Facing Pain and our “Dreambodywork” for Healing

I have been very attuned for the past several years to how accessing our liminal knowledge creates true change, shift, and healing in my life. Author and psychologist Arnold Mindell working out of Switzerland in his book Working with the Dreaming Body calls this “dreambodywork.”

He talks about how we must “amplify” our pain in order to understand it, or understand the root cause or communication of it. Instead of taking a pill to mask the pain, we must go into it, increase it, and find our “edge of consciousness.” Often, this places us in a sort of trance state–a state where the bodymindspirit intelligence is readily available.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent most of my life avoiding pain. Since I don’t suffer from much physical pain, this has been an attempt to circumvent my emotions or get around them as quickly as possible. I developed a way to go to my head and ask about the problem, rather than deeply listening to my body and the communication of distress directly. Perhaps it was my a lack of courage, and a lack of cultural support to go to the edge.

Mindell writes: “We can’t underestimate the experience of stepping over an edge, nor can we exaggerate how utterly human and simple the edge seems to be. […] The edge means a change, it means leaving the known and risking the unknown.

“The Greeks had a very descriptive picture of the edge we are talking about. The ancient Greeks believed that a great and terrible snake was wrapped around this little-known world of ours. The limit of consciousness was pictorialized by a huge, coiled snake that terrified everyone. Meeting this snake is a heroic task, and it is not everyone’s business. It needs a lot of strength and, unfortunately, not everyone has the strength to come up to their limits and step over them. Dreams, like symptoms, happen at the very edge of what you can do. Thus, dreambodywork consciously brings you up to the edge of what you can accept. If it is the right time, and the right place, if there is sufficient courage, then it is possible to go beyond the edge of consciousness and increase the size of your world.

“All symptoms try to increase your boundaries. Symptoms challenge you to increase your proprioception, they challenge you to deal with pain and to switch channels with it. Your dreams help you to open your mind to a panoramic understanding of the world, to gain a greater perspective of your individual viewpoint.”

When Mindell mentions “dreambodywork” he means going into that liminal state of consciousness that includes the somatic (body) experience and the dream state. By “switching channels” Mindell is referring to that shift in consciousness when we go from feeling the pain to a state of deep feeling, understanding, or ah-has. That shift can take a while to get to, or it can come at the end of a deep breath. I know when I’ve switched a channel because there is a strong emotional current of clarity beneath the knowledge. My body responds to the understanding with relief as my mind begins to make true sense of what the somatic/emotional experience is telling me. If I do not relax into the liminal state of surrender, I prolong the mental clarity and physical/emotional transition that I’m seeking.

Mindell published Working with the Dreaming Body nearly forty years ago (somewhat obvious because of the quickly-becoming-antiquated use of the masculine pronouns to refer to everyone!). He continues:

“I believe the individual of the future […] faces the lonely task of transforming himself, with or without the agreement and understanding of those around him. He needs only to know that transforming himself means coming up against interiorized cultural edges. If this transformation is to occur, he will have to disturb the status quo of the world around him as well. The person in the midst of an individuation process must know that when his symptoms disappear, a new kind of pain is likely to arise: conflict with the history of the world, of which he has been an integral part. How he deals with this conflict is a creative task which no one can predict. But one thing is certain. Becoming an individual means stepping over cultural edges and therefore, paradoxically, also freeing the public to communicate more freely. This means the collective could integrate double signals, diseases and madnesses, which otherwise only operate in the sick and dying or insane. Can you imagine such a collective?”

I can! I believe this collective is coming together in greater and greater numbers of self-empowerment, and therefore cultural empowerment. I believe it because I am experiencing it, and so the world reflects back evidence of what I am/We Are.

When Mindell mentions “double signals,” he’s talking about the way our bodies “mask” our true subconscious intentions. For example, you may be trying to listen to someone politely, but if you don’t really want to be present with them, or you’re having trouble accepting or integrating what they are saying, your body might be twisted and legs turned away from them. We might say, “yes, sure” when the body is saying “NO!” Double signals are often due to our cultural conditioning of trying to be acceptable or “doing the right thing” when inwardly we are having trouble with that act of conforming.

I access dreambodywork in channeling, automatic singing, various meditations, savasana–that state of rest in yoga, and shamanic journey practice. This has helped me tremendously as a bridge between my mental sphere which wants to be told simply “what’s wrong” and the physical sphere where pain and discomfort are leading me to a wider view of my life’s path and the world I live in. This is why I support EarthHeart Healing with somatic sessions that include movement, breathing, and emotional release–to access our liminal intelligence and further our mind-body-emotion conversations.

✨ REFLECTION ✨

Have you noticed your “double signals”? Do you double signal with some people more than others?

Have you spent time on your “edge”? Has amplifying or focusing on your pain helped you heal?

Are you Mindell’s “individual of the future”? Have you experienced the “new pain” of contrasting with the status quo?

I got to experience a “play by play” of Mindell’s description of healing. After originally posting Mindell’s words, I was interrupted by my father. I have been staying with my dad, step-mother, and step-brother, but was anticipating a return to my sister’s house where I want to “nest” for the rest of this winter while I’m waiting for an apartment to become available in the highly-competitive Asheville housing market that I call home. My dad asked me not go back to stay with my sister because she and her partner were both sick and my dad was concerned that I may contract Covid…better to stay with them longer.

This request made me cry huge tears! He of course thought it was something he said, but I really wanted to know the root of why I have been so emotional. Afterall, he and my family have been so supportive of my challenging situation of being “homeless” for a year while searching for the right home–what do I really have to cry about? And since there was nothing “consciously” immediate–I decided to take Mindell’s advice and do some dreambodywork.

This for me was to drop into a shamanic journey. In it, Turtle visited and reminded me that I have”my home” wherever I go. Since I have been living in transition or temporary arrangements since I was 16, I have been deeply desirous of a grounded home–something like what my father has on his ten acres out in the country where he’s lived for over ten years. But something else surprised me in the journey–the appearance of Jesus traveling. I could feel the ah-ha in my body accompanied by a deep sigh. I thought about how I’ve been in service in my temporary arrangements–from taking care of the furry loved ones as a petsitter in their home to being at my dad’s when he recently lost his brother and my step-mom has been dealing with the stress of arranging for her aging parents’ care. I have been an emotional support to them as well as a physical support, being available to help them with household duties and the care of my step-brother.

I came out of the journey a little suspicious that I could compare myself to Jesus–or the Dalai Lama or any other traveling yogi, sage, or influential leader. But the night after next, I dreamed that a friend was doling out “a punishment” to his friend by punching him in the face, but his friend had to also punch him in his face. My friend turned to me with his nose upturned from the slug and was questioning this “cultural method” of punishment. I told him that we are never “good” nor “bad,” that we are simply given opportunities. I also said in the dream that this is what Jesus or any wise(wo)man knew and offered to whomever was aligned to listen–nothing is ever good or bad, it is simply an experience and an opportunity to live that experience fully. For the rest of the dream I became increasingly aware of my service–being in a school where I saw my former boss and she said how much she was happy to see me and how much she missed me. I realized the children were comfortable around me because they could “see my light.” And as I was scheduling a lunch date catch-up with my former boss, I noticed that I had been scheduled to be present with someone as they went to get an abortion. I knew this was “my work” to remind them that this experience they were having was neither good nor bad, just “an opportunity.”

I woke up feeling energized and healed from my emotional turmoil. I can now accept that perhaps I will never be stationary in one place or home–at least for any great length of time. I am, however, learning the skills of being grounded in myself wherever I am and with whatever is happening in the world. In leaning into my pain and going into my “edge,” my dreambodywork and then actual dreams reaffirmed a deeper meaning of my life. In practicing Christ-consciousness–compassion, awareness, and universal and SELF-love, I am living every opportunity to know and grow myself, and therefore our culture.

We proceeded to have a conversation about this in our Meditation & Breathwork session, which furthered and integrated this whole journey for me. And brought me here to this post! The final part of healing is sharing our experience, which then of course influences our cultural values and norms.

My former tactic of dismissing the tears (it’s especially easy to do as a woman and the beautiful estrogen that it brings!) no longer works. I know I went to my edge, that my body with its strong unavoidable display of emotion was communicating with me, because of a palpable feeling of newness and transition that occurred after exploring the trigger. It also brings a richness to my relationship with my father, as I believe it’s important that he witness my emotional side and that I be comfortable being emotional with him.

I am tremendously grateful, as Mindell and my dreams say, to have the OPPORTUNITY to “go beyond the edge of consciousness and increase the size of our world!”