The body as an entry point

My body did not participate at all at the beginning of my systemic journey. A few people always look up at the same time when I tell them this at the start of a new training group. My head found the work fascinating and I also understood that in the systemic layer dynamics were at work that were causing problems in the upper layer of organizations. At that layer I have to be, I knew deep down! And at the same time, I always got a bit fussy and uncomfortable when my body was constantly invited to join in for that. I understood, didn’t I? So why keep going back to the body? My body seemed like something inaccessible to me. I couldn’t get any information from it at all and was frankly (I would only admit later) a bit afraid of it if it did.

I went through quite a few impactful experiences at a young age. And in my personal journey that followed in my adult life, I mainly exploited cognitive approaches to make sense of what I had experienced, or a good dose of therapy and coaching. The world became less exciting by starting to understand it retrospectively. It also allowed me to make exciting things that came my way more predictable. As a result, I dared to take many steps, even in less easy situations. I grew enormously in my work and moved from one position to another.

Until I came across systemic work and this development demanded something different from me. Rationally, of course, I understood what I was told about the body. Naturally, it was very interesting to write in a notebook… I had more trouble with the experiential exercises. I found them a bit redundant and especially very, very slow… But as I do, I keep investigating if any form of resistance can be detected in me. So I stepped on.

But despite everything I learned and experienced about the body as an entry point to the systemic layer, the tension and turmoil in my body remained. Let alone that I could extract information about organizational dynamics from it! Impatient and frustrated I became because of it. It became a battle with my own body. And deep down, I was ashamed that this continued while my work requires me to really connect. This went on until I found the willingness to start listening to what my body had to say first. You can’t use an instrument until you have got to know it. That’s how it works with your own body too.

Walking that path was totally different from the previous ‘work’ I had done in my personal development. When I started it, I looked forward to the moments of insight and relief as I knew it from personal development, but the journey I was now undertaking, including with a very fine haptotherapist, was exciting, erratic and with an uncomfortable and vast ‘oasis’ of not knowing. Several appointments followed, which as a result did not hold a solution. What they did do was make it painfully clear to me each time how closed off I actually was. How I mainly made contact outside, was soon with the other person with my energy and left myself alone and disconnected. I became aware of how exciting I found real contact, contact that managed to breach my fortress… Until I understood that this was really about the most intimate contact you can make on this earth, the contact with yourself.

I started listening and learning to understand the language of my body millimetre by millimetre. Where did I cross a boundary of my own? Which no’s have I overshadowed with my ratio and turned into yes’s? What old damages and fears are still asking to be felt? I began to see that ‘understanding’ had been an important step and that this had led to the next step: retroactively starting to ‘feel’.

For the rational among us, a nice little fact: healing takes place when processing has taken place with both your left hemisphere (ratio, linguistic) and your right hemisphere (emotion, visual). You need both. And as it goes for me when healing has found its way, it takes shape in a poem:

What the body does

When life seemed too much for a while

I lost contact with my body

Only to see years later

How it carried me during that time

My head

blocked what flooded me, through my senses

My neck and shoulders

carried the burden that was too heavy in my path

My pelvis

lovingly tilted me out of the flow that felt too painful

My belly

became the repository of the pain that no longer had a way out

I see now what the body does

My God, how grateful I am to you

With new awe I listen to what you say

And know now: you are not me but I serve you

De weg van mijn hoofd naar mijn lichaam bleek achteraf een stemmingsproces te zijn. Zoals je een The path from my head to my body turned out afterwards to be a tuning process. Like you have a musical instrument to tune after it has played other pieces of music. And I turned out to have some overdue tuning work. With each blockage that softened and dissolved, there were new paths to walk. Suddenly, I noticed how the strings of my instrument freed up to accommodate the melody of the organization I was working with. I learned to distinguish between my own rhythm and sound and that of another. The range of my awareness widened.

Thus a willingness arose in me to be a sounding board, willing to let myself be touched, to allow the unheard story to speak. The beauty of this metaphor is that it gives space and boundaries. Space to be able to fully pick up the melody of the other. Limitation because the vibration of the melody also leaves your body again, just like the sound that dies out when a musical instrument is no longer being played. Is the organization’s melody about constriction and subcutaneous tension? Just assume that your sound box is picking this up, whether you are conscious of it or not. When you realize that this is information about their story, their melody, you can harness this information as well as free your own body of it when you leave the premises again. In all honesty, this alertness still demands my attention daily. And every now and then, my body makes me look in that merciless mirror when I want to do too much in too short a time and I let my body wait….

And then what do you do when you are home and some strings are still producing sound? Then, as a bonus, they tell you that you have wisdom ready on that, born out of your life experience and ready to unpack. They announce, as it were, a next step for your own development. Something for which the time has come exactly then and not before. Nice bonus, right, while you’re at it?

A practical stepping stone

Want a practical stepping stone to releasing your body as an entry point? Then lie down on the floor with a pillow under your head for at least 10 minutes in the morning and preferably also in the afternoon after work. Really, it’s that simple…

You lie with your back on the ground and your legs raised so that the soles of your feet touch the ground. You may then feel that your back is hollow to a greater or lesser extent. But it may also feel uncomfortable or even painful. Keep breathing calmly and feel how your pelvis and lower back gradually sink into the ground. Possibly in case of too much discomfort, place a towel just above your tailbone.

Now what happens when you lie there on the ground like that? The psoas muscle slowly comes into relaxation. This muscle is located deep inside your body and runs from the bottom of your spine to your pelvis and the top of your thigh. This muscle (group) is directly connected to the oldest part of your brain, where your survival reactions come from. Your upper body is connected to your lower body by this muscle, enabling you to brace yourself, go on the attack or make a run for it. The moment you are unable to release the tension after a survival reaction, this muscle stores the tension until a moment comes when it can be released. Because of this, the muscle is also called the muscle of the soul.

When the psoas does not get enough opportunity to relax, you will be less able to use your body as an input in the systemic work. This is because it is then hard at work holding your own (or someone else’s…) emotions. Do this exercise regularly and you will find that more and more awareness becomes available to you.