Cultivating Body Wisdom
For many it is a measure of how many facts they know
or how intelligent they are. Body wisdom, however, is not about how
thoughts affect your body but about how your body affects your thoughts.
We maintain that the body is intelligent, wise if you will, and that
this wisdom can be tapped to improve your health, well-being, and
performance.
Midway through graduate
school one of the authors made a personal discovery that has guided his
work as a therapist, trainer, and student ever since.
It was the
most difficult emotional period I had ever experienced in my life. I was
a novice psychotherapist facing the pressures of a new job, a new
relationship, physical illness, and the most difficult examinations of
my academic life. My symptoms were classic: difficulty eating and
sleeping, obsessive thoughts, a lack of energy, and feelings of
hopelessness. Since I had never experienced anything like this before, I
had no clear idea how to get better. The difficulties lingered for
months, even after many of the problems had been resolved. It certainly
didn't make sense to me that it just kept going on and on. It was as if
my emotional life was going downhill and all I could do was watch. I was
alternately frightened, sad, and bewildered by my inability to feel the
way I used to feel—joyful and engaged in life.
Finally, one afternoon
as I sat alone in my office, particularly exasperated, I asked myself
the key question, How did I act when I felt better? I was, as they say,
sick and tired of being sick and tired. Thinking alone had not really
changed anything for me. I knew I used to be different and I began to
focus on acting
that way again. Quite literally I decided to change my posture, the
speed of my walk, the tilt of my head, the expression on my face. I
walked out of my office in character, whistling a happier tune in my head, and asked the first person I saw how she was feeling. I played this part the remainder of the day and I noticed that I felt better.
I decided to continue
playing the role for a while longer and soon forgot that I was playing
the role. I simply began to be the way I was, with one important
difference: I now knew there was a way out of the darkness. I knew I
would never be quite that lost again. This was the beginning of a series
of physical and mental practices that have served me very well over the
years. My body had led me out of the wilderness the way a horse carries
an injured rider back to the stable.
The Warrior's Stance
Shakespeare once wrote,
“If you lack the virtue, act the virtue.” Today we say, “Fake it till
you make it.” What we are suggesting is that there is a stressed stance
as well. If you act stressed, holding your body in the manner
characteristic of the fight-or-flight response, you will feel
stressed—even if there is no particular reason to be stressed. Luckily,
there is an antidote for this: to discover what we call the warrior's stance.
At first blush, the
notion of a warrior's stance leading to a more peaceful, less stressed
existence may seem like an oxymoron. Why not a monk's stance or a
gardener's stance? However, since life, business, and relationships are
often presented in terms of struggles, battles, conflicts, and
competitions, we might find it useful to examine this metaphor more
carefully.
Contrary to
popular belief, successful warriors are ultimately peaceful individuals
whose primary battles are fought internally (Milman, 1991). They display
a relaxed and balanced posture. This enables them to have exceptional
reaction times and full freedom of movement. This capacity for relaxed
balance also begets a fluidity of response that allows them to pull an
opponent who pushes them or push one who pulls. It is a capacity to
literally flow around obstacles. If you have gone white-water rafting,
you have been given the wise counsel to let the river carry you to a
safe place when you have been thrown from the boat. To resist
overpowering force is to risk being thrown into the rocks. A warrior
knows that it is best to stay relaxed and alert and float feet first, in
order to be aware of genuine routes of escape.
A warrior cultivates
fearlessness. This does not mean recklessness. It simply speaks to the
survival value of being able to notice the body's response to a threat
and, by the force of the regular practice of a discipline, maintain the
ability to choose a course of action. This grace under fire is often the
difference between life and death in survival situations. Fear is a
process that necessitates that we step out of the moment and contemplate
the past or future. An intense focus in the here and now is the best
way to keep fear at bay. The easiest way to maintain this focus is to
cultivate the breathing and relaxed posture of the warrior. Warriors do
not seek out or create conflict. Their preference is to walk away. But
once engaged in battle, they are fully committed to their chosen course
of action.
This is truly a
critical piece of information for individuals who have attempted to
change their lives by changing the content of their thoughts through
endless affirmations. In our experience, “nice thoughts” have very
little impact on someone's long-term well-being if his or her body is
wracked with tension and stress-related hormones. You must actively
change your physiology if you hope to contend successfully with stress.
Consider a parallel from the study of communication. The best estimates
that we have suggest that only 7 percent of the meaning of any
communication is actually in the words themselves. The remaining 93
percent is communicated by our body language and the tone and tempo of
our speech. In a similar vein, if we wish to communicate to ourselves
the value of a more relaxed stance, we will need more than words. We
need to speak to our bodies in a way that they will understand.
However, in the realm of
relationships, the behavior that most of us need to cultivate is
listening. This is no less true of our relationship with our body. The
disorders that are brought on by chronic, excessive muscle tension begin
as mere brief episodes of tension. We may grit our teeth in anger and
still maintain some residual tension even after the cause of our anger
is gone. Over time this can develop into bruxism, the grinding and
gnashing of the teeth while sleeping. We may tighten our neck and
shoulder muscles in response to fear or anxiety and again retain excess
tension even after the threat has disappeared. This is how tension
headaches begin. Why exactly does this occur?
Once again we return to the
issue of awareness. To listen to the whispers of tension, we must be
aware of what it means to be truly relaxed. Most people simply do not
know what it means to be relaxed. We have seen many clients claim that
they are relaxed, only to be shown otherwise when they are monitored by
biofeedback equipment. As noted earlier, breathing is the starting point
of your relaxation practice. But to go deeper into relaxation requires
an additional practice, and we would like to introduce that to you next.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
While we will present a
formal protocol that you can follow to implement progressive relaxation,
it is most important that you understand the principles and guidelines
that will allow you to succeed as long as you commit to regular practice
for several weeks. The reward for this short-term commitment is that
you will be able to reduce the time needed to reach a relaxed state from
twenty-five minutes down to five to seven minutes.
Practicing Progressive Relaxation
Before you begin, you may find the following guidelines helpful for your practice:
-
Prepare a convenient time and place, and practice regularly. Remove distractions.
-
Set up a regular practice schedule. Several times weekly is
recommended until you have mastered the technique. You can then use it
on an as-needed basis.
-
Be comfortable. Wear loose-fitting clothing. Recline on your bed
or sofa or in a cozy recliner chair. Some people place a rolled towel
under their knees and lower back to maintain a comfortable spinal
alignment.
-
Avoid falling asleep, unless you are using this procedure to facilitate sleep.
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Don't try too hard. Paradoxically, if you try too hard to relax it will only increase your level of tension.
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Allow yourself to “let go.” Sometimes people fear letting go, for
it is equated with losing control. The only thing you have to lose here
is unhealthy muscle tension. Learning to relax increases your control,
but first you have to let go and allow this to happen.
-
If you find your mind wandering, gently bring your focus back to
your breathing and to this technique without scolding yourself or
passing judgment.
-
Finish your relaxation practice by coming back slowly. At the end
of your practice session, slowly bring your attention back to the here
and now, gently stretch your muscles, and open your closed eyes. If you
are lying down, roll over slowly onto your side, pause, and then sit up.
When your muscles are deeply relaxed, you do not want to contract them
suddenly. Coming back slowly allows your relaxed state to linger for
hours.
One goal of this
procedure is to help you become aware of the difference between feelings
of muscle contraction and muscle relaxation. Begin by taking a few
moments to scan your body for tension and to focus your attention on any
physical sensations. The basic method in progressive relaxation is to
first carefully tense a particular muscle or group of muscles. This is
to further develop your awareness of that part of your body,
specifically when that part is tense. It is important that you contract
the muscle only to a low level of tension. Be particularly careful not
to overtense any muscle or muscle group where you are prone to
experience muscle spasms. Contracting a muscle as hard as you can only
leaves you more tense and does not cultivate relaxation. Tense each
muscle group for five to seven seconds, and then release the muscle and
focus your awareness on how the muscles feel as they relax for the next
twenty to thirty seconds. Allow yourself to focus on any sensations of
warmth and heaviness. As you continue from muscle to muscle, slowly but
surely the sensation of warmth and heaviness will spread throughout your
body. It can help to talk to yourself during this process with
self-instructions such as the following:
Clench your right hand
into a fist. Tighten your fist and study the tension as you do so.
Become aware of the tension and discomfort in your hand and forearm as
you tense. Now let go of the tension and let your hand go limp. Pay
careful attention to the feelings of relaxation spreading in your hand
as the tension drains away. Notice the difference between the
comfortable sensations of relaxation in your hand now, compared to the
uncomfortable feelings of tension. Let go more and more, letting the
muscles in your hand and forearm grow more and more deeply and fully
relaxed.
The typical sequence of movements would be as shown in Table 1 . After you have become familiar with the sequence of movements in Table 1,
you can try a number of techniques for coordinating your breathing,
language, and imagination to creatively deepen and enrich your
experience.
Experiment
with coordinating your breathing with the tensing and relaxing of each
muscle group. Inhale and briefly hold your breath as you tense the
muscle group. Exhale as you let go. Be aware of the sounds of the breath
as you relax as well as the feelings of relaxation. Over time the
hissing of the slow release of breath will become associated with
relaxation and speed up the process of letting go.
Table 1. The Progressive Relaxation Sequence
| | Muscle Group
| Activity
|
|---|
| 1. | Hands and forearms
|
|
| 2. | Biceps
|
|
| 3. | Triceps
|
|
| 4. | Forehead
|
|
| 5. | Eyes
|
|
| 6. | Jaw
|
|
| 7. | Tongue
|
|
| 8. | Lips
|
|
| 9. | Head and neck
|
|
| 10. | Shoulders
|
|
| 11. | Chest
|
|
| 12. | Back
|
|
| 13. | Abdomen
|
|
| 14. | Thighs
|
|
| 15. | Ankles and calves
| Point toes toward face Point toes downward
|
Some
people prefer to visualize their breath as light that carries warmth
and relaxation to their muscles. In this scenario, as you tense a muscle
and inhale, you are pulling light to the muscle group. As you exhale,
you expel darkness and tension from the muscles. Gradually you build an
image of your body filled with light. If certain colors feel better to
you, feel free to experiment. For instance, some people like to use the
color blue to symbolize relaxation and red to indicate tension. Once you
have reached a relaxed state you can really embrace your relaxation
experience by imagining a scene that is pleasant to you (for example,
lying on a beach or walking in the woods).
There is also a time-honored method known as autogenic training
in which you literally talk yourself into relaxation by repeating
certain phrases over and over while focusing your attention on a
particular muscle group. For instance, if after going through a
progressive relaxation exercise, you still feel residual tension in a
body part, then you would repeat to yourself, “My (arms, hands, thighs)
feel warm and heavy.” Or you could say to yourself, “My (arms) feel
loose and relaxed.” In fact, this method of systematically repeating
relaxing phrases over and over again can be used on its own to induce
relaxation. It can, however, be terminally boring, so be certain to
tailor your program to your needs and interests. Create a routine that
interests you, and you will increase the likelihood of following through
and mastering this skill.
One main goal of progressive relaxation training is to help you achieve differential relaxation
throughout your day. Accomplishing this means that you are able to
contract only those muscles that are necessary to accomplish the task at
hand, while keeping all other muscles relaxed . For
example, there is no need to clench your jaw, stiffen your shoulders, or
squeeze the steering wheel while driving. But your arm and leg muscles
will certainly need to contract in order to operate a car.
