At the outset of this essay I think about its title. I wonder about all the places and positions in which I have asked this question or been at the receiving end of this question. In my experience, this question has found its way to me in the psychotherapy clinic and other learning spaces that involve the body – yoga, dance, art, swimming.
Now that I think about this question, I attempt to translate it to the other languages I speak in. In Telugu, Tamizh, Kannada and Hindi, this question translates to a rather crude “what is happening?”. There is implied action in this question. In everyday conversations, we ask each other to move to give what is needed. It is in stark contrast with the therapeutic situation wherein this enquiry is the start of our exploration. Even in this situation, we are unsure where we will be led to. A choice is made, consciously or unconsciously, to move to respond, to ask for its elaboration, we may be led to the story of its coming to be, and sometimes, all we get to is its experience in shared silence.
The question, as it is in English, leads me to think about the language in which my body speaks. I doubt the body has any language, or rather language as we know it. The expressions of the body are symbolized in words, and it is to these words, we begin to understand. We must arrive at some form of communication and so we do, with words. Words then allow us to understand and respond to each other.
On that note of derived language, I believe there is immense potential in being able to share this language. I cannot possibly translate these words to English, and as a result, I wonder if we do need to encourage expression in the language one speaks when at home with themselves.
In psychotherapy, I have rarely resorted to the blatant usage of this question. Over the years, I have begun to notice that the body arrives when words are reaching their end. By this I mean, there are moments when words can no longer carry the intensity of the experience and it is here when I listen to words that now describe the expression of the body.
To clarify, when I write of the “end”, I do not necessarily mean at the end of the description of an experience. I believe the descriptions about what is happening to the body punctuate our stories when we return to childhood. You see, for a child, there is no description that does not involve the body. I wonder if there are many words but for words of and about the body. The sensations, actions, feelings are linked to the body, and begin from the body.
Over time, we build a vocabulary that moves away from the body, and perhaps, extends beyond the body. I wonder if we would bring ourselves to say, for instance, “I am hungry for love”, as opposed to “I just want to eat some junk”. Through “junk”, we eat our way to feeling, whatever it is we have come to associate with eating.
Children, in some sense, speak from the body. And if I may say so, there is a certain inside-ness to them. They have not yet learnt how to tell stories devoid of the body, they are within their bodies. Inside themselves, not looking at their bodies from the outside. Growing up, perhaps we are then forced out of speaking from bodily experiences and adapt to descriptions of the thing our body is. There is a flight from “I am” to “I have”.
And so perhaps, there is some merit in the asking of such a question that then bridges our awareness from the outside-in, “what do you feel in your body?”. We then ask the person to return to what is happening now, inside them, to them. I do not think this is a particularly easy ask, nor is it an ask that can be unquestioningly used. This question assumes that the person can afford to feel their body, that their body is a site of safety. Therefore we must proceed with caution, for there are many ways to speak about the body that can be explored before entering it directly. We work around, not into.
This question could be met with nothing, and that too must mean something. To not feel anything in one’s body, may mean that there are more words to be formed before we get to a bodily experience. Some of us may have developed a preference for words and language, in a way that relates to the body. I have come to learn that we cannot place one way of relating over the other, it is possible that words too can act on our body, as much as our body acts on our words. By speaking of the body, the body can respond to this language. And such is the case, when symptoms of the body are relieved through speech.
Oftentimes, I have learnt that if we are to listen carefully enough and for long enough to the stories we have built around our bodies, we get to where the story began. Bodily experiences have a way of disguising themselves in language, and we must work through the language to get to its core. Sometimes, the elaboration of language about the body is in itself the working through. And I do believe that the only way to know where our approach is takes us to pay attention to our own bodies as we relate to another. So, perhaps we listen to both, the body of language and the language of the body, afterall how can one can really know with any certainty.
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