[Exploring Life] The bodymind is a term used to acknowledge that the body is inseparable from the mind, that is to say, the body and the mind form a single, coherent system. We sometimes tend to think of the body and the mind as separate systems; the body is something we view as being physical and concrete, while we sometimes view the mind as being more immaterial and illusive. The contemplative traditions have long held that body and mind are a single unified system. Modern science continues to reveal deeper levels of insight into body-mind unity, or more simply, the bodymind.
Bodymind: Important Perspectives
In the not too distant past, we believed that the body and the mind were two separate phenomenon. Modern science clearly demonstrates that the two are completely interconnected and form a single unified system. Contemplative traditions have long held the view that both body and mind are one. This view was supported through direct experimentation and investigation of body and mind through meditation, mindfulness, and other practices that focused the mind inward. One of the more important pathways related to the bodymind is the meeting of these contemplative practices with new scientific techniques allowing us to explore the science behind contemplation.
1. The Mind Is Matter: Candace Pert tells us that, “Bodymind, a term first proposed by Dianne Connelly, reflects the understanding, derived from Chinese medicine, that the body is inseparable from the mind.” (Pert 1997) The word bodymind is a contraction of the words body and mind that merges them into a single phenomenon. Phrases such as body and mind or body-mind do not serve to capture the fact that the body is inseparable from the mind. The old expression mind over matter is misleading: mind literally is matter.
Dianne Connelly links the physiological reality of the body with our perception of feelings, emotions, thoughts, and motivations:
The skin is not separate from the emotions, or the emotions separate from the back, or the back separate from the kidneys, or the kidneys separate from will and ambition, or will and ambition separate from the spleen, or the spleen separate from sexual confidence. (Connelly 1994)
From Connelly’s perspective, the mind is indistinguishable from physiological reality of the body.
2. The Bodymind is a Communication Network: Candace Pert summarizes the unity of the bodymind as a process of communication in which the body is an immediate physical manifestation of the mind:
Mind doesn’t dominate body, it becomes body – body and mind are one. I see the whole process of communication we have demonstrated, the flow of information throughout the whole organism, as evidence that the body is the actual outward manifestation, in physical space, of the mind. (Pert 1997)
The scientific breakthrough of the bodymind hinges on the discovery that various chemicals are the medium of communication in the bodymind. All thoughts and emotions produce an observable chemical reaction in the body; all chemical reactions in the body produce specific kinds of thought and emotion. In other words, there are no thoughts or feelings that do not result in chemical reactions that influence the entire cellular structure of the body. Thoughts and feelings that are sustained over time serve to habitualize specific chemical reactions in the body thereby reinforcing those same thoughts and feelings. The production of chemicals and the effects of those chemicals on body and mind is the material basis of the bodymind.
3. The Brain is Everywhere in the Body: We commonly assume that the brain is an organ that is localized within our head. We also sometimes assume that the mind is an emergent quality of the brain. However, both assumptions prove to be somewhat misleading:
“The mind steadfastly refuses to behave locally, as contemporary scientific evidence is beginning to show. We now know, for example, that brain-like tissue is found throughout the body… So, even from the conservative perspective of modern neurochemistry, it is difficult if not impossible to follow a strictly local view of the brain.” – Larry Dossey, M.D. [1]
When our basic presuppositions are shown to be inadequate new worlds of possibility and exploration emerge. One of the first challenges we face is to evolve our use of language, or more specifically, update the assumptions behind the meaning of words we have made common use of. The assumptions behind the meaning of the word brain must be updated to incorporate a view of the brain that is physiologically distributed throughout the entire cellular structure of the body rather than maintaining the now incorrect view that the brain is an organ that resides in the head. The idea of the bodymind therefore challenges on the level of our basic assumptions, and also gives more credence to the notion of body intelligence.
4. Simultaneity and the Bodymind: An important principle emerges from the idea of the bodymind: if we change our body we must simultaneously change our mind, and vice versa. The phrase mind over matter loses accuracy and is replaced with mind is matter. This also leads us to explore thought, emotions, feeling, perceptions, imagination, intuition, the interpretation of experience – all the various emergent phenomenon of the mind – as elements of experience that are physiologically embodied within each of us.
The simultaneity of the bodymind means challenges the assumptions made in anatomy about the existence of various kinds of systems within the body. The idea of the bodymind is not that it is a simple merging of what we previously knew as body and mind, but an entirely new concept and way to view our basic anatomy. A memory, for example, exists in our skin as much as it does our mind.
5. The Bodymind of Stress-Disease: Stress and disease are simultaneously mental and physical. They cannot be intelligently viewed as singularly physical or mental. Chronic stress, or stress that we retain within our bodymind over extended periods of time, eventually impairs the immune system and therefore the body’s ability to avoid disease. It is commonly known that chronic and prolonged stress can increase the probability of problems such as heart disease, strokes, susceptibility to infection, sleep disturbances, mental dysfunction, and eating disorders.
In other words, the companion of chronic mental stress is chronic physiological stress – the two are inseparable. Reactive medical practices provide a valued and vital service in disease intervention and elimination. However, we also need to embrace practices that promote and maintain health before disease can take hold. The release from stress promotes the simultaneity of healing in the bodymind and therefore the release from disease. Of course, there are points of no return and if a disease has taken hold of the body it may be that the bodymind is permanently compromised.
6. The Energetic Realm of the Bodymind:: Jack Painter, the founder of Postural Integration (PI), described layers of the bodymind: a) the “outside” physical body structures and their emotional characteristics; b) the deep inner muscular structure and associated feelings embedded within the muscles; c) the balance and regulation of energy throughout the bodymind; and d) the assimilation and understanding of changes taking place in our experience (through PI) in order to release old experiences and remain open to new experiences in life. Postural Integration is a process designed to heal the bodymind.[2]
The energetic realm of the bodymind seems well recognized, but also the least understood dimension of the bodymind from a scientific perspective.[3] Chinese medicine has long embraced the energetic or life-force element of the bodymind. Qi, for example, is said to be the elemental life force that exists in all things and approaches to healing qi are fundamental to restoring and maintaining health. In yoga, the chakras are said to be energetic centers in the bodymind that can be consciously cultivated. The idea of energetic healing, or more simply the addition of the adjective energetic in a variety of contexts, reveals a focus on the obvious reality of the electrical current within.
Summary
The bodymind is a challenging yet critical idea that requires us to unify the body and mind into a single coherent system. In this sense, the bodymind is really a new frontier for exploration and discovery that may lead to the cultivation of new insights into the nature of learning and experience. However, clearly defining and identifying the bodymind with precision remains difficult, yet there is enough of a foundation present to pursue its critical attributes and potential applications in everyday life.
Footnotes
1. Via Cindie Leonard in An Overview of How Stress Kills and How to Develop Your Stress Skills 2008 (http://www.naturalnews.com/ accessed February 2009). This article is a good overview of the cellular reality of stress on the bodymind. The link between stress and disease is an important bodymind perspective.
2. See link to Postural Integration: Transformation of the Whole Self by Jack Painter. (http://www.posturalintegration.info/ accessed February 2009).
3. Perhaps this lack of understanding reveals my own state of knowledge more than it does the current context. However, in exploring ideas like “energetic healing” I have found the level of presumption to often be quite extraordinary, while the level of scientific knowledge used to support those presumptions to be lacking. It is obvious that the bodymind has electrical current, yet the specific nature of that current and how we can interact with it from a scientific perspective seems to be underdeveloped at this point. Until science reveals deeper insight into this dimension, I suspect that energetic + a noun will remain plagued by misrepresentation and commercial desire.
