Moving/Being

To Life, Peace, Earth, and the Body

In the long run, international peace and environmental sustainability are as necessary to life as food and air.

Imagine sitting on a tree limb high in a tree, facing the tree trunk, and working hard at sawing off the limb youāre sitting on. That takes a spectacular lack of understanding of gravity and lack of awareness of what is supporting you. How would it be possible for someone functional enough to climb the tree and wield a saw to be that unaware? Itās really a kind of pathology, isnāt it? That kind of pathology is at work when people perpetrate war and environmental degradation. It takes a deep numbness and alienation not to know that damaging the web of life within which we all exist also damages oneself.

War and environmental degradation are not political problems, as much as they appear to be. They are fundamentally mental health problems, and until they are addressed as such, they will not be solved. It will take the cultivation and development of a widespread sense of inter-connection to build a peaceful, sustainable world.

However, mental health is not only mental. It is physical, too. The alienation that leads to international and environmental violence isnāt solely emotional or spiritual. And the sense of inter-connection is also more than purely emotional or spiritual. Alienation and interconnection are, to a great extent, products of how we live in our bodies.

Alienation is based on the reflex to contract and harden the body when we feel threatened. Some visualization experiments can make this clear. Imagine being yelled at by a violent stranger. Imagine having to give a talk to a hostile audience. Imagine your best friend dying of a painful disease. Imagine your tax returns being audited. Or imagine any of the many stressful situations that are part of modern life.

Most people respond to these visualizations with feelings of fear, anger, or aggression. But underneath these feelings are physiological processes. Notice what happens to your breathing, to the muscles in your back and belly, and to your overall posture. Most people experience a clear sense of contraction and stiffness in breathing, posture, and movement. (And this is just a visualization exercise. Imagine how much stronger and more lasting would be the effects of an actual war, disease, famine, or personal violence.)

A key effect of contraction is alienation. When they pay attention, most people notice that contraction leads to a body state of insensitivity to and separation from themselves and the people and world around them. This separation is the root of the insensitivity which allows us to act in a spirit of violence. The problem is that contraction leads to alienation, which leads to violence and more contraction, and so on.

How do we break the cycle? Peace and environmental sustainability must be grounded in a new way of living in the human body. The old way isnāt working. Alienation must be addressed as it exists in the body. By learning how to open the breathing, stabilize the posture, balance movement, and develop a non-contracted state of intention, people can achieve a body state of awareness, power, and love and learn how to use that to connect to the world and the people around them.

Every daily task can be a two-for-one. Whether you are raking your garden, typing at a computer, swinging a golf club, playing a violin, giving a lecture, or washing dishes, placing your body in a state of calm strength will lead to better results. And using daily tasks as opportunities to practice being in this state of mindbody integrity makes the little things of everyday life part of the path toward a peaceful, sustainable world.

The question, of course, is: How do you open the body? And to help people learn how, Iāve written a short, free, downloadable e-book. It is titled Reach Out: Body Awareness Training for Peacemaking÷Five Easy Lessons, and it is available at www.being-in-movement.com.

We are all responsible for the whole world, but the part of it that we are in most intimate contact with is our own bodies. Developing a peaceful body will ripple outward and affect the world around us. Itās a place to start the huge task of making the planet safe for life.

Paul Linden, Ph.D., is a martial artist and specialist in body and movement awareness education. He is co-director of the Columbus Center for Movement Studies (www.being-in-movement.com), at which he teaches Aikido, Being In MovementØ mindbody training, and the Feldenkrais MethodØ of somatic education. Paul is the author of Comfort at Your Computer and Winning is Healing: Body Awareness and Empowerment for Abuse Survivors. His work focuses on the application in daily activities of an integrated mindbody state of awareness, power, love, and freedom. Copyright © 2004 by Paul Linden.