A participant reminded me a lot of my controlling self. He is a young man from Love & Shakti Centre whom I have known for years. After moving into space, he shared he felt intense sadness in his heart. Later he described: “It feels like a part of me wants to break down and cry while the other one cannot let go of the control. Feels like two parts. The right (the masculine side) one wants to remain standing, the left (feminine side) feels like its’ just tired… of being shattered. If that makes sense”. Wanting to explore the left side, he sat on the ground for some time before moving. Movements such as stretching of arms and legs seemed to be helping. Nevertheless, they remained restricted and contained. It was visible there was muscle tension he was not able to let go. I myself felt tense and uncomfortable in my seat. I was at the edge of my body as I felt an internal need for him to share anything he goes through. He took long intervals of time to move before deciding to stop and share. In AM, one can move for as long as they need to. However, in this instance, these intervals seemed eternal and even agonizing to endure. Reminding myself to breathe and leave him in his process, I returned back to myself. Although I was a witness, I did not feel connected to him the same way I felt to the other movers. It felt he did not want me to see him vulnerable, so he preferred to control.
Elaborating on the split between his two sides, he described his left as ethereal, light, and “wanting to dance” while his right as angry, dissatisfied, and controlling. Following the left provided his entire soma with freedom and inspiration. The left side led all parts of the body, creating internal space. After some time, he decided to look into the right side. He began moving from there. Noticing his entire body became constricted and controlling, he realized the right side wanted to suppress the left one. Fear of its “unreliability” emerged as if it revealed a sensitive side of himself.
Whitehouse writes on the left and rights side:
“When the two complete sides of the body are opposed, left and right is learned – different but somehow mysteriously balancing. The opposites can balance but they do not always; sometimes one is more heavily weighted than the other. Left and right have many connotations. […]
The left has its own special quality as related in Rumer Godden’s book title, “The Left Hand is the Dreamer”. It is the left that is hidden, innocent, irrational, naïve [feminine]– there are many names. In contrast, the right stands for conscious, familiar, controlled, active [masculine]. They are physical and psychological opposites.”
Mary Starks Whitehouse, 1979:67
Providing him with feedback, I reminded him that the left side is the yin or feminine aspect of the psyche (McGilchrist, 2010). It is related to the mysterious unconscious realm where all creativity, empathy, and emotionality come from. Knowing he is a remarkable artist, I was sure my words would touch him. He said he wants to cry, but he would not do it. He pointed the camera as an excuse, though I was certain with or without a camera, he would not share this. Continuing to move, he often took deep breathes as if trying to push something in his chest down. The thoracic area was lifted upwards inflated like a balloon. I could see the struggle of trying to hide what was already overflowing.
I am very familiar with the sensation, as I described in my personal experience. It was not hard for me to notice it in another. I left him “be” the way he felt best. After all, he is on his journey and will decide when and how his soma will embody the left side.
Starting the session, the mover felt uncertain as to what AM is about and whether he would be able to trust the process. Allowing it to simply flow through movement, he managed to connect to his feminine side. Although not fully embodied, the session made him feel “heard and accepted,” as he said.
*The right brain lobe, responsible for the functions of the left side of the body, is related to the unconscious and emotional self (McGilchrist, 2010).
Participant’s Reflection
Connecting to my body is always a difficult practice for me because I usually do not know how to interpret the feelings I feel through my body, and writing a reflection about it seems even harder.
In this session, with Yoana’s guidance, I observed how I felt through my body at the moment of the session.
Because the study is about movement based on how the body feels; part of myself was afraid because its usual state is to stay still; rhythmic movement isn’t something I am used to.
To my surprise, I noticed that there was a part of myself that wanted to move more freely (left) while another part of myself (right) felt like staying firmly still. Focusing separately on the two feelings led to interesting realizations;
The left side – had the desire to move freely but felt like it didn’t have the right-to. After allowing the entire body to embrace this feeling, and letting the body move as it had wanted, I felt liberated; freed from captivity almost. My movements felt like they were reaching out, flowing and uncontrolled.
In contrast when focused on the Right side – which had the firm need to not move at first, but felt like it wanted to now; but in a more controlled almost attacking form. It felt direct, precise, and with a lot of force. I felt anger while moving. Before not too long, I started to feel the suffocating sensation on the left side.
It almost felt like the right side (considered as the masculine half) was angry because the left half (the feminine and creative half) had brought a sensitive side of myself to the surface.
Further sinking deeper into these feelings through movement revealed the fear of judgment of the sensitive and expressive side of myself. I had known about this issue earlier although, through the method of movement of the body, I finally felt how my body felt regarding this issue; suffocated, bound, anger and fear.
This session I feel not only help me realize this but also helped me see that these issues that I hadn’t focused on for a while. This realization alone made me feel almost ‘heard’.
As an artist and an architect, the connection to the creative and expressive self is extremely important. Through this session, I feel I had found a method to bring to consciousness the issues I have, and quite possibly a way to work through them.