Forgotten bodies in a headspace world
And now, in its own way, we can see how technological society ignores the wisdom of the body. In modern life the body becomes a machine for living, the subject of managed care, of steroids and plastic surgery. Our flesh is mortified in new forms as we sit in traffic jams, work in cramped cubicles and at school desks under artificial light, and dist
... See moreJack Kornfield • The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology
To forget the body is to forget our dependence, our frailty, our limitations. To forget these is also to forget the value, indeed the necessity of humility, generosity, care, patience, and mercy. These and other like them are what MacIntyre called “the virtues of acknowledged dependence,” and they were, in his view, grounded in a recognition of our... See more
L. M. Sacasas • Forgetting the Body
We are perhaps the most “living-above-the-shoulders-behind-the-eyes-and-between-the-ears” culture that has ever existed, and despite this we are directly lifting instructions that were meant for people whose sense of self was much more distributed in other parts of the body. For western audiences, investigating our thoughts tends to lead us to the ... See more
River Kenna • What is Somatic Meditation?
On the importance of bodies
Touch brings us closer. Emotions can be communicated wordlessly through hugs, caresses, holding and being held. The language of touch can inspire deep connection between people and express more than words could ever say, would ever need to say — this is the space where eros comes alive, where we desire for others. To be r... See more
Touch brings us closer. Emotions can be communicated wordlessly through hugs, caresses, holding and being held. The language of touch can inspire deep connection between people and express more than words could ever say, would ever need to say — this is the space where eros comes alive, where we desire for others. To be r... See more
From a somatic point of view living any distance from our bodies is dodgy and the consequences harmful, even grave. Now we can scientifically ground, through technological advances in the emerging field of neuroscience, that distancing ourselves from our body places not only our physical health at risk, but our emotional health as well. Furthermore
... See moreRichard Strozzi-Heckler • The Art of Somatic Coaching: Embodying Skillful Action, Wisdom, and Compassion
"We do not exist “in” our bodies anymore. We snapped a part of our brains and eyes and we implanted them on our mobile phones. A part of our brains is Google itself now, and we are not ashamed to use this extrapolated brain and its capabilities incessantly. As the mind-body duality dissolves itself into an entanglement of elongations of corporealit
... See moreIn a discussion that has nothing to do with technology, the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote about a tendency to become “forgetful of our bodies.” Perhaps that’s a good way of putting this tendency to assume that digital culture is immaterial and disembodied. We never leave our bodies when we are immersed in digitally mediated experiences, but ... See more