Barbelith Underground > Temple > Bodies, Emotions, Healing Practices

As others have said, fantastic topic.

To answer the topic abstract directly, YES.

It’s these practices which most interest me in fact. I’m really interested in how all the phenomena which we address through magick, the "occult", growth practices are embodied, literally. It seems inherent in all the stuff I’m really interested in. I’ve gone on at length here before about my interest in Wilhelm Reich, martial arts and so on I won’t revisit it for now (even though I’m having interesting results with the Reichian work), just to say, he’s the connection point between body and mind par excellence for me. You might find this link of interest: a Reichian therapeutic manual.

It’s probably doesn’t need saying but this model rests on the release of long held/unconscious tensions, so is going at a slightly different angle to the rest of the suggestion, it’s not “stress relief” as such. Goes a bit deeper, though obviously there's going to be a big interconnection.

I found your comments on excezma really interesting. Skin is the sort of point of contact/transition between our bodies and the rest of the world, the boundary between inside and outside. I’ll have to dig out Diane Ackerman’s book The Natural History of the Senses for you - there’s a whole chapter on skin in there which is well worth reading.

Any suggestions?

Well what are you doing at the moment? I think Money Shot’s suggestion of some yoga above is a really excellent one, as it’s something you can keep simple or really involve yourself with. Even just building a good fitness base through running or swimming or *insert exercise of choice* is well worth doing and can have a massive positive effect.

One thing I’m interested in is the somatic root or emotions – rather than getting involved with internal dialoguing, I’ll look to my body to see what I’m feeling, physically, and where, and note the connection. This is what NLPers talk about when they're doing congruence testing. Does this sort of process play any role in your counselling currently? If you're not doing it already, you could simply note body states and reactions (which feelings where) as part of your journalling and see if simply being aware of them gives you any basis for change.

Also, I think that the real interstitial point between body and mind is the breath, which is why it’s given such emphasis in so many non-Western systems (medical, spiritual etc). Perhaps this could be something you could look at. Again the process of simply noting it is often enough - do you breath differently at any times? Do you ever catch yourself holding your breath? Are there any tensions associated with your breathing generally?

You can take this further if you want/fell comfortable with it. The beginnings of Reichain work is to try and let the breath flow deeply and freely and seeing what tensions/resistances/feelings this brings up. If you lie down and pay attention to your breath, what happens? If you raise your knees and deepen it (breathing from your belly), what happens then? Playing around with expiration here can be useful – can you really let go on the outbreath? Lots of useful practical exercises in the manual inked above. It can bring up some quite heavy feelings but I think the best way to approach is is with a spirit of curiousity/playfulness...I think this could be a useful supplement to any therapeutic regime.