If I offered you a timeless wisdom on tap, I'm sure you'd want it. Who wouldn't? Well, the good news is you have it and it's within you. All you need to learn is how to access it.
Within every one of us is a vast intelligence waiting to be tapped into.
Embodied Creativity is a process that taps into the body to enhance the creative process. However, the body can be used for much more than just creativity.
The unknown importance of storytelling
As creatives know well, storytelling is vital for grabbing and holding attention and for being remembered. Why? Because our identity is made up of stories, when we tell stories our audience relates to them. When the stories that make up our identity are positive that helps us, however when they are negative they will hold us back.
The challenge we face if we want to break free from what holds us back is finding the stories that hold us back - and we can't change until we know the full story of what holds us back. Often they are old and well hidden - particularly when painful.
Our intellect cannot be trusted to reveal the stories that hold us back, because it was the intellect that made them up (and has created an interlinking logic it doesn't want to let go of), but our body can. This is why research has proven somatic (bodywork) to be so effective therapeutically.
What else can the body do?
As I began to discover the extraordinary wisdom of the body, and how effective it was at enhancing our creativity as well as clearing the fictional stories that hold us back, I was drawn to ask myself what is the limit of what the body can tap into?
I was interested to know how, before the development of language, and the evolution of the written word, which allowed the intellect to grow exponentially in its capacity and influence, mankind made sense of the world.
The answer it seemed to me lay with the body, but I wanted to know if there was any evidence of this. How did we, before language, work out what was safe to eat, where we could find safety, which route was the best and so forth? I believed that early man simply turned inwards, to the body, and tuned in for the answers needed. The body’s intelligence after all is hundreds of thousands of years old (whereas the intellect developed over around thirty thousand years).
What the First Peoples can teach us about the original wisdom
My conclusion was that if there were any evidence of this it would come from the First peoples and so I set about my research. The answer I was looking for came from Robert Wolff who worked with the Malaysian aborigines who call themselves Sng’oi, known by their countrymen as Orangi Asli – the ancient ones - because they are believed to have lived on the Malay Peninsula since ancient times. Preindustrial and preagricultural. They are a shy and elusive, seminomadic people, who live in total harmony with their surroundings. In his fascinating book Original Wisdom, Wolff wrote about the Sng’oi, whom he spent much time with.
One particular story told me all I needed to know.
How to open to an ocean of possibilities
The Sn’goi live deep in the Malaysian jungle – they travel from settlement to settlement, but never beyond the forest. However, a member of one of the Sng’oi, called Ahmeed, was invited to accompany Wolff on a trip to the coast. The tribe had no access to television, they could not read or speak any language other than their own (and had no reason to), so none had ever encountered or even heard about the ocean – indeed there was no word for it in their language. The idea of witnessing this strange new thing was greeted with much excitement.
The two men travelled together and when Ahmeed arrived at the coast, he stood on the high ground, under the shade of the casuarina trees, and stared at the water for several hours before returning to the jungle – having never even touched the water's edge.
Once back in the jungle, with his tribe, a special meeting was called and he spoke to a gathering of his people about his experience of the sea. Through his body, he’d been able to discern that the Great Ocean, as he called it, stretched out beyond his line of sight.
“As far as you can see there is water, and if you stand as far as you can see, there is still more water as far as you can see from there.” He said.
“All the water is heavy, heavy all around the world” he continued, to his spellbound audience. “Underneath the surface, underneath that which can be seen, is a whole world, in some ways like this world.”
Using his hands to add description to his story he said: “There are mountains under what can be seen,” “and there are valleys deeper than any valleys we have here.” “There are many other animals, not just fish. There are animals so huge….bigger than elephants.”
Wolff asked Ahmeed how he was able to perceive so much of the sea. He replied: “I find the Great Ocean in my heart.” He had picked up all this understanding through felt knowledge, by simply opening to the ocean and feeling its response.
Accessing the body's intelligence is natural, we've just lost touch with it
For the Sng’oi living in tune with the body and the jungle is the same thing and something they have always done. By contrast, because we are used to spending so much time in our heads, we have forgotten about the wisdom of the body and how to connect to it. The First people can show us our potential because for them it is such an essential part of their way of navigating the world.
Can you imagine facing a creative challenge or problem in your life and being able to connect to all that wisdom within you and harnessing it to solve what you face? With a small amount of guidance, this is a skill you can build and it's the best life hack you will ever develop.
Click here for a demonstration of how to access your body's wisdom
What you think you know is not the limit of your understanding
In a session recently, with a very old friend of mine, I was amazed to discover - within just thirty minutes - several important characteristics about him that I had not previously been aware of. And this is someone I’ve known well for almost forty years. The body was able to reveal within moments what the intellect had missed for years. Wolff commented how the Sng’oi are quiet, softly-spoken, people, but with a telepathic understanding of each other and what they’re thinking. When we disconnect from our bodies, we disconnect from more than just ourselves.
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