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“…parental responses to the child's physical or emotional
needs are the most important determinants of fixed patterns…”
As parents, our
intentions are usually pure – we do not mean to
harm our children by how we treat them, but
through lack of awareness irreparable harm can be
done.
This article
explains how attitudes and emotions affect the
body and can become "fixed" in terms of posture
and muscular patterns, which in turn affect
disease processes in the body. In understanding
physical patterning, we can help our children grow
into free and healthy adults.
All the tensions
and movements of the body, its tone and
colour, posture and proportions, vividly
express the person and the vitality within. |
The body speaks of
one's emotional history and deepest feelings,
one's personality and character. A drooping
head, slumped shoulders, a caved-in chest, and a
slow, burdened gait reflect feelings of weakness
and defeat; while a head carried erect, shoulders
straight and loose, a chest breathing fully and
easily, and a light gait tell of energy and
confident promise.
Such physical
patterns become fixed by time, affecting growth
and body structure. They characterise not just
the moment, but the person. Rather than simply a
present disappointment, the crushed posture of
hopelessness could be pointing to a lifetime of
endless frustration and bitter failure. Fixed
muscular patterns in the body are central to a
person's way of being in the world. They form in
response to family and early environment.
The parental
responses to the child's physical or emotional
needs are the most important determinants of fixed
patterns. A mother who responds with love and
understanding gives the nourishment of security,
satisfaction, and pleasure. Lack of this
nourishment is the emotional crippling which the
physical body reveals. To meet early
psychological splitting between truth of the
child's negative feelings and struggle against
disintegration due to the unexplainable,
irrational, unjustifiable situation of needs not
met, the child creates tensions to block his fear
and pain and deaden the impulses which lead to
these feelings.
Whatever the
feeling, it is also expressed physically, and
becomes a way of holding oneself - a fixed
muscular pattern and set attitude toward life.
These attitudes and fixed muscular patterns
reflect, enhance, and sustain one another. It is
as if the body sees what the mind believes and the
heart feels, and adjusts itself accordingly. This
gives rise to a way of holding oneself (as pride
can swell the chest and fear can contract the
shoulders). The muscular pattern in turn sustains
the attitude.
Each muscular
pattern or block is associated with a particular
underlying feeling, so the number of basic
patterns is to some extent limited. There is no
limit, however, to the shades and subtleties of
their combinations. These underlying feelings and
their interactions with the forces of growth
produce the infinite variety of personalities. To
see these patterns, and read the messages they
contain, one needs a willingness to be affected by
whatever is there, on a heart level. They are
expressions of the core of a human being. A
person's body, his behaviour, his personality, the
way he moves, what he talks about, his attitudes,
dreams, perceptions, posture, are all parts of a
unitary whole. These are all important
communications from within and can be dealt with
to enhance awareness and bring change.
In a person with
emotional blocks, chronic muscle tension
interrupts the free flow of feelings into
expression, and energy blocks result in certain
areas of the body. With the growth of a habit,
awareness dims. The feeling itself may slip from
consciousness, and situations in which the feeling
is aroused may be avoided. It is this habit of
lack of awareness that becomes a block. The
pattern of muscle tensions in the blocks affect
movement, posture, growth, and therefore
structure. Blocks impede the flow of energy in
the body, which if left unattended, can develop
into disease.
The process of
undoing blocks involves arduous and persistent
work on physical, emotional and mental levels.
The insidious, interlocking nature of fearful
attitudes, habitual muscle tensions, blocked
feelings and restricted awareness makes any change
both difficult and delicate. The physical work
may involve exercises like yoga or bioenergetics,
or active intervention through a variety of
techniques, such as Alexander, Feldenkrais,
Rolfing, massage, chiropractic and postural
exercises to build the capacity to handle deep
emotional changes and release of energy. Deep
change requires re-contacting and re-experiencing
the feelings, the irrational fears, and removing
the self-imposed limits. On the emotional and
mental levels psychotherapy or counselling are
useful to help unblock stuck attitudes and thought
patterns.
It is wise to
remember that a person's patterns always contain
pain and fear. They are intimate, and the
embodiments of much suffering. Skill is required
and compassion is essential if one is going to
make contact with the pain and fear and help
dissolve them. A long time in the making, they do
not yield easily. Force does not work, but
tenderness, respect, loving understanding, and a
commitment to be honest will often be enough.
Strength and courage are needed to break free.
For ultimately, these patterns are bonds which
imprison man's spirit. They bind us to
self-concern and painfully isolate us from each
other. It is first by seeing them and then
understanding them that we can best free each
other from their grip.
Adapted From IBIS
Materia Medica - Gaia Multimedia, 1994
