In our November forum we talked about the mystery of symptoms and our reactions to our symptoms. These experiences attract our attention but are discounted and ignored until we are forced to attend to them. How we relate to our bodies and how we decide to heal and determine if it is healthy or not, is a hugely political issue. You can’t just fight against your symptom, a part of yourself, fight for what is called “health”, and make a change unless you can also appreciate yourself in the moment. Accepting who you are in the moment, with all your vulnerabilities as well as supporting a non-traditional life experience with a symptom, is what we will explore.

We worked with someone’s experience of having a slipped disc.  We then discussed it’s movement and stillness. We talked about the experience of not feeling productive and how it contributes to depression. As a group, we also like to explore how a personal body symptom could be related to social issues in the world. At this point, the group acknowledged the recent terrorist bombings in Paris.

Back Symptom Experience

The symptom we explored was initially noticed as fatigue in her back. Then an accident exacerbated the symptom, which caused a slipped disc.  Two days later, she fell down stairs.   This amplified the symptom. Treatment helped and yet a year and half later there were still moments of pain without obvious reason. This made the symptom even more mysterious as she explained, “there is a part of me that doesn’t want to get better”. Our curiosity took us forward!

Two Parts

We ended up exploring the experience of loss. She experienced this as not feeling free or strong in her body. We separated two parts of the symptom. In role playing the symptom-maker, she prevented her everyday self from moving. By taking this seriously, “not moving” became very important.

In unfolding this part, it said, “doing things is pointless”. We explored the stillness. In this, she realized there was nothing to fix. This experience was just about being. From this stillness, she accessed a sense of detachment. Most importantly for her, this viewpoint brought an overview that “people are moving from the wrong place, creating chaos and confusion”. She indicated that coming from a place of being moved allowed a less chaotic expression of thoughts and feelings.

Waiting to be moved

In small groups a theme emerged regarding the connection between depression and stillness. There were different stresses related to either being productive or not productive. Shame and feelings of failure often accompanied the latter.   People feared turning inwards because of their expectation of finding nothing. They acknowledged a lack of social support to be internal or to take time to go inward. They identified this tendency as a way we collectively terrorize ourselves.  In the push to function we override the smaller deeper but also important information in the background.

We talked about how we speak just to say something rather than speaking from what moves us. By having access to the smaller deeper aspects of ourselves we find different ways participating.

We left with a sense of inspiration and model for how to touch into our deeper selves after seeing how to work with a body symptom in unpredictable ways.

Please join us at out next forum.