What the body says
In The Gift of Fear, a book I strongly recommend to anyone with daughters, security specialist Gavin de Becker begins with a chilling story. He tells of a young woman returning to her apartment building, noting the front gate was unlocked. It was a common enough occurrence, so she didn’t think much of it. Then, as she ascended the staircase, a tin of cat food fell from one of her grocery bags. A man’s voice behind her said, “Don't worry, I'll get that!” His tone was bright, energetic, and friendly as he picked up the can. But something about the voice felt wrong. Frightfully wrong. The woman suppressed her instincts so as not to appear rude, but in short order those instincts proved to be correct.
The body is an incredibly sophisticated sense-maker. Much more sophisticated than we tend to assume. De Becker’s story, though extreme and disturbing, reveals that we are constantly engaged in whole-body perception. We are processing information on multiple levels, above and below the level of consciousness. Many of the most impressive minds are attuned to this phenomenon. George Soros famously said he knows there’s something wrong in the markets when his back is acting up. Einstein talked about the importance of kinesthetic awareness. What are some ways in which the body speaks to us?
The body reveals our hidden capabilities. Particularly in our younger years, many of us are fascinated and compelled by a famous person — a writer, singer, dancer, teacher, athlete or whatever. Quite often this is because we sense an affinity between that person’s talents and our own. We are witnessing the full expression of our latent potential, and it triggers a rush of exhilaration. But we regularly misread the clues. We assume it’s mere adulation we’re experiencing. We put that famous person on a pedestal, and we fail to see that we stand at the foot of a staircase to their position in the sky.
The body predicts what others will feel. Professional writers know when they have stumbled upon an effective formulation. Frequently, their body tells them so. The early 20th century American journalist, H. L. Mencken, was forever tilting his head back and laughing uproariously as he sat at the typewriter. He could sense when he had produced a zinger. (“Puritanism is the haunting fear that somewhere, somewhere, someone else may be happy.”) The body is a feeling organism, and part of its genius is to anticipate what others will feel. It gives us corporeal hints that we’re on the right track, or that we should pause before hitting ‘send’.
The body gauges our progression. In the initial stages of a learning journey, our challenges are manifested physically. We tend to be stiff and tense at that point. Then, as we move toward mastery, we become loser, more limber, and light-hearted. Rickson Gracie, the legendary Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion, was called upon to defend his family’s honor at a no-holds-barred competition in Japan in 1995. Just a few hours before walking out into the arena, where some 50,000 spectators were waiting, he took a 90-minute nap. His body clearly felt he was properly prepared. Though we may feel anxious in the moment, are we slightly less wound-up than last week? If so, that is progress.
We are receiving hints and clues from our bodies all the time. But are we paying attention to them? And are we losing touch with these signals in our haste to embrace technologies that do more and more sense-making on our behalf? Quite possibly.
This newsletter, by the way, was born from listening to the body. About a year ago someone said to me: “Much of your potential is on the other side of more content.” I sensed a neglected part of me stir and start to make noises in the basement of my awareness. So I sat up straight and resolved to seize the mantle of responsibility. I still don’t know what that person’s words meant, but I trust this will become clear in time.