“I move therefore I am. I’m still therefore I am.”
A window that looks at the importance of movement and stillness in the arts therapies.
Babies begin life in an embodied way, without thought. They cry if they are hungry because they perceive their hunger though their body; the crying is a direct reaction. As thought evolves, it colours our awareness and reactions with layer upon layer of association, conditioning, analysis, and judgement. We learn to live through our head, and in the process, we become more and more removed from the subtleties of our body and its direct connection through the senses to the outside world.
But it´s not only our physical body and connection to the outside world that becomes blurred. It is also the life of emotion and feelings inside our physical body. We begin to treat emotion as if it were solely a process of the mind, as if it were independent of our bodies. The result is a compartmentalised existence, where both the body and emotions need to shout louder and louder to be heard.
If we allow and encourage them to inhabit the same room, they can communicate in a much gentler way. People who do this - who live in an embodied way - are more in tune with the subtle sensations they receive through the body and have increased levels of self-awareness and insight. This can help with making decisions or managing situations; it helps with emotional wellbeing and mental health.
Movement and stillness sit like connecting doors to this room. Movement often externalises what is inside us and reaches outwards to others and the world around us. Stillness and silence enable us to interiorise, to look and feel inwards. Anyone who has meditated or done any form of yoga will be familiar with the impact of stillness after movement or the way that stillness before movement changes the quality of that movement. There is a dance between the two that goes on regardless through our days and yet the benefits are so easily lost through a lack of consciousness, a lack of being with or noticing what is happening. Practices or activities which help us pay attention to this dance open the door.
The arts therapies use stillness and movement with deliberate contrast, bringing awareness to the experience of embodied emotion. They may promote mindfulness through meditation or painting or other exercises and integrate these with movement through games or improvisations or dance. When we are able to connect with the present, to relax and let go, spontaneous movement becomes a form of expression. We become a paintbrush held by an invisible hand. What emerges can be surprising, cathartic, calming, revelatory.
Our bodies store emotion and memory in ways that we are often not even aware of. Movement helps to release emotions and feelings. Stillness helps to create awareness around what these are and enable us to begin to process what is happening. Sometimes, you may experience movement with your eyes closed. This can create a particularly powerful experience that enables us to observe or feel from within the emotions that our bodies express through movement, in response to stimuli from outside such as different music or sounds or smells or touch.
The way that an arts therapist uses movement depends on who they are working with. Physical limitations may dictate how much literal movement is possible, and yet the essence of what can be achieved is the same, whether it is people dancing with their entire bodies or with the fingers of one hand. Less is often more. Stillness, by the same token, can be a very different challenge for different people. Someone who has suffered trauma for example may be triggered by closing their eyes, in which case the therapist will look for a gentler way to approach the act of looking inward.
The famous premise of Descartes - ‘I think, therefore I am’ - postulated that the only evidence we really have of our existence is through thinking about it. In the work we do through the arts therapies, movement and stillness play a vital role in providing us with evidence of our existence and its meaning. Movement is life-affirming; it activates us, shows that we are alive, helps us feel that we are alive. Stillness is also life-affirming; it gets under the skin of thought, connecting with the present and what is going on inside us. Together, they are connecting doors to a place of greater self-awareness, compassion, resolution, possibility, and joy.