The Mindful Body: Build Emotional Strength and Manage Stress with Body Mindfulness - Softcover

Belling, Noa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1925682188 ISBN 13: 9781925682182

Publisher: Rockpool Publishing, 2018

Synopsis

How does your mind live in your body? How can body awareness change your life experience?
Successful author and practising psychotherapist Noa Belling offers a practical, personal way to use your body as a direct path to mindfulness and mindful living. By waking up to how we hold life experiences in our bodies, we have the power and choice to improve physical, mental and emotional health, promote vitality, build emotional resilience and generally improve quality of life.
 
 
The practises of this book go beyond traditional mindfulness to target specific challenges such as stress, anxiety, depression, confidence, zest for life, decision-making and more. Supported with psychological and neuroscientific studies, this book provides you with many opportunities to practice body mindfulness to experience your physical being as an empowering and intelligent resource.

About this title

About the Author

Noa Belling holds a Master’s degree in Somatic (or body-mind) psychology through Naropa University, which is the birthplace of the modern mindfulness movement. Her background includes over a decade of teaching applied somatic psychology skills as well as running a private psychotherapy practice. She is the best-selling author of The Yoga Handbook, Yoga: A union of mind and body (Struik); Yoga for Ideal Weight and Shape (New Holland Publishing and Juta Publishers) and The Mindful Body (Rockpool Publishing, Australia, 2018). Her books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide and are translated into many languages. Noa lives in South Africa.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Mindful Body

Build Emotional Strength and Manage Stress With Body Mindfulness

By Noa Belling

Rockpool Publishing Pty Ltd

Copyright © 2018 Noa Belling
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-925682-18-2

Contents

Foreword, 
Introduction, 
Chapter 1 Greeting Your Body, 
Chapter 2 Brainwaves and the Place for Body Awareness, 
Chapter 3 Change Your Posture, Change Your Mind, 
Chapter 4 Stress and Body First-Aid, 
Chapter 5 Emotions and Turning to the Body, 
Chapter 6 Mindful Body Dreaming, 
Chapter 7 Our Bodies Remember, 
Chapter 8 Healing Old Patterns, Enhancing Vitality, 
Chapter 9 Ailments and injuries as metaphors for life, 
Chapter 10 Mindful Body Moving: The life skill of natural movement, 
Chapter 11 Natural Vital Conclusions, 
Appendix, 
Acknowledgments, 
Sources and notes, 

CHAPTER 1

Greeting Your Body

No other form of communication is more universally understood as touch. The compassionate touch of a hand or a reassuring hug can take away our fears, soothe our anxieties, and fill the emptiness of being lonely.

Randi Fine

When you first meet someone you might shake hands in greeting. To enter this book's journey of perhaps getting to know your body anew, you are invited to start by also extending a tactile kind of greeting to your body. This is as if to say, 'Hello, here you are and here I am with you'. From there the relationship can begin to develop.

As an initial greeting, you are invited to place your hands on your head. Find the place for each hand that feels best, such as front and back, or top and bottom, where the back of your neck meets your head. Or you can hold both sides of your head. Go with what feels right.

What happens to your thoughts as you hold your head? It may look like the gesture of 'oh my goodness, everything feels so overwhelming', but the sensation may feel more like quick and easy relief from mental busy-ness and a welcome return into your warm body senses, allowing you to breathe again.

In our busy lives full of to-do lists, worries, decisions, criticisms and challenges, our attention can get stuck in our heads day in and day out as we try to hold everything together. Stay holding your head for a few more moments while breathing naturally. Deepen your breathing only if it feels natural. Let go when it feels like enough.

Touch is an effective connector of mind and body and this connection can be experienced in an instant. Your skin feels alive, awakening your body senses. Touch is proven to decrease the physiological effects of stress and anxiety, lowering levels of stress hormones like cortisol, lowering blood pressure, and slowing heart rate. It is also found to strengthen the immune system. Nurturing touch stimulates the release of oxytocin, the 'cuddle' or 'love' hormone, which can relax and clear your mind. Oxytocin can also induce a sense of trust and connection, switch off the fight or flight response, provide welcome soothing when you're feeling emotional, and raise the level of other feel-good hormones like endorphins. Touch can also help you to sleep better by drawing your attention from your busy mind, and into your warm body senses.

SELF-HOLDING

How would it feel to hold yourself with the same support and care as you would hold a person you love?

We don't always have others around to be in 'touch' with. Also, touch is quite a 'touchy' subject in the way that it reminds us of our relationship with nurturing, body image, boundaries and sexuality. Luckily, in your own hands, you hold the power to achieve noticeable results. Without necessarily knowing it, we touch ourselves many times a day, anyway. We touch our faces, rub our foreheads, fold our arms, play with our hair, touch our necks, rub and squeeze our hands, play with our fingers, place our hands on our hips, rub our lower backs, cross our legs, rub where it hurts, etc. Often through our instinctive touch we are self-soothing or attempting to ground ourselves, even if we are not conscious that we are doing it. As an experiment, next time you become aware that you are touching yourself, you could try continuing, deliberately, and be more conscious of the experience. This chapter is an invitation to use touch consciously.

To follow are some self-holding options for your exploration. They guide you to give attention to different parts of your body and provide you with constantly available ways to self-support. You could use any of them for stress relief, to provide comfort, or simply to connect with yourself and relax at the end of your day. Try them out to find the ones that you like best.

HOW AND HOW LONG TO HOLD

Steadily hold each position for a few seconds, initially, to get a feel for it. If the position resonates with you, hold for as long as feels nourishing. Breathe naturally as you do so. Some positions might feel amazing. Others not right for today. Hold with a firmness or gentleness that feels just right. As you hold, feel warmth and support from your hands. Feel the pulse of life beneath your skin. Wait for a natural shift, such as an organic deep breath or just a sense that you have held for long enough, to let you know when to move on or let go. Explore the holds that you like best and use your favourite holds regularly.

THE HOLDS

1. One hand holds the base of your skull (where the back of your head meets the top of your neck). Place your other hand either on the top of your head or over your forehead, whichever feels better for you.

EFFECT: Almost instantly reduces stress, especially where there is mental agitation. Can clear your mind. Shifts your attention to your body senses and allows you to access feelings, which can provide insight into a given situation.

2. One hand gives the opposite trapezius muscle a squeeze. Hold this squeeze for a few breaths. (Your trapezius muscle is between your neck and shoulder and is a common area of tension.) Repeat on the other side. To end, use both hands to rub up and down the back of your neck and over your trapezius area a few times.

EFFECT: Can release your breathing and relieve the sense of carrying the world on your shoulders.

3. Rub your upper arms.

EFFECT: Raises oxytocin or 'cuddle hormone' levels. Helps you sense your personal boundaries.

Hug yourself, either following your natural inclination to wrap your arms around your upper body, or you can slip your hands under your armpits to hold the sides of your upper chest. Relax your elbows at your sides as you hold your hands flat against your ribs and right up under your armpits.

EFFECT: Self love.

4. Place one or both of your hands over your heart and hold for a few moments.

EFFECT: Mothers and self-nurtures. Putting a hand on your heart while speaking also displays sincerity and can positively influence how others respond to you.

5. Rub your lower back. You could also place one hand on your lower back, behind your hipbone (either side is fine). Place the other hand at the crease of the inner side of your knee on the same side as you are holding your lower back.

EFFECT: Grounds you, energises your legs and encourages a feeling of 'get up and go'.

After holding this position, sweep both hands down your legs, front and back, a few times to enhance the grounding and energising effect.

6. Place your hands in a prayer pose, either touching your chest or with a small space between hands and chest, whichever feels better to you.

EFFECT: Centres, reminds of prayer so you can say a little prayer for yourself, too, while holding.

End by holding your favourite position and notice how you feel now.

Most of us are so overloaded and busy, whether from work or home life, that a few minutes of self-holding can work wonders. Use the holds that you like whenever you wish. Perhaps you could include some in your bath routine, while lying in bed at night before you go to sleep, or first thing in the morning to set yourself up well for the day. You could add some before or after an exercise routine for some extra body honouring. As you might do for others, you could also simply take hold of your own hand or arm or place a hand on your chest area for support through conflict or challenging moments.

These particular holds are adapted from an acupressure approach called Jin Shin TARA. Jin Shin TARA has its roots in the innately body-mind practice of Chinese Medicine. Guided touch, or holding specific areas of the body, is used as part of a holistic approach to healthcare. Dr Stephanie Mines, founder of the TARA approach, advocates touch as a powerful healing agent for shock and trauma in the body-mind-spirit system. Touch can quickly ground intense feelings. Holding a hand or even just your own finger when you hear shocking news, or when you feel scared, as well as rubbing where it hurts, can provide relief.

THE IDEAL STATE

Finding a balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system is key to health and wellbeing.

The sympathetic nervous system

The sympathetic nervous system is characterised by a feeling of energy, alertness and confidence. Out of balance, it could feel like nervousness and agitation, a need to talk rapidly, constriction in the breath, rapid heartbeat, hyperactivity, anxiety, or, in the extreme, panic.

The parasympathetic nervous system

The parasympathetic nervous system is characterised by a feeling of relaxation, connection and introspection. Out of balance it could feel like withdrawal, disconnection, feeling paralysed, shutting down, spaciness, numbness, tiredness or helplessness.

A healthy and creative ideal is characterised by being calmly alert. This combines the best of both the sympathetic and the parasympathetic worlds. Feel-good hormones are released, which uplifts your spirits and promotes health. Touch is a simple and accessible method for supporting yourself to let go of sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous-system extremes and to open to a more balanced, wholesome and grounded state of nervous-system balance.

ABOUT GREETING OTHERS WITH TOUCH

In the same way as primates groom each other to strengthen social bonds, human touch also seems to strengthen relationships and foster a sense of closeness and likeability. For example, studies have shown that even fleeting, non-threatening contact with a stranger can have a measurable effect. We are found to be more likely to agree to a request and to respond favourably to a person or a product. This can hold true even when people have no conscious memory of being touched. Touch plays a central and highly influential role throughout our emotional lives whether we are aware of it or not.

According to Tiffany Field, at the Touch Research Institute, the healing power of safe, nurturing touch extends across our life spans. Touch is found to help babies develop a sense of safety and security. Consistent, nurturing touch by parents can help reduce a baby's pain and help them sleep better, reduce their irritability, increase sociability among other infants and improve growth in premature babies. Field has found similar gains later in life, too, such as reduction in chronic pain and improvement in emotional conditions in children and adults when some supportive touch is included regularly in their lives. In the elderly, in addition, Field has found that touch yields emotional and cognitive benefits that can be separated from general social support. In one series of studies, one group of elderly participants received regular, conversation-filled social visits. Another group received social visits that also included massage. The second group recorded more emotional and cognitive benefits than the first.

We also cannot touch without being touched. The physiological benefits of touch, like the rise in oxytocin levels and lowered heart rate, are experienced in both the giver and the receiver. The Touch Research Institute has found that a person giving a massage experiences as great a reduction in stress hormones as the person receiving it. Their studies have also shown that a person giving a hug gets just as much benefit as a person being hugged.

WHEN NOT TO TOUCH

There are people for whom touch does not feel nourishing, however. It can result in resistance and feelings of discomfort. From cultural and religious differences, to personality differences, to family differences and life experience, touch needs to be used sensitively. A rule of thumb if we are using touch with others is to stick to safe zones like the arms and upper back and to be sensitive to the recipient's reaction. Do they warm to your touch or pull away? Respecting this and discontinuing touch if there is resistance, is important. The same applies with those we love. There are times when we are open to each other's physical contact and times we are not. Sensitivity to this involves tuning in to, and respecting, each other's changing needs. Interestingly, according to research, the true indicator of a healthy long-term relationship is not how often each person initiates touch. The true indicator is how often your partner touches you in response to your touch. Laura Guerrero, co-author of Close Encounters: Communication in Relationships, says that the more consistently this happens and the stronger the reciprocity, the more likely someone is to report emotional intimacy and satisfaction within the relationship. This touch reciprocity or touch responsiveness can help you to gauge how open a person is to your touch.

NATURAL SENSE OF BOUNDARY

Your skin is a natural boundary between you and the outside world. In her book Natural Intelligence, body-mind psychotherapist Susan Aposhyan, speaks about using the natural boundary of the skin as a metaphor for healthy psychological boundaries. She applies this in her work with clients who have relationship, nurturing or sexuality issues, and who feel vulnerable in relationships. In her work she encourages touching the skin as a way to wake it and strengthen the experience of a natural boundary.

Take a few moments to wake up the sense of natural boundary that an awareness of your skin can give you. Touch your skin from head to toe (through your clothes where necessary), as if you were soaping yourself in the shower, outlining your skin boundary as you go along. Simply touching your skin can increase your sense of feeling alive. This is part of the reason we can feel so refreshed after a bath or shower.

Your skin is not a boundary that you have to imagine. Rather, it is tangible and real. It offers a readily available psychological boundary that can help you to feel safer in your skin and, by extension, to feel safer in the world.

WHERE THE BOUNDARY BEGINS

The sense of psychological boundary starts developing at the very start of life. In embryos, the skin develops out of the same tissue as the nervous system. Skin remains closely related to the nervous system thereafter, giving it great sensitivity for gathering tactile information about the world. Once we are born our skin also plays a role in the formation of our sense of self. Roz Carroll of the Chiron Body Psychotherapy Centre in London distinguishes between a 'skin ego' (developing on Sigmund Freud's notion of ego) and a 'motoric ego'. Ego refers to a sense of one's 'self' and a sense of one's worth, that is born out of experience. According to Carroll, the skin and motoric egos precede, and lay the foundation for, our adult ego. Our skin ego develops in the first year of life from our experience with touch. Initially the skin ego is felt as physical containment. A newborn baby can experience a bombardment of sensory input that may feel like chaos to his or her newly developing and immature nervous system. The infant is not yet able to sift and sort sensory input. They also cannot distinguish yet between what is from self and what is from their parent or the outside world. Mummy, Daddy or a caregiver comes in with attuned touch and eye contact and it can focus the baby's attention, calming, containing and regulating their nervous system. This supports a baby feeling content and safe in the world and they carry this feeling with them into adulthood. This also translates into the ability to regulate one's own emotions, and models the possibility for relationships being nourishing and supportive. If emotional nurturing is unavailable or inconsistent, the baby can feel emotionally unregulated. Later in life this can present symptoms of being frequently overwhelmed and unable to contain one's emotions, or to feeling emotionally shut down.

The skin ego

Our skin boundary informs where each of us start and where we end. For a baby, touch and being seen and responded to adequately is key to their ability to differentiate what is self and what is not self. This differentiation is also important later in life for forming and maintaining healthy relationships. It forms the foundation for our ability to connect, trust and respond socially as well as providing a foundation for empathy. How comfortable we feel with physical proximity, or closeness and distance to others, also has roots in the first years of life based on our early experiences with proximity. So our skin egos develop out of the intimate contact with our primary caregivers and it is reinforced or shifted through intimate relationships with other people as we grow older and have different kinds of experiences.

The motoric ego

The 'motoric ego' develops after the 'skin ego', once a baby can move about on their own and learn about life through their own initiative and physical exploration. With the motoric ego we learn about influencing the world through our actions to add to the skin ego's experience. Together, the skin and motoric egos form an influential, preverbal foundation for our sense of self as adults. As we grow, our adult egos accumulate more mature perceptions and understandings. Although our original skin and motoric ego imprints remain influential.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Mindful Body by Noa Belling. Copyright © 2018 Noa Belling. Excerpted by permission of Rockpool Publishing Pty Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Rockpool Publishing
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1925682188
• ISBN 13: 9781925682182
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 202