What the body knows (and the mind often doesn't) Part 2: Body Resonance (& Dissonance)
I don’t like the word “body.” Over many years of investigation, I believe this word leads us off track, and yields a false perception of what it means to be human. We speak of “the” body, as one might speak of “the” chair or “the” table. Inanimate, but more importantly, an object removed from our experience. And the body does appear as an object.
When I look at you, you appear as a “thing in space” to me, and I to you. When you look at yourself in the mirror, what looks back at you appears as an object (one you probably hold to some fabricated standards of “correct” appearance). However, we also experience ourselves as an in-bodied subject, as a creator of a stream of experiences unfolding moment by moment. In other words, as alive.
This two-faced nature of our physical form is not reflected well in the term “the body.” When I came across the first chapter of Thomas Hanna’s excellent little book, The Body of Life, he used the Greek word, soma, the intelligent, living, goal-directed body-being that is a person. This word made so much more sense to me than the heavy, inert, word “body” in English, so I’ll use the word soma from here on out in this short article.
In couples therapist’s Stan Tatkin’s latest book, I was delighted to discover, stuffed amongst the pages, that he actually addressed some of the physicality of couples relationships. (I leave it to you to go hunt for these.) There is so much more to the story. As a student of video, my perception has been trained to see the interaction between somas when people relate. So much of what happens between us when we are relating does not reach the conscious mind, but we respond none-the-less.
I’m also a fan of a number of martial artists - masters of soma - and this video shows the intelligence and efficiency of soma. (This part starts at about 10:30 in the clip). The man in blue, a master of Kung Fu, is instructing first students, then a master of Jeet Kune Do, in the black shirt, to respond to an attack, just by using touch, not sight. Probably why Bruce Lee is famous for the saying, “Don’t think, feel.” Soma is faster and more efficient than mind. But, we underestimate both the wisdom and intelligence of soma, especially in relationship.
When we’re having a conversation with someone, there is a cognitive exchange, the words or content being discussed. And there is another exchange: soma with soma - the experience that is created between us out of our interaction. Meaning-making (also important) happens later when the mind re-views experience and tries to predict what will happen next. The experience in the moment, the resonance, the sense of “feeling felt’ by another living soma, of being “in synch” is vital to our well-being. Yet surprisingly, this is increasingly harder to come by in our modern world.
Why is this? We don’t prize the somatic basis of life in Western culture. We don’t spend as much of our time in cohesive, aligned groups. We live some distance from nature in human-build environments, and we privilege the mental. We overlook our fundamental need for soma with soma resonance. As relentlessly social creatures deeply woven into the fabric of life, our nervous systems are designed for somatic resonance. We crave the physical connection and comfort of another’s touch. James Coen’s earlier research showed that even the touch of a stranger’s hand can reduce our discomfort in a stressful situation, let alone the touch of a loving companion.
A student of mine once told me of a time when she had lost someone dear to her family. Friends of the family just came and sat with them. Resonating and sharing the burden of grief so that my student and her family could bear their loss. We don’t even have to touch to resonate, to accompany one another in this life. Pets and nature can also provide us with a felt-sense of resonance. People who leave their home country, perhaps for a new job opportunity, are surprised when three weeks into their new adventure, they are suddenly homesick. Soma misses the sounds, smells, tastes, even the texture of the air, the rhythm of the voices, of home. What the mind can easily do, soma cannot. These experiences - mind and soma - are not interchangeable. Are you attending to the needs of your soma, your social soma? Do you take a moment to appreciate those who are with you in the flesh so to speak?
