Feeling “At Home” in Your Body

Have you ever felt as though your body didn’t really belong to you?  Perhaps you became ill and it seemed like your body betrayed the will of your mind.  Or, you may have felt some level of dissatisfaction with your appearance. Maybe you were in a stressful situation and you reached a level of anxiety that feels, literally, as though you are “out of body”.  All of the above experiences can be seen as examples of disharmony between the physical body and the mind.  In a real sense our bodies have an ongoing, dynamic relationship to our minds, but that relationship is not always comfortable. Communication is not always optimal.  Consider, for example, that we may want to stay up all night drinking, eating, and generally “partying”.  At some point in the evening, we may get a signal from our body that it is tired and needs sleep.  We ignore that signal.  Guess what?  We get sick.  Communication breakdown,  pure and simple.  Runaway anxiety and the shameful flush  of poor self -image could also be seen as a communication breakdown when you think about it.  Consider the possibility that such “bodily” signals are the communication that feelings exist which need to be attended to.  The question is, what is our body trying to tell us?

So, what do I mean by “what is our body trying to tell us?”  Does the body actually…..speak?

Oh yes it does, claims New York psychotherapist and spiritual teacher Judith Blackstone.  Dr. Blackstone argues that our body and all of its many systems and organs has an intelligence…or many intelligences. In order for us to really “feel” and “understand” body communications we need to learn to “attune” ourselves more deliberately and consciously to our body. The goal of this attunement  is to confidently inhabit our own body and live comfortably within our own skin.  Only then can we feel “at one” with ourselves…and not as though we are separate beings observing ourselves from the outside.  Said another way, the goal of this attunement is to be fully “present” to ourselves.  Incidentally, becoming present to ourselves is the first step to being present to others, but that is another blog!

So, how do we do this?…How do we “tune in” to ourselves at this basic “body” level?  One answer lies in a simple practice borrowed from mindfulness meditation, called the “body scan”.  Here are the steps:

1. Find a quiet place, free of distractions, and assume a pose that is comfortable for you.  Your eyes are closed and you are lying down, or partially reclined…at least.
2. Starting with the toes of your feet and moving up your body incrementally, put your attention on one body part at a time.  Ask yourself, how does it feel from the inside out?….feet warm?, cold? Itchy?
3. The object is to truly enter into the consciousness of each body part and spend some time seeing how it feels.  Let your body speak to you!

The ideal thing would be to do this practice several times a week to get to know the smallest communications you are receiving from your body.  Don’t hesitate to enter into dialoug with your body part if necessary.  How are you today?…sorry about that fall yesterday!  The Buddhist teacher Adyashanti recommends that you prepare your body for an upcoming operation by reassuring it, for example, that the surgeon will be cutting….but it’s a good cut…not meant to hurt you.

So, next time your body goes through some kind of trauma, say some soothing words! Do the same thing if you are having an anxiety attack, or a rush of embarrassment.  Build a relationship! Make friends! Taking time to tune into your body on a regular basis will yield incredible benefits.

Dr. “Love” prescribes a minimum of 9 hugs per day

Neurology professor Paul Zak is known as “Dr. Love” because of his pioneering research at Claremont Graduate School on the importance of oxytocin for human attachment and “pro social” behavior.  Oxytocin, also know as the “love molecule”, is the chemical neurotransmitter that is released by our parasympathetic nervous system when we are feeling deep love and connection with another human being…or a beloved pet for that matter.  Oxytocin is like a “gift” that we offer to one another when we “touch” each other with kind words, or with the human “touch” of a hug, or a similar loving gesture.   Hugs are especially efficient, when you think about it, because of the reciprocity of giving and receiving the hug simultaneously.  Dr. Zak has done the scientific research necessary to actually measure oxytocin release before and after a human hug, and he was able to find a significant increase afterwards.  As an additional benefit to “feeling good”, the release of oxytocin into our nervous systems, protects our mind/brain from the overload of the stress hormones of adrenaline and cortisol. (see my previous blog).  So, daily “hugging” is the first on the list of easy ways to increase your oxytocin release.  Dr. Zak recommends a minimum of 9 hugs a day.  What are some other “practices” we can  incorporate into our daily routine?

2.  Actively connect with good friends everyday..and always find kind and supportive things to say.  New research on “kindness” from Stanford University teaches us that it is often the smallest gesture, or simplest words of kindness that are the most effective.

3.  Find Opportunities to connect with groups of people to share stories, listen to and play music, and laugh.  Unbelievably enough, Dr. Zak measured oxytocin levels before and after all of these activites and found significant increases afterwards.

4.  If at all possible… get a pet….preferably of the variety that can be held and cuddled, such as a cat or dog.  I don’t know this for sure, but I swear that my cat is radiating oxytocin when he purrs.  When I feel that purr resonate up through my hand as I pet my cat…I know oxytocin is released.

5.  Self  compassion is extremely important. Research is starting to point to this more and more.  Find ways to hold your hand over your heart during prayer, meditation, or simple reflective contemplation.  Even gently putting one hand on your other arm can be effective.  Such a simple practice!

So, does all of this seem like obvious kitchen table wisdom?  Of course it does!  Science is just beginning to catch up to what poets, philosophers, spiritual leaders, mothers, fathers, grandmothers…ect ect…have known forever.  It seems important just to remind ourselves from time to time.

Clinical Psychologist Harville Hendrix, and his wife, Helen Lakelly Hunt have been doing research in the field of couples counseling for the past thirty years.  In Dr. Hendrix’s books, “Getting The Love You Want” and “Keeping The Love You Find”, he introduces the reader to an idea which was revolutionary at the time the book was released.  The concept Dr. Hendrix proposed was that our relationships with early caregivers have a powerful impact on “partner” selection when it comes time to marriage and/or long term commitments.  It’s a “good news”, “bad news” kind of a situation when you think about it.  The assumption is that all of us emerge from childhood with unmet dependency needs… some of us obviously are more deprived than others…but nobody gets through without some scars.  Good news first:  In the healthiest of marriages, (please note that “marriage” is just my shorthand for “long term commitment”), there is the opportunity for addressing the “unmet” needs of both partners.  In the best of situations, an interdependancy can be created in which the well being of each partner is promoted within the relationship.  The Bad News?..Oftentimes one or both partners in a new relationship enters the relationship with largely unstated and unconscious expectations for having their needs met.  Sooner or later, as you might expect, there is a “fall from grace”, wherein neither partner can be what the other one wants or needs.  During the “honeymoon” phase of a relationship each partner is eager to put his/her best foot forward to fulfill the needs of the other.  However, this is usually unsustainable.  Certain patterns can emerge with couples.  For example, one partner’s needs can become paramount (ie…in the extreme…the narcissist)..while the other partner is “accommodating” ( ie…in the extreme…the codependant).  In truth, neither partner is truly happy and fulfilled.  Marriages break up under the strain.

But….there is hope!  Dr. Hendrix suggests that a marriage relationship can be nourished at its roots   successfully when each partner very intentionally talks about their early caregiving experiences .  When such material is shared, there is acknowledgement from the very beginning that vulnerability and woundedness exists for all of us.  Mutual empathy can be cultivated in a marriage, except, of course in cases where one member seems incapable of empathy. The empathy then becomes the key to really putting yourself in the “shoes” of the other person, and understanding something from a perspective that is differerent than your own.  Dr Hendrix argues that a key component to the relationship being ultimately successful, is that each partner must develop the ability to listen to the other.  Of all unmet childhood needs, this is perhaps the most common….many of us have felt unheard in childhood.  There is the chance for this to be repaired in marriage.

A final benefit to the deep listening that can be nourished in a long term relationship, is the realization, when we have been fully “heard”…. that  we are all fundamentally deeply connected.  The mystics got it right, in my view….When  I can find myself in you, loving you becomes loving myself.  Surely  healthy “self love” must be the ultimate goal in a relationship that is working for us both.

Consider the possibility that all of your “so called” imperfections, including everything that

Our elegant Earth

you have ever done that causes you to feel shame or guilt is actually in perfect divine order. From this more spiritual perspective, there is actually nothing wrong with you. You are, in fact completely perfect in all of your imperfection. In a certain sense, there is actually nothing to forgive.

Colin Tipping’s practice of Radical Self Forgiveness

British metaphysical philosopher Colin Tipping  is of the opinion that there is nothing you can do that is beyond the reach of your own forgiveness. Dr. Tipping insists that his view is not a religious but rather spiritual one, and is based on the premise that we as humans cannot possibly understand the reasons that things happen …especially “bad” things. Our capacity is simply not great enough. There are often simply no answers. If we can accept the possibility that there is a bigger picture, perhaps we can also accept that our human failings and imperfections are actually a part of that picture. I am especially interested in considering Tipping’s view in light of the article I read in Psychology  Today which states that “Perfectionism” has been found to be  a great source of unhappiness in American culture. (see my previous blog) Can we really learn to forgive and accept ourselves and let some of this perfectionism go? Tipping has a plan to do just this.

The Five Point Plan For Radical Self Forgiveness

Here are the steps Dr. Tipping suggests we take to get to true self-forgiveness:

1. The first step is to name your feeling.  It is important to discern the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is about feeling badly about something you have done. Shame is a deeper feeling about the unworthiness of the self. Shame is more difficult to eradicate, as it is usually related to a long standing deeply held negative feeling about the self, that is “triggered” by circumstances.
2. What is the origin of the feeling…when did you first feel it and what seems to bring it on?
3.  Uncover the beliefs that underlie your feelings, and challenge them.  An example would be a feeling you have that you are always “A Loser”.  Is it actually true?  What is the evidence?
4. Do your best to “reframe” the story in the light of either new evidence or a greater compassion for yourself.  This process is obviously easier said than done.  It involves telling a new story in which your “evidence” may simply be acceptance that you are only human and humans are hopelessly flawed.
5. Forgive yourself. Consider the spiritual perspective that sees a bigger picture and allows everything in the world, including you, to be exactly as it is, and sees an elegant order and beauty in all of it. Look at a picture of the universe such as the one provided here and tell me that this is not perfection in the truest sense of the word

In the August 2013 edition of  “Psychology Today”, research psychologists Todd Kashden and Robert Biswas-Diener make the following bold claim: “One of Life’s sharpest paradoxes is that the key to satisfaction is doing things that feel risky, uncomfortable, and occasionally bad”.  This claim piqued my interest, especially in light of a previous blog I wrote wherein I feature a video of JFK stating, and I paraphrase, “We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard.  Kashden and Biswas-Diener have devoted a considerable amount of time researching the life styles, values, and habits of people who self describe as having the happiest of lives.  “Happiness”, as defined by the researchers, means not just the ability to experience fleeting moments of joy.  Rather, they are examining the lives of people who feel peaceful, contented, and accepting of both themselves and the lives they have created.  So, what are the secret ingredients of such lives as these?  Kashden and Biswas-Diener have identified five key personality traits and behavioral characteristics that seem to be associated with people who are mostly,… just happy.  Here are the five.

#1 Curiosity, and the willingness to satisfy it

The most surprising finding coming out of the research relates to this idea that our most satisfying life experiences come out of the times when we feel most afraid, and most out of our personal “comfort zone”.  Quoting directly from the “Psychology Today” article, “It turns out that activities that lead us to feel uncertainty, discomfort, and even a dash of guilt are associated with some of the most memorable and enjoyable experiences of people’s lives.  Happy people, it seems, engage in a wide range of counterintuitive habits that seem, well downright unhappy”.  So, what would lead someone to do something that was risky, and/or uncomfortable?  The answer is simpler than you might think. Happy people are insatiably curious…and this curiosity impels the person to satisfy the “need to know”. To quote the article again, “Curiosity, it seems, is largely about exploration—often at the price of momentary happiness. Curious people generally accept the notion that while being uncomfortable and vulnerable is not an easy path, it is the most direct route to becoming stronger and wiser” As the researchers note, “Curiosity—that pulsing, eager state of not knowing-is fundamentally an anxious state”. I had never thought of curiosity as being akin to anxiety, but of course it is. Anxiety is often about “fear of the unknown”. Curiosity moves that anxiety into action.

#2..The ability to see the forest and not focus on the trees

In the article it states that “satisfied people are less likely to be overly analytical and detail-oriented…..The happiest people have a natural emotional protection against getting sucked in by the intense gravitational pull of little details”

In my view, this is a really hard one to fight.  The culture puts such emphasis on accomplishments such as grades, performance reviews, and general “conscientiousness”. Doing well often means paying attention to the details. Yet, apparently the happiest people tended to perform less well  on these measures.  Perhaps the answer lies in trying to give up on the ultimately impossible quest for perfection, and engage in more activities that are just joyful in and of themselves and not oriented toward producing a  “perfect” product.

#3 Be An Unjealous Friend

I resonate completely with this one.  Given that close friendships are closely allied with happiness, its no surprise to me that ..”the happiest people are the ones who are “present” when things go right for others—and whose own wins are regularly celebrated by their friends as well.”. What I know though, is that I’m quite capable of jealousy, particularly when I feel it could, or should, have been me that lives in “that” house, or has “that” much money…or whatever it is. What I have tried to do recently is turn my feelings of jealousy into a motivating factor.  That is, rather than “why does she have that and not me”…it can be “wow, if she has that, maybe I can too.  What would I have to do?…This feeling is much more expansive, and allows me to truly rejoice in the good fortune of my friends and relatives.  Then, when I have good fortune, I will have good friends to celebrate with.  Bottom line is…what’s the use of joy and good fortune if you have no one to share it with?

#4 Don’t Hide from Your Negative Emotions

In this article the researchers talk about the importance of recognizing and accepting that life is full of disappointments, and using the feelings that are engendered to develop self-understanding and compassion.  Here the importance of “naming and claiming” the emotion is emphasized as well as communicating your feelings to others who may or may not be involved directly in how you are feeling. In the article they talk about the skill of “flexible responding” to situations that make us feel uncomfortable, fearful, or angry.  “Flexible responding” means you don’t “go off” on the traffic cop who issues you the ticket, for example, but you may express your frustration in an appropriate way.  Flexible responding also means the ability to tolerate emotional discomfort, as you give yourself time to discover the source of it, and craft a more useful response.

#5  Above all, strive for Balance

Number five is the one that brings all of the others together, in my mind.  It seems to me it goes along with the Buddhist idea of living in the present and living each moment to the fullest, while also planning for the future and being realistic about the constraints of time and other physical realities. Maybe it also means noticing, and appreciating, the details of a situation without being so caught up that we lose “the big picture”.  This is where the real “art form” of living comes in, in my view, and no amount of scientific research can possibly capture the essence of that experience.  We just know it when we feel it…that sense of just knowing we are in the “flow”.  Hopefully these five principles will give some insight as to how tweak our lives in order to feel this flow, more of the time.

 When we experience deep emotional pain our first impulse is to get away from the feelings as quickly as possible….just make them go away.  Escape is accomplished in a variety of ways. We may, for example, distract ourselves through TV, books, or movies.  Or….when the pain is particularly acute and pervasive, we might find ourselves seeking out the help of prescription or non prescription drugs. Alcohol can also become an effective means of escape.  In truth, the culture supports all of the above  mentioned activities as ways of coping when life gets hard.  And…lets be honest, these coping mechanisms do work.  Furthermore, we sometimes do need some temporary relief from unbearable emotional states. The problem is, in my view, that the relief is often just temporary. If no time and energy is invested into discovering the source of the pain, it will keep on coming back…and back…and back.  To make matters worse, the pain can resurface with more intensity…like a splinter that has lodged itself under the skin and now has become infected. So…what can we do?  How can we face intolerable emotions such as anxiety, fear, shame, and anger without becoming overwhelmed with the emotion itself?

     In his book, entitled  “Emotional Intimacy”, the relational psychologist Robert Augustus Masters suggests that the key is to gently move “toward” our pain, rather than away from it.  We must find a way to get close enough to the pain so that we can observe it in great detail, and yet we need enough distance so we can feel that our pain is only a part of us…not the whole of us.  Dr. Masters advocates that we become “intimate” with the feeling and texture of our emotions, as a  “participant observer”.  This is different than merely talking about emotions, which keeps the experience up in our heads…to be analyzed over and over..to no avail

Becoming a “Participant observer” is a skill that we can learn from the teachings of mindfulness meditation. In this meditation practice, the meditator learns to step back from his experience and “observe” what is going on in the physical  body as emotions are experienced.  For example, during the anxiety state, my pulse is racing, my palms are sweating, and I can’t breathe.  If we can “drop down” into our bodily sensations and simply “be with” them, without judgment, we are automatically not “in” them in the same way.  We have created the necessary separation to feel them, and yet place them more into the background of our experience rather than the foreground.  With the feeling more in the background, we can turn it around in our mind and examine in from all sides.  Where does this feeling come from?  When did I first have it?   Can I bring some compassion to myself so that I can begin to heal?

Developing the “participant observer” stance to your emotions does not mean that you won’t still have challenging emotional episodes where you will feel overwhelmed.  Dr. Masters cautions against believing that we can somehow ”transcend” emotional states and wipe them out from our experience. He calls the attempt to do this the “spiritual bypass”. We are, after all, not gods, only very flawed human beings doing the best we can..and that isn’t a bad thing.

Facebook can be a great way to make new friends, stay connected with old friends, and reconnect with even older friends.  I  sometimes wonder though, if all of the incessant social networking we do can have some unintended consequences. My fear is that as we spend more and more time “connected” as it were, we will begin to lose touch with the experience of being silently and deeply connected to the one person we really need to understand..that is ourselves…Here is why I am concerned:

What If Your Best Friend Could Be Found In The Mirror?  

        There is a universal human need, I think, to be connected to other people in a deep and intimate way.  We all long to be loved, accepted, and deeply understood, by one or more true friends in whom we can confide our deepest secrets.  Old friends are particularly valuable because of the history we have with them. They have seen us at our ”best” and at our “worst”.  Through it all they continue to love us, and the memories we share provide a sense of meaning and continuity in our lives.

      Consider then the one person who has been with us from the very beginning.  It is, of course, our very personal “yours truly”.  It is us.  Because we are conscious, and able to form elaborate short and long term memories of our experiences, we can think about what is happening and consider how we feel about it. The way I see it, we actually have a relationship with ourselves, and like all relationships, it takes time and careful nurturing to make sure it’s a positive and supportive relationship. Ideally, I would say, we want to become our own “best friend”. We want to know, understand, accept, and yes, even love ourselves. From this strong foundation of self  love and self acceptance I think we can have the best chance for healthy relationships with others.

       I know some people will automatically cringe when they hear the words “self love”.  Often this term conjures up the image of the typical “narcissist”….the man or woman who is completely “full of him/herself”. It’s actually quite the opposite.  In the Greek legend, Narcissus is a man who is constantly fascinated with his own image in the river. Narcissists need to have their “greatness” constantly reflected back to them by other people, so they “use” people for this. In fact they are internally “empty”, and they can never be filled up enough.  Underneath their outward conceit and bluster, there is very little self love.  True self love, and self esteem are very different from narcissism. It has to do with acceptance of all of who we are, the admission of flaws, failure, and vulnerability.  I think it also has to do with the constant quest for self understanding. Through such understanding we can create a sense of worthiness that comes to us from the “inside out” rather than the “outside in”

    So, back to facebook again, my concern is that having a million “friends” on facebook, will create the illusion of connection while allowing the constant user to neglect the most important relationship of them all. How ironic would it be if we spend so much time “checking in” with others, that we stop checking in with ourselves.

In 1962 President John F. Kennedy declared that before the decade ended, we would land a man on the moon. Specifically, the president’s words were “We choose to land a man on the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard”. Although JFK would not live to see it, his dream was realized on July 20^th 1969, in the nick of time.  His words were challenging and spurred on an amazing accomplishment.  I found myself thinking about the true meaning of these words just the other day when I was at the gym of all places

The idea of something being unbelievably hard occurred to me as I attempted to complete just one “Push-up”, then one “squat”, and one “lunge” during my “Old ladies” personal training session. My stated goal is to gain upper body and “core” strength, and just to feel better and stronger.  I thought this would be quite straightforward, but was totally unprepared for how friggin hard it would be…just plain physically painful and hard….not fun at all. My trainer for this project is easily half my age, but he is teaching me that developing a strong body is much the same as developing a strong mind, a courageous spirit, or a resilient emotional life. All of these endeavors take persistent practice, and incredible determination.  The muscles get fatigued, my trainer tells me, but this is good because it encourages them to grow.

I think it is much the same with “pushing” ourselves in other areas of life.  As a long time sufferer of anxiety, I know that, among other things, anxiety is a disorder of avoidance. What I mean by this is that, in order not to feel the anxiety, us anxious people will go to great lengths to avoid those things that will, or may, make us anxious. This explains how people develop persistent fears of flying for example, or leaving the house. It is, after all, just human nature to avoid these things if we can, in favor of safer and less risky things…like staying home, watching TV, or  using  substances like alcohol.

Insidiously, overcoming many anxieties means moving toward the exact thing that makes us afraid…much like me moving toward completing that “push-up” even though every fiber of my being is protesting loudly. Does it hurt?  Absolutely!. It has been explained to me, though, that there cannot be any gain without the pain.  The trick is to push just hard enough to get that gain without pushing so hard that injury results.

I like the fact that muscles grow best when the strength training is every other day, rather than every day. It seems to me that our psyche also needs periods of rest in between periods of pushing beyond our comfort zone. The periods of rest allow for integration and assimilation of new experiences at a slow and measured pace. Like the tortoise, slow and steady wins the race.

So, the way I see it, only one important question remains.  What is the “walk on the moon” that you would like to accomplish?… My advice?  Go for it, but don’t expect it to be easy.  Choose it precisely because it is hard.