What do you feel? What is your body telling you?
Answer. Don’t think!
I began visiting Makiko Oka in 2009 at her studio in the East 50’s. I came to her with a severe backache, a twist in my spine, and the hope that she would relieve my pain. Makiko is a gifted healer and the acute pain quickly abated. Makiko began giving me assignments – activities (exercises, meditations, nutritional changes, journaling) that I had to do in between sessions. This transformed the work from passive to active. I was no longer just being acted upon, I was actively doing things to take care of myself.
Among these activities, Makiko asked me to consider what few doctors or practitioners of western or alternative medicine have; she asked me “What do you feel?” and “What is your body trying to tell you?”
“What do you feel?” seems like an obvious question – but for me it was not.
For one, I realized that habitually, I was numb to major sections of my body. Secondly, I have always segmented my experience into thoughts, emotional feelings, and physical feelings. But these are not separate – there are no thoughts without emotional and physical feelings. While language forces us to describe these things in series, we experience them at the same time. Makiko’s questions require that we cultivate an awareness of the intercurrence of these thoughts and feelings (along with memories, movements or inhibition of movement) and trace the connections between them. Exploring these connections is how we begin to answer the second question:
What is your body telling you?
So, my back hurts, my torso was twisted, I was anxious and angry. What now? Well, these sensations are clues that I needed to follow. I knew I was not acutely injured. The pain I had was chronic. I told myself stories about how I had come to be this way (I was in an accident). But ultimately I was afraid to dive in and explore these sensations and feel my discomfort. So afraid that I was perpetually twisting myself to avoid it. But also my posture and pain were giving me a clue. I was turning away from something important. Feeling conflicted about facing it. This was just the first layer in a vast onion skin that I continue to peel back the layers of today. But facing these questions, the uncomfortable answers that were there for me to see, I was able to begin what has been a long and very interesting transformation.
-Mark
