“People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.” Harper Lee
Routines give life a sense of predictability and control. Many of our human engineered environments can be chaotic. They range from simple to complicated, some requiring skillful navigation of numerous obstacles, whereas others are simple and straightforward. Establishing daily habits that make the mundane aspects of daily living routine free up our mental resources, leaving us with more energy for those times when we need to make more complicated decisions. Given that stress levels rise when life events seem beyond our control, routines provide a sense of order to an ever-changing world.
Although they provide structure, the benefit of any routine has limits. Their usefulness extends only as far as the context in which we use them. Frequently, our solutions can become our problems, as will happen when routines become rigid and inflexible. As the demands of life shift, so must our habits. Whereas healthy routines give life rhythm and a sense of ease, they become a source of stress when we cling to them, using them as a sort of life preserver that keeps our head above water. The key is knowing when it is time to shift into a new pattern, what to let go of, and what is useful to keep.
Our ability to evaluate the utility of a routine depends on how adroitly we monitor and evaluate what is happening in our environment. The world exposes us to a vast array of sensory experiences. Our brains are continuously processing this input, collecting information received through the five senses--sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Sensory input is our felt experience of life; it is our present moment connection to the world which enables us to adapt—both physically and mentally-- to a changing environment. Although our bodies are continuously sensing and adapting to the world around us, we typically are unaware of these shifts. Much of the input from the brain and our ongoing physical adaptations occur at a level below our awareness. The only time we notice is when we consciously tune in or when sensory input reaches a particular tipping point, such as being startled by a loud noise, or slipping on ice.
We tend to spend a great deal of time engaged in the uniquely human activity of thinking—analyzing, problem solving, planning, storytelling, to name a few of our cognitive processes. Our endless thinking tends to drown out body sensations. But our felt experiences of the world—known as somatic experiences—provide essential “bottom up” information that inform our thought processes and help us make skillful decisions about life. Our capacity to use this resource depends on the ability of the mind to tune into and digest its input.
Western medicine has traditionally considered the body and mind as separate entities, but recent research has shown that it is hard to tease apart physical experiences from our thought processes. Such a dichotomy does not accurately represent our lived experience. Eastern traditions approach health through a holistic lens in which the body, mind, and energy form a network of interrelated relationships. Whatever arises in the body affects our emotions, thoughts, and vitality; what happens in the mind impacts our physiological states. In the space between the body and mind lies the breath, which influences the direction in which our energies flow and, at the same time, can be changed by both the body and the mind.
Our western traditions favor a “top-down” approach to health, one in which we set goals, establish behaviors and routines, and then execute the plan. Failure to achieve objectives—weight loss, lowering cholesterol, exercising—is due to either the plan itself or our lack of “willpower”. In this view, success is dependent on our ability to execute the plan—to be motivated, focused, and disciplined. Such an approach is heavily dependent on cognitive processes while failing to appreciate the porous boundaries between body, mind, and energy levels. It over-emphasizes the role of thought while ignoring the influence our body and breath have on our emotions, cognitive processes, and subsequent behavior.
The intricate relationship of body, mind, and energy is best illustrated in our evolving understanding of emotions. Based on writings from Darwin, we have historically thought of emotions as having what he described as “emotional fingerprints”. According to Darwin, each emotion comes with a specific combination of facial expressions, body language, and other physiological cues. In Darwin's view, anger is associated with a clenched jaw, hostile facial expressions, and aggressive body positioning, while happiness is characterized by crinkled corners of the eyes, upturned lips, and a relaxed and open stance. These unique characteristics are thought to be hardwired and experienced the same way by all humans.
Research conducted by Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychologist at Northeastern University, challenges Darwin's view. Rather than being hardwired, her studies found that emotions are represented by a whole range of reactions with a huge amount of overlap between each one. This variation—whether we feel happy, excited, angry, or anxious--depends on how we interpret our body signals, as well as the context in which the emotion arises, our expectations, and a wide array of circumstances. Barrett’s research indicates that emotions are constructed, arising in the body which we then label based on our upbringing, histories, thought patterns—they can even be influenced by hunger, being tired, or distraction.
Barrett’s theory depends heavily on the connection between awareness of our bodily sensations and the capacity of the mind to accurately process these experiences. She emphasizes that, without proper awareness and discernment we can easily mislabel emotions. Since emotions lead to thoughts which then guide our actions, mislabeling can lead us down the wrong path and is frequently the cause of pain in our lives. She emphasizes the importance of learning how to read body signals, using mindfulness to observe and deconstruct our sensory experiences. The more we notice, the more information we gather, which then enables the mind to make more skillful responses.
Where we are at any point in our lives reflects our capacity to digest our experiences. Thinking patterns that adequately tap into body sensations will help us navigate life with more ease; when we favor mental processes and ignore body signals, we are more likely to take missteps in life that lead to pain or suffering. We can strengthen our power of discernment by learning how to decode and then accurately express emotions. Barrett calls this skill “emotional granularity”, which starts with the process of tuning into body signals to notice subtle, fleeting sensations that we may have previously ignored. Emotional granularity develops as we explore subtle body signals, noticing the breath and physical sensations of expansion and contraction. As our somatic awareness grows, so does our emotional vocabulary. What was once labeled as “mad” starts to be felt more as “disappointed”; feeling “good” is identified more accurately as “hopeful”. Shifting from global, vague affective labels to more detailed and descriptive terms helps us develop a wider range of coping strategies while building a more intimate relationship with our body and breath.
We can learn a lot about our awareness of our body, mind, and breath by the way in which we navigate our emotions. You need only to look to your emotional vocabulary to discover the depth of your relationship with body and breath. It is our capacity to connect with our somatic experiences, our understanding of the interrelationship between body, mind, and breath, that holds the key to the ease at which we experience life. What might you learn about yourself if you broaden your emotional vocabulary? Tap into your body’s deep inner wisdom and learn to listen deeply. You may be surprised by what your body has to say.
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