All in the Body

Yes, it's a very New Age idea.

But lately I've been realizing how true it is.

When you watch how the physical and the mental work together, you realize the body is a kind of notebook for thought.

Look at it this way: thoughts are extremely short-lived. They go by at full speed without leaving a trace. We think about tomorrow, lunch, the present for our mother, the toe that hurts... From association to association, we jump from one concept to the next with no real direction.

A string of brain farts.

But when the brain decides an idea is important, that it's worth coming back to, it makes a reminder. A kind of inner bookmark that forces the thought to resurface. To do that, it ties it to an emotion.

Because it's embodied, an emotion has a much longer half-life than a thought. The knot in the stomach, the grip of stress or anxiety, the adrenaline of fear or joy... All of it lasts several minutes, even several hours.

The emotion works like an anchor that holds the mental boat in the same area. As soon as we drift away, the body reminds us that something's wrong. And the thought comes back.

But sometimes it's the other way around.

When I started meditating a few years ago, I realized the anxiety I felt in the morning came from... my digestion. I had a knot in my stomach, and the first idea that came along would latch onto it. So the problem I was thinking about wasn't the real problem.

I stopped eating before bed, and the anxiety went away.