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By Root 976 0

If you simply observe people walking and talking you can get a sense of their internal state. Notice their sense of openness, friendliness, symmetry, and ease of motion, along with the tone, quality, and range of voice. Does the voice feel full, or does it feel shallow and pale or have a whining quality to it? Do the shoulders look rigid, the chest collapsed, the jaws tight? Or is there a sense of vitality, ease, and flow of motion? Do the words match the message? For example, if someone says, “I’d like to spend time with you,” how convinced do you feel? Do they sound enthusiastic or halfhearted and bland? Let yourself see what you see, feel what you feel. Now turn toward yourself and make the same observations. Notice your body when you walk: what feels loose, what feels labored and tight? Take some time to swing your arms, roll your shoulders, sway, or undulate. Does it feel natural or weird and unfamiliar? As you go through your day, notice when you have fluttering in your stomach or tension in your jaw or any place that’s tight. Also notice times when you feel relaxed and at ease in your body.

The body is like the weather—it changes, and responds to various internal and external conditions. Sometimes we have a chronic holding pattern; other times pangs of fear or apprehension arise in response to certain situations. We can use these reactions to either consider our response or ask ourselves, “What’s this all about?”

Body awareness can help you to be aware of both physical and emotional stuck places. For example, fear might be signalled by a jagged burning sensation in the chest. Anger might be signalled by shutting down, having a tight jaw and fist, or turning to confusion and fear. For some anger leads to attacking, for still others it leads to self harm.

Peter Levine, in his excellent audiotapes on trauma (available from Sounds True) and his book Waking the Tiger, suggests that holding places in the body come from a response to fear or trauma in which an arousal pattern is evoked but not completed. For example, someone hurts you, and to shout back or run would be to risk greater violence. So you hold back. Thus, the physical fight-flight arousal patterns that were stimulated—adrenaline pumping, increased heart rate, cortisol, muscles tensing—never get discharged and remain stuck in your body. If you had been able to move, shake, or run—as animals do—the arousal cycle would have been completed and your body would have come to rest. These thwarted situations, whether they involve expressing grief or anger or standing up for yourself, lead to holding patterns in the body that can become chronic over time. That’s why we hear the expression that anger, sadness, or other emotions are held in the body.

Think about the emotions you are often afraid to express and be aware of your body’s physical response. I asked a client who had fallen into depression and was feeling listless and upset with her job to stand up and push back against my hands and think about who she was mad at. Suddenly her anger at her boss came blasting out, full throttle. “How dare you keep asking me to do more work! We’re already at the breaking point. Do you have any idea of how much we already do? Back off! . . . You might even say thanks for a change.” It was as if there were electrical circuits in her body that got hooked up and charged. Her eyes brightened, she laughed, and she felt better than she had in weeks. Instead of holding back, contracting, and getting depressed, her body and voice were in sync with her emotions and feelings. We could then talk about appropriate ways to talk to her boss.

Repressing or disowning our emotions extracts a terrible toll on our being—a kind of permanent imploding or contraction that can lead to feelings of exhaustion, anxiety, or depression. While we need to be appropriate in work situations or with family and friends, we can always let ourselves know how we feel along with the unedited version of what we’d like to say or do. We can practice letting our bodies move and feel. As a result, we can handle a situation