Articles
Recently I spent two days at the county courthouse being processed as a potential juror. It was a unique opportunity to observe the many lawyers arriving and leaving the building as they spoke with clients, paralegals, and other lawyers. I noticed that, to a person, regardless of age, gender, race or ethnicity, they all looked the same: their heads were forward of their torso, their bodies pitched forward as if battling a stiff wind; their jaws were clenched, their foreheads furrowed, their shoulders up around their ears, and their breathing shallow and high in their chests.
In other words, they were stiff and off-balance; they held themselves tightly, focusing on thoughts to the exclusion of everything else, and were running on low levels of oxygen. They didn’t look as if they were having much fun, nor did they appear healthy or vital. Granted, this is a small demographic of lawyers at a specific time and place, but it raises a question worthy of our attention: How can we better manage the stress of a lawyer’s life and project a presence that communicates trust and connection, instead of looking like a train wreck?
You may ask, “What do bodies have to do with being a lawyer? The body is irrelevant to the legal profession; after all, I get paid to think, analyze, and persuade. If I’m well groomed, what difference does it make how my body is shaped?”
We’re Culturally Inclined To Separate Mind And Body
This perspective is not only limited to lawyers; it’s pervasive throughout society. Our Cartesian[1] inheritance teaches us to separate mind and body, reason and feeling, intellect and intuition—and this division exists in every corner of our culture. According to this point of view, the body is simply the delivery system for the intellect, just as a mule delivers its rider to its destination and then is fed, watered, and put out to pasture until needed. We are taught to attend to the body only when something goes wrong, as we do with air conditioners. Because we think of it as a complex machine, we deliver its broken parts or rusty systems to medical technologies “to be repaired.” Or we identify the body with the unblemished, airbrushed figures we see on magazine covers; or with the religious dogma that tells us that the flesh is the ticket to hell; or with a curious narcissism in which the body is pampered and patronized as something apart, like a museum vase. This perspective critically limits our ability to fully live up to our potential, as professionals and as humans.
The Ancient Greeks Cultivated The Soma
But the emerging field of neuroscience is now scientifically grounding the claims of somatics, a centuries-old philosophy that addresses the interconnectedness of our thinking, feeling, acting, and emotions. “Somatic” comes from the ancient Greek and it loosely translates as “the art and science of the living body in its wholeness.” Centuries ago, the early Greek philosophers spoke of the soma as the unity of mind, body and spirit. Recent breakthroughs in neurological research, thanks to evolved technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and brain wave analysis clearly indicate that how we move, gesture, breathe, comport ourselves, and live in our emotions (or not) directly affects the way we think and reason. This points to the inextricable link between the body and the mind.
This growing compilation of scientific research clearly demonstrates that the idea of a mind (or self) that is independent of the body is an error of rationalistic thinking. In a somatic interpretation, the body is the domain of action, thinking, moods, emotions, learning, interactions with others, and dignity. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein remarked that if you want an image of the soul, look at the human body. It seems the early Greeks, along with many Eastern traditions (the martial arts, meditation, yoga and acupuncture) were far advanced in envisioning an integrated human being whose physical, mental, and spiritual lives were fully embodied in the soma.
Now let’s re-visit the lawyers at the courthouse and consider what’s possible for them if they attend to their bodies from a somatic point of view.
Develop A Somatic Sensibility
To begin with, we can say that the bodily shape I observed is detrimental for your health. In a forward posture—hunched shoulders, head forward of the body, and leaning into the world—we’re fighting directly with gravity. That is, gravity’s downward pull has much more of an effect because the plane on which it pulls has expanded. To counteract this pull, it’s necessary to contract the muscles in the neck and back so that you don’t topple over.
Shallow breathing transports insufficient oxygen to the organs, including the brain. As a result, muscles become sore and fatigued, which translates into chronic shoulder and back pain. Reduced oxygen to the brain taxes our ability to think clearly and quickly. A contracted posture also crowds the internal organs, which makes them a breeding ground for disease. In short, we increase our stress load by the way we organize ourselves somatically, and decrease our ability to deal with everyday stress.
By standing straight, the pull of gravity is neutralized; by breathing deeply, more oxygen is sent to the brain and other vital organs. In addition, shallow, high breathing and muscular tension are primary symptoms of anxiety. By learning to relax, staying centered in our bodies and breathing deeply in our lower abdomen, we increase our ability to manage anxiety.
Second, we’re always assessing who we are by the way we somatically organize ourselves. Most of the time, we do this unconsciously since we’re not aware of our bodies. The groundbreaking research of Albert Mehrabian, Professor Emeritus at U.C.L.A., described in his book Silent Messages, clearly demonstrates that the way we hold ourselves bodily has a tremendous affect on how we build trust, or fail to build trust. When Mehrabian posed the questions, “What makes people credible? What makes them trustworthy?” to a wide variety of people from different cultures over time, the statistics were consistent: we assess credibility seven percent by content (what someone says); and ninety-three percent by bodily comportment, presence, tone and rhythm of voice, and posture (how someone is).
I believe it’s more difficult to trust people who look tense, driven, anxious and uncomfortable in their own skins, the way the lawyers I observed looked. I’m not saying they are untrustworthy (for all I know, they could be honest and virtuous in every way), but that they could be judged this way. By paying attention to our bodies, we can influence how people assess us.
By living deeply in our somas, the moral and spiritual qualities of wisdom, intuition, compassion, and our ability to deeply listen to others increase. These traits often get lost in our rationalistic culture in which we tend to see others as instrumental, or as means to an end; as a result, we lose much of our humanity. Understanding somatics does not replace rational and logical thought; rather, it taps into the three-billion-year evolutionary intelligence that is deep within our body. Somatic practices such as yoga, martial arts, meditation, gi gong, and others cultivate these attributes.
Right now, right here, you can take a moment and pay attention to what is happening in your body. Notice your breath and see if it’s shallow and fast, or deep and rhythmic. Notice how you’re holding yourself and then let go. Let your shoulders, jaw, and legs release and settle into yourself. Feel the difference between being tense and off-center, and relaxed and on-center.
By developing a somatic sensibility, we can live healthier, more vital lives; show up to others as authentic and trustworthy; and embody the time-honored virtues of wisdom, compassion, and intuition.
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RESOURCES
1. Rene’ Descartes (1596-1650). French mathematician and philosopher who founded analytic geometry and is known for his rationalistic premise, “I think, therefore I am.”
2. For further information on somatics read, The Leadership Dojo by Richard Strozzi-Heckler, PhD, North Atlantic Books, 2007, and go to: www.strozziinstitue.com
