Noticing Language's Impact on the Development of Connection

Have you ever thought about how the language you speak could inhibit your development of internal connection? As I've mentioned repeatedly throughout this blog, we have no words in the English language to describe the various kinesthetic feelings associated with developing internal connection. This linguist handicap is one factor contributing to the difficulty of teaching, learning and explaining the internal arts. And as we say in Wujifa, "Noticing changes everything!"

It is said that the Eskimos have 50 words for snow while we in the English-speaking continental U.S. have only one word; snow.  Similarly, in English we have one word "Love" and we use this one word to express feeling across a wide variety of relations. Does this mean that we have the exact same "love" feeling for a spouse, a pizza, a long-time friend? Probably not, but when a variety of subtle and nuanced feelings are constrained to be expressed through just one word, the result is the generalization and reduction of the complexity of the nuanced feelings to a single overall feeling devoid of its subtle nuances. We numb-down our ability to discern-feel subtle nuances.

This exact same phenomena occurs in the so-called field of "body-mindfulness" exercises of which yoga and Tai-chi are probably the most well-known. The term "body-mindfulness" is used much the same way as our word "love". It is used to describe in vague and ambiguous terms any kind of body-awareness regardless of how superficial or how deep and nuanced the experiences may be.

Now, let's consider the article, The Ancient Greeks’ 6 Words for Love (And Why Knowing Them Can Change Your Life) . Whether there really are six words or not, the proposition nevertheless provides an opportunity to explore nuances of our word "love". Here are the six words from this article:

1. Eros, or sexual passion.
2. Philia, or deep friendship.
3. Ludus, or playful love.
4. Agape, or love for everyone
5. Pragma, or longstanding love
6. Philautia, or love of the self

Take a moment and recall a couple different relationships that might have different nuances in feeling along the lines of the above. Can you notice something that you had not previously felt-noticed before? Even if you only notice a barely perceptible hint of a variation in the "love" feeling, this is a step to feeling a little bit deeper. What you can do in one area, you can apply in another area.

Now, assume that "body-mindfulness" likewise has many subtle kinesthetic-emotional feelings. In the same way that you begin to feel and discern various love feelings, you can begin to feel and discern various kinesthetic-emotional feelings in your internal gong-fu practice. Feeling is feeling.

In Wujifa there is the saying, "The method is not the truth. Once you get the feeling, get rid of the method." This applies here as well. Discovering and identifying various kinesthetic-emotional feelings is a method to help you develop the ability to feel deeper and relax deeper until connection begins to show up. You may want to name the feelings you notice, but it's not necessary. The important point is to notice and build connection between your pre-conscious bodily feeling and your consciousness; I can feel ______ . This is another step along the journey.

Connection will never be discovered if you only have the ability to distinguish the lack of body-mindfulness from a rudimentary body-mindfulness. In many cases, those who speak of body-mindfulness have only peeled the first layer of the proverbial onion and have mistaken the first layer to be the entirety of the onion. Having only one word "body-mindfulness" to describe the multitude of kinesthetic-emotional experiences is like having only one word for "snow" or one word for "love". It is too vague, too generalized, too ambiguous, too numbed-down. It says something and says nothing both at the same time.

And so, rather than looking for that one special feeling that everyone says is "It", invest in noticing variety and nuance throughout your body. The more nuances you can feel is a fair indicator of how deeply you can feel. How deep you can feel is an indicator of how deep you can relax. And in this process, you may discover that our English word "relax", like "love", also has a variety of subtle and nuanced feelings.

Happy practicing everyone!