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The Language of the Body

February 17, 2023

Selfunwinding involves the natural process of allowing our sensations, emotions, and impulses to inform movement.

Once we enter this language of body movement, we think first—and perhaps exclusively—in terms of the activity of our limbs and torso.

But this excludes the language of thoughts, stories, dreams, nightmares, colors, temperatures, textures, feelings, vibrations, tears, or sounds. These are also powerful gates into what we call this body.

Throughout our life we were taught to close these gates. And we learned how to do this as a way to survive and to get along.

I remember sitting in a classroom, desperately wanting to fidget and run, as a nun poked me in the armpit with the map pointer stick. Just a young boy trying to be a man in front of the girls all taller than him, learning how to sit still and never, ever cry.

This, and a million everyday stories like it, separated me from the natural capacity to follow the movement of embodied thought, emotion, and impulse.

A myofascial therapist I work with once said in a session, “Do you know you are leaving your body?”

Writing these words still brings to the surface strong emotions for me—grief, anger, pain, desperation…

But increasingly a mixture of awe and excitement.

That moment changed my relationship to my pain. I was forever looking for relief through separating myself in a way that allowed me to push this body around.

This strategy and mindset is familiar to us. No pain no gain. Tough it out. Or on the social level the pursuit of money, power, and respect at any cost.  

Learning how to unwind and return to our bodies can be a jump into a consciousness that is unfamiliar and profoundly uncomfortable.

But through friendship and encouraging each other, we can enter the hidden fears and stuck places in our bodies and consciousness.

We can find freedom, excitement—and ultimately healing—in the playground movement that releases this flow.

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