Integrating Mind and Body
Archeology has shown that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were actually healthier and stronger than us. One reason is that they had access to better nutrition. Another reason is that they were perfectly rooted in their bodies. They could perceive in their bodies the presence of the spirit-force that pervades the entire universe and everything in it. They had intricately developed sense awareness.
"Foragers mastered not only the surrounding world of animals, plants and objects, but also the internal world of their own bodies and senses." Yuval Harari
Then 4000 BC, following the trauma of the Great Drying, more and more identified with our mind, we started having contempt toward bodily processes. The biological, the instinctual was now viewed as inferior, lowly, animalistic. The body had to be tamed, controlled by the superior mind. It is this split between body and mind which is at the origin of disease.
Peter Levine, trauma specialist, argues beautifully that by bringing together animal instinct and reason, we can become more whole human beings. “In learning to identify and contact bodily sensations we begin to fathom our instinctual reptilian roots. Without a clear connection to our instincts and feelings, we cannot feel our connection and sense of belonging to this earth, to a family, or anything else.”
In this 3 hour talk, we will attempt to understand:
- How our disconnection from the body has taken epidemic proportions in our modern world;
- How trauma is at the origin of our disconnection from the body and how healing from trauma (all forms of trauma, physical as well as emotional) can only happen through body reconnection;
- How our restoration to health comes from the capacity to listen to the unspoken voice of our own bodies. Salvation is to be found in the body.