Achieving good posture begs the question what dynamics quite literally shape us? Yes, fitness can energize and magnify our sense of self. Bodywork can nourish and provide guidance towards health. But it is the very essence of expression that is key in finding ever-changing rebound and support.
My sense of self and the integrity to fully manifest only emerges from within the very core of my being. This life force does not require correction or even direction without but a global connection and relationship with all life. As an educator, I’ve been struck by what somatic pioneer Emilie Conrad called the insistence on homeostasis. In other words what interrupts us from creating fresh connections and new ways of being?
Think of what you know about a river. A river flows from its source towards the sea. How a river gets there and thus what it looks like from the outside, depends partly upon what its external conditions are. Yet a river’s force and expression is the very essence that shapes the riverbed in which it flows. Straighten a riverbed and you will see a river’s life force stagnate and dwindle. The human organism, like the river, is a living system and just like the river we too are full of expression, longing, and desire. Our core intelligence always seeking connection and coherency snakes a path of least resistance towards the sea. Yet for many of us, we seem to set up boulders in our way or expect someone else to stretch us to the sea.
To unleash our life force, maybe even change our course, we can choose to consciously turn towards the brilliance of intelligent life. Unguided, self-movement (which is not directed by anyone) bubbling up from deep within is elemental for becoming integral. Valuing how intrinsic this self-movement is for supporting our quality of life, we can look no further than the river. Like the river, we too are part of a larger earth and cosmic life force. We are not inanimate (body objects) lacking perception and volition. We cannot achieve good posture by simply correcting, stabilizing, or objectifying. Rather being human, we must become flowing expressions, animated by the movement of the inner sea, the underground springs, and the outer planets…fluid, dynamic, ever changing, a life force… if you will.
“Our relation to our cosmic mother closely parallels that to our physical mother
In that first connection is the seed of all later expectations and fulfillments.”
The Body Reveals: an Illustrated Guide to the Psychology of the Body
By Ron Kurtz and Hector Prestera @ 1976
