Brain and Body Integration
This past weekend I attended a creativity and mindfulness workshop by Emily Olson, who has been my music & mindfulness teacher for the past year. While I have known for a while now that brain, body, heart and spirit integration is key to realizing and expressing the completeness of Self that I desire, this workshop once more confirmed this insight. That body intelligence not only has a seat at the table, it has an equal seat at the table with my brain intelligence and my emotional intelligence. Or things that are often referred to as IQ (intelligence quotient), EQ (emotional quotient) and GQ (gut quotient).
What is brain and body integration?
You know the phrase, mind over matter. The idea that our brain is the ultimate decider and that we can will ourselves and our bodies into pretty much anything, we just have to “will it” hard enough. This idea often comes hand in hand with a practiced denial of signals that our bodies send us. When it’s telling us we need a break from running, we keep pushing it, often with a result of some injury that often delays us reaching our running goal more than taking a rest would have.
I admit, the phrase mind over body had served me well at earlier times in my life but it has since run its course for me and is no longer helpful. There is a grander system at play and my body’s intelligence is an equal piece of the puzzle.
Once I began therapy, I started noticing that my body is sending me signals. Big ones. And most often, I felt these signals before my brain could process the situation and logically tell me that something is off, my body was already aware and in tune with the situation.
Like this - have you ever been in a situation where you sense that something is not quite right, even if everything looks A-okay to the eyes and people are telling you all the right things, yet you still smell something fishy? How many times has the fishy smell revealed itself later on? And this gut instinct not only helps us move through life with better awareness (hence the possibility of making better choices for ourselves), but it can also be life saving when we listen to it.
After some serious events in my life, I began to experimentally learn that my body knows things that my brain can’t process as fast for many reasons like not enough intellectual information, my own denial and mental gymnastics, fears of being seen as uncaring, people hiding information, etc, etc. But just as my brain can influence my body, so can my body influence my brain. Being able to bring together these two sets of equally important sources of intelligence together is brain and body integration. Treating your brain and body (and heart and spirit) as powerful allies and practicing allowing them to be such is brain-body integration.
How can I practice brain and body integration?
There are lots of practices available for developing this strong alliance between your brain and body, and you don’t need to be a marathon runner or a yogi to do it.
Noting Practice
When I started meditating, the noting technique was the first one I learned. The practice I started with is one in which you are:
Seated or lying or standing, whichever you like, comfortably and in a safe space.
Then allowing your attention to rest on the rising and falling sensation of your breath. If it helps, you can place your hand on your stomach or chest to stay connected to the in and out of your breath as your belly/chest expands and lowers.
As you are distracted (and this is the expected thing to happen if you are a living human being) by thoughts, emotions or body sensations, is to gently acknowledge what has taken your attention.
You very gently and kindly label it “thinking, feeling or sensation.”
Followed by another gentle label of “pleasant, unpleasant or neutral”
And perhaps a third level of noting, if you feel inclined, of adding a name to it if it comes to you easily. So a tightness around the head, you might recognize as your high blood pressure, the pit in your stomach you often get when you feel anxiety, etc. Learning where these things show up in your body will help you notice the body sensations and what they are trying to tell you quicker in the future.
And then returning to the breath and repeating from step 3.
By observing and noting what has taken my attention, I have found that in my daily life, I am more aware of the sensations I feel and the signals my body is sending me.
Body Scan Meditations
Body scan meditations are another great way to get in touch with your body and connect the mind to your body’s experience and intelligence. This practice has quite a few varieties but the premise is the same - finding a comfortable position, and allowing your attention to gently scan over your body, one part at a time, observing the sensations you feel throughout.
Some body scan meditations, like ones created for sleep, ask you to then “turn off’ or “switch off” that part of the body so that you can create a welcoming environment for sleep. In the ones I use to get in touch with my body, however, I am simply observing the sensations and allowing them to be just as they are so that I can become more in tune with my body on moment by moment basis.
Movement Work
There are a lot of practices that can be helpful in aligning the brain and body such as yoga, Qi Gong, gentle pilates, Tai Chi, dance, martial arts. There are other practices as well that focus on letting your body lead, rather than the brain lead such as authentic movement. While this practice is often done with other people (including someone who acts as a witness in different capacities), it can also be helpful to practice on your own as I have done since Emily’s mindfulness workshop.
Find a comfortable space where you feel safe, secure and alone. First stand or sit or lay down in a way that’s comfortable for you, and without moving, notice how your body would like to move. Spend a few minutes noticing and then allow your body to move in that way. It can be difficult to let go of self-judgement, asking yourself “what’s the point?” or a feeling of silliness since the movement is likely not one of “tradition” value (aka a recognized stretch or dance choreography). All these and more reactions are normal when we first start to allow our body to move in ways that don’t look the way we think we should look.
I’ve found that when I feel self-judgement it’s helpful to remind myself that no one is watching me, that it is safe to be with myself.
If I question, what’s the point of this, I answer by asking - is my body wanting to move? And if it is, then why not let it?
If I feel silly, I welcome the silliness and enjoy the fun that comes with being child-like silly :)
I hope this helps you explore different opportunities in connecting with your body, welcoming it to the table and offering it an equal seat and alliance with the other parts of your being.
Click here to learn more about somatic therapy.
