I attended another class with Arny Mindell, founder of the Process work Institute. His work is really bending my brain. I'm so accustomed to learning everything through my intellect. Arny works with body feelings. He has us moving around the room feeling our body's response to certain questions. The body answers these questions with an emotion and movement. What fascinates me is how intelligent the answers are; every bit as intelligent as the intellect and maybe more intelligent in some cases.
I admit that I follow his instructions with a level of distrust. My mind scoffs at his instructions asking for me to draw the energy of a feeling or act it out. It sounds really silly. And I think I must look silly bending and waving my body. Fortunately everyone else is gyrating around too. (Funny what we will do if others are doing it, too, no?) But then a real insight actually comes into my mind! It's like magic.
Who knew the body was so wise?
Raphael Cushnir says that emotions have a message and that when we avoid our emotions with addictions, we don't get the message. The message then uses dreams, life events, and illness to try to get our attention. Only be allowing the feeling to live within us, and only by being compassionate with that emotion, can the message it carries live within us. I think that Arny's work is very similar. Arny says that the Universe as a consciousness sends us messages and that if we resist the message by avoiding it with addiction or putting it down as silly, the message will try to get through as illness, dreams, and unconscious behavior. Both Raphael and Arny use acceptance as a key part of their healing work. But Arny uses the wisdom inherent in the body, too. It turns out the body is smarter than I thought.
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