Reverb 10 Prompt (from Patrick Reynolds): This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?
Hmmm… Well, the thing is I already covered a lot of this ground when describing my most alive moment. And besides, body-mind integration is like, my thing. I’m like, Mr. Body-Mind Integration. I studied it in graduate school, wrote a master’s thesis and a book chapter about it, read a ton of books on the subject, attended several professional integrative trainings, created a website dedicated to better understanding it, blogged about it incessantly, and I’ve worked toward personally realizing it through a variety of practices for the past fifteen years. So yeah, I got this. Yeah. Got this bull by the horns, yo.
Alright, so the truth is my posture sucks, I spend most of the day in my head engaged in imaginary conversations, I fell down recently and separated my shoulder while running (just fell the fuck down onto the ground, like a toddler), and I write/talk about my body-centered practices more than I actually do them these days. So maybe I’m like, Mr. Wannabe Body-Mind Integration. Yo.
But I did have that “Most Alive Moment of 2010” and a few others when I experienced the integrity of my whole being to a relatively remarkable degree. Many of them were downstairs in my living room, where I might spend five, six, seven hours even, just me and my acoustic guitar (and maybe a couple of beers or glasses of wine), serenading the ceiling. However hard I’ve tried over the years to crack the code, I’ve not yet found a way to make these experiences happen. Sometimes I’ll pick up my guitar, run through a few tunes, then move on to something else, mind and body in their familiar compartments. But every now and again I find myself slipping into the zone, that elusive sweet spot where all sense of effort drops away, my mind opens, my body softens, and the constraints of clock-time give way to the freedom of pure flow. It’s a cliche, I know, but it’s like the music is coming through me, like I’m experiencing the nexus point between the transcendent and immanent aspects of my being.
When I was kid, I experienced this same sense of integration through athletics. All I wanted to do was play sports, all day, everyday. That was when I experienced the greatest sense of freedom, the absence of inner turmoil, a temporary respite from the complications of concepts and personalities. Once the whistle blew, there was no Bob. There was only playing. I just reacted, responded, lost myself in the game. My muscles just moved, my lungs breathed, and my brain made all the necessary calculations, all of their own accord, without “me” having to do anything at all.
My fascination with these types of peak experiences is what inspired me in my early twenties to pack up and move from Upstate New York to San Francisco in search of adventure and self-realization, to spend all those years studying, inquiring, discovering, and experimenting with how best to cultivate this integration, how to open myself as much as possible to the full depths of my humanity. The journey continues, of course, and the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know. But I have learned a few things, and that’s a big reason why I’m working on the Integral Health Resources website — to share those insights with whoever might be interested. I’m also doing it to clarify my thinking, engage in dialogue, and to create some kind of context and structure for my scattered ideas and interests. Some day soon, probably in 2011 (assuming my wife lands an academic position somewhere), it will be time for me to finally step into a meaningful career of my own. I’ve been talking for years about stepping out of the box and doing my own thing, all the while staying in the box with my hundred-and-one excuses and ultimately doing jack.
But that’s another story altogether. I wonder if any of the remaining 19 prompts will force me to dig into that can of worms?
Bob, I love that “sweet spot” when the thinking mind seems to just float away and let the body and soul take over. I wrote about a similar thing regarding visual art.
Your “I got this” mentality on this prompt in regards to the fact that this is what you DO (website, training, and all- which by the way, I’m very interested in), is exactly what I wrote about in my post in response to the “Make” prompt. I was all, “Oh yeah, easy, peasy”. And… nothing. I froze. I think it’s really my fear of failure or people thinking I suck that keeps me from posting images I’ve created sometimes.
But today, for example, I got this new “water brush” thingy for watercolor painting and I just played around with it for an hour. But not even in my “nice” watercolor journal; I played in my tea-stained, “dirty” journal. But gawd it felt good. Good to just play, and flow.
BOB! You totally just sparked a memory for me that happened last spring when I had that singular body/mind moment! YAY! I can now go back and revise my post!!! :)
I seriously need to talk to you more about this concept though, because I spend so much time thinking/thinking/thinking- even when I am relaxing at a spa or “in tune” with nature or involved with my kids. I even think in my sleep – how is that possible???
I can’t get my f-ing mind (not technically a swear word if I don’t spell it out) to SHUT THE HELL UP (also not a *bad* swear word). My mind races a million miles an hour 24/7, and no matter what I do to zone in, concentrate, relax (whatever) – I seem to lose focus within seconds. Thus my goals have been to study meditation and yoga, because I feel this might be the ticket to learning ways to slow the FUCK ($.25) down and let my mind, body, spirit just be one and meld together. HELP! I don’t play an instrument, but music speaks to me. I’m not a writer, but I like to write. Any suggestions????
I used to live with a guitar player who got lost in that particular ‘zone’ and love that your post took me there. As for this: ‘I wonder if any of the remaining 19 prompts will force me to dig into that can of worms?’ As horrible as the thought of digging into a can of worms is (!), I think you have already taken the first steps with your last 2 paragraphs. So bon voyage!
You’ve got this, huh?
Well can you help me get this because I can’t for the life of me make my body and mind work in sync (they do it by complete accident and then it only lasts for a minute or so before they give each other the finger and return to their opposite sides of the ring).
And I DARE you to spring that can open and have a little dig amongst the worms :D
I think it’s interesting how the “performance” of a thing is what makes you go into that flow.
@Emily: Great! I enjoyed reading your post. Sounds like your experience with art and mine with music are very similar indeed.
@Shannon: Sounds like you’re on the right track with meditation and yoga. My mind is still buzzing around most of the time, even after 15 years of practice. It’s really about changing habits of attention, which of course is not easy. One thing that has helped me is to recognize right from the get-go that “thinking is not the enemy.” Mindfulness isn’t about quieting the mind as much as it’s about being aware of what’s going on in our minds and bodies at any given moment, so that we can consciously choose to shift gears. The first step is recognizing what our habits of attention are, what feeds and sustains them. Then, we can try some experiments – like yoga, meditation, free-writing, dancing, creating – and notice how they affect our usual habits. The buzzing thoughts will quiet down (relatively, at least) on their own, as a side effect of doing the practices and experiments. At least, that’s been my experience…
@Rebecca Hurst: Thanks for the encouragement!
@Stereo: Maybe my response above to @Shannon could be of some help to you too. If you turn your super-keen writer’s eye towards your in-sync experiences, however brief and/or rare they might be, I bet they will yield some juicy secrets. Reading your great blog, I get the feeling you fall in sync quite often when you write. At least, your writing makes ME fall in sync! And about your dare: I’m always up for a dare! Your on!
@AnnMarie: Interesting indeed! Your post about acting was fascinating!