The Innocence of Flesh

There is an innocence of flesh. It offers itself to us as storage container for all the as-yet unprocessed life events we’ve lived through. 

“Here,” says the shoulder, “I’ll hold that punch you would have swung to deck your dad had it been safe to do so.”

“I’ll hold that which cannot be digested” says the gut. 

“I’ll hold the terror of times past”, says the diaphragm. 

Each body, of course, has its unique storage system, logical unto itself, not necessarily identical to these examples, though many times we find these basic patterns operating. Where there has been a movement that wanted to happen but was somehow thwarted, the muscles that would have contracted to make the move are sometimes arrested in mid-move. Think of a tennis player making a great overhead serve. What happens if some force stops the move mid- way? 'Servus-interruptus' can yield a frozen shoulder over time if we don't get to complete the move that got all dressed up only to have its follow-through thwarted. The gut often holds the un-digestible bits, while diaphragms hold the arrested breath of fear, and jaws hold the bite, shred, tear response which wants to complete itself.

When confronted with the contortions a body is holding as it lies down on my healing cot, I ask silently, “What CAN have happened to this body (person) that made this pattern of contraction (storage of unprocessed material) seem like a good idea at the time?” A second question is, “How may we support this body to differentiate then from now and to discharge the hyper-adrenalized, hyper-tonic (rigid, tight) muscles?”

So much of bodywork is about developing new working orders… suggesting and helping integrate new levels of organization that may be healthier; new job descriptions for body parts. Sometimes a neck will be thoroughly convinced that its job is to hold the entire world together, when in fact, its primary job is simply to hold up the head. Confusion sets in when the old working orders come into conflict with basic physiology. It manifests as pain or discomfort or limited range of motion.

Listening to the innocence of flesh we discover the brilliance and absolute sanity of this storage system. Fascia, muscles, bones, organs, lymph vessels, the circulatory system, indeed, ALL systems of the body offer themselves up with a selflessness that is endearing. I find it touching, and celebrate the wisdom of the body at every opportunity. “Smart body,” I reassure clients. “Your body has always known how to protect you. Sometimes it got thwarted, by gravity, timing, or freeze being the best option, but it has always known how. It’s our job to listen to the ‘fisherman’s story’… about the one that got away; what the body would have done if only it had the time, space, and chance.” 

Often in a traumatic impact of any sort, things happen so quickly, there’s no time to defend ourselves. (Think fall or car crash or assault.) In other scenarios social proscriptions or contracts may have prevailed that we had to freeze and submit to violence done to us rather than fight back.(Think surgery, domestic violence or children at the effect of out-of-control adults.) We were most vulnerable when we were too little to defend ourselves.

In the case of surgery, there is an artificial and enforced freeze called anesthesia. 

Empowerment can be restored. We can change the default setting of “freeze” so that we have our full complement of survival mechanisms restored. There’s FIGHT and FLIGHT just under the surface where a FREEZE has immobilized us - even the artificial freeze of anesthesia. (Body knows no difference between a skilled surgeon with a scalpel in her hand from a back-alley attacker with a switchblade. Body wants to kick, punch, and/or run away.)  At some point freeze was the perfect survival response. Thwarting of fight/flight may instill physiologic shame (oh, my body couldn’t get me to safety; I couldn’t defend myself in that case; my body failed me.) In fact, our body did the very best it could given all the parameters.

Let us celebrate the wonder, generosity, and intelligence of innocent flesh, thanking our body for the clever job it did to get us through that (whatever our "that" was) and still be alive!

Let's celebrate aliveness as long as it's ours to celebrate!