In an Unspoken Voice

by Peter A Levine

  The most intimate sense we have of ourselves is through proprioception, kinesthesia and visceral sensation. Proprioception is afforded through special sensory receptors in the joints that signal the position of all the parts of the body with respect to gravity. Kinesthesia is the sense of the degree of tension in your muscles. And the visceral sense arises through receptors in the gut that are integrated by the enteric nervous system (a neuronal system in our gut with more nerve cells and complexity than the entire brain of a cat has, as you’ll recall from Chapter 6). Without these internal senses and without an expanded, “non-trance” perception of the external world, we simply are unable to know ourselves and realize that it is you who is focusing on these events whether they are interesting, pleasant, beautiful, ugly, dangerous, dull and so on. Without the unimpeded perceiving of these sensations, it simply is not possible to know who you are and what you want and need in life. This is a strong statement, admittedly, but hopefully you will become convinced about its veracity through experiencing the following exercises yourselves.

  Internal bodily sensations are what allows you, eyes closed, to wave your arms and then touch your index finger to the tip of your nose with remarkable accuracy (at least if you are not inebriated; if suspect, a policeman may ask you to accomplish that task to establish your level of sobriety). The visceral sense is our capacity to directly perceive our gut sensations and those of other organs, including our heart and blood vessels. Most medical texts state that a refined visceral sense is not possible, that “gut feelings” are just a metaphor and that we are only able to feel pain “referred” from the viscera to more superficial body regions. This is dead wrong; in fact, without the visceral sense we literally are without the vital feelings that let us know we are alive; it’s our guts that allow us to perceive our deepest needs and longings.

  Sensation Patterns

  The next task is to begin to recognize and work with patterned responses of sensation. In particular, you will begin to notice what various sensations (i.e., tensions, contractions, aches, pains, etc.) tend to emerge in sequences or in groups. For example, you may notice that a “knot” in the belly or tightening of the anus is associated with a suppression or holding of breath. At first this additional task may increase frustration and even stir up fear. It may seem excessively difficult to follow so many sensations (a task initially difficult for single focus), and as they connect with each other, there will be the possibility of becoming overwhelmed or “stuck with them forever.”

  These concerns are legitimate. However, as you begin to gain mastery through practice, rather extraordinary things may begin to happen. You will be moving toward some of the root causes of these tension patterns. These stale constellations of habitual discomfort form the underlying maladaptive organization of all conflicts and unresolved traumatic residue. Through the following experiential exercises you have the opportunity to “see” for yourself, rather than believe on my word alone, the hypothesis that is spelled out in this text. Although it may take persistence and dealing with an intensification of the resistance associated with these complexes, the potential benefits range from greater relaxation and alertness and deeper sleep to more vitality and aliveness. It is also possible to eliminate, sometimes instantaneously, psychosomatic, emotional and psychological symptoms that may have plagued you for decades.

  One of the keys in this process is to eliminate the idea that any of these sensations are insignificant. While they may appear that way to you, labeling them as such interferes with their advancing in a manner that reveals their significance. Secondly, as you begin to notice the increasing amount and intensity of aches, pains and other disturbing sensations, you might be worried that they will interfere with your daily functioning and that you will become more symptomatic. Though this might be a fear of yours, it is highly unlikely. If you do feel overwhelmed or “stuck,” please enlist the help of a competent therapist trained in body-oriented therapy.b

  It is hardly my intention to just open you up to the malfunctioning of your organism and leave you stuck there without an effective course of action or without a way even to retreat. Specifically, it is the purpose of this phase of the experiment to have you explore the chronic patterns of seemingly meaningless tensions and sensations that have become all-too-familiar features. Realize that these sensations were there long before you became deliberately aware of them. Furthermore, you will find that continuing application of directed awareness is exactly what will allow for “corrective procedures”—not so much by doing anything but by standing out of the way of your own organism’s innate capacity for self-regulation.

  The Continuity of Experience

  The previous explorations involved proprioception and kinesthesia as the basis for awareness of the body’s tendency toward action. In this exercise we now begin to explore the fusion of internal with external experience. This processing of the organism/environmental field is what steers our forward course.

  Feeling is a continuous process involving varying degrees of pleasantness and unpleasantness. Feeling tones (based on physical sensations) are unique registrars of experience. They are the way that we become aware of our concerns and how we can go about satisfying them. These contours of feeling, however, are often unnoticed. This is in large part because of our lack of sensitivity to inner experiencing or because sensations are often hidden in the shadow of the more intense emotions. Most people are unaware of these nuances that are overshadowed by the periodic upheaval of discontinuous intense emotions that appear to come from nowhere. They may seem wholly irrational and even “dangerous,” leading to suppression. This only further deadens the subtlety of the continuous feeling tones … which in turn leads to the eruption of more overbearing emotional states punctuating those by increasing the flattening and deadness … and so on. This is how various feeling tones become stifled before they are born into awareness. They are aborted during gestation, never completing what they were designed for: namely, directing action. The consequence of this lack is the evoking of “secondary emotions.” These spurious emotions override (and are, unfortunately, often confused with) the spontaneously arising ones.

  Exercise 4: Mindful Chewing

  The jaw is one of the places that most people carry considerable tension. There are reasons for this. The following exercise may serve to illuminate both reasons for this typical “holding pattern” and what may lie on the other side of it, as it dissolves:

  At your next meal, or with a crisp apple in hand, take a good “aggressive” bite into a food that you desire. Really, take a good bite out of it and then begin chewing deliberately. Continue chewing, slowly, mindfully, until the food turns to liquid. As you do this, become aware of other sensations and reactions in your body. If you feel the urge to swallow, try to restrain it—to “play the edge” of feeling the urge to swallow, when it arises, and continue to focus on gently chewing. This may be difficult and uncomfortable, so be patient. Note any impulses you might have such as the urge to swallow, tear, vomit, or associations to things going on in your life—present or past. If reactions such as nausea or anxiety become too strong, please don’t push yourself. Make written notes of your reactions.

  Exercise 5: Goldfish Jaw

  Attend to the tension in your jaw and mouth. Notice whether your lips and teeth are touching. Slowly begin to part your lips and slightly drop your chin and lower jaw. Notice any impulses or urges. Next, infinitesimally slowly, begin opening and closing your mouth as though you were a goldfish. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, increase the range of your opening and closing. When you come to a point of resistance, gently back off and then slowly move back into the resistance. Do this several times, finding a rhythm. Likely, you will have a strong urge to yawn. Gently try to resist this and move into the feeling of yawing without actually giving into a full yawn. This process will almost surely be maddening, but try to stay with it as best as you can. Note times when you have an urge to shake or tremble or if it brings up emotional feeli
ngs or images. Note also if you seem to be fighting or bracing against it or to surrender into it. Again record your experience and compare it as you repeat this exercise over time.

  Exercise 6: Shoulders

  Most people also carry considerable tension in their shoulders. Here is a simple exercise to explore the nature of these tensions:

  Take some time to explore the sense of tension in your shoulders. Note which shoulder is more tense. Now, keep your awareness on that tension. Then imagine that this tension is increasing. As it increases, note how that tension would “want to move” the shoulder. Allow the shoulder to move … very slowly so that it feels like it is moving on its own. It may take ten minutes to do this. Does it seem like it’s moving upward toward your ear? Do the ear and shoulder want to move toward each other? Do you have the sense that your shoulder is somehow protecting you? If so, what might it be protecting you from? Do you notice your head, neck and eyes wanting to turn (and orient) in a particular direction? How does this feel? When you open your eyes, let them look outside the window at a tree or around the room and focus on different objects.

  Enjoy!

  * Rare neurological conditions have been documented where the patient’s entire internal sensory nerves are not functioning. These unfortunate individuals can barely navigate and would fall over the moment they close their eyes.

  † I do have my own personal impression (based on an admittedly meager knowledge of art history) that the age of embodiment in the West peaked around the late Egyptian and early Cycladic period of Greece, some five thousand years ago.

  ‡ The parietal lobes are divided into two functional regions. One involves sensation and perception, and the other is concerned with integrating sensory input, primarily with the visual system. The first function integrates sensory information, coming from inside and outside of the body, to form a single percept. The second function constructs a spatial coordinate system to represent the world around us. Individuals with damage to the parietal lobes often show striking deficits, such as abnormalities in body image and spatial relations (Kandel, J., Schwartz, J., & Jessell, T.; Principles of Neural Science, 3rd ed.; New York: Elsevier, 1991).

  § Paradoxically, as some “cutters” know, inflicting self-harm also releases endorphins, which deaden pain.

  ‖ This area has been extensively studied by people like Wilhelm Reich, Else Gindler, Else Mittendorf, Charlotte Selvers, Lilimor Johnson, Frits Perls, Magda Proskauer and a handful of others. See: Heller, M. (2007). The Golden Age of Body Psychotherapy in Oslo I: From Gymnastics to Psychoanalysis. Journal of Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 2 (1), 5–16. Heller, M. (2007). The Golden Age of Body Psychotherapy in Oslo II: From Vegetotherapy to Nonverbal Communication. Journal of Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 2 (2), 81–94. Also see Perls, F. S., Hefferline, R. F., & Goodman, P. (1994). Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. London: Souvenir Press.

  a The bases of conflict are oppositional or incomplete motor patterns. The significance of this for the practice of therapy (and life) is monumental.

  b A list of practitioners trained in Somatic Experiencing®, my approach, can be found on the website www.traumahealing.com.

  CHAPTER 13

  Emotion, the Body and Change

  If your everyday practice is to open to your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that—then that will take you as far as you can go. And then you’ll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.

  —Pema Chödrön (Buddhist teacher)

  How Do People Change?

  Neuroscientists can tell us where in the brain various emotions reside. However, they tell us precious little about how we can change “undesirable” emotions such as sadness, anger and fear. Nor do they shed much light on how people change in general.

  Whether we admit it or not, we all want to change something fundamental about ourselves. Most likely though, being human, our first effort may be targeted at changing whoever is in our line of sight. We look for ways to get others to change—be they our spouses, employers, children or parents—and search out ways to cajole or coerce them to get with the program. With a modicum of insight, however, we will probably recognize that deep change must occur first within ourselves. Yet, just how this long-term change process occurs remains elusive.

  In the attempt to improve our lives, we may urge ourselves with the familiar refrains: “Just apply yourself … Start exercising tomorrow … Cut down on the sweets, booze, shopping … Pull yourself together … Come on, shape up, work out … You can do it if you really want.” And so it goes over and again. These exhortations and good intentions are all admirable efforts at what we call self-control. While this ability is an important life skill, it is often modest in what it can accomplish and is fraught with obvious shortcomings. Frequently, this strategy only works in the short run, leading us blindly into the quicksand of guilt and self-recrimination. Ironically, there are some days when it is no simple matter just to schedule a dental appointment or arrange for an annual medical exam.

  Consider the following snapshot of goal setting: On Monday, John and his wife conclude that they could use some extra income for their daughter’s dental braces. John, seeking a raise, summons his capacity for self-control. While keeping in mind his value to the firm, he awaits a strategically opportune moment. When he receives a generous compliment from his boss during their routine Friday meeting, he is cued to delicately broach the topic of the raise. In order to hold all of this information in check, until the ripe moment, his brain must employ volitional memory. John’s voluntary memory has to keep his clandestine intentions intact for four days. That’s not too hard, but not simple either. Anyone who has ever said to herself, midweek, “This weekend I will go the gym and work out,” knows how elusive it can be to keep that intention fresh. To get up on Saturday, pull the jogging shoes out of the closet and go to the gym before family responsibilities crowd out precious personal time is no small achievement.

  Accomplishing the larger, longer-range goals, such as losing weight, “making ourselves” more attractive or creating more freedom in our lives, can be so intimidating that we may give up early or never approach them at all—even at serious costs to our health and well-being. This is where self-control falls short. Resolutions falter as soon as we are under stress or get distracted by the myriad of day-to-day tasks. For more sustained and meaningful goals, volitional memory is inadequate. Self-control is not able to support enough sustained (retained, i.e., remembered) motivation to achieve our big plans over the long haul. For those grand projects and aspirations we need to access a deeper, more intrinsic, memory system, one that engages our emotional compass and guides our responses without overt conscious directives.

  For long-term goals (e.g., losing weight, changing careers, getting in shape or forming intimate enduring relationships), emotional-experiential memory must be evoked. This type of involuntary memory grabs our attention and continuously motivates us through emotional signals well after declarative (laundry list) memory is completely forgotten. Long after the health goals we set for ourselves some months ago have evaporated, emotional memory comes to our aid when we least expect it. It may visit us in the form of an especially vivid dream or an unexpected attraction. For example, casually walking through a farmers market, a display of brightly colored fruits and vegetables may catch our eye. As our senses absorb this yummy array of healthy foods, we begin selecting some of the produce. This beckoning is not due to our conscious determination to lose weight, but rather because the signals from the primitive instinctual regions in our brains (programmed for nutrient-seeking behaviors) are no longer overridden. These brain mechanisms signal positive nutritive choices by evoking certain subjective feeling states that guide what we pick—those of attraction and avoidance. Similarly, our sexual partner selections, which may have been previously driven by compulsions and risky flirtati
ons, will be guided by affinities for soft nurturing feelings, erotic tenderness, goodness and safety.

  In contrast to volitional memory, feeling-based memory function stores all experiences implicitly (like learning how to ride a bike) and evaluates them from the emotional tone they evoke. It is this attention-grabbing reaction that prompts us to retain or reactivate our motivation and sustain determination to go the distance required for substantive change. One example is the woman who wants to lose weight for health reasons (a mental idea—unable to sustain the goal) and adapts the (emotional) strategy of imaging herself, in a sexy dress, walking into a party and turning heads. Leaving aside the possibility that one of the reasons for the woman’s excessive weight might have been a desire to not have just such attention called to her body, the imaging strategy is a reasonable one. The point here is that conscious deliberation is easily forgotten and buried among the flotsam and jetsam of our daily lives. However, this frailty is sidestepped when sensations and feelings are evoked. Perhaps the reason that “the elephant never forgets” is because her memories are emotional ones.

  In contrast to volitional memory, emotional memory often operates outside the range of conscious awareness. Rather than holding a verbal idea in our conscious minds (“I have to wait until the meeting on Friday” or “Remember to eat salads for lunch to lose weight”), experiential memory makes use of what have been called somatic markers.138 These are emotions or physical sensations that inform us about a situation based on past experiences or feelings. Somatic markers might be the fluttering butterflies in our stomachs when we are anxious, the flushing of our cheeks when we are embarrassed, wide-open eyes when we hear an idea that excites us, the relaxation of our body muscles signaling the relief we feel when we complete a crucial task or the lightness and easy breathing we notice when we get something important off our chest.