Another memory folds itself into my body

Tucked away in a file for another day, hidden from my view

I am an origami human

Twisted and creased

Forming shapes invisible to the eye

They lie

Deep beneath my skin

And even when I take out all of these things -flatten them out straight with thoughtful palm and furrowed brow

The wrinkles and lines do not fully release

Stretch marks from giving birth to a thousand different versions of self tell the stories of my human life

Crumpled paper throw it away

Take a fresh sheet

And fold with intent

And yet,

It is not possible to prevent these lines from forming

Again and again and again

*All that we have experienced lives in our body. Cells die by the thousands every day yet somewhere, in this body, are the memories of everything that we are.

Kinesiology is a mechanism via which a trained practitioner can release old fears and negative experiences from a persons body. I’ve never had it done, but I’ve spoken to people who swear by it.

We have these layers and folds where the body tucks the things that we are unable or unwilling to process. Largely we are unconscious to them, they just exist like dormant volcanos, under our skin.

Occasionally there is a rumble of discomfort. An irritation, a moment of insight, and something comes to light.

There are also of course the conscious memories, the ones we return to in our mind. But beneath that layer are the blind scratchings, impulses and behaviours that we have no control over – until for whatever reason, they rise to the level of consciousness and we can see them for what they are.

I’ve been at this fitness thing since late January but I’ve always been pretty fit. I don’t put on too much weight – or lose it.

This time it’s different. Because this time I’m not just maintaining, I’m wilfully changing and I haven’t done that for a long time. I feel like maybe my psychology is being taken along for the ride, along with my physiology. As a muscle changes and morphs into something different, is it releasing a kinetic impulse?

Is that fat deposit where a particular memory lies hidden? As the fat leaves my system, what does it take with it? Or in the evaporation and expiration of molecule through sweat running down my skin – what ghostly feeling once entrenched is now released? Is this muscle that is morphing, where a certain pattern of thinking stems from?

First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another.

Weight gain can often be traced back to a psychological issue. Did this person need protection, feel attacked, lay down grief in the form of fat? Of course there are hormonal and chemical imbalances that can contribute to these things too. Yoga tells us that disease is first present in a metaphysical sense before it becomes physical.

And so as the reversal of that process begins to happen, do these psychological and metaphysical patterns release? Transform? Into what?

I guess what I am getting at, is that, like many people, I have always come at personal growth from a cerebral level. I read, I absorb, I think, have experiences and I journal and I change – at the top of the iceberg that is out of the water level. And by the iceberg, I mean the bit of my mind I can see. But it runs so much deeper.

Thinking through to action is a different process from action through to thinking.

With thinking through to action we follow the steps of circumstance – thought – feeling – action – result. We can consciously change things along the way and by moving the pieces around – obtain the best result.

Moving from the action line is a whole different ball game. As a thinker, I’m finding it a pretty intense process.

Lately, I am not necessarily in control of the thoughts that spring from an action and I believe, that somehow working through the body, rather than the mind is releasing things which I could never have even been aware of from a purely mental perspective.

The body has a different wisdom altogether, and I’m like an explorer who has always been on land, now just discovering that the ocean has layers and depths that are vast and intriguing.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense – even to me. It’s like a Japanese koan that I’m turning in my mind – out of habit, because that is the way I process things and yet just like the koan – this is something that cannot be thought through.

Koans were given to students by their masters in order to exhaust the mind – and allow insight to arise from a place beyond the mind. Action wisdom, body wisdom is not something that can be thought through. Action wisdom delivers insights from beyond the mind. They just arrive, already busted open in the mailing process with all packaging gone – only the gift remains. Clear and unadorned saying “pick me up I’m yours” and yet I didn’t even order it.

Weird.

My beetroot smoothie has taken me to a deep place this morning – or perhaps it was the 2K of swimming that blew my mind up. The sheer amount of oxygen flowing through my system. The vast places opening in my chest and diaphragm from breathing deeply and rhythmically for almost an hour. It’s still easy. Where do I plateau and why haven’t I reached it yet? If you put the epidermis under a microscope it is permeable – endlessly permeable. We are nothing but energy shaped like a human. The skin is not solid, like the sky it simply disappears the deeper and higher we go – the universe unfolding into infinity.

Pure potential.

Thanks Hal Gatewood of Unsplash for header photo. Blog post written Thursday 24/3/22