The Personal Iceberg

When we talk about ourselves, we tend to talk about our ”body” – or our ”emotions” – our ”mind” or our ”spirit” or ”psyche”. However, these various ”parts” do not live in different parts of our body – they are all interrelated and we can’t separate one from the other. So when I talk about our BODYMIND, I am talking about the totality of all that we are.

Our bodymind is influenced by every thought we have and will react accordingly.

If we have happy thoughts and ”see” happy images in our mind, our body will release endorphins, a ”happy” chemical, which will affect our immmune system and whole bodymind in a positve way. Our whole body chemistry is happy, and so even our skin cells, stomach lining and bone cells are flooded with a happy chemistry. All of our bodymind will experence happiness, body functions can occur optimally, and we are healthier.

And vice versa – depressed or unhappy thoughts will start a totally different cycle going. If we see what is around us as dangerous, our fearful thoughts will generate the chemical adrenaline, and our body is then trying to function in a constant state of tension in the gut, heart, bran and skin cells. Our whole body chemistry will be depressed, our whole bodymind is affected, with the result of premature aging, disability and disase.

However, this process doesn’t necessarily start with our thoughts. Because we are so totally interconnected, depression can start anywhere in the cycle. If our body posture is depressed, our breathing, senses and emotions will be affected, and this will again affect our thoughts, which become pretty black and depressed because we are now feeling depressed. These dark thoughts will realease the chemical that will further depress our body – which will again affect our feelings, our immune system, our thoughts… Get the picture?

The good news is that it doesn’t matter were we start when we want to change this process. Because our bodymind is so totally interconnected, even a shift in our body posture will bring about a subtle change in how we feel.

Try it right now. Notice while you are reading this how your body is positiond, how you are breathing and how you are feeling.

Now make a change: straighten your body so that your spine becomes straight and longer, take a deep breath – not just with your chest, but get the air right down into your abdomen (which will probably straighten your body even more).

Raise your head, look up and out of the window, if you can.

Now – do you feel slightly different about yourself and the world? Do you sense in a slightly different way? (See, hear, smell, notice things?)

We are probably all at the moment hearing a lot about how our thoughts affect how we feel, and how our thoughts can keep us healthy or make us ill. So – if we want to be vibrantly healthy, feel good about ourselves and have all that we want in life, we just need to think good, positive thoughts and focus creatively on positive things. Simpel, isn’t it?

Simple, yes – easy, not always! Everything that we have ever experienced can affect our physical and mental health in ways we are often totally unaware of.

Let us use an iceberg as an example of how we function. The iceberg is me – or you – or anybody. Like all icebergs, about one tenth is visible over the surface of the water. This one tenth is OUR STATE OF HEALTH – mentally, physically and emotionally. Under the surface of the water are all the causes of our state of health, and it is these nine tenths that determine whether we are healthy, whether we have cancer, aids, heart disease, allergies, whether we are depressed or ”just” feel pretty bad about ourselves and our life in general.

1. First layer = OUR STATE OF HEALTH

2. Second layer = OUR LIFESTYLE

The layer just under the surface is our LIFESTYLE. The way we have chosen to live our life. Whether we are single or married, whether we have children, where and how we live, what we eat, the air we breathe, the friends that we have – or don’t have – the work that we do etc. Everything in this layer will somehow affect our state of health. If we have a job that we love, live in an extremely happy relationship, exercise every day and are at peace with our neighbours and family, we will probably be equally happy and healthy. (I say probably, because there may be factors in the bottom layer of the iceberg that could sabotage our happiness and health even under these positive conditions).

If, on the other hand, we have problems at work that we find hard to deal with, if we constantly fill ourselves with crap food and masses of alcohol, if we feel extremely lonely in our private life or if we never feel nurtured in our relationships, it will probably affect our state of health in a destructive way. (Again I say probably, because we may be so psychologically and emotionally in balance that we can cope with quite a few traumas in our life without it affecting our health).

1. First layer = OUR STATE OF HEALTH

2. Second layer = OUR LIFESTYLE

3. Third layer = OUR FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

The second layer under the surface is how we deal with our FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS. Our natural state is to be happy and content. If something happens to obstruct this state, an emotion will arise in our bodymind demanding to be expressed and thereby leave our body again so we can get back to feeling happy and content. Just observe small babies. They will be happy and content as long as everything is ok. The moment they feel something is wrong – if they feel hungry or wet – they will loudly protest. As soon as their perfect world is restored, they return to the happy state they were in before. If we still did that – constantly cleared ourselves of whatever we were feeling, our health would be a lot better. But throwing our emotions all over the place was not often welcomed while we grew up, so we have learned to ”behave” and keep down what is not acceptable in the eyes of the world. Often extreme joy is as little accepted – by ourselves and others – as extreme anger. A lot of us have even become so good at behaving that we hardly any longer quite know what we feel!

An emotion that is not expressed doesn’t just disappear into thin air. Any emotion that is held back stays in the body, locked into muscles and tissue – and here it stays trapped – forever or until we choose to release it in some way. It is obvious that the more held-back emotions we have stored in our body, the more tense, constricted and rigid we will be, and the less we will feel free and joyful. Our body will be under constrant stress, which again may lead to various diseases.

1. First layer = OUR STATE OF HEALTH

2. Second layer = OUR LIFESTYLE

3. Third layer = OUR FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

4. Fourth layer = VALUES, BELIEFS, ATTITUDES

The bottom layer of the iceberg consists of all our VALUES, BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES – the way we see the world and ourselves. Here are all the messages we have received throughout our life – from parents, playmates, school teachers etc. If we have learnt that the Earth is flat, we will believe it until we experience otherwise. Our ”TRUTHS” are built on the experiences that we have had in our life, and the way we at the time understood those experiences. These ”truths” may be totally wrong – but we carry them with us until we change them – either by becoming aware that they are wrong – or by new experiences that don’t fit our old ”truths”.

One of my friends had a mother who was always worried that something could happen to him. So she kept him inside the garden gate and never allowed him out in the street to play with the other kids. Every day he stood behind the gate, looking at the fun the other kids had. And the ”truth” he carried with him into adult life was ”life is fun – but not for me”, and he continued for many years to be a spectator to life, always feeling basically unhappy and an outsider.

Sometimes we have unconsciously made DECISIONS based on our ”truths” in order to emotionally survive. A little girl of 5 lost her father. Her grief was so deep and painful that she decided never to risk experiencing that again. So her decision became ”Never again will I let anybody come close to me”. Growing up with a decision like that naturally affected all her relationships. Friends and lovers never had a chance to get close to her, and she remained feeling always lonely and cut off from other people. When she was 5 the decision protected her from feeling emotional pain, but when she grew up it sabotaged any deep connection with others.

We boycot a lot of things and ideas because they go against our beliefs – even though these old beliefs may be wrong and today totally obstruct what would be beneficial for us. Sometimes it can feel very scary to go against our old ”truths” and decisions. Even though they may hurt us and maybe even make us sick, they feel comfortable because they have been with us for so long.

When we want to make significant changes in our life it is important to realise that ALL these things affect us – and that we need to deal with them all. But we can set in anywhere. The most useful tool is simply to be aware all the time. Aware of how we feel in varios situations. Aware of what happens to our anger, sadness and fear.

Does it seemingly ”disappear”, or do we allow ourselves to feel the feeling, express it, and thereby clear ourselves and feel really good afterwards. We con’t always have to be angry at the person in question while he or she is present We can express our anger towards another person when we are alone – the important thing is to get it our of our system, so it doesn’t affect our health. Once we start becoming aware – start observing ourselves – we discover a lot about our beliefs, ”truths” and decisions.

And when we realise that some old pattern is obstructing us, we can use our conscious reason to change it.

With increased awareness comes increased insight. We start to see more and more connections, and we can begin to experiment with what works and what doesn’t work for us. It is encouraging that we have so much control over our own health, and it is very empowering to finally take charge in a conscious way.

PLEASURE releases endorphins in the body and will therefore always promote good health! Seeking pleasure is natural for all plants and animals. Every little flower turns its face toward the sun. Watch your cat – and learn from it – it knows what self-nurturing is about. Fun, laughter and exhilaration strengthens our immune system more than anything else. So – seeking pleasure is natural and healthy.

If there is any part of you that reacts against this statement, then there is a programme or belief-pattern in you that needs to be changed – for the sake of your health and happiness.

The ”BODYMIND” message is to connect deeply with ourselves.

Our natural state is joy and perfect health, and our body will constantly bring us back to this balance – if only we let it. So the best we can do is to listen to the signals our body is constantly giving us, and to act according to those signals. Signals telling us when we are getting into old belief-patterns that are destructive to our health and happiness, when we are swallowing down emotions that need to be felt and expressed, when we are putting ourselves down, or when we are not nurturing ourselves.

We may not always like what we hear – but it is always right.

This article”The Bodymind Connection” by Hanne Bom

was published in Healthy Options, New Zealand, 1992