Psychology Today: What Your Body Knows That You Don’t

Life is constantly teaching you to be smarter and wiser. With every consequence you face, you learn more about which actions likely lead to pleasure, and which actions likely result in pain.

As you grow up, you face more diverse situations, and with more diverse consequences, you learn more about yourself and the world. When it comes to dealing with painful thoughts and difficult feelings, we often resort to unhelpful strategies—even though we know better. Rather than doing what has shown to help us before, we give in to ways of being and doing that pull us even deeper into our struggle.

A posture of openness

Here is a central truth we already know: The way towards a life worth living is by being more open, aware, and actively engaged in life. And we know this because our experience has shown us—again and again—that we can deal with our struggles more effectively whenever we adopt this posture. Rather than treating our life like it is a mental problem, we need to return to our own bodies and get in touch with the intuitive, embodied wisdom within.

In a recent study, we asked people to show—with their bodies—how they look when dealing with a psychologically challenging issue at their worst, and how they look when dealing with that same issue at their best. Over 90% of the people show postures that are more open, aware, and actively engaged at their best, and the opposite at their worst. Even untrained observers could look at photographs of these people in their respective positions and recognize those same qualities.

The knowledge of how to deal with psychologically challenging issues is within us. It is within you. You can notice it in your own body, and even see it in other people’s bodies. It’s a posture of awareness of your own thoughts and feelings and other sensations. It’s a posture of openness—opening up to whatever shows up in the moment, both pleasant and unpleasant (counterintuitive, but true). And it’s a posture of being actively engaged, with a focus on what matters, and small, but steady steps in this direction.

Only when we rationalize, “problem-solve,” or judge our challenging issues, do we move away from healing and prospering. If we already have this knowledge, we need to slow down, and actively feel.

If we want to heal collectively, and make advances in our culture in the area of mental health, we need to turn towards the wisdom that is already within our bodies, and feel.

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#Wisdom #Openness #Awareness