Language Body

Paul Eckman has shown, and other psychoscientists have verified, that emotional states in the body are inextricably connected with body movements. Eckman's particular work is to demonstrate that micro-facial expressions reveal emotional realities in the same way across cultures and human experience, for instance, making clear that an unhappy tribe-member in Borneo flashes a physiologically identical facial expression when feeling sadness or anger as does a Wall Street banker. In more psychological language, one might say that the inextricable connection of inner states to body movement is Archetypal, in that it is demonstrably applicable to all human beings.

 

Paul Linden asks people to stand in a deep stride stance, and then has them say one both an aggressive or cruel thing and one kind or compassionate thing. By pushing on them at each occasion, he demonstrates that a kind expression and open psychological "posture" is more grounded (feels stronger but with less effort) than is possible when speaking harshly or intending harm.

 

An investigation of the assertions implied by these discoveries would need to test the relationships that tie the realm imagined as "inner" with movements visible as "outer," which consciously and unconsciously relate one's ways of thinking and feeling with the choices one makes in everyday life, particularly in the ways one processes conflict and thereby creates the cultures in which one participates. One's inner culture and one's outer culture come to reflect one another.

 

George Lakoff has shown that the Metaphors We Live By illustrate this process, which is to say that through a shared imagination and language, "inner" person and "outer" culture co-create each other, embedding shared themes in the poetry, structure, and rituals of both. I call this culturopoiesis.

 

One way of exploring this pattern involves a series of practices I refer to as the "Language Body" Series.