A systems view of biological health

Section 4: Practical exercises

5 : Working directly with the body

Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 : also see my full Copyright statement.

Given that the body is intelligent, it makes sense to work with it cooperatively rather than attempt to force an outcome.

All of the exercises you will find here are devised to work with the body in a non-forceful, cooperative way - an approach I have found to be extremely effective and fruitful. The examples on this page are perhaps more obviously related to the body...

If something is improperly adapted, it most often is an expression of past overwhelm, and so is (whether you are aware of it or not) expressing both Plan A+ and Plan B-. Plan A+ is a relatively optimistic state full of energy. Any adaptation that does not collapse into a Plan B-- is more likely to provide a more easily accessible route back "home" - back to a healthier more adapt-able unadapted state. Transition states are also useful because they are places of organic meaning-making, optimisation and choice.

All these simple pieces can be added as knobs, bells and embellishments to the basic exercises (e.g. Arriving).

Finding the limits of engagement

This is a small, simple exercise that (on its own) only takes a few seconds, but it is nevertheless particularly important.

If there are overwhelm adaptations (and there almost always are), then there is often a limit to the amount of muscular / tendon / ligament engagement that can be held before the fuses start to blow - i.e. before the overwhelm parts start to complain that this level of engagement is too dangerous.

For this reason, at all times when applying the exercises in this book, there should be some reflection - remembering Gesture → Response, considering everything you do to be a gesture, and being interested in the response your body has to it. Fuses usually blow far earlier than you might expect. I have worked with experienced therapists, and with experienced patients (who have had a lot of treatment), and almost all of them are surprised at how quickly the fuses blow - and that there are barriers / somatic event horizons that they normally just ride right through because they are unaware of their existence.

In fact, if you start with your arm in one position and move it in a slow arc, or start with your eyes in one position and move them in a slow arc, you will likely move through at least a dozen different event horizons, blowing fuses at each one, making the material that each contains unavailable. In one sense this is very good, because it allows us to get on with normality and ignore all the stuff that is being carried round. So to discover these event horizons, it is necessary to be aware of very subtle switches in your whole sensory/mental field, and that can only be done if the movement (Gesture) is slowed down to less than a snails pace.

Similarly with simply engaging muscles, the engagement is a Gesture. Usually, engaging muscles / tendons / ligaments slowly will create a slight increase in the sense of body energy, as the mitichondria gear up to provide ATP to support the movement. At some point (which may even be within a hairs breadth of starting) that increase in energisation will reverse. So to make the most of an engagement (which signifies the power to act) it is important to find the optimum engagement - where the most energised feeling persists immediately before it begins to fade out.

Leaning into tension and stiffness

Tension and stiffness (and, in fact, any kind of resistance) are expressions of health. Resistance of any kind ia an expression of the fight-flight response, Plan A+. Deliberately relaxing or suppressing the tightness will not permanently affect any substantial Plan A+, except that it might eventually make it progress into a Plan B-. So one way to work with tighttness is to deliberately join in, adding about the weight of a small coin to the tension whilst at the same time being interested in the response (remember Gesture → Response).

The extra force has to be applied for at least 5 or 10 seconds (a couple of breaths), in a reflective manner. Then notice (in an equally reflective manner) what happens when you slowly disengage the extra tension. If the body feels that it is being listened to, then very often it will relax on its own - far more deeply than you could have forced it to do.

Engaging the feet

The anatomical structure of humans is such that our leg bones only transfer weight efficiently when the balls of the feet are engaged with the ground. When this slightly forwards stance is properly engaged, the core muscles automatically switch on (due to the internal mechanical leverage of body weight) with no need to deliberately engage them. The abdominal sac then pressurises, and so the lumbar spine is supported from the front (strengthening the spine) and the lower ribs supported from below (making breathing easier - because the pectoral muscles no longer have to be used in a military posture to keep the chest inflated). Equally, when the weight comes very slightly forwards onto the balls of the feet, the (visual, external) senses switch on, becoming more alert and (softly) aroused.

When standing (applying the startle-alert-transition safety check) the body is more ready to move, more mobile, stronger, and the senses more engaged when the balls of the feet are engaged.

This posture is described more fully on my clinical website resources page.