Why your therapist keeps asking you to 'feel your body'

The field of Psychotherapy has learned in recent decades that who and what we are involves much more than our brains.

Systems therapists in the 1950’s discovered that since families of schizophrenics had so many similarities, involving the patient's family in “mental health” treatment made more of an impact. The schizophenic’s brain wasn’t the isolated problem that brought him or her to seek treatment.

More recently, Bessel Van der Kolk and Peter Levine brought the importance of our physical selves to mainstream psychology. If you haven’t read one of their books, you’ve likely heard of it. That’s because it is hard to deny that our bodies experience things once thought to be only mental: sadness, anger, joy… Maybe most relevant: our bodies retain the experience of trauma, if it hasn’t been processed or dispelled.

The less the body is experienced, the more it becomes an appearance; the less reality it has, the more it must be undressed or dressed up; the less it is one’s own known body, the further away it moves from anything to do with one’s self.

-Mary Starks Whitehouse

By experiencing what is happening in your body, you allow awareness of your own innate wisdom. Our bodies carry so much useful information that, when we stay in our heads, we miss. So often in the groups that I facilitate, and in the groups where I am a member, after a person checks in with what their body is doing there is a new awareness of what they want or need. When we check in with our bodies, we often have a fuller understanding of our emotions. We have more to go off of to figure out where we stand or how we will respond.

Feeling your body is a way not to lose yourself. It is a way to ground in to the here and now, especially when we become swept away with thoughts or emotions. “Feel your body” is an invitation to come back. To be present.

What are two instances in your coming week when you can be intentional about experiencing your physical self?

1) Moments when it might be most helpful could be

-right before an important meeting or presentation or

-while you are having a difficult conversation.

2) Remembering to feel your body might be more accessible, helping you begin to build a new habit, if you pair it with habits you already have

-when you finish brushing your teeth, or

-before you get out of the car.

When can you practice being more fully embodied, even if your therapist isn’t there to ask you?