicist I am used to think big and try to unify and explain as much as possible with as little as possible. For example the concept of waves is used in many different areas like describing fundamental particles, sound, electrodynamic, mechanics etc.
As a bodyworker I work on an individual level. In this article I will try to bring both together. I will write about an holistic approach to explain the human experience and why this is still needed. I will write about trauma and why it is important to think from this perspective. Further than that I want to describe what happens if we see the effects of trauma just as part of the spectrum and what happens when we have the wide perspective of the collective phenomena of trauma and also have the individual perspective of the uniqueness of every person and situation.
This article is an exploration, I don’t want to tell you the absolute truth. It’s more a reflection of my knowledge and also of my past and the experiences that I made. My goal with writing is to rise awareness of how important it is to integrate the body in our worldview and also to rise awareness of the effects of Trauma and that this topic touches every human being directly.
Body-Mind-Emotions
When I work with clients I try to create an lasting change of how they experience the world and themselves. So what are the elements of our experience? There is thoughts (Mind), sensations (Body) and emotions.
So the first fundamental thought is: We experience everything through our body.
Every thought has an effect on our felt experience, and through this has an effect on our body and on an emotional level. So when I think about a rational problem, for example an mathematical equation, I maybe feel focused and my body will express that through a body position, how my eyes are focused etc. If I don’t like mathematics, it will look very different and I feel very different.
The same is true for the other level: If I hold a specific tension, it creates pain. It will bring up an specific mood and also specific thoughts. Often I don’t feel the tension (because I try to avoid the pain) and maybe I not even feel the physical pain, but I feel the emotions and also have specific thoughts. If it’s a depressed mood, I have depressed thoughts. The problem is that I don’t feel part of this composition, because I don’t feel the physical part.
So when I change my position, maybe I am even able to smile, it will change my mood. But why is that not enough? As I wrote, most of the time we are not conscious about our body and the tension we hold. Most of the time it is also not enough to just get a massage and the tension is away to feel better. The tension is also connected to how we move, which body position we tend to go in and also thoughts and emotions. To change our experience we need to address all the levels at the same time, creating a new experience with new thoughts, a different experience in the body connected to it, with a different emotion.
Of course there is not only such things like pain experienced in the body. We can also feel safety, love, openness, freedom, strength and a lot of other things. All these are also specific postures of our body, specific tension and relaxation of the muscles.
So there is an connection between all level (Body-Mind-Emotions) and there is no moment, where one is doing something separately without that is something happening on the other levels.
To give you another point of view on that: Imagine what is if the unconscious is the body?
If that is to big for you, think of it as the reflection of the unconscious. We store all experiences in it, all the good ones and all the ones, where we had to protect us, hide etc. These show through tension in the body and the way we move. Through our body we experience the world, we feel the world through our skin. So if we hold an tension because of an old experience, we will perceive the world differently as if we would be without the tension. We will have different thoughts and we will even see different possibilities. If I think I will be attacked at this specific point of my way home, because something happened there to me years before, I will not be able to see the trees around, the smiling people etc. I will react differently to the world.
Part of the description of the unconscious is that we react unconsciously on everything we experience with I want that or I don’t want that. When I like something and I want that, I will open (unless I learned I cannot have it, then I will close, to not feel that I want that) and when I don’t like it, I will close. Again where does this opening and closing happens? In the body. The body will react. The patterns of reactions, how we perceive the world and also the storage of our experiences is our body. That’s why I compare the unconscious with the body. By the way, while working with the body often images arises, for both the client and the practitioner. So also the dreamlike image part of the unconscious is close to the body.
So why is this important?
From my personal experience it is difficult to change something in my behaviour/ or in how I perceive the world, if I try to work only on the thinking level. Even if I add working on the emotions still from a more mental approach it is difficult. Even when I understood something new, I would need to remind me again and again.
The missing link is the body. It is where I experience everything. Often when there is a change in my body, connected to a change in my thoughts and emotions, my experience feels totally different.
Here an example: If I feel alone, I learned I will be always alone, it creates specific thoughts and emotions. Some thoughts will be not available for me and also some experiences. For example, if somebody will tell me about a time where they were also lonely, I will not be able to receive it. Even if they do it in the best way, so not trying to change my experience and holding space for me. It is impossible to feel the connection that it could create. When I am able to really allow the loneliness, without the conclusions and thoughts, and still be able to be open, it will feel very different. It will create an different experience and for that a change in the body is needed. It can connect me to the earth and I can feel lonely and connected. This creates a possibility to change the experience, so that I don’t feel lonely. This is the principle of allowing what is. Like water, if you block it, it will press against this blockage of the stream and it will try to find other ways. If I allow it, it will change.
In the example once I learned to experience the loneliness differently, also different thoughts will be available. I will be able to act differently. So in the example that somebody is telling me about a time where they were lonely. It would hurt and maybe I would need to make sure that they feel me and not only speaking about themselves. But I would have different ways to think and act, that were before totally out of range.
For that an integration of all level is needed. Sometimes it is enough to work on a mental level, but because it creates a change in the whole experience of the client.
When we speak about trauma, the connection of thoughts, emotions and body get even more important. Trauma creates an experience of helplessness in the body and also it creates islands of unchangeable/ frozen memories and emotions. That’s why it is needed to somehow create new connections and to change the experience of helplessness in the body.
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