Mind-Body Dualism & Embodiment

How deeply engrained aspects of western culture can cause a whole lot of problems for people tending toward the disassociative spectrum...and how embodiment and felt sense practices could be a factor in being safely present.

Oh, and what is felt sense and embodiment anyway? Where does yoga even fit in?

What is mind-body dualism?

This question has been pretty expertly answered by Ken Dychtwald, in his influential work Bodymind. He explains: "in the East, as exemplified in the Oriental and Indian cultures, the body and the mind have traditionally been viewed as inseparable aspects of the same human essence...a holistic approach to life and self-development...Here in the West, we have chosen to make a duality of the bodymind, separating it into two parts: the psyche, which is considered to live somewhere in the skull between the eyes; and the body, which lives and moves beneath it. This mind/body dualism is reflected in all our institutions and cultural processes, thereby further encouraging mind/body separatism rather than holism....it is not surprising to find that our minds and bodies often compete and argue”(p.25).

The notion of our minds and bodies arguing was ever-present during my upbringing - in my schooling, in my own habits and in what I absorbed around me. It pervades western culture, especially in the world of exercise and movement, where words that evoke pain, punishment or denigration often emerge. I call this the “burn-it mentality,” and it's a constant struggle to let go. My stream of consciousness can go something like this: "Push yourself. Why can't you hold this like yesterday? You're out of shape. You're losing your body. This is the decline. You're getting too old. Don't give in. You should be able to do this. You call yourself a yogi? A yoga teacher? They're watching. The other students must think you're so weak. They probably think you don't belong here. You're pathetic. You're lazy. You're fat. Don't be the first to give in. Don't be a disappointment. Don't fall short of your potential." Self-punishment and competition abound, and this isn't something I've been able to completely move past. Other punishment phrases associated with movement are: “work/burn this off at the gym/on the mat,” “feel the burn,” "yoga burn,” “melt the fat,” “shred”...I'm sure you can think of many more.

My body sometimes feels like the enemy, like the thing that's getting in the way of the ideals I have and my reality. Something that has to be tamed, overcome, mastered. This kind of mindset makes it easy to push myself too far. Like recently when, eager to please an instructor who asked me to demonstrate a pose I wasn't feeling that day, not caring about my own body, nervous from all the eyes, pressured, I ignored my internal messages and mindlessly entered an extreme twist incorrectly, from the wrong side and over-twisted my spine. For days, I was in pain, often jolted or stuck in a position.

We often encounter well-meaning yoga teachers, who offer words of "encouragement" and "motivation" by asking us to push to what they have seen us do before or even go just a little bit further... This has happened several times when attempting headstands or advanced balances, especially towards the end of practices when I'm exhausted but am “encouraged” to try harder or push more, and I hurt myself, usually not even noticing it right away. Injury happens when you disembody, when you give in to the dualism, seeing competition in what is supposed to be a journey inward, thinking worthiness comes from going deeper, harder, more. Yogi's are SUPPOSED to be able to do X or look like X….I should have the yoga butt and the yoga body or the yoga glow.

The Genius of our Body-Minds (a.k.a. the disassociation hack!)

The ability, or sometimes the choice, to separate our mind and our bodies, can at times serve a very important purpose - like avoiding pain or harmful realizations. Maybe to block out particularly hurtful parts of our life experiences or perception of aspects we don't like or even loathe, perhaps because of trauma or shame. It could also just be easier to get things done for that day or that period. However, over time, this can spread to more and more of our body-minds, until we don't notice ourselves at all. This can look like self-neglect, self-denial. It can lead to depersonalization, disassociation. It can also be a common response and show up as part of disassociative disorders, PTSD, CPTSD, eating disorders and body dysmorphia. Encouraged even more in the western world by the widespread idea (from Plato, Descartes and many religions) of mind/body dualism—that the mind is separate from the body, and we have to work on taming our unruly body that gets in the way of the mind. This is further elaborated in Bodymind: “we Westerners consider the head to be the resting place for the mind, the intellect, and reason. The body, on the other hand, is considered to be our emotional, animal, and less creative aspect. So the obvious splits of body/mind, intellect/feelings, and reason/intuition can all be seen in the way that the head and the body relate to each other” (p. 43). 

For those with a history of trauma, detaching from the body is not uncommon. Personally, it took many years before I even understood what was happening to me and thus was able to identify stages, triggers and tools to avoid escalation. In an interview entitled “Becoming Free from Disassociation" with Alex Howard at the 2022 Trauma Super Conference (April 25), Dr. Arielle Schwartz, respected expert on complex trauma, describes the continuum of disassociation (also spelled dissociation). She says it can range from an energetic shift like suddenly feeling tired, dizzy or foggy to spacing out or noticing that you've been uncomfortable for awhile but haven't moved. It can also look like dropping into feeling as if you're younger, using a more youthful voice or just not feeling like yourself, having memory lapses, even rages, other uncomfortable feelings or numbness.

You may look on the surface like you're fine but are actually taking over a persona or register of a character or stereotype, becoming a shell of the self that can go though the motions as if everything is normal, okay. For me, it feels like the self gets pushed further and further down. It can sometimes be inhabiting myself in another period of my life, a painful time or a time of retreat or safety. Others it could start by giving in to intense daydreaming (or daynightmaring or rumination and then reimagining) to the point of becoming completely lost in the abstraction. It can also be living a completely false or constricted self. It can show up as just going through the motions, perhaps piecing together and acting upon tropes, archetypes or societal norms, scenarios witnessed in my past, with caregivers, or even television and movies, without truly engaging with the moment before me. Sometimes you may realize you're doing it, others you can almost or totally disappear. Schwartz elaborates:“(you) experience that the authentic self gets smaller and smaller and sometimes the size of an atom."

For those who are affected by disassociation, there can be a feeling of real fear regarding its onset, what may happen during the episode and that perhaps it may not even end. During my pre-teen and early teen years, when extreme religion was a regular part of my day, I sometimes feared I was being possessed. Even after, I legitimately feared on a regular basis that I was losing myself, possibly forever, and slipping into insanity. This would often trigger an anxiety attack as existential questions raced through my mind and an intense fear that I was dying or disappearing from consciousness pervaded. Nevertheless, Dr. Schwartz emphasizes that the more we understand and even embrace disassociation as a valuable protective mechanism, the less scary it becomes and the more able we are to transcend it. The nuance is while we respect its function as an acute coping mechanism, we want to be aware of it becoming one's primary way of functioning in the world, basically operating under a completely false or constricted sense of self and lack of embodiment. She asserts that those who develop any type of disassociative disorder usually do so before the age of twelve and are often extremely intelligent and creative. In fact, she says “it's really smart.” And all those years, I thought I was totally defective and most definitely freakish...

What is embodiment?

Since it's gracing most of the paragraphs in this post, perhaps we should define embodiment. In a more general and figurative sense, it can be used to describe the alignment of someone or something with an ideal, principle or notion, as in “She embodies non-violence” or even “You should embody your values” (the new permutation of “practice what you preach”). Embodied yoga prioritizes how we perceive what's happening within our bodies as the result of movements and shapes instead of attaining an idealized or advanced version of a posture - ie that “perfect alignment." When talking about mind-body dualism and usually here at Yoga Where U R Planted, embodiment refers to feeling in one's body and noticing the sensations and feelings there. Literally, it is being in your body, right here, right now. This is the opposite of being on the scale of disassociation, which involves in part or completely leaving oneself in the current moment. Embodiment means being present, not floating away. However, sometimes, when we stay present, especially if we have a history of trauma, extreme stress, eating disorders or body image issues, staying in our bodies can be anything but pleasant. In fact, it can be shocking, scary or induce intense feelings of self-loathing and shame. Thus, when working on embodiment, it's crucial to only do so when we are mentally in a place that we are ready to try, when we have prepared a safe environment (somewhere where we feel comfortable and is as trigger-free as possible - i.e. probably not a crowded yoga studio walled with mirrors) and when we have a support network ready if things get too intense and we need help.

A key aspect of embodiment is interoception, or the perception of what is going on within our bodies - their sensations, comfort, discomfort, and their feelings and emotions that arise from or manifest through them. When we tap into words and imagery to describe what we perceive during interoception, we are verbalizing our felt sense of the experience, be it a moment in general, a certain posture or practice, the presence of another in the room and beyond. Bessel van der Kolk signals that interoception is integral to developing the belief that we can act on our wants, needs and goals, essential steps toward self-actualization: “Agency starts with what scientists call interoception, our awareness of our subtle sensory, body-based feelings: the greater that awareness, the greater our potential to control our lives. Knowing what we feel is the first step to knowing why we feel that way. If we are aware of the constant changes in our inner and outer environment, we can mobilize to manage them...This is why mindfulness practice, which strengthens the MPFC (medial prefrontal cortex), is a cornerstone of recovery from trauma”(p. 112, The Body Keeps the Score, words in brackets are mine). Note the association of embodiment with mindful attention or present moment awareness, a theme that continually emerges in more recent research as well. But how do you feel safe and okay enough to be keenly aware of your body and the moment before you? In a talk at the Healing Trauma Summit (April 7th, 2022), Dr. Steven Porges, father of polyvagal theory, highlights that “actions are not sufficient, it's feelings,” emphasizing that one must first set an intention to be embodied, to break the threat cycle of hypervigilance and disassociation and to cultivate feelings of embodiment and mindfulness.

Things That Encourage Interoception & Embodiment
(and Others That Don't)

In her April 25th summit talk, Schwartz offers the term DDNOS, Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, as a kind of umbrella for those who fall on the disassociative spectrum, but don't fit into any of the already identified disorders on this spectrum. She describes a disassociative subtype of PTSD, saying the parts of the brain that participate in being able to sense the body are actually affected as a result of the trauma, diminishing interoceptive and embodiment capacities. Dr. Schwartz underlines that people with this presentation require a totally different treatment, one which encourages interoception, heavily influenced by polyvagal theory (an approach she herself outlines in an excellent, newly released book, Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery, and a myriad of talks, videos and other publications).

This process of fostering embodiment and present moment awareness takes baby steps. One must gradually build the capacities and create new pathways and habits in the brain and body, as disassociation has become a habitual coping mechanism, engrained in procedural memory. As a result, it is truly important to go slow, to have patience with oneself and to approach the whole process with self-compassion and care. Force, aggression, or a sense of rushing can in fact set off a state of fear or perceived threat, which would encourage dropping back into a disassociative state. When a human is in pain or fear, brain functioning changes drastically. One of these changes includes the cut off or dysregulation of sensory perception. When we feel safe, interoception becomes more accessible. Thus, people must come to a place of readiness on their own, and no timeframe, pace or expected results should be imposed upon them.

Schwartz discusses ways to “befriend” the parasympathetic nervous system. The first step for her is becoming aware of what is happening in our bodies. This echoes other experts' emphasis on the freedom that can result from understanding the body's systems and processes (more on this in another blog, but for a fun debut, see Peter Levine's light-hearted book, You Are Your Organs: Getting to Know Their Quirks and Qualities). She says that we can foster neuroplastic change towards wellbeing via new habits and experiences in the body, but we must begin to build awareness of safety in the now, notably through anchors that help connect to the present and beauty in our lives. Another way is with co-regulation, when we are safely and confidently in the presence of others, and we can tap into the "social engagement system" (key aspect of polyvagal theory), allowing the nervous system to regulate and come into a ventral vagal state, out of the stress response.

Coming back to the idea of dualism, which is clearly at the heart of disassociation (dualism, separation) and embodiment (integration, unity), yoga's very Sanskrit root, yuj, means union or yoking of things together. This can be taken to mean the union of the parts of us, union with each other and union with all around us. Van der Kolk relays that "with six women with histories of profound early trauma, we also found the first indications that twenty weeks of yoga practice increased activation of the basic self-system, the insula (which among other things regulates the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems and is related to basic survival needs) and the medial prefrontal cortex (which relates to habit forming, attention and much more)...It opens up new perspectives on how actions that involve noticing and befriending the sensations in our bodies can produce profound changes in both mind and brain that can lead to healing from trauma" (p. 329, words in brackets are mine for clarification). In a subsequent 2015 study, Alison M. Rhodes came to similar conclusions when evaluating participants engaging in 10 weeks of one-hour-per-week Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga. “Analysis revealed the core meaning of participants’ experiences of practicing yoga as a multidimensional process of claiming peaceful embodiment. Participants experienced an improved connection with and sense of ownership and control over their bodies, emotions and thoughts. This was marked by a growing sense of self-efficacy”(p. 249). Thus, yoga emerges as a key modality for working towards inhabiting ourselves in the present moment and then moving toward agency.

In her April 25th interview, Dr. Schwartz is quick to point out that while often restorative yoga and yoga nidra are cited as best for those with a history of trauma, for people with the disassociative subtype of PTSD, this could cause feelings of immobilization, unsafeness, abstraction, uncomfortable introspection and even trigger a state of collapse or faint, especially at the beginning of their journey towards embodiment. Active or dynamic approaches as well as encouraging choices and thus decision making during the practices emerge as possibly helpful for remaining awake and aware. Schwartz also suggests leaving space in cuing for having eyes open (similar to Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga), if that is more grounding for the participant, as well as opportunities for playful awareness.

But, for people with a co-history of trauma and body dysmorphia or restrictive eating, how can dynamic practices or active sequences fit without encouraging disembodiment (an exercise trance) or taking on a punish-and-burn mindset? One important way is by employing one of the key parts of yoga nidra, the body scan, as well as sometimes (depending upon the person and their current state) using another part, connecting with breath. Another way is connecting movement with breath and providing adequate spaces to catch and maintain healthy breath. Here, yoga is not meant to make you pant but to be in healthy breath at all times, giving options and instructions for pauses or modifications if it's too intense, continually emphasizing the importance of how panting and struggling is counterproductive and even dangerous for those who are not easily able to identify or respect their physical limits, or perhaps unable to feel themselves.

In fact, true asana is not about strain and struggle at all. It is about going to where you can safely and comfortable go, and resting there - meeting yourself, wherever you are, on the mat, that day. Slowly, via these strategic and expected pauses, we can build comfort with stillness, steadiness and perhaps delight in restorative sequences and full yoga nidra as well, if these are not yet accessible to us without disassociation.

The idea that reflective or internally focused aspects of yoga could trigger disassociation or intense emotions and that active, intense or advanced asanas could reawaken eating and body issues or also intense emotions isn't surprising at all when we consider the framework Patanjali outlined in his 8 Limbs of Yoga. Originally, this framework was designed to be taken sequentially, thus with asana, pranayama (traditional breathwork), pratyahara (sense withdrawal, going inward irregardless of external stimuli, and observing what is happening inside; almost like exclusive interoception coupled with introspection) and then concentration, meditation and samadhi (blissful oneness) all come after the yamas and niyamas (discussed in a subsequent blog)- practices designed to prepare the way you interact with yourself, others and the world around you for the following stages of the yogic path. While I think putting up blocks to people wanting to explore the yoga's fullness isn't helpful, nor does it reflect the reality of our era, nor do I think there is a one-size-fits-all approach to yoga, which is deeply personal, nor do I believe in rigid or dogmatic frameworks, I do think there is wisdom in acknowledging that withdrawal inward, certain pranayama techniques and many asanas can be more safely and beneficially done with at least a base level of biopsychosocial (even a bit of spiritual) health, which is what the yamas, niyamas and asanas seek to provide.

Dr. Stephen Porges draws parallels between the fundamental tenets of yoga as laid out in the 8 Limbs and the function of the human nervous system, an integral factor in disassociation. In the forward to Dr. Schwartz's newest book, he reimagines the 8 Limbs into four key areas as defined by polyvagal theory (pp. xvi - xvii), portraying the yamas as linked to the way the autonomic nervous system assesses and responds to external threats. The niyamas, often associated with the self (though I would argue that the yamas can and should be applied to the self as well), are the keys to developing the baseline of self-awareness required to reach higher levels of mental and physical states: “it is assumed that as our interoceptive skills improve, the feedback loops that govern our physiology will enhance the regulation of our organs and support the homeostatic functions of health growth and restoration” (p. xvi). Finally, he suggests that asanas and pranayama “promote the regulation of our organs and are tangible skills to optimize the neural regulation of bodily organs to support homeostatic functions” (pp. xvi-xvii). Porges qualifies the rest of the 8 Limbs as “top-down neural exercises” that explore consciousness.

So often, I've heard (or even at the beginning myself felt) that when attempting asana, pranayama (considered the gateway between the body and the subtler layers of the self) or exercises on the meditative spectrum, it can actually not make you feel good afterwards, maybe even distinctly bad or perhaps truly injure you psychologically, physically or emotionally. For me, this has looked liked feeling numbed out, distant, panicked or triggered into depersonalization or derealization in terms of pranayama and beyond (following the 8 Limbs).

For asana, this has translated into me actually injuring myself either because of a lack of ability to feel pain or my limits, or a genuine desire to harm myself or make myself suffer, to burn it away, a competitive mindset or just a lack of concern for me. Still others may genuinely love to exercise and stretch, but don't want to trigger old, harmful body image or eating mindsets and behaviors. It might be really hard to let yourself savor and enjoy yoga and breathwork...you may be tempted to make it hurt. Strive hard. Push. Struggle.

But yoga asana is about being inside yourself and taking a gulp of the cocktail your senses are serving you. It's not about numbing or punishing or earning. It's about accepting what you want and where you are (even if it's a place where you can't notice all those flavors in that sense cocktail, because they're too much for now). There are no shoulds. There is healthy alignment. There are considerations to avoid injury. There are props when you need support or want to extend. But there isn't supposed to be pain or strain. Yoga is about caring for your body-mind, giving yourself what you need to be in balance -including mental, emotional and relational balance. It is so much more than looking skinny in tight pants. WAY more than breathy platitudes said like they're played in slo-mo. And definitely beyond any kind of blind religious worship.

What's needed then is an incremental series of practices designed with those on the disassociative and low-body-image and disordered-eating spectrum in mind to encourage not disassociation but embodiment, a tangible felt sense, grounded presence and even the beginnings of self-acceptance (or at least self-neutrality), self-care and perhaps self-compassion. There are plenty of such resources, notably materials put out by Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitators, content from Sarah Ball, an Australia-based yoga teacher, social worker, counselor and art therapist and of course, Dr. Arielle Schwartz.

Yoga Where U R Planted has just released a collection of content that fits into this category, hoping it may resonate and be helpful for people. This new Embodied Self-Compassion Series is a free, 3-day journey (plus some extras for the days beyond), chiefly comprised of three 10-to-20-minute practices, accompanied by a workbook to explain the rationale and guide you through some contemplative and exploratory exercises along the way. The practices include movement, breath and a reflective body scan.

While it isn't always suggested to incorporate breath awareness or breathwork for those who have a history of trauma, it has been personally transformative for me, once I was ready and found the techniques that were best suited to me at first. I wanted to include a brief practice that encourages inner-awareness for those that may feel ready now. Dr. Porges considers “pranayama yoga- often called the yoga of breath - as a yoga of the social engagement system. In the realm of polyvagal theory, the function of the calming ventral cardioinhibitory vagal pathways is optimized during slow exhalations and further potentiated during abdominal breathing...thus, slow exhalations, especially those involving movement of the diaphragm, have a powerful calming effect by recruiting vagal pathways” (p. xvii). This 3-day journey, then, was conceptualized to give examples of practices that can foster a more embodied state, encouraging interoception and offering ways to calmly sit with the emotions and thoughts that may arise with self-acceptance and self-compassion.

The Embodied Self-Compassion Series is designed for people that are experiencing mild mind/body separation, fogginess, a lack of awareness, negative self-talk or who have in the past experienced more extreme stages of the disassociative spectrum or had restrictive eating disorders or Body Dysmorphia and still experience a lingering self-critical or disconnected mindset, but have reached a stable place in recovery. It aims to calm the nervous system, provide safety, move one into interoception and then lay the groundwork for more positive self-concept. It gives an idea of the types of practices that YWURP will release in its upcoming Foundations Membership, which will feature, among other things, a content bank of short to medium and full-length sequences aimed at cultivating embodiment, self-compassion and self-care.

It can't be emphasized enough that for those who have recently experienced a traumatic event, have been acutely triggered, are prone to flashbacks or frequent extreme disassociation, or someone with an active eating disorder or body dysmorphia, yogic practice is best done under the guidance and cradle of a mental or physical healthcare practitioner or treatment facility, or at least with their approval and with someone specifically trained to offer such sequences, like Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitators or Certified Yoga Therapists with a co-speciality in Trauma-Informed Clinical Psychology or related field. As disassociation can be a defense mechanism, please do not engage in the practices suggested here if you feel you need this defense to function right now, and reserve this for work with a therapist or other professional qualified to hold this experience with you.