Bodies. Our bodies define us in so many ways, yet we disown them in so many more. Our uniforms, our haircuts, our styles and the way we showcase ourselves signify everything from socio-economic class and race, to gender identity, to the community we identify with and our "tribe". At the same time, we disown our bodies and disconnect with them in profound and sometimes abusive ways. Our relationships and experiences with our bodies, whether it is dragging them around and making them wait while we think or learn, or taking them out for a walk, or getting frustrated when they get sick or break out in hives or whatever, define our core experience. We struggle each day to feed them the right way, rest them enough, and exercise them enough. We become so shameful about them that we try and force our bodies to conform to an ideal, and we get frustrated that they can't keep up with us.
We tend to treat our bodies as something separate from our "self". We are embarrassed by them, dress them up, hide them, sculpt them with weights and dumbbells or plastic surgery, ink them, mutilate them, starve them, or overfeed them. At the same time, they are what make us and helps define us as "who I am". It is exactly the way we dress them up, or hide them, or sculpt them, or ink them, mutilate, starve, or overfeed them that sends a message about "this is who I am".
Underneath all of that, though, is another dialectic. We insist that our bodies are different than our minds and in many ways they most definitively are. You can't think up E=mc2 by putting your body in a pink tutu or running around a tree (although you might be able to do those simultaneously), yet our bodies also create and define how our minds function.... and vice versa. There is a connection between our minds and bodies that is so profound that we get pits and butterflies in our stomachs or feel like our hearts are breaking. When we get angry, we clench our fists and when we get scared we lock our knees. There is an intricate connection between mind and body that is so obvious that we often deny it exists at all. In fact, the concept of separating our bodies so much as to talk about taking them for a walk or making them wait around while we learn seems ludicrous. We are fundamentally intertwined with our bodies.
What happens when things go catastrophically wrong with that connection and we are left wondering what is wrong with us? How do you heal from a disconnection when we never acknowledged there was a connection, or even recognize that the problem is the actual connection? What does a disconnection look like?
These are the people that don't know they have a body, change it in ways to fit into an ideal image, or abuse it in ways that poses a threat their own health.
Stay tuned for tomorrow on "Thoughts on Bodies- Part 2: Catastrophic Disconnection".
We tend to treat our bodies as something separate from our "self". We are embarrassed by them, dress them up, hide them, sculpt them with weights and dumbbells or plastic surgery, ink them, mutilate them, starve them, or overfeed them. At the same time, they are what make us and helps define us as "who I am". It is exactly the way we dress them up, or hide them, or sculpt them, or ink them, mutilate, starve, or overfeed them that sends a message about "this is who I am".
Underneath all of that, though, is another dialectic. We insist that our bodies are different than our minds and in many ways they most definitively are. You can't think up E=mc2 by putting your body in a pink tutu or running around a tree (although you might be able to do those simultaneously), yet our bodies also create and define how our minds function.... and vice versa. There is a connection between our minds and bodies that is so profound that we get pits and butterflies in our stomachs or feel like our hearts are breaking. When we get angry, we clench our fists and when we get scared we lock our knees. There is an intricate connection between mind and body that is so obvious that we often deny it exists at all. In fact, the concept of separating our bodies so much as to talk about taking them for a walk or making them wait around while we learn seems ludicrous. We are fundamentally intertwined with our bodies.
What happens when things go catastrophically wrong with that connection and we are left wondering what is wrong with us? How do you heal from a disconnection when we never acknowledged there was a connection, or even recognize that the problem is the actual connection? What does a disconnection look like?
These are the people that don't know they have a body, change it in ways to fit into an ideal image, or abuse it in ways that poses a threat their own health.
Stay tuned for tomorrow on "Thoughts on Bodies- Part 2: Catastrophic Disconnection".
RSS Feed