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Just a note: gifts for being a subscriber!

There’s a link on the e-mail ver­sion of this post. You can use it to down­load my most pop­u­lar book, This End­less Moment.

Rea­sons for Hope is a great col­lec­tion of “hope­ful sto­ries,” col­lected by my buddy Boo­gie Jack Gaskill. I con­tributed one of the sto­ries. Right click on the link and save the pdf file.

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What might it mean to “come out to the edges, and play?”

I just watched a TED lec­ture on per­cep­tion. If you go and look and lis­ten, (DO IT!!!) you’ll hear a lot of Zen, and have a few inter­est­ing expe­ri­ences with how we see the world.

In the pre­sen­ta­tion, Beau Lotto men­tions one of those hard to process ideas: we have no con­tact at all with the out­side world. All we have is sen­sory data about the out­side world, which is not the same thing.

For exam­ple, step on a car­pet, then step on a wood floor, then step on grass. In each case, what do you feel?

Wait for it…

Your foot! What the heck did you think you were feeling?

You are expe­ri­enc­ing (your brain is instan­ta­neously inter­pret­ing) the stim­u­la­tion of the nerves on the sole of your foot. Your brain, based upon past expe­ri­ence, makes a guess about what’s being felt (remem­ber, your brain is not directly expe­ri­enc­ing the floor—it’s expe­ri­enc­ing chang­ing elec­tri­cal cur­rents) based on it’s his­tory with floors.

This is not just seman­tics! ALL of our expe­ri­ences are inter­preted (one-step-removed.)

If you watched the TED video, you’ll have seen sev­eral illus­tra­tions of this, using what could be called opti­cal illu­sions. In actu­al­ity, Lotto explains how your mind is tricked into mak­ing assump­tions that have noth­ing to do with the things being perceived.

Another way to put this is, con­text deter­mines per­cep­tion.

If you tried the “mango exper­i­ment” last week, you might have dis­cov­ered new infor­ma­tion regard­ing your expe­ri­ences with man­goes. What really hap­pened was that your data bank now has more data in it.

For most peo­ple, life is expe­ri­enced mostly through nar­ra­tive, which is why (2 arti­cles ago,) we men­tioned that nar­ra­tive is the default mind and liv­ing state. Direct expe­ri­ence, on the other hand, is some­thing we must actu­ally work on achieving.

And, of course, given the bit about never really expe­ri­enc­ing any­thing directly, it’s a bit of a mystery.

Nonethe­less, let’s just have at it.

Most peo­ple are strangely dis­con­nected from their bod­ily expe­ri­ence. Sort of like this photo, taken decades ago, fea­tur­ing of a model I knew, wrapped in cel­lo­phane. It demon­strates the one step removed thing.

You can pic­ture the cel­lo­phane as nar­ra­tive, if that helps.

The rea­son I like the top photo of the restau­rant sign is that it describes liv­ing in our bod­ies. In a sense, we’re “always open,” in that data is always com­ing in.

Exam­ple: If you’ve ever spent time in a sen­sory depri­va­tion tank, you’ll know that you still expe­ri­ence stuff—the feel of the water, the sen­sa­tion of no sound, no light. (Yes, absence of sen­sa­tion is a sensation…)

It requires effort to “close down.”

In truth, the sen­sory data is still stream­ing in—what hap­pens is you force your atten­tion away from the input by going off into your head. You do this through narrative.

Now, remem­ber, this is not a con­dem­na­tion of nar­ra­tive. We’re look­ing at this in depth to sug­gest that direct expe­ri­ence is equally valid. Since all of us default to nar­ra­tive, it takes force of will to let the nar­ra­tive go back­ground, and to have a full body expe­ri­ence, sans story.

Full Body Experiencing

Let’s extend last week’s taste exper­i­ments with stuff you can do to begin to really feel your body. These exer­cises require “friends” to help you.

Sen­sate Massage

A sen­sate mas­sage uses objects and sub­stances. For exam­ple, tac­tile: silk, feath­ers, loofa, leather, chop­sticks, yarn balls, etc.

The idea is for the recip­i­ent to wear a blind­fold, and the giver to mas­sage the recipient’s body with tac­tile sub­stances. In this way, you get to “feel” the sen­sa­tions of hard, soft, smooth, coarse, etc. The mas­sage should be “whole body.” Notice how the items feel, and how the feel­ing shifts, depend­ing on which part of the body is being massaged.

Now, think tem­per­a­ture. When I do this exer­cise with clients, I often use warmed coconut oil, along with hot and cold stones. Again, using your body, feel the temperature.

Massage

Per­haps one of the best ways to get into your body is to use mas­sage. While “going for a mas­sage” will work, I’m think­ing about exchang­ing touch with friends.

The recip­i­ent should be blind­folded, as is usual with these exer­cises. As I just men­tioned, in body­work, I’ve some­times use coconut oil on resis­tant places, as this means I can press harder and go deeper.

As you receive a mas­sage, sim­ply notice when you are expe­ri­enc­ing the sen­sa­tion, and when you are leav­ing your body and going into story telling.

See how often you can breathe, let the story go, and come back to your experience.

(Hint: if there are parts of your body you are reluc­tant to have mas­saged, have your part­ner focus on those areas.)

Another idea is what is called ‘four-handed mas­sage.’ You need 2 friends for this one — the recip­i­ent is mas­saged by 2 peo­ple, thus 4-hands. Again, this is dif­fer­ent from what one nor­mally expe­ri­ences. (I once received a mas­sage from 6 peo­ple at once — that’s another story.)

Now, think about other ways you could expe­ri­ence things with your body. Roll around on sand, in mud, on grass, in snow. Expe­ri­ence the textures.

Hug peo­ple and relax while you do. Find sev­eral peo­ple and make a hug pact with them. In other words, make the hugs ‘full bod­ied’ (as opposed to A frame hugs, which are an abom­i­na­tion…) and held for a while.

Treat your body to baths, hot tubs, saunas, and stay focussed on your body (as opposed to being in your head, think­ing of all the other things you could be doing.)

We’ll talk about more sen­sate focus ideas next week…

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Make Con­tact!

So, how does this week’s arti­cle sit with you? What ques­tions do you have? Go to the top of this arti­cle, click on the title, and leave a com­ment or question!

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Work­shops, Retreats!

Dar­bella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and week­end events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Inten­sives
Week­end Residentials

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Incom­ing search terms:

• were always open closed
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Related posts:

1. Exper­i­ments in Experience
2. Brain States

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Tagged with: attention • Bodywork

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