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The body is the only piece of original equipment in our human experience. Everything else is an add-on, something we build, import, synthesize, imagine, or acquire. The only part of you that is “original you” is your body. The rest is manmade.

When a baby is born, that first urge to take breath into the belly inspires (“takes breath into”) our physical existence. That never changes, until the very last breath that we take; these first and last breaths form the picture frame around our lives.

Breath in, breath out. Original equipment.

It’s not something we have to think about or have any intention around. It happens when we’re awake and when we’re asleep; we can both control it, if we want to, and it will happen unconsciously or automatically if we don’t.

Intellect does not work the way the body does. A child who is neglected and doesn’t receive various forms of intentional visual stimulation, affect mirroring and play from a parent will fail to develop cognitive, relational and motor skills. Math does not spontaneously occur the way breath does. Like a computer, the core machine of the brain’s ability to process numbers is in place, but programming and input must be provided. Children must be taught to count, and learn to work with numbers.

Breath in, breath out. It was happening by itself while you read that.

Various other forms of programming get added to our original equipment in the form of stories we write. Children receive theological programming (stories we write about God,) political programming (stories we write about “our people” versus “them,”) and other ideology in the form of stories we write to explain, defend and explore our experience.

Some little boys are fed programming that eventually allows them to devote their lives to serving others, perhaps as doctors who visit earthquake-stricken villages, while other little boys receive inputs that eventually allow them to fly airplanes into buildings.

Breath in, breath out. There’s original equipment, and there are the add-ons.

The stories we write are always real and never true. That is to say, they are real in the sense that we respond to them as concrete, but they have little to do with what’s actually happening. An easy example: someone suffering from anorexia might be responding to an internal story that says, “I’m fat, I’m so fat, I hate myself because I’m so fat” but what’s actually happening may be is she is on the verge of starving to death. No one who looks at the consequences of that story could say the story isn’t real; it has caused the victim to respond to the story in a powerful, life-alterating and possibly life-ending way. But what’s really happening is other than her story. The story is very real, but it’s not very true.

If you look at the stories Republicans and Democrats write about each other as a group, for example, the stories are very real, powerfully motivating, moving millions of dollars in various directions. The stories are not true, however. They’re just stories.

Truth emerges from the body regardless of which stories we write. Who we are physically attracted to, what kinds of activities or pursuits make us feel happy, fulfilled or engaged, and most of our emotional world is carried and expressed by the body. This is complicated: while emotions are probably generated in the limbic system of the brain, we don’t experience them in the brain; we experience them in the body. When someone says, “I feel sad,” they literally feel (in their bodies) sad. That’s why we don’t say, “I think sad today.” You feel sad. Let me give you some examples of how we experience emotion in the body.

Perhaps some of you have gotten a phone call at midnight; you knew from the timing of the call that something ominous was up, you could sense it. Sure enough, the person on the other end says “I’m afraid I have some terrible news for you” and you learn at that point that a beloved has been involved in a terrible car accident.

The very first thing that happens in that scenario is you get a sensation like a hit or a punch in your belly. It happens instantaneously, and it happens in the body.

Breath in, breath out. Original equipment, everything else.

What happens next is really interesting, because we start to write story almost immediately. We worry about whether our beloved is going to survive, thinking through the details of what we know about the accident, imagining what is going on at the hospital as we race down the highway, running through various “what-ifs” in our mind….

Breath in, breath out. Original equipment, everything else. One part is you (the thing that happened in your belly) and the rest is constructed, imagined and invented.

Because our mental lives, our stories, are invented, man-made, artificially created, programmed, they are not merely untrue; they are sometimes outright lies. Theists and atheists, Republicans and Democrats, Southerners and Northeasterners, Muslims and Christians, gay people and homophobes, are constantly writing stories about each other, and while these might be sometimes even sincere efforts at understanding reality, it doesn’t take much listening to these stories to taste the artificial ingredients.

It’s a putrid chemical soup of artificial sweeteners, by-products, flavor enhancers, protein substitutes and dyes. If I put it on a plate in front of you, you’d never eat it. When we really pay attention the stories that polarized groups write about each other, it doesn’t take a lot of practice to spot the artificial ingredients. This is not nutrition we want to be taking in; there’s no real food there.

The body never lies. Never. The body is incapable of lying; it doesn’t write story.

If it’s true, it’s in the body. If it’s in the body, it’s true. 

You may have met someone who projects confidence, has learned the behaviors, mannerisms and phrases of someone who is secure, yet you note, on some belly level (notice that phrase!) that there’s something not worked out about this person; you sense insecurity, despite the polished manner. How do you sense this? The body doesn’t lie. If he’s insecure, his body will tell you even if he won’t, even if he doesn’t know yet.  Your body will pick it up even if you want to believe otherwise.

You may have met a politician or a pastor or leader of some sort who has mastered behaviors that one would typically associate with love, with kindness, and care. Measuring the behaviors, nothing seems to be out of place, but you can sense clearly, “I think there’s a mean streak in this person. This person seems to be harboring unkindness of some sort.” We often perceive this in national debates on various topics, leaders professing to come at an issue from some genuine care or concern from others, but we can sense that what’s driving them is some sort of petty, mean, pissy spirit.

Why and how do we know that? Because the body doesn’t lie. Throw the outer clothing of kind behavior onto a genuinely mean-spirited heart, and anyone paying attention is going to be able to pick up on that if they don’t numb their senses by thinking too much. If they use their bodies, the body of the speaker and the body of the receiver will communicate the truth, regardless of ideological programming. The body never lies. When you watch someone work a crowd and your “sleaze detector” goes off, you’re not picking up on his mind. You’re reading his body. The body always tells the truth.

Breath in, breath out. Original equipment, everything else.

In Touch Practice, I have seen men who were confused about sexual orientation, especially when there are conflicts caused by programming inputs in the form of theology, ideology, “isms” and discrimination, make progress when they stop trying to work on the issue by talking and thinking about it, and spend some time feeling about it, working with the body, working with their original equipment. There is nothing more genuinely you than your body. There is nothing more true about you than your body.

I had one very memorable and tender experience with a Touch Practice partner, now friend, who was confused about his sexual orientation, because he carried attraction for both genders. He touched his way to his truth in such a way that it allowed him to enter a very powerful relationship with a woman, a relationship which delights and challenges him and continually surprises him with the complexities and subtleties of his sexuality. He made progress when he stopped trying to figure it out in his brain. He figured it out in his body. He started figuring it out by getting held.

I had another very moving experience with a man who grew up being taught that he faced eternal damnation, death, and exile because of his natural attractions.  His stories and his programming had him paralyzed: his body and his mind were at war with each other. While he initially refused to use anything other than his mind to engage the conflict, he ultimately worked with his body, in his body, to uncover his truth.  His truth is that the loving relationship he now shares with a boyfriend brings him joy, security and fulfillment.  He knows that not because of what he was taught, but because of his original equipment.  He knows not because he thinks it’s true, or because he wrote a story about it, but because he can feel it in his body. The body never lies.

If you’re attracted to men, attracted to women, or attracted to both, your body will tell you that clearly while your programming will confuse the living fuck out of you.  If you try to think your way to an artificial truth of a story you’ve written or received, your body will call you on it. Go ahead and think yourself into knots, if you like; the body does not lie, ever. The mind may try to cling to what’s convenient or popular, but the body lives in the truth. It doesn’t know any other way.

Breath in, breath out. Original equipment, and everything else.

I’ve seen people make huge forward progress on depression, insecurity, and body image issues when they stop trying to solve these issues purely by thinking about them, and when they call upon the power of the original equipment.

Try to pay attention this week to the places where you want to be using thinking to solve problems (designing a building, doing your taxes, figuring out a route on a map) and where you don’t (most relationship issues, anything involving emotion, spiritual practice.)

Stay tuned for a future blog post on how we use our bodies to work things out with our bodies, without thinking about it. I’ll talk about emotional proprioception (identifying the location of an emotion in the physical body) and different modalities of touch, bodywork, dance, yoga, massage, movement, breath work and physical exercise that we can use to move ourselves forward in spiritual and emotional dimensions.

Breath in, breath out. Original equipment, and everything else.

Have thoughts you’d like to share?

Touch Practice is a sacred practice for me, and part of that is keeping confidences sacred. While a name and e-mail address are required to post a comment, feel free to use just your first name, or a pseudonym if you wish. Your e-mail address will never be seen by or shared with anyone. It is used to prevent spam and inappropriate comments from appearing in the blog. I’d really like to hear from you!