The power of a mind-body connection


We experience the world through the body. Muscles, connective tissue, the brain, the nervous-system and all the other parts – the body is an amazing wholeness, which constitute the context of our perception of reality. In western culture we have traditionally seen the mind and body as split apart, and our everyday life is often lived disconnected from the body and with an emphasis on the mental activity of the brain. On this background many people feel a need for practices which facilitate a reconnection with the body.

Embodied meditation, relatefullness and circling, and different kinds of bodywork and yoga, are tools which I myself apply in my everyday life to stay in connection with my embodied inner world. Practices which create new space for the breath, more flexibility in muscles and connective tissue, and a closer connection to the body, are in my experience gateways to feeling more energy, aliveness, power and flow in life.

The body, which we often take for granted, is in reality a deep mystery, the home of the unknown and unconscious. Knut Hamsun wanted to listen to "the whispering of the blood and the prayer in the bones", in his search for the life of the soul. Merleau Ponty says in Phenomenology of perception: “Our own body is in the world as the heart is in the organism: it keeps the visible spectacle constantly alive, it breathes life into it and sustains it inwardly, and with it forms a system.” In this perspective practices which facilitate increased body-mind connection, are arenas for connecting with the mystery of being a human in an endless universe.  

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