Mind-body connection: why it works to heal trauma
We hear a lot about the mind/body connection, but in reality — the two were never separate. The mind and body are always intertwined, like a tree and its roots.
Of course, one aspect can be working more optimally than the other, one can be more helpful with a certain project than the other. It’s difficult to use your brain to move a couch or muscle your way through an ethical dilemma. But treating them as entirely separate doesn’t help either one.
During my workshops, I often ask my students to try out a simple little experiment. I ask them to sit like they are happy.
They sit up taller, they draw their shoulders back, their heart lifts, and the edges of their lips curl up. Their eyes are bright and open.
Then I ask them to sit like they are sad. They curl forward, drop their heads down, the edges of their mouths droop, and their eyes lower. (There will certainly be people who do something different - and please know that I have an extra bit of love just for you.)
But the point is that there is an intrinsic bond between our bodies and our emotional state. So it only makes sense that as we are looking to deal with our emotional state, we invite our bodies into the conversation.
It’s tempting to view the body as nothing more than a high-maintenance brain transportation system. It is something of an annoyance much of the time - it gets itchy and achy and is either too wet or too dry. But the body holds massive amounts of information. It’s the canary in the coal mine and it can help us to identify issues sooner, and find ways to help manage them.
“It is through the alignment of the body that I discovered the alignment of my mind, self, and intelligence.”
~ B.K.S. Iyengar.
In some cases, it’s really hard to think our way out of anxiety or trauma. But we can reverse engineer it and look to the body. While talk therapy can help people feel less alone, a movement practice — like yoga — is the foundation of emotional awareness.
Because the process of yoga starts with the outside parts. We are relaxing the jaw, drawing the shoulders away from the ears. We are paying attention to where we put our left foot and our right hand. As we do that, we draw our focus away from the external distractions.
It’s impossible to obsess about that upcoming meeting while you are focused on trying to engage your left quadricep. You can flip back and forth between the meeting and the quads, thinking you’re doing some great multitasking but actually, you’re just half-assing two things. But if you keep coming back to the quads when you realize you’ve time-traveled to your meeting, eventually, your brain will give up the fight and will focus on what is happening right now.
Deciding which thoughts deserve your attention, and which do not — that changes everything.
It’s not instant. And this is why we call it a practice. We practice for when we are in traffic, in conflict, or in pain. Because that’s when it really matters.
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is a brilliant resource on this topic. He tells us that:
“Trauma manifests in the body in the form of: illness, disease, numbness, and chronic pain. It often leads to destructive behavior, self-harm, abuse and other negative coping mechanisms. The body is the bridge.”
Because it’s not just our minds that experience trauma - our bodies were there for it, too. So, the body needs to be engaged in the healing process.
The body heals itself all the time. It’s incredible — pieces of ripped skin mend, shattered bones knit together. There is a deep intelligence that constantly moves towards dynamic healing. So let your mind-body do just that.
Let yourself heal yourself.
Let the ligaments of your soul regenerate.
And let’s stretch out those hamstrings while we’re at it.