What it Means to Write from the Body








"I wake up to the gentle sway of my own breath. A breeze blowing with a consistent rhythm, filling my chest, my belly. There is a silence around me, aligned with the silence within me. If I have been dreaming, some faint scenes begin to intermingle with this silence, wordlessly. The night is giving way to the morning, my dreams are giving way to tangible voices on the street. I am aware of something deeper than feeling, bigger than the darkness of the room I am sitting in. "

"Let there be no continuity. I feel mad with an aged rage. A surge of bile I can't quite describe. I wish I were sitting with tea in a neighbourhood cafe, but here I am looking at myself with a bit of pity. The anger knocks wildly against the back of my chest. It feels like the outback that hasn't had rain in a while. Moisture is clearly missing. I feel like a long cry."

With these two examples, I shall spring into the topic of writing from the body. It certainly is a prelude to my upcoming workshop "Let the Body Narrate" but this subject has a life of its own - life that glowed as people during ancient times danced around the fire or life that throbs as you trek your way through a foresty patch, feeling the flowers and smelling the trees.

What has the body got to do with writing you'll ask? Don't people write in and from their heads? 

For most parts, you're right. We have to dip into our intellectual reserves to be able to comment, articulate, state and orate. Our precious cognitive function steps in whenever we need to critique, analyse, think through a subject at hand. In the process, the body is left behind. You might even argue, isn't the brain part of the body, aren't our thoughts a reflection of who we are?

Yes, oh yes.

But writing from the body takes all of this to the next step. I like to think of it as an experiential process that allows me to ground myself in the moment, as it is coming alive. It is a process where the body moves or stills to an inner non-verbal calling, based on emotion, sensation and interaction with environment. It is a slow building up of awareness that reaches the smallest nooks and crannies of my body and breath in space. I like to imagine it as a trip through the senses that can reveal and in the process, heal.

Don't get me wrong though if I say it isn't always pleasant. One metaphor I use for the body is that of a vessel containing complex emotions, sensations and experiences. When we are largely tuned into our intellect, we might forget how the breath feels like or if there is a growing ache in one leg. We might end up discounting our personal experience of the present moment or what it might be triggering in us. We can often end up rooting ourselves in an event happening outside of us and write from that place of externalised (and not necessarily) disconnected perspective.

So what does it really mean to write from the body?

Coming back to the current moment - 
In the course of my meditative movement and stillness practices, I have often been keenly aware of what the current moment is presenting to me. If it is a flurry of thoughts, then so be it. If it is a deluge of emotion, then so be it. If it is an unnerving numbness, then so be it. Based on where we are in life, "this moment" can be an opportunity for us to go deeper into our overall experience. And I believe writing from the body is a practice that can deepen this state.

Staying true to personal experience -
Our bodies hold information and wisdom that we often just read about. Moving from body to paper has personally been very healing for me. It has allowed me to honour my experiences, memories and struggles in a process that has been both bumpy and enriching. Writing from the body gives birth to a different brand of authenticity, which then can offer you a holding hand through life itself.

Tapping into something more than the "mind" - 
Let's face it. The world is organized in a way that our thinking side is constantly engaged. Whether we are at work, trying to excel in education, planning an alternative life, it all needs and demands a constant engagement with what we commonly call the "mind". Body-based writing allows us to break away from such a narrowing down of experience, for us to be able to explore more fully through the senses and then express it with our own uniqueness.

Finding ground in your own physicality - 
While allowing myself grounding time on my mat, I often get in touch with an unfortunate reality - that more often than not, I take my body for granted. Subtle and loud messages around body image, reflecting shame and insensitivity, also create shadows much larger than we can tackle and in effect, sub-consciously we distance ourselves from our own physicality. Writing from the body provides a way to hold comfort, discomfort, resistance or flow and then express from that truth, in words.

Going beyond outcome - 
From the time I left college, I have been writing professionally. The scenarios have been different with one aspect of the experience staying the same - I've had to write for an outcome. To live up to the brief, to live up to a standard, to live up to something that has often been distinctly separate from my own identity. Bodywork training and writing from that place of awareness, has opened up a different reality for me. One where I don't have to constantly stress myself over the product. One where I have been able to go beyond and this has released me.


"Let the Body Narrate" is a body-based writing workshop.
Date - March 17 2019, 10 am to 1 pm
Venue - The Here and Now, Koramangla (above SZ Real Estate), Bangalore
Max. no. of participants - 10
Fee - Rs 1000
Sign up here - https://www.facebook.com/events/566613703818296/

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Confluence of Self-Awareness and the Expressive Arts

What One Needs to Remember about Therapy

Body-based Writing : What it Does Not Need from You