Spirituality of the Body (Homayoun Shahri, PhD, MA, LMFT)

After eating from the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve became aware of the inevitability death and their existential demise and disappearance. This led to existential fears and anxieties, requiring the need for connection, contact, and relationship, as well as the need to believe in a higher power which served to reduce their anxieties. Spirituality is the sense of connection to a higher power greater than oneself. We can thus say that early man had to become spiritual to reduce his existential anxieties.

A concept that is related to spirituality is grace, which is defined as the divine influence acting within the heart to regenerate, sanctify and keep it. It also can be defined as the divine spirit acting within the body. Dictionary defines grace as unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification. Spirit and matter (body) are thus joined in the concept of grace. The divine spirit is therefore experienced as the natural gracefulness of the body and the graciousness of the person's attitude toward all creatures on earth. It is not hard to identify truly spiritual people. They display certain attitudes and certain body postures that are unmistakable which are reflected in aliveness of the body – seen as brightness of the eyes, the color and warmth of skin, the spontaneity of expression, the vibrancy of the body, and the gracefulness of movement.

Theology believes in the superiority of mind over body, which leads to the separation of mind from body. Body is seen as simply flesh and is despirited, characterized by its relative unaliveness and lack of grace and spirituality then becomes an intellectual phenomenon. However, our existence is a material existence and we are spiritual creatures (a necessity for reduction of our existential anxieties). These two concepts are united in the concept of grace. Thus in health (mental and physical) we must be gracious creatures.

Psyche and soma as two aspects of a unitary process, one mental and the other physical. Unity exists at an energetic level. Health (both mental and physical) is thus related to energy which implies that the healthy and gracious body must be energetic. Body's energy is dependent on intake of oxygen through breathing, which is therefore related to being gracious. An energetic body is a relaxed body. A muscle is charged when it is relaxed. When muscle performs work it contracts. Thus a gracious body is a soft and relaxed body, without chronic contractions that result in loss of grace and diminished energy. A gracious body is a feeling body, and feelings are related to both breathing and relaxed body. Feelings are registered as the perception of emotions (energetic states of the body) in the somatosensory cortex. Thus if breathing is not full, and body is contracted, feelings are greatly diminished resulting in loss of grace.

Spirituality is also related to sexuality. A basic bioenergetic principle states that flow of excitation upward and down in the body is pulsatory, which means that it cannot extend more in one direction than the other. In terms of feelings, we cannot be more spiritual than we are sexual. Spirituality dissociated from sexuality becomes an abstraction, and sexuality dissociated from spirituality is a purely physical act. When we love our sexual partner with all the love in our hearts, the embrace is spiritual as well as sexual. When we embrace God (creator – the divine force of nature) with the love of our bodies, the contact is sexual as well as spiritual. Healthy sexuality and spirituality are whole body experiences. In both mythical and orgastic experience, there is sensing of communion with greater forces in the universe.

We cannot close ourselves to life and yet live. We cannot be completely closed off to love, for then our hearts would turn cold and stop beating. Softness is a quality associated with life and love, and chronic rigidity is the quality associated with death and hate. Human mind is constantly active in search of security. It is nature that most threatens man's security. Since man can never completely subdue nature, he is in a constant struggle with it. This struggle between man nature, which is mirrored in the struggle between the ego and the body, robs man of the peace of mind he needs to experience the joy that life offers. This struggle is more intense in neurotic individuals than in healthy ones. It often masquerades as a struggle for power, success, self-esteem, or love. Deeply religious people are able to avoid this struggle because their faith in God. If a person has faith that his life is in God's hands and whatever happens is God's will, then he need not struggle. He may not be happy but has peace of mind. With the surrender of the ego's control, a person can give himself over to the joyful flow of life and feelings in his body. It is the mind, with its emphasis on knowledge and reason, that is secular and the body that is sacred. In Bioenergetics, integrity is a term used to describe the uninterrupted flow of excitation in the body from head to feet and back again.

It is from ground up (rooted in the body) that one builds an integrated personality. One cannot find security in any thought process dissociated from its roots in the body's feelings. No thought is right for a person unless it feels right in the body. With faith in life, one allows the free flow of one's natural impulses, modifying them only to ensure that their expression is appropriate. Being true to oneself means to know and accept all of one's feelings – to be fully alive. If one is true to oneself (fully alive), one is not afraid of death as it is seen and felt as joining the cosmic oceanic energy. Fear of death is seen as fear of life. If one has lived fully one is not afraid of dying. If one is not fully alive, one is afraid of death and yearns to be fully alive before he dies.

In conclusion grace is seen as the spirituality of the body. A body that is grounded and energetic, a body that is soft and spontaneous, one that moves gracefully.
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Reference
​Lowen, A. (2013). Spirituality of the Body. Hinesburg, VT: The Alexander Lowen Foundation

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