Deepening with the Mind/Body Connection
Right now in this moment, I encourage you to take 20 seconds to check in with yourself...
What is the state of your mind right now?
Hemlock leaf gently enclosed in a frozen state in a thin sheet of ice on the river bed.
What quality of thoughts are you aware of? Are there any particular thoughts that continue to visit your consciousness (welcome or unwelcome, helpful or unhelpful), perhaps playing on repeat?
Maybe there's just an influx of random thoughts, planning, thinking, remembering, figuring out. What you have to get done today.
There's no right or wrong here, just a quick check in to see what's happening in your mind.
Stay with this for another few seconds...just witness your mind for a few more moments. And notice, are there accompanying body sensations that you are able to track that seem to partner up with these thoughts or quality of the mind?
Can you now bring your attention to the sensation(s) in your body?
Maybe you notice it's hard to feel any sensations. Maybe you feel a lot of sensations. Maybe you feel numbed out, disconnected. Or perhaps you feel more intensity than you wish you had to. Maybe there's pain.
Again, there's no right or wrong. Just a quick check in...what's here when you bring your attention to your body?
Stay with any sensation that feels alive for another moment, and see if you can get to know the contours and nuances of this sensation.
Does it feel familiar? Do any memories arise in your awareness? If it had words, what would it say?
From here, could you continue to deepen into this territory? What if someone was here to support you with assisted self-study?
I'm not sure about you, but this simple body/mind practice can be hard to access by myself during the flurried activity of my day. Often, I just notice my mind spinning around like a hamster wheel with accompanied feelings of hurry and angst in my body, trying to get all the things done.
Hello, fellow human, I get you. :)
In Hakomi-informed somatic therapy or coaching, one of core principles is mind-body.
Those of you who have experienced this work already know this.
There is an immediacy to the mind/body connection. Essentially, the two are indistinguishable.
Your brain is in your body, intimately and immediately connected to your nervous system and endocrine system.
Your thoughts have an immediate physiological impact.
The way that you feel in your body strongly colors your perception.
I could get really nerdy on this topic really fast, but I'll spare you the boring details...for now.
Part of what I offer to folks is mind/body support for chronic pain, and Hakomi-informed coaching is such a beautiful ally in that process because we toggle between what you are experiencing in your body, and what significance that information holds by understanding the patterns, themes, and meanings behind those somatic sensations.
Deepening is part of the fluid method of Hakomi when you are in a session, and you are able to land on some kind of significant insight that wasn't available to you before with the assistance of a practitioner who can support you in this process of skillfully traversing the mind/body connection.
It can be hard to do this alone without the support of another person who is skilled, and who supports you to feel safe, cared for, and understood.
