Embodying the purpose

When I was finishing my PhD I had the opportunity to sit in on anatomy classes in medical school. A large part of these consisted of dissecting cadavers. One of the many things I learned as I worked my way through the human body with a scalpel is that there is no place that can properly be considered the center. There were muscles, bones, connective tissue, organs, tubes, ligaments, tendons, but no center. Yet we talk about finding our center, being in our center, being our center, going to the center, and so on. If there is no center, is it simply out of mental laziness that we talk this way, or are we pointing out in our discourse the purpose of embodiment that precedes embodiment as purpose?

Center is not a thing, center is a process – just as our bodies are not a thing, our bodies are who we are as a process. Being born is having a body with which to begin the process of life, dying is giving up the body to end the process of life. Having a body is experiencing being alive, aliveness, through it. We do not have a body or are in one – we experience being alive through our bodies. Bringing our attention to the body is the beginning of our centering process. Feeling our “aliveness” is the possibility of building our ability directly from this energy, cultivating a certain virtue or behavior, which allows us to stand in that energy and live a purposeful life. “Centering” is the embodiment of purpose.

The first principle of Somatic methodology as it relates to the embodiment of purpose is to feel the life of our body. This means beginning to identify with our sensations – the edifice of life. This puts us in touch with temperature, movement, form, pressure and connects us with warming, condensing, cooling, a tingling sensation, a current, firmness, softness, pooling, inflexibility or opening into a new form, for example. This does not mean “having a feeling” although this can happen, but rather feeling life as it flows through us.

The second principle is awakening to the embodied feeling of life. The initial feeling of life grows and expands. We respond to this impulse by forming and dismantling barriers that allow life’s circumstances to pass through us at their own pace and wisdom. Emotions come into life and we begin to build trust in our experiences as we shape ourselves according to that primordial intelligence. We are able to see things as they are, without clinging, without adding anything to them, but living fully in our joys and sorrows. There is an energetic pulse of longing that is the affirmation of life.

The third principle involves embodying a somatic ethic: How do we want to interact with the world? This forces us to confront how we live in community, how we take a stand for life, how we compromise when necessary, celebrate fulfillment, mourn loss, break contact without breaking commitment, how we take a stand for the dignity of all sentient beings, of the earth, of the water. Our institutions have failed to teach us how to live by an embodied ethic of fulfillment and transformation. By building a somatic ethic, we embody conduct and identity in the context of others, of grass, quadrupeds, stones, winged creatures, swimmers, the air. We can choose a path that gives life to our own equal tissues while nourishing the social fabric, the ground beneath our feet and the sky above us. We experience this as love, sentient interconnection. Somatic ethics reaches into the particular and material as well as the universal, embracing all. Our interdependence and interconnection is lived and felt, generating more than a concept or intellectual framework for correct behavior but a space from which to act according to our purpose. This experienced sense of a narrative “on purpose” that pulsates in our tissues and illuminates our imagination, is action.

The fourth principle involves taking skillful action to serve this purpose. The purpose is not just any thing, but something actionable and observable. For example, the purpose of incorporating a healthy lifestyle may involve the actions of eating healthy and exercising regularly. The purpose of developing an organization may be understood as building a team, a culture, a network of commitments, and so on. The purpose of having a more intimate relationship may be understood as moving from a defensive attitude to an open listening posture, through somatic embodiment work. Or we may decide that our goal is to be one with the universe. Wow, that’s saying a lot… and yet, we can consider this an engaged spiritual practice through intentional action of compassion and kindness rather than negative judgment and self-centered behavior.

Incorporating respect and care for life is the foundation for a life with purpose.

Take it easy, but take it.

Richard Strozzi