Pent up

Moshe Feldenkrais repeatedly challenged the commonly held hydraulic model of emotions by asking us why there was no such a thing as pent-up joy. He asked us to consider how anger could create pressure building up to an eventual explosion if this was not the case with other feelings.

Recasting feeling and perceiving as occurrences rather than objects, he suggested that we have the option to react independently of our personal history and habit. Feldenkrais’ neurophysical framework opens the door to transforming our ingrained attitudes by changing how we move and hold ourselves. 

Instead of thinking of psychosomatic problems, this offers the possibility of a somatopsychological solution. If emotions are, as he defined them, anchored in patterns of muscle contraction, rather than needing to re-experience traumatic events and have a cathartic release, you can modify your affective state by interrupting and undoing unconscious, compulsive embodied reactions. 

Altering how you feel can begin by experiencing a change in how you embody the moment and live in your skin. Think of how you know when someone has genuinely changed: you recognize the tangible difference in how someone carries themselves. 

Why not start there?