Part Three: Working with Experience
8 Into the Body
It takes some effort to keep our stories going, for they are usually about a disharmony, meaning the story is built on untruth.
Seeing the full truth about any situation relieves tensions and resolves disharmonies. We then let go of our case and relax into ourselves. Until then, people must tend to their stories the way they would tend to a sputtering fire.
We repeat them to ourselves and tell as many others as we can.
It’s a lot of work.
But underneath the story is something else. When we come down out of our heads, we can find where the tension of our painful story is held in the body.
By going all the way through our work, the energy is transformed back to it original form.
Being present
The body is where the avoided experience can finally be encountered. So if the Worker is up in their head, we want to bring them back down into their body. For that’s where the feelings reside that they are trying to avoid. That’s where the old pain, which is young, lives.
That’s why they are in their head.
The existence of this pain has attracted a life experience to the Worker that has activated their old wound. Now they can’t let go of that story.
Helper: What are you noticing in your body as you’re telling me this story?
Worker: (holding their breath) I don’t know what I’m feeling. I feel numb.
Helper: So let’s just breathe together and come down into your body as you talk.
Worker: I feel numb.
Helper: I feel numb. Where is this numbness in your body?
Worker: (puts hand just below his heart) Here. It’s just numb.
Helper: Let’s breathe into your hand, into the numbness.
Worker: Everything feels so hopeless. (glances at Helper, then back down) I can hardly look at you.
Helper: Notice how hard it is to connect with me. Let’s pray for the courage to feel what’s here.
Worker: This is horrible.
Helper: Feel into how hard it is to look up. To look at me.
Worker: It feels impossible.
Helper: Breathe into that, how hard this feels.
Worker: I feel shame. Like I’m a failure.
Helper: Keep staying with the numbness. (pause) What’s happening now?
Worker: It’s not as strong. I can still feel it, but it’s getting a little better.
Helper: What happens when you don’t try to get rid of it?
Worker: I don’t know. It feels less frightening.
Helper: The Guide teaches that our fear of a feeling is worse than the feeling. Being numb to the numbness is worse than the numbness.
Worker: That feels right.
When the Worker makes more contact with their body, they may start to feel what they have been trying not to feel. We can help them by opening up our own breathing and coming fully down into our own bodies. The resonance with our own healed presence helps the Worker.
Helper: Let’s open up our breathing and fully feel ourselves sitting in our chairs. We feel our sit bones on the chair and our feet on the floor.
Let your shoulders drop a little more with each exhale. Let the breath come all the way down into your belly. It might feel like our pelvis is a bowl, and we are sitting inside it.
Notice if there’s any tension in your body. Where do you notice tension?
Worker: In my lower back.
Helper: Let’s breathe into that tension in the lower back. Bring your breath into the tension. (Pause and breathe for a few breaths.) What are you aware of now?
Just breathing and feeling
Breathing allows us to remain present, in the body, while the avoided experience moves through us. Not breathing, then, is a way to cut off feelings.
We’ll know the Worker has hit a wall of difficult feelings when they start holding their breath. This strategy begins in childhood.
Every child goes through painful experiences. When that happens, the child will try to cut off those painful feelings. One of the fundamental ways we do this is by holding our breath.
Now, when we reexperience those same tender feelings, our automatic response to avoid feeling them will be to stop breathing.
When we see the Worker starting to resist their feelings, we remind them to “breathe.” When the breath comes into the body and meets the stuck inner knot, the painful feelings that have remained unfelt can be re-experienced, felt and released. By going all the way through our work, the energy is transformed back into its original form.
This is how we get our life force back.
Listen to the body
When we stop resisting the experience, the energy bound up in the old pain can be released and the consciousness trapped there can return. So we listen to the Workers words to hear the misconceptions. But we can also listen to their body.
By asking what their different body movements are saying, we help the Worker connect with their body. This also gives them an avenue for expressing their experience that is not centered in the mind.
If tears come up but no words want to come out, we can ask what the tears are saying. If we notice our own throat or jaw tightening up, we can ask the Worker how their jaw or throat is feeling. A great deal of tension is held in this area.
If we’re feeling ourselves getting tired, we may be approaching some heaviness in the Worker—something they don’t want to feel.
The Helper’s own experience often provides information about what is happening in the Worker.
Go deeper
This reservoir of pain may feel like a bottomless pit to the Worker. But there is a bottom. The more fully we allow ourselves to feel what is there, the more the well can empty.
For the Worker, the first time they dip into their old pain may be more like an accidental slide over the edge of feelings.
They simply couldn’t keep them bottled up any longer.
Note, not all tears are the same. There are some tears that come from the Worker’s defensive mask and essentially say, “No, life, don’t do this to me.” There are other tears that are a real release down into the depths of the pain itself. This kind of expressing will carry the Worker along a spiral that takes them deeper into the nucleus of the pain.
In deep healing work, there may be waves of feelings. The Worker will ride through deep feelings and then come to the surface and feel calm. But with further exploration, another deeper wave will come.
Make room
We want to leave some space and be quiet so the Worker can follow their own inner process. Then we might say, “What are you noticing?” or “What are you aware of? Can you bring me into what you are experiencing in this moment?”
As the energy is freed up and able to flow, the consciousness trapped with the old pain can surface.
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