How to use your body to deprogram your mind
Blazing Reader,
Truthers talk a lot about brainwashing — where the mind becomes programmed to think in certain ways.
Some of the programming may be kind of useful, like how to brush your teeth and play the piano.
While other programs lead to bad habits, toxic people and addictive substances that can send you into a kamikaze spiral.
Most of these programs were installed back when we were kids. Some were survival software for coping with abusive and/or neglectful parents. Others were viruses purposely uploaded into our psyche at mandatory indoctrination camps (a.k.a. school). And, of course, TV "programs," commercials and Hollywood brainbusters didn’t help the coding.
Figuring out what is good code, what's bad code and what's really you... can be tricky without the right debugging tools.
My wife, Ina Backbier, recently held a live workshop here in the Netherlands, training people in a particular debugging tool which one might call "somatic epistemology." Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the means by which we determine what is true. Many philosophies emphasize a cognitive approach to acquiring knowledge from outside oneself. The somatic route sees the body and its stored emotions as another avenue to self-knowledge and discernment.
We talk about mind viruses, but rarely about the emotions and feelings that may be driving those Trojan horses, which hide out in the body, rather than the brain.
Today, Ina has released a seven-part video series from her last live workshop, explaining how to use somatic self-inquiry to free the body, mind and emotions of repressive programming, so that you can be... you.
If you're a fan of books like Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score, Babette Rothschild's The Body Remembers and Gabor Maté's When the Body Says No, then you'll probably love Ina's seven-part mini-course on emotional repression inquiry.
To sign up for free or find out more about the somatic approach to authenticity, head over to InaBackbier.com
John C.A. Manley
John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.
