‘Body Unscrunching’

When Unconscious self-judgement is generated, the body and its nervous system also constricts.

We might have clenched hands more often than we’d choose, curled toes as we’ve learned to be tight, anxious or even afraid – possibly for good reason in the moment of trauma! Our back might be hunched, shoulders lowered, tummy tightly held in, breathing shallow.

As we notice all these things, though, the tendency is often to physically straighten them ourselves, to unclench them ourselves, to push our toes open, whatever. You might, through Awareness training, notice that you’re holding your hands tightly, and so you take the action to straighten them, perhaps stretching your fingers out.

As much as I can understand the motivation to do this, I’d like to suggest that it doesn’t actually create permanent change, and that there is a better way which does.

Anywhere you’ve shut down your Awareness to the possibility that manually and intentionally forcibly straightening your conditioned bodily constrictions doesn’t necessarily create lasting change, would you like to let that go?

And would you like to ask your body if it would like to let that go?

Here’s how I do it. If I notice my hand clenched, perhaps with nervous conditioning affecting my hand, wrist, forearm, I don’t personally straighten my hands or fingers, I observe it all.

You can hold Presence to any part of your body, or all of it, any time you want to. Continuing to observe, I then give my body permission to straighten it if it wishes to. Invariably it does. Why would a body want to stay in a constricted, unhealthy, uncomfortable, unnatural state? What happens then is that the body unwinds itself.

On the surface this might look like the exact same thing has happened as if I had done it manually – the clenched fist releases, the fingers straighten, etc. But it’s not. The body itself is doing it. It’s a totally different dynamic.

More importantly, it’s a totally different level of influence and deconditioning; this is the releasing of self-judgement in action. Again, it’s a subtle difference, but crucial. If the body hasn’t been allowed to unstraighten, then me forcibly making my hand/fingers do so won’t last any longer as a solution than until the moment I stop forcing it!