Body armouring is the chronic muscular tension the body creates to protect us from feelings we could not safely feel, often in early life, which sets over time into habitual patterns of posture and holding. Wilhelm Reich, the founder of body-centred psychotherapy, mapped these patterns, and his work helps Therapeutic Shamanism understand how the body holds our history. In shamanism the body is not a vehicle but a conscious part of us, connected to Soul and the Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer, and healing involves listening to it.
What is body armouring? #
The body’s way of protecting us from emotional pain. “When we experience emotional trauma, our bodies protect us by creating chronic muscular tension. This tension forms habitual patterns that correspond to the unresolved emotions from earlier stages of life.” Armouring can be seen in us: “Our body, in terms of our posture, patterns of muscular tension, facial expressions, and where we hold weight or don’t, is a physical expression of the armouring we put on it.” See How do body shock, armouring and childhood wounds contribute to dis-ease?
Who was Wilhelm Reich, and what does his work contribute? #
Wilhelm Reich was a psychotherapist, the founder of body-centred psychotherapy. His approach is called character analysis. Reich proposed that our early life experiences set the foundation for emotional and behavioural patterns that persist throughout our lives. Over time, these patterns harden into what Reich called character types, and he found armour held in seven segments of the body, from the eyes down to the pelvis.
Reich is one of Paul Francis’s heroes, though not an idealised one. Paul names him amongst the people who have inspired and taught him, and is honest about it: he knows perfectly well that, however heroic and inspiring such people have been to him, they are (or were) flawed individuals.1 Paul’s list of the qualities of an Adult draws on psychotherapy, “particularly from Rogers, Maslow, Reich and Jung.”2 And Paul is himself “a body-centred psychotherapist”.3
How does trauma affect the body? #
The body keeps a record of it. The body always knows the truth: as Bessel van der Kolk says, “the body keeps the score”, and as Reich says, “the body never lies.” A wound from infancy is “an embodied and somatic one”, and, in an account drawing on Louis Tinnin and Linda Gantt, two researchers in trauma treatment, memories from before we had words “get pushed into the unconscious and locked into the body.”4 And feelings need to move: “Feelings need to be felt and allowed to move through the body (the word ‘emotion’ is from the Latin ‘to move through’), and not by-passed or suppressed.”5
Why is the body important in shamanic practice? #
Because in shamanism the body is a conscious part of us, not a container. “In shamanism, the physical body is not just some vehicle for the soul. It is not just some ‘thing’ we inhabit. Rather, it has its own consciousness, intelligence, wisdom, needs and drives.”6 Far from viewing their bodies as just a vehicle, original animists revered them. And the body keeps us grounded, and groundingGrounding. Returning fully into the body and physical reality; the bedrock of safe practice, and how every journey ends. More about this is “the bedrock of shamanic practice”.7
What does the body need? #
The basics, safety, and movement. The body “needs to have its physical needs met. It needs clean water, warmth, healthy food, fresh air and shelter. It needs to know that it is safe from harm, and to have somewhere it can rest and sleep.” It also needs “to be allowed to do what it was designed to do, which is to move around (instead of sitting at a desk, or in a car or on a sofa for most of the day).”8 See What are Soul, Spirit, the middle-world self and the body?
How is the body related to Soul? #
Closely. Original animists understood that the body is deeply connected to Soul, to the Lower-World and to Mother EarthMother Earth. The sacred Feminine pole: pure potential, from whom all the Peoples arise. The Lower-World is her realm, and she is all the realms: “The Earth is indeed our Mother.” More about this herself. The body also links us to the Stone PeopleStone People. All physical matter: mountains, sea, rivers, clouds, sun and stars: the oldest and widest of the Peoples. As some animist cultures put it, ‘we are just the Stone People, dancing for a while’. Read the full answer: “This part of us is made from the chemical elements. As such, it is part of the Stone People. It is our most important and primary link with them.”9 See What are Stone People and what gifts do they bring?
Is the body lower than Spirit? #
No. Each part has its own place and its own needs. The parts of the inner tribeInner Tribe. The community of parts-of-self that a human being actually is. Health is not one part’s triumph but a well-run tribe: every member honoured, every member doing its proper job, the Adult in charge. Read the full answer are not ranked. Hierarchical ‘spirituality’ says the Upper-WorldUpper-World. The realm of Father Sky and of Spirit: spacious, rarefied and clear, layered in tiers, offering not escape but perspective. Not better than the Lower-World: we ascend rooted, and bring the gifts back down. Read the full answer part of us is the highest, and the other parts ‘corrupt’ and not to be trusted.10 Putting Spirit above the other parts causes harm: “Trying to transcend both our middle-world selfMiddle-world self. The everyday self (ego, persona, head-and-heart), made of our stories and experiences. A genuine and needed part of the Inner Tribe: of service, not in command. Read the full answer and Lower-World Soul by focusing primarily on our Upper-World Spirit, unsurprisingly often results in becoming overly-detached, other-worldly, and ungrounded.”11
How is the body related to Spirit? #
As an equal partner, not a lesser one. A healthy spirituality is an embodied and grounded one. Grounding is the bedrock of shamanic practice “(and should be the bedrock of any spiritual practice really).”12 The disembodied, unbalanced focus on the Upper-World is something “that pre-Fallen people had never done.”13 See What is the Upper-World?
What does “getting out of our heads” mean? #
Coming back into the body, which does not make up stories. “Our head is constantly making things up, telling stories, rationalising, explaining, and justifying. The body, however, is incapable of making up stories.” Hunter-gatherers could “be fully embodied and present in their bodies and experience. By contrast, most people today live very much in their heads, disconnected from their bodies.”
Why does the head still matter? #
Because the everyday self has its place, as long as it is not in charge. Thinking has its uses; the trouble comes when the head is in charge. “The ego is not “bad”, it just needs to be of service and not in charge.”14 After a journey, for example, the thinking mind has a job to do: “Once written down, the left-brain can really come into its own in terms of looking things up and doing research.”15
What is Embodied Shamanism? #
One of Paul’s advanced courses. It explores releasing the body armour laid down in early life, Gendlin‘s FocusingFocusing. Eugene Gendlin’s method of turning towards the felt sense, the body’s whole sense of an issue, with curiosity and no agenda, and asking whether anything needs to happen. In this approach it is valued because, like journeying, it means going beyond the wants of the self and listening to something wiser and deeper. Read the full answer as a way of tuning into the body’s wisdom, and the body as a gateway to the Soul. The teaching itself is for students at that level. See What are Focusing and the felt sense, and how can they support shamanic work?
