If we ask different folks from around the globe where the I exists in their body, each person will point to a different place dependent upon their culture and perspectives on self. Let’s travel to Japan and ask where the I exists and likely we the person may point to their belly or perhaps heart. How about we ask some folks in the United States and I am fairly confident the highest percentage will point at their brain. The fact of the matter is, our whole entire visceral (organ system) is highly intelligent and one could easily argue that our thoughts are driven by our guts at least as much as they are our brain.
I prefer not pick favorites personally and view our body as one whole integrated unit. There is no piece in our body that is more or less representative of I. Let’s dive into our connective tissue for example. Our fascial network is more packed with sensory receptors than any other part of our body. The retina of our eye is widely considered to be the most sensitive. Pound for pound, if we added up the number of sensory receptors of fascia, it would surpass that of the eye.
What is a sensory receptor?
We have several including mechanoreceptors which evaluate our location in space. Thermoreceptors keeping our temperature regulated. Nociceptors keeping tabs on pain. Chemoreceptors detect chemical stimuli in the environment. Photoreceptors taking in the rays; that’s right, our skin can sense light, so you better get your room pitch black to sleep!
Now I would like you to close your eyes and feel your body. If this is going too metaphysical woo woo for you, you can crack a beer while you do it. Moving along, When your eyes are open, most of your perception becomes dominated by your visual cortex. What happens when we take eyes out of the equation and you feel into your system? You are very likely beginning to feel into the contact of your feet on the ground, air contacting your skin and the overall organization of your structure if that is something you are aware of.
Now what happens when you slip on a piece of ice? Does your brain save your booty? I’ll give you a hint, if you needed to send that signal all the way to brain and back to the muscles, you would have a very sore butt. The mechanoreceptors in our connective tissue are able to react to our environment without the go ahead from the brain. Once again, we are not completely brain dominated!
Now what does emotion look like in the body? Come on, you can see it. How about a sad person’s body structure? Rolled forward shoulders, head down, muscular disengagement, perhaps collapsed arches of feet. Now how about a confident person that just won a race. Shoulders back, head up, eyes open (making eye contact with others), stacked from head to toe (integration). What we can very obviously see is an integrated body and mind equals positive emotions or sense of I and disintegration of the body and mind equals a sad, scared, defensive puppy. Do you think this impacts every single cellular reaction in your whole entire body? You better believe it! Break the word disease down once and you get dis-ease or lack of ease or balance (integration) in the body.
We have this funny tendency of putting symptomatic fires out with medications or expensive surgery and still seem to miss the core issues of dis-ease. Let’s imagine we are on a cruise ship headed through icy water. Eeeeek, we are about to hit an ice berg and sink the ship! You have two options…
Option A-Grab duct tape and bubble gum and run below deck to do your darndest to patch up the oncoming damage.
Option B-Run up to captain steering the ship and guide him to turn the fricken ship before we do more damage than has already been done!
Hopefully you are logical and go to the captain to straighten the WHOLE ship out first and then from there you can play with damage control. Our western model of medicine I’m afraid has become entirely too dependent on temporary patches and doesn’t speak to how we are steering our ships.
So could an injury of your foot impact how or how much you walk which in turn impacts how you feel and people’s perception of you? Could this movement pattern if not addressed and reintegrated become apart of you personality and what you consider to be “I”. How many times have we heard older folks talk about their “bum” leg from high school football. It is fascinating how we become attached to our stories whether good or bad. The fact of the matter is, every tissue in our body makes up our story and we need to take responsibility for the whole. I am open to discussion on the topic and would love to hear your comments…
