“Traumatized people are fragmented and disembodied. The constriction of feeling obliterates shade and texture, turning everything into good or bad, black or white, for us or against us. It is the unspoken hell of traumatization. In order to know who and where we are in space and to feel that we are vital, alive beings, subtleties are essential. Furthermore, it is not just acutely traumatized individuals who are disembodied; most Westerners share a less dramatic but still impairing disconnection from their inner sensate compasses. Given the magnitude of the primordial and raw power of our instincts, the historical role of the church and other cultural institutions in subjugating the body is hardly surprising. In contrast, various (embodied) spiritual traditions have acknowledged the ‘baser instincts’ not as something to be eliminated, but rather as a force in need of, and available for, transformation. In Vipassana meditation and various traditions of tantric Buddhism (such as Kum Nye) the goal is ‘to manifest the truly human spiritual qualities of universal goodwill, kindness, humility, love, equanimity and so on.’ These traditions, rather than renouncing the body, utilize is as a way to ‘refine’ the instincts. The essence of embodiment is not in repudiation, but in living the instincts fully as they dance in the ‘body electric,’ while at the same time harnessing their primordial raw energies to promote increasingly subtle qualities of experience. As the song by Dory Previn suggests, mystical experiences that are not experienced in the body just don’t ‘stick’; they are not grounded. Trauma sufferers live in a world of chronic dissociation. This perpetual state of disembodiment keeps them disoriented and unable to engage in the here and now. As mentioned earlier, trauma survivors, however, are not alone in being disembodied; a lower level of separation between body/mind is widespread in modern culture, affecting all of us to a greater or lesser degree. …Trauma sufferers, in their healing journeys, learn to dissolve their rigid defenses. In this surrender the move from frozen fixity to gently thawing and, finally, free flow. In healing the divided self from its habitual mode of dissociation, they move from fragmentation to wholeness. In becoming embodied they return from their long exile. They come home to their bodies and know embodied life, as though for the first time. While trauma is hell on earth, its resolution may be a gift from the gods. …This awakening of our life force, transmuted from survival to ecstatic aliveness, is truly the intrinsic gift laid at our feet and waiting to be opened through this journey of sweet surrender to the sensate world within, whether we are survivors of trauma or simply casualties of Western culture.” Excerpts from Peter Levine’s book, IN AN UNSPOKEN VOICE: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 18:25:20 +0000
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