Western culture has long considered the mind and body as separate entities, one from the other. In medicine, for example, mental illness has long been considered separate and different from physical illness; many aspects of care, insurance coverage, and chronicity reflect this. In one of the most widely watched TED talks of all time, Sir Ken Robinson, a highly respected educator, described an academic as an individual who employs the body to move their head from one meeting to another.
On the one hand, we are contemplative, cognitive, spiritual, moral selves; on the other we are our oriented, balancing, turning, stretching, physical selves. Two sides of the same coin, we are each and we are both.
Partners for life, minds and bodies lie not in conflict but rather in combination, in equilibrium, in balance. The mind monitors, directs, and influences the body’s every movement as the body moves, nourishes and protects the mind’s every moment. This dance of mind and body orients me to the space I inhabit, to the mirror in which my image is reflected, to my home and family, to the community in which I reside.
The introduction to the first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves (1973) contains a foundational text for not only the women’s movement, but for the self-help and personal health movements as well: “Our bodies are the physical bases from which we move out into the world; ignorance, uncertainty – even, at worst, shame – about our physical selves creates in us an alienation that keeps us from being the whole people we could be.”
The body itself has a major influence on what we believe about it. It is fascinating to me that we generalize what we believe about our bodies to what we believe about our entire self:
“My shape is inadequate, so I am inadequate.”
“My looks are a liability.”
And, of course, the converse is also true:
“I am comfortable in my own skin.”
“I am strong and healthy.”
A person’s posture and movement often communicate — or betray — what they believe about themselves. So a child tries to protect himself by lowering his head and shrinking into his shoulders, a woman’s collarbones appear to curve out and around to defend her heart, a young man pushes out his lower jaw to appear tougher. After significant weight loss, and despite the fact that her body is now much smaller, a woman still scissors her arms far out from her torso as she walks because, astonishingly, her brain does not seem to know how much the physical dimensions of her body have changed.
The word tensile, as in tensile strength, comes from the Latin tensere, meaning “to stretch.” Tensile strength is an engineering term that describes the ability of a material to stretch in accommodation of a force, and then to return to its original shape without having been permanently distorted or disfigured. Steel is employed to build bridges and skyscrapers because of its tensile strength. Whereas the occasional gale-force winds that come whipping down the river valley will sometimes bend a bridge in accommodation of those forces, the steel from which it is built can also be expected to return to its original shape once the winds pass. Tensile strength is about bending without breaking.
Can we use this knowledge to enhance the mind-body connection and to enhance emotional and physical resilience? I believe we can. One way of thinking about yoga is that it is a way of learning to relax in the setting of mild discomfort. When I first began to practice yoga, I felt it in my knees. Later, I began to feel it it in my heart.
Although thinking is not visible to the naked eye, it is still associated with real changes in the brain. And although reframing a problem is not measurable by current technologies, it is still often the first step to change. Seeing things differently is often the first step to changing behaviors, choices, movements and patterns. Let’s call this mind-first change. Then there is body-first change. People in recovery programs say: “It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.”
I’ve also heard it said like this:
“Fake it ‘til you make it.”
“Smile until you feel better.”
“It’s not what you say that counts; it’s what you do.”
“Your day will generally go in the same direction that the corners of your mouth point.”
Recognizing the mind as an inextricable component of the body and, vice versa, the body as an extension of the mind itself, is a viable strategy for developing resilience, naming one’s goals, becoming one’s best self, taking first steps, more completely occupying oneself.
Has Descartes’s mind-body dichotomy outlived its usefulness? We can mine the dynamic connection between mind and body to grow in ways we did not know were possible. For a long time, I told my patients that “the head bone’s connected to the knee bone.” Everything is connected.
Many thanks, once again, to Ellen Shaw of New York City for having provided the seed for this post.