The Body Never Lies

Sandra Butel beautywalk positive intelligence Shirzad Chamine coaching mind body mindfulness presence well being — *Silver Linings …* Photo by Sandra Butel

I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk.

beautywalk is taking one step at a time, moving ever forward, through thick and thin, through joy and worry, through all the days of our lives.

Keeper of cool

I find myself looking through the condo listings in various Montreal neighbourhoods once again. Click click click as I move forward through the photographs to see what each space has to offer. Every time I have a look a little buzzing starts to rise up inside my head and chest, my battery having been hooked up to the negative and positive charges of the jumper cables that have been affixed right where they will do the most good.

Each step of downsizing, sorting through our things, the answers we give to This? Or That? is becoming more fluid day by day. There is still that sense of tightness that builds up in my gut as I imagine myself and Francis tackling the next task. Today I think about the deep freeze downstairs, once again trying to imagine how we will go about emptying it of its long forgotten contents and how in the world we are going to get it up the narrow basement stairs and out the side or front door into whatever waiting arms are parked beside a vehicle big enough to hold it. The weight of this 30 year old keeper of cool, that neither of us can remember purchasing, concluding that it was there before we were, presses upon the newly fragile muscles of my lower back, as if I am standing at the bottom of the basement stairs doing my best to hold it aloft as Francis walks backwards step by cautious step to the side door landing.

When I look down at my hands, they are resting on the home keys. There is no freezer gripped there, no solid weight pulling on the shortened muscles of my right leg and hip, no strain bringing the yoga practiced strength to the forefront. There are simply the light encircled keys of my 5 year old laptop, purchased in the last weeks of December 2019 when it was evident I would not be returning to my job of 21 years.

Putting the load down

How do I put this load down? How do I remind myself of how many burdens my arms have already shouldered? Right toes curled up over left, a city bus rumbling by as the sound of the humidifier in my latest pet sit spreads its moisture out into the winter dry, I pause to ask my body what it needs. What would bring more ease into your tendons? What would allow you to let the breath sigh out?

It occurs to me as I sit here, words flowing out with each tap and reach and resting back to the space that was drilled into my psyche back in Grade 10 typing class, that this is all I need. To pause. To sense into what my body has to say. To let the brain do its best to draw me into its drama, remembering that the body never lies even if the brain does so often.

Mindful moments

This is the conversation I had with a fellow student in the last week of a 6 week Mindful Ambassador program that I just completed. I am so grateful to have been invited by a writing friend Valerie Gow to pick up a just emptied free spot of a last minute cancellation. I figured that any chance to review my mindfulness training in the company of others who were making the same choice to focus and release themselves from the daily ruminations would be of benefit to me and to my desire to serve others with my growth and learning. I signed up within hours of the invite being proffered, adding in the Tuesday night time slot into the fullness of my weekly calendar, looking forward to what was to come.

The course format, in addition to mindfulness practice and tailor made content expertly presented by Val, is to get into break out groups of 2 to discuss a quote and what memories and beliefs it tugs on in our own experience. This week the quote is from the dancer Martha Graham who says simply,

“The body never lies.”

We are instructed to answer the following questions and to share our findings with our partners.

“What does the quote mean to you?”

“Share a brief story of a time when your body revealed something you hadn’t identified and what you learned from this experience.”

Does the body lie?

Curious and a little perplexed, I lean into the moment of pause before my match-made face to face and ask myself what this quote means to me. The first thought is, “Hm, is that true? Has my body never lied to me?” I think of the instance where I was set off on a wild goose chase of what to do with the 5 or 10 years I had left to live when my doctor at the time got carried away with a breast cancer misdiagnosis. Was my body truthful to me then or was it my brain that was lost in this whirlwind of worst case scenario creation?

By the time I am matched up for my one on one with Maria, some conclusions are starting to form in my conscious mind. I take a breath and ask her what the quote means to her and listen carefully, taking a few notes as she speaks in her soft voice about a significant time in her life when her body tried very hard to get her attention. I can relate and when it is my turn to share I speak about the 20/20 vision I have now when looking back on my days of adrenalin fuelled workaholic addiction.

I can now see so clearly all the messages my body was sending to me, how I brushed them aside and pushed through the strain and fatigue fuelled by my anxiety and my need to get it all right every single time. I talk of my new found knowledge of hormones and how cortisol, estrogen, dopamine, thyroid and adrenalin flowed and dropped and brought such a roller coaster rhythm to my days. It all makes so much sense now in retrospect and I can see so clearly what my body had been trying to tell me with its grinding teeth, insomnia laced, ‘head- achey’ shortness of breath, looping thoughts investigation.

The body never lies but the brain certainly does

When it comes time to answer the question of what the quote means to me the words, “The body never lies but the brain certainly does,” pop out as if heaven sent. My coaching training and the work I am doing with Positive Intelligence and with my long time personal studies in Buddhism have led me to this conclusion.

Science shows that about 95% of what our brain has to say to us is both negative and untrue. It is also grossly unhelpful to our goals of finding peace and happiness in our human existence. One of the ways that the PQ program addresses this is to ask what is the lie that the judge and the accomplice saboteurs are telling us? Usually it has something to do with us or others not being enough or doing enough; as we fall into a deep hole of blaming self or others for the circumstances and situations where we so often find ourselves squirming in discomfort, trying to get away from what we don’t want and pulling in more of what we do want.

It’s a choice

This is all about choice. In any situation there is more than one way to interpret the meaning of what has come to pass. There is the one that pops up first and foremost; the one based on the idea that we are not enough, that others are faulty and that the world is out to get us. This is the primal response; the fight, flight, freeze, fawn response that served our ancestors so well. This is the one that pushed my past self in fear for what might come if I didn’t try harder; what might be revealed if I let my guard down, (just for a moment to have a rest); what others might think of me if I did not get every little thing just right.

The other one, and the one that I am dedicating myself to improving day by day, is one that says that while this spark of fear that rises deep in my chest might be useful for a second to warn me of possible danger, it is not to be believed. What is to be believed is the quieter, deeper voice that is our true essence. This is what Shirzad Chamine has dubbed “the sage”. This voice is one of pure love, taking the form of empathy, curiosity, innovation, value based direction and what the Buddhists call “wise action”.

This one is accessed in the body, by pausing in our mind looping to take a breath, to feel the sensation of our feet on the floor, or the warmth and friction of our fingers as they rub against one another, or perhaps the softness of a purring kitty who has settled himself on our lap on top of the vintage quilt that someone’s Grandma made with so much skill and love.

The body is reality

I am back in the main room of the zoom call for the Mindfulness Ambassador Program and am moved to share my pithy “The body never lies but the brain often does,” reflection. There is a lot of head nodding and mindful pauses for reflection and then another student shares their agreement and offers a book recommendation. I haven’t read it yet but it sounds like it will be just down my alley; another source of the energy that is pulling me from where I once was to where I want to go. The conclusion of Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind”, as my new friend tells it, is that the mind tries to protect the ego and the body tries to tell the truth; that the body is just reality and the mind is often an illusion.

An invitation

The invitation that I offer to you, dear reader, if you choose to take it, is to spend some time this week reflecting on what part of the above is true for you. To take some moments each day to stop listening to the incessant chatter of your mind and check into your body, perhaps under the guidance of one of the many wonderful teachers offering up their wares on an app based mindfulness meditation program, like Calm or Headspace or PQ or Dharma Seed. A yoga class will do the trick as well, as it calls on us to focus our energy on pairing movement with breath, rising up on the in breath and curving down on the out breath, over and over again.

My wish for us all, dear friends and fellow humans, is that we might find the truth of our existence by asking our body just what it has to say to us today.

I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk. What’s yours?

Resources for Further Study and Personal Growth

If you want to learn more about Shirzad Chamine and his groundbreaking work with Positive Intelligence I invite you to listen to his much loved Tedx talk. You can reach out to me to learn more about this 7 week program that I can offer either one on one or as part of a group of 5.
I am here as a coach to listen to whatever it is that is pre-occupying your mind and keeping you from connecting with the wisdom that your body has to share with you. Reach out for your free beautywalk session to see what one on one coaching with me is all about.
If you are interested in signing up for TrustedHouseSitters you can get a 25% discount (as well as pass on 2 free months of membership to me in the process).

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