For a few hundred years, smart people argued about whether the mind and the body were two separate things. Descartes said yes, they are. The thinking part of you floats around somewhere, and the body just carries it to meetings. I’m sorry, Descartes, but no. Anyone who has ever cried from being hungry knows better.
Everything that goes on in your head is also going on in your body. When you’re anxious, your heart pounds and your hands sweat. When you don’t sleep, you aren’t only tired, you’re also weepy and short with people and you buy things online you don’t need. Your mind and body aren’t two roommates who leave each other notes. They’re one thing, looked at from two sides.
There’s an old psychology experiment from the sixties that I love. Researchers gave people a shot of adrenaline, the stuff that makes your heart race and your hands shake. Some of them were told what it would do and some weren’t. Then they sat each person in a room with an actor who was either really happy or really angry. The people who didn’t know why their hearts were pounding tended to borrow the actor’s mood. The ones who knew it was the shot mostly didn’t. Later studies didn’t line up perfectly with it, but the idea stuck with me anyway, because it matches my life.
A racing heart doesn’t come with a label. On a rollercoaster it’s fun. In an argument it’s anger. Across the room from somebody cute, it’s something else entirely. Same body, totally different feeling, depending on what your mind decides is going on.
That’s where meditation earns its keep. It doesn’t stop hard feelings from showing up. Nothing does that, and if someone sells you something that claims to, keep your wallet in your pocket. What it does is give you a little space. Your heart starts pounding, and instead of jumping straight to oh no, something’s wrong, you just notice it. My heart is racing. That’s all. It’s a fact, not a verdict.
Then you can actually look at it. Is this anxiety? Or is it my third coffee? Is my neck tight because I’m stressed, or because I’ve been hunched over a laptop since six? Half the time it’s the coffee. When you stop believing the first story your brain hands you, you get some of your power back.
So I don’t think the goal is to control your body, or to rise above it, or to escape your own head. You couldn’t if you tried. The goal is to get the two of them working together a little better. They’re stuck with each other, after all. Might as well get along.
Reference
Schachter, S., & Singer, J. E. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. Psychological Review, 69(5), 379-399.
