The visualisation of embodied thinking

An infection is surrounded by epithelial cells that produce an antimicrobial peptide

Both mental and physical experiences are imprinted into our bodies. This is partly why I have recently posted on the tattoo, which I was thinking about as a sort of analogous process, suggesting that tattooing can be thought of as a metaphor for how the body's internal cells are imprinted by external events. External experiences are held in the body/mind as imprints and memories, and because they are now inside the body, they effect physiological change. 

Our nervous systems are layered, and we have inherited older parts that still work because they were effective during the early part of our evolution as an animal and they helped us to survive.  These primitive reflexes still mobilise our fight-or-flight decisions and they are integral to our inner emotional feeling tone. This feeling tone is an embodied awareness as experiences are encoded in this system non-verbally and non-consciously. This is why I have decided that drawing and other material processes such as making things in clay, are so essential to the awareness raising needed if we are to engage with how our body/minds are working to keep us well. 

I have been looking at my own history and there were times when my experiences of life were traumatic. I feel sometimes as if I still carry these events within myself, even though they are events that took place a long time ago. It is as if these past experiences are somehow still 'fixed' in the body, the problem then being that some of my actions and reactions to new experiences, can be still in some ways, responses to situations that are no longer the case. 

I recently undertook an awareness exercise to help myself identify whether or not my body might be working harder than it needed to when operating automatic self defence mechanisms. After going through the symptoms, it did seem to be the case. I sometimes get cold hands or feet, a common sign of blood being diverted away from the periphery towards the core muscles that help us flee or fight, when we are stressed. I am very sensitive to bright lights and loud noises. I sometimes lose spatial awareness and become dissociated, and I often have that feeling of having my head in the clouds. I have also in the past had panic attacks, but thank goodness I have had none during the last few years.  All of these are signs that my mind/body is over compensating and that it goes into survival mode much too quickly, because it has not been able to 'forget' past experiences that are no longer threats.

Drawing and making things are activities that enable me to feel safe, they are my main health resources, or at least it feels that way to me. Those inner body feelings of an anxious stomach and tight chest, disappear when I am engaged in drawing or making ceramics. I have been for a while now exploring images associated with interoception, perhaps an awareness of how these images came to be, can help others overcome their own embodied anxieties. 

One of the books I have been reading about embodied stress suggests that if you are to move on past your self defence mechanism triggers, an extremely useful skill is to learn to check whether you can inwardly visualise the size, shape and weight of your body. the book suggests that an awareness of the boundary of the skin, helps differentiate who we are; the skin being a transition place between me and not me. The book explains that a layer of our nerve rich skin grew from embryonic ectoderm, which also forms the brain; therefore the skin it is argued, is another outpost of the nervous system, as is the stomach. However, when you try and envisage the body, there can be bits missing. Some people on trying to visualise the body realise that in their body/mind they are missing legs, or limbs are far too small, images of their bodies may be diffuse, abdomens absent, one side of a lung absent, or bones far too soft. In fact it is in the spaces between what feels known and what feels unknown, that some sort of visual understanding is being forged and the unknownness of these elements, is what makes the images made from these feelings so interesting. They are sort of the opposite of photographic realism, they are glimpses of things that are felt and then in order to catch the glimpse, you need to re-invent the form that it is coming in. Even with all this ambiguity and missing elements, there is something about this process that feels much more 'realistic' than copying photographs, because at least I am directly being in touch with myself or others feelings, no matter how tenuously. 

The short condensed text, 'Finding Safety via Embodiment' by Steve Haines (The Body College, 2019), sets out questions that are designed to help you visualise your body...This is the verbatim text...  "Initially it can be useful to go through them as a sequence, using the mnemonic WOSI; Weight, Outline, Skin, Inside. with more experience you can be much more flexible. Often the simple question ‘how does x compare to y’ can open up a realisation of an incomplete mapping of the body. Weight ‘How does the weight of your body feel on the table?’ ‘Do your shoulder blades, hips, knees and ankles feel even on the table?’ Outline ‘Can you feel the outline of your body, the silhouette it makes?’ ‘Does the outline feel the same from the inside with your eyes closed as it would if you were looking at your body or touching it?’ ‘How close or far away are your hands and feet. They are not too big too small or too close or too far away?’ Skin ‘Can you feel your skin as a clear boundary between the inside and the outside?’ ‘Does your skin feel sharply defined and easy to contact or is it a bit blurry or amorphous?’ Inside ‘How does the inside of your body feel?’ ‘Does the inside of your body feel full, flowing, alive or are there bits that feel empty, fixed, numb or hard to contact?’ " (Haines, 2019)

However, I had a few questions myself about the questions asked. Haines presumes that the inner body map in some way resembles the way we see or feel our bodies from the outside. The work I have already done in relation to interoception and how to visualise inner or somatic experiences, has pointed to a wide variety of ways for people to visualise inner body feelings. Drawings that have been done in workshops, as well as images I have made myself, point to a wide range of possible approaches to visualising feelings.

Images made during a workshop

The issue for myself is that by attempting to visualise a somatic experience, the person involved begins to 'own' the experience and to actively engage in building up a relationship with feelings and inner body sensations that they would normally ignore. 

A visualisation of stomach pain

Identification of pains within a crude body map

I have been undergoing pilates sessions, in order to come to a better understanding/awareness of my own body and at the same time attending therapy sessions to get a better grasp of how my mind is working. Hopefully by undertaking the two approaches at the same time, I can gain a better grasp on my own mind/body relationship. I am of course still drawing and having conversations with other people about their own feelings/understandings of these issues. 

Somewhere in the mix, whether it is in the workshops with other people whereby they make interoceptual images, or in my own self reflections, at some point images will hopefully emerge that can help with some sort of communication of what is an eternal conundrum; the fact that we cant see inside anyone else's head.  We do however need to have empathy for others and we need to operate in ways that enable cooperative actions, these things are central to our collective human condition. The making of art, is I feel, something that illuminates our experience of life, that it enriches it and gives it more depth. The mind/body relationship is something humans have had to consider over and over again, each society and time, coming to different conclusions as to how to make sense of consciousness. 

Above all, I'm trying to find answers to the development of a practice that ties together all the various parts of my life experience, a way of working that acknowledges that environments will effect both our bodies and our minds. I also believe that we are inseparable from nature and an integral part of it, which means that you cant step outside of it, a situation that leads me to also believe that everything is interconnected and that this reflects a powerful quantum interconnectedness, which is based on an argument that subatomic particles are in some form of intimate connection with one another, no matter how far apart they may be.

Because these beliefs are not scientifically verifiable and don't fit any one religion, I'm forced to tiptoe around the frayed edges of science and this is why I often post on esoteric ideas such as Mesmerism or Rayonism or am looking to non western traditions, such as a belief in chakra points. I sense that there is some other way to tap into the energies that surround us, and that art can be helpful, as it gives legitimacy to practitioners such as myself, as metaphor inventors and makers. There is a word, 'grok' which means to understand profoundly through intuition or empathy, which was coined by Robert A. Heinlein in his 1961 book 'Stranger in a Strange Land', which is a good word to use in these circumstances, as it suggests a grasp of a something, that you know is there, but you cant put your finger on it. 'Grokking' can be used in a sentence as you would a word like running; to grok being to empathise so deeply with others that you merge or blend with them, even though you might not agree with the way they set out their beliefs. For instance I can empathise deeply with a religious person, even though I don't believe in their religion. 

References:

Barrett, L. F. (2018) How Emotions are made London: Pan

Biernoff S, Johnstone F. (2024) 

What can art history offer medical humanities? 

Medical Humanities Published Online: 30 May. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2023-012763 

Available at: https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2024/05/30/medhum-2023-012763

Crawford, D. H. (2009) The Invisible enemy: A natural history of Viruses Oxford: OUP

Menzam-Sills, C. (2018) The Breath Of Life: An Introduction to Craniosacral Biodynamics New York: North Atlantic Books

Pert, C. B. (1999) Molecules of Emotion London: Pocket Books

See also:

Drawing and quantum theory

Why do we draw?

Object orientated ontology and drawing

Lines as symbols of invisible forces

Visualising energy flow

Drawings as aesthetic transducers