This is the second session of the spring MBSR course. We are going to start doing body scans. I am excited because after doing body scans on\/off for the past year, I have started to enjoy time in the presence of my body. I have also started to notice changes in my everyday life: I have become more aware of emotional reactions that manifest themselves physically in me, and I have started to discover where and why I tense different places in my body.<\/p>\n
Today, however, the body scan starts differently. It is Peter who guides us. We start sitting down and are asked to grasp and feel our feet. We are guided through our different body parts muscularly, while we place our hands on the mentioned areas. As the appearance of our calf muscles is described in detail while we palpate them, I get an image in my head that corresponds exactly to Peter's description. I see a bone with muscles, or more precisely, flesh, but it does not feel like I am disappearing from my own legs. Rather, I experience my legs as they would look without skin. The strange thing is that in my head my legs are reindeer legs. Throughout Peter's initial guidance through our anatomy, I sense my body physically through my fingers and visually as a review of a reindeer's body - or rather a mixture of a reindeer and a human. I think I use the reindeer because my only real experience with what muscles look like comes from slaughtering reindeer. At least that's the explanation I give myself.<\/p>\n
The body scan continues lying down and we start again at the feet. I discover that I relate to each body part again as both a physical sensation and an image in my mind. I alternate between seeing the anatomy of the human and the reindeer in my mind, all the while feeling my own physical body as it lies on my blue yoga mat, supported by the strong floor of the room. I start to laugh inside because I have difficulty containing my own experience. My body shakes on the mat with silent laughter. I become inattentive in the exercise and think that people must think I am on drugs if I pass this experience on. Then I repeat the words that Hanneli has recited so often, in my mind: \u201dThere is no right or wrong way to experience\u201d. The words calm me, and I return to Peter\u2019s voice, my body, and the visual images that accompany it. When we have reached the end of the body scan, I am almost euphoric. I have experienced something that I find difficult to put into words, but which feels important.<\/p>\n
Today I have experienced my body in a completely new way and literally seen it from a new perspective. I have seen the muscles that will carry me through life, while at the same time feeling them through my consciousness. I have gained empathy for my lower back, which has so little skeleton to support itself. Rather than feeling irritation about my lower back pain, I now feel care. I think that I want to train my back and abdominal muscles \u2013 after all, it is my body\u2026or my body is a part of me. Me, which I have to take care of.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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