Physical Un-Education

A conversation I have weekly with my students and clients revolves around the idea that our bodies are always in a process of healing.

Healing is self-reorganization to a more centered state. And we are constantly reorganizing. Perpetually redefining what balance is.

What is the difference between healing and health?

Right now, this very moment, your body is healing. I think the amount of energy going into your healing indicates your state of health.

How much energy is your body using right now for homeostasis- The sum of biological processes involved in keeping our dynamic state within “healthy” parameters?

When we feel “well”- mentally, physically, emotionally- our state is more rested, more effortlessly at center. Homeostasis takes less energy expenditure. The cows are peacfully grazing in the pasture and we’re just sitting there watching.

When we feel “unwell”, it is an indication that something is off balance, and our dynamic state is more one of actively healing than of resting into our health. The cows are trying to bust down the pasture fence and you’re hustling to wrangle them back in.

What if the feeling of being hurt and unwell is actually what it feels like to be healing?

Are you resting into your health? Or are you more often in a state of healing?

Where physical education goes wrong

All life is taking us away from center, and the inner wisdom of our body is always working to bring us back. This action of coming back to center is healing. Trust in that one thing- Your body is always healing, even when things hurt.

Just because You can’t trust your body, doesn’t mean your body cannot be trusted.

One big barrier to trust is that we aren’t good at communicating with our bodies, and we lack a refined kinesthetic language to communciate with it.

It’s not our fault. Society doesn’t place a high value on exploring the inner kinesthetic arena, only the actual arenas where the competitive, “bigger stronger faster”, phsycial events take place.

In school we learn the value in communicating ideas, philosophies, and thoughts, which are not same as embodying the thing itself we wish to learn about.

Traditional physical education never taught us to listen to and interpret our bodies’ language. Moreso we were taught how to follow rules, fit into measurements, and meet expectations for physical performace. Lessons of winning and losing. And many experiences of shame that made us want to stop paying attention to our bodies altogether.

So what is real physical education?

My mother worked as a phys-ed teacher. She also did fitness testing to collect data that I guess was used to help us create better phys-ed programs.

But do you know what she was asked to do? Measure people’s “fitness” based on a set of parameters based on societal norms, and then tell people whether they fit in with those or not.

This is not physical education. This is more like indoctrination. Sorry, Mom.

I think real phys-ed is a process of un-educating ourselves that makes learning the language of our body possible again.

The language of our bodies is non-intellectual. It’s a right brain experience, not a set of normative, left-brain-procured, data. It’s a language that speaks to us through physical sensation, indescribable states of consciousness, and visceral knowingness that transcends words.

Don’t you find it hard to know who you can trust when you’re a tourist in a country where no one speaks your language, and you don’t speak theirs? Aren’t you a little apprehensive and cautious? Doesn’t it take a little effort before you can figure out who are the “good guys” you can trust, and who to avoid?

It’s the same process of orientation with your body. Only we don’t generally think of our body as a destination to visit, like a vacation to a foreign country, and so we don’t invest in the guidebook, the foreign langauge dictionary, or see what value could come from even going there.

For most of us, our body is a thing we’ve been trying to escape because we are in a state of healing.

Healing happens when something isn’t going right, when we feel unwell. Healing isn’t this amazing love and light expereince. Healing sometimes hurts.

Remember, as uncomfortable as it can feel, the fact you can heal is something about your body you can trust. It is safe to go there. It is safe to participate in your healing.

Physical mastery > Physical education

I think what I do in my practice is a new paradigm of physical education. The opposite of what my mother did. Funny how life is…

I don’t want to tell you what the data says about how you should fit in with other people, I want you to know where you stand with yourself.

I prefer to call it physical mastery, because education sounds too much like an indoctrination. Like a cult where you are told to believe things about yourself so that you can have permission to forget that paying attention to You is important.

Physical mastery has nothing to sell you, its just You studying You. There is no degree or certification to pay for that you can flaunt. All you’ll get is trust in you.

Physical mastery is a process of paying attention to you, which no one can do for you, only guide you and hold you accountable. But you do the discovering and learning for yourself.

In the physical mastery process you are not given a physical education. You become the process of educating yourself on your physiology.

Physical mastery is the process I invite you to come on with me. It’s a process that I’m in, because I have to do it. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Once you step in, there’s no going back. Try it, and you’ll see what I mean.

Are you ready to stop getting an “education”? Stop scrolling through Instagram for the next hot exercise. Stop the endless Youtube searching for the fix for your body’s problems.

The answer isn’t out there. In fact, you probably don’t need an answer. You might need a better question.

“In what ways have I learned to stop trusting my body?”

“What does trusting my body look like?”

“What does a ‘yes’ and ‘no’ feel like from my body?”

How long can you really sit with these questions before slapping on an answer from the internet?

Would you care to join me in this process of un-educating yourself about your body? Would you like to learn your body’s language from an inside, embodied experience, not from a book, Youtube video, or online “movement guru”? (ironically, I wrote a book, have a Youtube channel, and someone once called me a movement guru which I AM NOT).

All I know is I can’t possibly know more about your body than you do. But a third party is sometimes needed to interpret what your body is saying, or mediate a dialogue.

If you want to learn to trust your body, I can show you a path. I won’t tell you what you should do, or what is right or wrong for you, only what avenues you must investigate to get your answers for yourself.

This is the work I share in my Liberated Body Workshop. It’s a good place to start learning to pay attention to You again.

Have you lived 50 years in a country whose language you couldn’t speak? Whose language you didn’t even bother to learn? Can you see how stressful that might be?

How long have you been living in your own body, not knowing its langauge?

I’m not saying its easy, but the longer you wait, the harder it gets.

When you’re ready to get un-educated, you know where to find me 😉