In a world where everything matters, there is no such thing as (just) “psychological”. It’s understood in yoga, for example, that our “issues are in our tissues.” The body matters. Unfortunately westerners have totally forgotten this. Ayurveda/yoga is not much better when it comes to daily practice in the world, but the information is there if one needs to find it. I most certainly did.
So I learned, by necessity, that the body/mind/spirit/soul are all one and indivisible. While healing the brain injury I’ve had to learn how to detox subtle aspects of my neurological system that Western medicine doesn’t even recognize exists. Many of the techniques considered psychological, like meditation and even talking therapy, if done right, do affect these subtle neurological bodies in therapeutic fashion as well.
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I have never set out to lose weight on a diet. My weight, however, has radically gone up and down during this healing process. Pharmaceuticals put on a hundred pounds. I lost all of those and then my weight has fluctuated 40 pounds back and forth since then. Stabilization comes.
The weight gain more recently was necessary for brain injury healing. There have been times when that extra fat has helped my brain go through periods of detox it would not have otherwise tolerated. This healing process involved acute pain much of the time and a sort of neurological cushioning seemed to happen when it was needed as long as I let my body do what it needed to do in surrender.
I came to trust my body when it gained weight knowing that another round of detox was necessary. I’ve been happy to watch the power and knowledge of my body guide me through this process. It has been an incredible honor as well as a miracle.
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The above tweet exchange made me think of this collection of articles on meditation: Meditation, not all bliss and roses
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Knowing/allowing traumatized parts of the psyche to be expressed is important. What people have trouble with is finding a graceful way (and a safe place) to do that. It’s a legitimate issue because there are few supportive environments to do the work needed.
We have overcrowded prisons and millions of people on neurologically damaging psychiatric medications because allowing traumatized/young parts to express and heal is simply not safe in our current climate.
psychiatry/psychology have used clinical terms to obfuscate and dismiss layers of trauma since their inception. We can continue to tell people who are struggling to go hide and drug them silent or we can actually provide supportive environments to do the work to move through legitimate pain. We can do this for one another if society at large isn’t doing it.
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Being authentic is being true to whatever is arising and if your madness is arising. that, my friend, is authentic…be with it as safely as is currently possible.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society.” – Krishnamurti
It is the “well-adjusted” that come up with clinical terms that obfuscate — like neurosis and bipolar and schizophrenia and depressed. They will not be leading anyone to freedom with such labeling and dismissal. Nope, they will bring us all to hell with them. Let no one label another.
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More on the body
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Currently experiencing excruciating neuropathic pain throughout my body, but it’s worst, for some reason, in my teeth and gums. It fluctuates. Of course my doctor, like most allopathic mavens, thinks I’m inhabiting territory somewhere between hypochondria and malingering bullshit artistry.
I don’t think it’s just protracted withdrawal from decades of polypharmacy. When the body and soul wakes up and reasserts itself, I guess there’s going to be pain, like any genuine growth.
Some yoga types though, I find a bit middle-class, whitebread and love and light. A bit naive. The dark and chthonic realities of “mental illness” and recovery from psych med damage doesn’t fit into a pretty box, so they can be just as complicit with mainstream consensus reality suppression and denial as any right-wing corporate raider.
I’m no stranger to egregious psychiatric harm and abuse, either. My doctor’s response? “How about radical acceptance?”
Interesting how the system will assimilate eastern concepts to further their own malign agenda. Like the sophisticated gaslighting of a lot of CBT.
The irony is I DO practice radical acceptance! That’s the main reason I’m still above ground. That, and meditation, exercise.
I wanted to thank you for your writing and insight, which I know has sprung from a brutal apprenticeship into awareness. I’ve benefited enormously from it, I’m always discovering something new, some fresh inspiration. Very grateful.
it sounds like you’re in it for sure. trust your body and your inclinations and be cautious…so that the scientific method within the intuitive process can guide you. nature is the supreme scientist! yeah, most of the yoga scene in the USA is awful. That’s why I said you have to look for it…go beyond the yoga studio…etc. Also, if you like yoga, you can check out Subtle Yoga … Kaoverri is an amazing teacher and not caught up in the yoga glamour world.