Adventures in keeping my mind inside my head

Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?








I read a lot of responses to this prompt today that were littered with confusion or annoyance. How can we NOT be present and integrated with our bodies?


Personally, I was surprised when I saw this prompt this morning. It touches on something that I've been discussing regularly in therapy. We're not discussing it in some new agey way where I'm encouraged to do yoga and meditation. We talk about it because for much of my life I've been doing the OPPOSITE of what this prompt suggests: I've been dissociating.

On December 17, 2009 I wrote in my paper journal:

"I feel strange...like I'm just watching my life instead of just actually living it. I feel removed from reality. Floating, confused, and lost. I struggle to focus my thoughts..."

More recently, I've had several experiences that feel almost like flashbacks in a movie: The room becomes wavy for a second and then I feel like I'm not there, even though I'm still hearing and seeing the room around me.

These are examples of my unintentional use of a somewhat dysfunctional coping mechanism. When I find myself in an uncomfortable position, I mentally remove myself, with or without my own permission. I am rarely integrated. My mind is rarely in the same place as my body. As a result, I'm rarely whole.

As I said, we are talking about this in therapy. We are addressing the many cobweb covered issues that cause my brain to regularly turn itself into a teleportation device.

So, in the spirit of manifesting what's next, I'd ike to say that over the next year I plan to use this therapy to become more grounded, much more integrated, and definitely much more alive.