Rolfing is a distinctly western holistic approach to health and well being, yet its core principles seem very eastern in nature. Ida Rolf took from her study of osteopathic medicine, also a distinctly western tradition, the idea that the individual possesses the inner ability to find balance and to heal themselves. This differs from the standard medical approach in the west, one that focuses on disease and disorder. Rolfing and osteopathy focus on the health of the individual, not the disease. By bringing attention to an individual’s innate somatic intelligence, the process of healing and finding a greater degree of balance and order can begin. There is a profound proverb from traditional Chinese medicine that encapsulates this idea. “A man is not sick because he has a disease, he has a disease because he is sick”.
While considering this statement, I began pondering the very word disease. Does it actually mean what it sounds like? Dis- ease, a lack of ease, a feeling of unease? Having quite a few professors of historical sociolinguistics as a student at the University of Texas, I know better than to just assume that a word’s origin is what it sounds like, words change over time and so does meaning. Also, you can not validate a philosophical concept from etymology alone, but it can support your argument with it and it can yield some interesting results. So having looked it up I came to find that our modern English word “disease” comes into Middle English from Old French meaning “lack of ease”. Just what it sounds like.
So we see that this word does not just describe a pathogen or a specific condition in as much as it expresses a lack of balance and a lack of a feeling of well being. When a person's system is off balance it fosters an environment ripe for problems to develop, and to live in a way that is contrary to the balance of an individual’s system is said in Ayurvedic medicine “to invite disease”. Disease can lead to more disease just as disorder can lead to more disorder. Driving a car around with structural issues, rather than fixing those issues, will certainly lead to more issues. I am sure that makes perfect sense to everyone. People rarely think about how that applies to themselves though.
As Rolfers, we deal with strain patterns, just as chiropractors, physical therapists and even massage therapists do. The difference is Rolfing acknowledges that strain patterns can be very far reaching, from head to toe, especially when the act of movement is included. Most professionals in manual therapies understand that tight pecs will pull and individuals shoulders forward and cause pain in the upper traps and rhomboid areas. What they often overlook is the fact that an individual may not be getting enough support in the their upper body for their shoulders to sit comfortably where they need to be, and when the shoulders are anterior of the mid line, the pecs with shorten, so is the problem from not having enough support from the hips? Is the way they walk affecting their neck and shoulders? Very few manual therapists ask the question, “is their neck and shoulder problem issuing from restriction in the feet and ankles when walking?” But this is still only dealing with the most overt mechanical aspect of an individual’s well being. What about the nervous system as a whole?
The brain sits in a protected region of the body, in the skull, but does it really end there? From the brain issues forth a nervous system that branches through the entire body, and in doing so we can say that the brain does too. Our nervous system is mission control for the body and or overall experience of reality. Over any changes, any correction, and sense of balance or lack of balance, the nervous system has ultimate control. This is often looked over by western manual therapists who think they can work on an individual like a car or some other machine, which is a typical mechanical western approach that does not acknowledge that with humans and animals, maybe with all things- the Whole is Greater than the sum of its Parts.
The brain experiences input from the nervous system, it takes in sensation. It is also the realm of our thoughts. Both sensory input (conscious and unconscious) and thought, blend together in the mind. Does this not also mean that the mind runs throughout the body just like the nervous system does from the brain? Western philosophy typically views the mind and the body as two separate phenomena, just as western religion separates the soul from the body, and the soul is considered to be the true individual, whereas the body is simply a vehicle. Most of western philosophy is based on thought games, so it is not surprising that it may come up with an idea so very divorced from reality, that we are ghosts trapped in a meat shell until death liberates us from our carnal prisons. Westerners tend to project this idea on everything they study, and this includes eastern philosophy. To us it is nearly unfathomable that spirit and matter could be considered one and the same phenomena, and even more so for the mind and the body.
I often hear Americans profess that the word yoga means to unite mind and body. This is primarily because the word yoga comes from a Sanskrit root that means “to yoke” and does yuga, which is a designation of the four ages the world goes through in between creation and dissolution. The problem with this explanation of yoga is that in most of the major branches of Indian philosophy the mind is considered to be material and belonging to the body. Yoga is based on Samkhya philosophy, and many of the other branches of philosophy in India are based on Samkhya cosmology and psychology. I am sure it is reassuring for westerns to believe that as our bodies age, and break down, it will all be ok, we are just a ghost imprisoned in a shell and one day we will be free, but this does not help us with gaining the richness that is available to us through becoming present to the sensation of ourselves, through our bodies, nor is this idea helpful for health, healing and balance.
The body has its own intelligence, people will hear me say that over and over again. I say this for the case of simplicity, in reality I do not differentiate between the intelligence of the body or the mind. They are one intelligence, and thought is only one very small aspect of this intelligence. Likewise, conscious perception is only one very small aspect of this intelligence, whereas there is a whole realm of experience that is being taken in unconsciously, and that is why it is foolish to try to control every expression of the body with the very small aspect of our mind that is conscious to us. We believe that we know best, and so we try to drive our bodies like a car, forcing it to do what we want, instead of trying to allow the body to express itself, as if we could even begin to understand all of the factors that are involved in even standing upright and walking in gravity. Again, I am using language that supports the idea that the mind and body are separate phenomena for the sake of simplicity, but I am of the opinion that they are one and the same.
Watching an interview with Indian yogi Sadhguru I perceived an important view of reality. He stated that if I eat bread, the bread becomes part of me. If I eat more bread, I do not become more bread-like. He was pointing out that there is a force within me that perpetuates my “me-ness”. This is to me, as a Rolfer, an illustration of the inner intelligence of the body, but this intelligence can become compromised through life experiences, such as injury, habits, and being divorced from sensation. The inner intelligence can become “deranged”, as it is said when one of the humors which produce balance in the body is aggravated in Ayurvedic medicine. So it is this sense of balance that needs to be addressed for an individual to heal, adjust and perform at their best in everyday activities as well as athletic activity.
Instead of trying to control, micromanage, and force the body to do everything the way we think things should be done, we could try to listen to the body, to learn its language. To do sports, dance, martial arts and even to do a workout, we need to be trained to do these activities properly, but my advice is to leave this attitude in the gym, in the dojo, in the activity you have been trained for. There is a gentle awareness that goes into functioning in life gracefully, and this is not done with excessive force, excessive tension, with violence. This grace issues forth from a confidence that I can function in life with a relaxed awareness and an inner wisdom that is to be found deeper than the realm of ordinary consciousness. I can learn the subtle language of the body, of the emotions, and of the subconscious mind, but it takes time and it takes patience. To hear one’s inner voice, one must learn to listen.
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