Taking Perspective

Draft…

We can look at a personal evolutionary process from different perspectives.

From a Gestalt point of view, we see the body as a whole which is more then the sum of it’s parts.

We can look at a part: in PI we sometimes call this a “body focus”: we focus on a region of the body where we do our myofascial work, emotional and explorative psychological work. In dealing with that part, in a Gestalt sense, we want to claim all aspects of this part of us and bring it into a dialogue with something or someone else. When I become the upper part of my body, I can speak from there, allow myself to make movements, explore my emotional contents, etc. Next, I can relate that part of me to another part, let’s say my lower body. Switching positions between one part and then the other is something we do a lot in Postural Integration. At one moment you are your upper body, in the next you are you lower body replying. Doing this back and forth, not only clarifies the parts that come to the foreground, but also clarifies the relationship that exists between both: here the upper and the lower part. Whenever we work with the intention to express, to speak out or to move one part and direct it to an other side, we enable movement, energy flow, growing awareness, the possibility to become more whole. When one gets stuck, one may claim it by saying  “I’m stuck”, which still makes it an expression of your current experienced reality.

Enlightening both sides, enlightens the whole and the interrelatedness of parts within the whole.

Next I can for instance make a dialogue between the left and the right sides of my body. Again two parts of me express themselves in a unique way (not like upper and lower part, but different). This creates a new set of possibilities, brings up a new set of feelings, emotions and possible conflicts. Going back and forth between left and right brings again more clarity to the “parts” and from there to the whole.

This whole is again transformed – has come to a new synthesis and so it can go on. Back and front, inside and outside are two other major dimensions of our body minds. In working with all these dimensions separately and together, I enlighten my bodymind in ways that make it possible to perceive it in new ways – ways I never considered before, ways that have arisen through experience.

Now it is as if I am adding more “pixels” to the image of my bodily self that becomes ever clearer.

Another perspective we use is for instance the Reichian perspective. In this perspective we work with “character” as well as with bands of armouring. Looking through Reichian glasses a new impression arises …

To be continued