ABSTRACT
Humans have two ways of knowing experience - thinking about and directly sensing through the body. Learning to inhabit the visceral sensory experience provides another way to connect, and a different vantage point for relating to thoughts. Mindfulness offers a direct, intuitive way of knowing experience. Reversing the habitual tendency to retreat from experience in the body is a challenging and painful process. Denise, like many with a history of depression, had come to feel safer thinking about her emotions rather than experiencing them in her body. The process of softening and opening physically began to allow Denise to experience old sadness. Seeing and sensing this offers some important clues in learning to use the body as an ally in reversing the direction of feedback loops. This can be as simple as attending to the posture while engaged in a mindfulness practice.
