Is the Much-Maligned, Oft-Abused Body the Key to Happiness and Bliss?

I am reading this book for Unity on the Bay's Adventure in Faith program and the very first chapter is about listening to the body! As a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, I could not agree more. Awareness of body sensation discharges negative emotions and opens us up to access the bliss centers of the brain. One simple suggestion in the book is to keep your attention on distracting sensations in the body (such as pain, or tension) until they disappear. Instead of reacting to the sensation, paying attention extinguishes the stimulus-response process and stops the reaction from "fueling itself." Once the sensation passes, the body recognizes its innate, harmonious self-regulation capacity. Deepak Chopra takes it one radical step forward, stating: “Your physical body is a fiction,” Dr. Chopra states. "Every cell is made up of two invisible ingredients: awareness and energy." In his view, relaxed awareness (resulting from a coherent nervous system) is our natural state. Body awareness changes the pattern of distracting in unhealthy ways when stressed or overwhelmed.

Nourishing Secure Attachment

Last month I attended Diane Poole Heller's Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning Experience workshop on Creating Adult Relationships and learned skills to help people heal from early attachment wounds that disrupt their adult relationships. Continually evolving knowledge about neurobiology now confirms that we are designed to heal and that maladaptive attachment dynamics can be reconditioned to our natural, innate healthy, secure attachment design. Diane's understanding of somatic relational practices to effect lasting change on attachment patterns is a great contribution to human healing and the evolution of our authentic selves. Her work is informed by the work of Stan Tatkin, author of Love and War in Intimate Relationships and Wired for Love.