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How does the actual make-up of the body shape our lived experience? Experiential taster & longer extract from the Embodied Awareness Compendium
The characteristics of the human mind arise from and are grounded in the structure of the brain and body in interaction with the environment. In this seminar series we embark on a journey through the systems of the body and learn to gage how each contributes a particular quality to our felt experience. These body systems include the bones and structure of the skeleton, the muscles, the fluids (including blood, and cellular fluids), the skin, the senses and more. It is not based on a conventional medical model of the body but derives from Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s Experiential Anatomy. We discover a variety of kinds of sensation, image or feeling by directing attention into and through different system. For example, try taking your awareness to your spine – what shape is it forming now? Experiment with extending the spine by lengthening it. Does that alter the sense of alignment in the vertebrae? Now see how it is to focus your attention on your spine and then to widen laterally by imagining oxygen filling the back and sides of your lungs. As your ribs widen with your in-breath, take the sense of extension further into your environment – can you feel the space around you? Notice how this is different from, say, gripping and relaxing your forearm and hand, which involves muscle contraction and release. Do this a few times, experimenting with the amount of effort and tension you use. Now take your attention to the surface of your cheeks. Feel the meeting of your skin with the air. Focus in on qualities such as the temperature and any surface sensation of your facial skin you can detect. Then reach your hand to stroke your cheek and see what that does to your awareness. How much and what kinds of sensation do you feel now? How was your experience of yourself changed by these different foci? How did the shift from centring in the spine to widening laterally affect you? Did you combine visualising and sensing in order to really get a sense of these two processes? Sensations of centering and widening may be a familiar experience if you have done yoga, meditation, Alexander, tai chi etc How was this different from gripping in your muscles? When you tensed your arm muscles were you aware of strength and a sense of agency? Or perhaps you had another set of associations to your own muscles working, a memory, or a feeling of a particular action. Even though you will have used muscles to extend and widen the spine, can you feel how focussing on the skeletal structure is different than engaging muscularity for its own sake? Then when you shifted to facial skin, what did you have to do? Was there a psychological element or operation you had to perform in order to bring awareness here? We will not go into the long evolutionary story of how we as human beings came to have the particular organisation of body and brain that we do. Its is a fascinating story but one that has been told in detail elsewhere. But it is worth saying that our experience of ourselves and the world through awareness of the body is potentially incredibly rich precisely because it derives from diverse and complex processing systems which developed over different stages of our evolution. This includes what I call the ‘wet’ (chemical based) and the ‘dry’ (neurons firing in the nervous system) communication systems. We also have a lot more than five senses with which to interact with the world around and within us. We have at least ten, which we will explore throughout the course. The systems of the body are like different landscapes and cultures within our bodies, and moving between them affects our mood, perception and thinking. There are many levels and elements of our physiological make up that contribute to the sensations and images that inform our perception of ourselves as sentient beings. These include myriad micro-movements, changes in heart-rate and breathing, twinges, flutterings, heaviness, surges, sensations of stuckness, muscular stiffness, tingling, hunger, tears…
Brain and body as co-agents : the feeling of what happens The body, as represented in the brain, may constitute the indispensable He argues that all aspects of the structure and physiology of the body underpin our everyday actions and thoughts. ‘The physiological operations that we call mind are derived from the structural and functional ensemble[of endocrine, immune, autonomic etc components] rather than from the brain alone.’ [ibid xix] The brain has an intricate multi-tier system for gathering, processing and elaborating information drawn from all aspects of bodily functioning, from pain and temperature sensation, to fine perceptions of muscle activity, to chemical changes. This generates images of the body state in a particular context, for example, how I feel as I am looking at your face. Both the object of perception, your face, and my response to it are linked or ‘coupled’ together in that moment to form the basis of a thought or evaluation such as ‘how I feel about you’. Such appraisals are carried out continuously and are not necessarily conscious. But by carefully listening to our felt sense, we may become more aware of those feelings. The brain as the apex of the central nervous system (CNS) used to be seen as the conductor of the body, choosing the program and directing exactly how the body orchestra plays. Recent research however suggests a different metaphor: the nervous system is one of a group of players engaged in jazz improvisation. This more accurately reflects the complicated and highly structured dynamic interactions between brain, body and environment. (Chiel & Beer 1997) Body, brain and context are dynamically interconnected through ‘inextricable tangles of feedback’ with all levels of information processing interacting with one another. (Clark) How can so much be processed in so short a time that consciousness is maintained and we have a sense of experiencing the moments that make up our life? The brain is organized to perform particular functions via networks throughout the brain and body in a massively parallel and distributed system. Like the internet the human nervous system has branch upon branch which extends to link all cells, just as the web links all parts of the globe. Or think of the earth’s eco-system, slower moving but a web of life that connects everything. In fact, some perceptions occur at lightening speed, whilst other bodily changes happen so slowly that moods shape and shift over days and months. One example of these interactions is the dynamic, ongoing, two-way dialogue between the heart and brain, with each organ continuously influencing the other’s function. Research has shown that ‘the heart communicates to the brain in four major ways: neurologically (through the transmission of nerve impulses), biochemically (via hormones and neurotransmitters), biophysically (through pressure waves) and energetically (through electromagnetic field interactions)’ (Heart-math). As people experience sincere positive feeling states, the heart’s rhythms become more coherent, and this modifies perception and increases mental clarity. The importance of the right-brain Given all this, why are we not more aware of what’s happening in our bodies? Why the need to cultivate body awareness? There are many cultural and clinical ramifications to this question, but we can also look to the structure of the brain for clues. The cortex has two hemispheres, right and left, which are significantly differentiated in their functions. The left brain, called the ‘dominant’ hemisphere, is particularly suited to managing routine functions and dealing with linear processes, such as language, analysis, sequence and details. The right brain, unlike the left cortex, has extensive interconnections with the limbic system, the autonomic nervous system…
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Psychotherapy, Supervision, Consultation and Training email Roz Carroll |