Secret #86: Your Body Is Talking. Are You Listening? with Manuela O'Connell
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We spend enormous amounts of time thinking about our bodies: how they look, whether they're healthy, what hurts, what needs fixing, and whether they're performing the way we want. But how often do we actually experience life through our bodies?
Returning guest Dr. Manuela O'Connell joins Emma and Chris to explore what we've lost by treating the body as something we have rather than something through which we experience our lives. Manuela shares how her own experience with chronic illness and dance led her toward somatic approaches and a deeper understanding of embodiment. She argues that psychology itself has often privileged thoughts and language while overlooking the information carried through sensation, movement, emotion, touch, and other forms of bodily awareness.
Together, they explore how culture, puberty, shame, body image, technology, and social media can disconnect us from embodied experience. They also discuss what it actually means to "listen to your body" and how slowing down, noticing sensations, and reconnecting with our senses can help us develop a richer relationship with ourselves and the people and world around us.
Highlights:
Western psychology has traditionally emphasized thoughts and language while paying far less attention to embodied experience.
As children, we experience the world through our senses and bodies, but culture and language can gradually teach us to regard the body as an object we possess.
Listening to your body isn't necessarily intuitive. Manuela argues that noticing and discriminating physical sensations is something we can actually practice and learn.
Our bodily responses are shaped by learning and experience, particularly when it comes to detecting safety and danger.
Social media can intensify the tendency to reduce the body, and even the whole person, to an image.
Becoming more embodied starts with slowing down and paying attention to sensations and senses we routinely overlook.
Reconnecting with the body doesn't have to become another self-improvement assignment. Manuela encourages approaching it with curiosity, exploration, and even a sense of adventure.
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Welcome back Dr. Manuela O'Connell
01:41 The divide between mind and body
03:07 Manuela's experience with chronic illness
04:24 What's missing from traditional psychology?
06:00 What do we actually mean by "the body"?
07:25 How do you have a conversation with your body?
10:04 Why have we stopped listening?
12:44 Having a body vs. being embodied
15:16 Body judgment, puberty, and shame
18:26 When the body becomes an image
20:12 Embodiment, culture, women, and nature
22:30 Could living more embodied lives change how we treat others?
23:41 How the body communicates safety
25:32 Learning to listen to your body
27:21 Emma realizes how much of her bodily experience she's neglected
30:10 How do you actually practice embodiment?
31:40 When physical sensations reveal emotion
33:10 Quieting the mind enough to notice the body
35:00 Why don't we talk about bodily experience?
35:47 Cultural differences in embodiment
38:20 What gets lost in online therapy?
42:15 Social media and turning ourselves into images
44:32 Practical ways to reconnect with your body
46:26 Making embodiment an adventure
48:13 Emma remembers the sensory experience of holding her babies
50:01 Slow down, pay attention, and start noticing
More about Dr. Manuela O'Connell:
Visit Manuela’s website
Read Dr. C’Connell’s books
I'm a licensed Clinical Psychologist working with ACT, Mindfulness, FAP and CFT. Peer reviewed ACT trainer and Fellow for ACBS. Delivers training in ACT and Mindfulness for professionals and offers course in ACT, Mindfulness and ACL for general public.
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Reach out and let us know you are listening and what you would like to hear on the show - email:lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast@gmail.com
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[00:00:00]
[00:00:41] Welcome and Guest Intro
[00:00:41] Emma Waddington: Welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets. I'm Emma Waddington
[00:00:46] Chris McCurry: And I'm Chris McCurry. And today we are very pleased to have returning to us, , Dr. Manuela O'Connell. She is an acceptance and commitment therapy therapist and trainer, uh, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, [00:01:00] where she conducts workshops and seminars in both English and Spanish, bridging psychological science with real-world application. She is the co-author with Robyn Walzer of "The ACT Workbook for Anger: Managing Emotions and Taking Back Your Life with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy." And she's a contributing writer to, uh, the book "The Heart of ACT." And again, with Robyn, uh, just this spring, they've come out with another great book, "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Deliberate Practice to, to Develop and Enhance Skills in ACT." Her work combines therapy with body wisdom, which is today's topic, exploring how listening to our bodies can help us feel more flexible and resilient, and she helps people move beyond just talking about their problems and actually feeling their way through them. She previously appeared on Life's Dirty Little Secrets alongside Dr.
[00:01:54] Chris McCurry: Robyn Walzer for episode 67, Living with Death, where they helped us explore [00:02:00] existential responsibility and how ACT helps us meet endings of all kinds with presence and choice. So we are very pleased to welcome her back. Thank you for being here, Manuela.
[00:02:11] Manuela OConnell: Mm-hmm. Thank you, Eman. Thank you, Chris. I'm so happy to be here again.
[00:02:17] Chris McCurry: Excellent.
[00:02:18] Why Body Mind Split
[00:02:19] Chris McCurry: So, what's before us today, and we were talking a little bit before I hit record, was the body and how there's, particularly in Western societies, and we'll get m- into this more, this split or dichotomy, dichotomy or even, uh, conflict between, body and the mind, the head, however we wanna, like, describe these things.
[00:02:40] Chris McCurry: So tell us about your perspective on this, Manuel, in terms of what's going on with this, dichotomy, this split, the body and the mind, cognitions and body, whatever we wanna, you know, just however we wanna describe it
[00:02:56] Chris McCurry: it.
[00:02:57] Manuela OConnell: Well, for me, it's a very interesting topic [00:03:00] since being a psychologist, we usually talk about mental health. even talking about that is like the rest wh- where is that embodied in a way. so I think we have in psychology a long-standing tradition of not including that much somatic or other aspects or felt sense or even more physical stuff, uh, around mental health.
[00:03:30] Manuela Story and Somatics
[00:03:30] Manuela OConnell: And it became, for me, an issue because I have a chronic disease, and when
[00:03:34] Manuela O'Connell video: because I have a chronic disease, and
[00:03:39] Manuela OConnell: I was diagnosed when I was 19, nobody knew what was happening to me, and they tend to kind of tell, "Well, that's psychological." "No, it's your body." "It's psychological." "It's your body." And since I'm also a dancer, uh, I found my way through [00:04:00] what was happening to me with more somatic approaches, uh, before getting into psychotherapy.
[00:04:08] Manuela OConnell: So I can say that, that being here and talking about this, uh, it's really rooted in my own experience of suffering and seeing that the way to accept this chronic disease that I have and find a flexible way to deal with it, and it opened me a, like a new world doing that, uh, came from a more, uh, somatic perspective at the beginning. So I'm very interested in what it's happening with psychology. Uh, when I train people, it's like we're talking and there's a mind there, but we usually don't pay much attention to the embodied [00:05:00] aspect of our clients and our own, even though that probably they are having a conversation too. Both bodies are having a conversation too
[00:05:15] Chris McCurry: Well, I know certainly when I was being trained, we didn't talk about the body.
[00:05:21] Manuela O'Connell video: Mm.
[00:05:21] Chris McCurry: know, it was all cognitions. It was all... And, you know, I was trained in ACT from, from the very beginning and, uh, you know, it was all the, you know, thoughts. We talked about feelings
[00:05:32] Chris McCurry: obviously, but those were mostly the stories we had about our feelings. And, uh, there was very little, uh, attention paid to, you know, how people were feeling, y-
[00:05:46] Chris McCurry: you know,
[00:05:46] Chris McCurry: in their bodies or observing their bodies in the therapy session to see, you know... I mean, maybe a little bit about, you know, if somebody's like this obviously, okay,
[00:05:54] Chris McCurry: this is pretty, pretty hard to ignore, but, um, you know, very little, uh, exploration of, of how body [00:06:00] was, um, contributing to people's suffering or people's doing well.
[00:06:05] What Do We Mean Body
[00:06:05] Manuela OConnell: Mm. And also I think that one of the main issues about that is that when we talk about the body, we don't clearly discriminate what we are talking about. So if we ask the audience or even, uh, both of you, when you think about your body, what comes up to your mind, it is very different for different people
[00:06:33] Emma Waddington: Hmm.
[00:06:35] Manuela OConnell: like
[00:06:36] Chris McCurry: Oh yeah
[00:06:37] Manuela OConnell: physical things, or more felt sense or pain
[00:06:44] Chris McCurry: I mean, for me, for me at my age, it's, it's the word that comes up is betrayal
[00:06:49] Chris McCurry: It's
[00:06:52] Chris McCurry: It's like,
[00:06:52] Chris McCurry: "What? Come on. Don't, don't, don't be doing that."
[00:06:57] Emma Waddington: Yeah, but it's a great question. [00:07:00] Like I, like you were saying, um, you know, talking about the body, you know, very good, and we have lots of language to talk about our thoughts and feelings, with some of us more than others. But what do we mean when we say we're talking about our body? You're absolutely right.
[00:07:13] Emma Waddington: Like, somebody asked me to sort of say what, you know, "What is your body saying about that?" That's a really hard question.
[00:07:22] Manuela OConnell: It is
[00:07:25] Emma Waddington: Yeah, and is that kind of what, what you mean when you say that, you know, that was your curiosity, understanding what is our body telling us? That piece around the conversation that our body is having, you know?
[00:07:37] Emma Waddington: Our brains are having conversations, and what is the conversation that our body is having? I love those words, and yeah, let's go there. What do we mean with those words? Help me, help me have a conversation with my body.
[00:07:50] Emma Waddington: Help me hear what
[00:07:51] Safety Signals and Neuroception
[00:07:51] Manuela OConnell: yours and with other, uh, there's, more a neuroception happening. We feel safe, and our body [00:08:00] tells us that we are safe. From an embodied place, it doesn't go really in a thought. We all know, "Oh, something is happening, I'm afraid," and we have even form an idea of that, and our body tells us very, uh, wisely when some things may happen or are happening.
[00:08:24] Manuela OConnell: Uh, for some trauma people, that stuff is changed due to, uh, learning history. Uh, but if we start talking with our body, one of the main things that it will tell us is you are safe or you're not, and that's an important thing. And then it will tell you a lot of other stuff, uh, that it's not only about safeness, but it's about pain or even illness, but also in a
[00:08:58] Manuela O'Connell video: also in
[00:08:58] Manuela OConnell: more felt sense [00:09:00] place like, uh, the tone, your body tone, muscle tone.
[00:09:06] Manuela OConnell: But a more general tone will tell you about your emotions, for example. Um, so we tend to talk about emot- emotions in therapy, but how do you discriminate which emotion do you have? Are they thoughts or are they felt sense experiences? Or do you realize that you're sad, for example? joyful
[00:09:30] Emma Waddington: Yes. There's so much to unpack there,
[00:09:34] Manuela OConnell: Yes. I know.
[00:09:35] Why We Ignore the Body
[00:09:35] Emma Waddington: I think for, for me, .. I wonder, is it worth, before we start to unpack it for our listeners, and for me generally, 'cause as you're talking I'm thinking actually I don't have a lot of this wisdom. I don't talk to my body.
[00:09:50] Emma Waddington: I don't listen to my body that much. partly because, I don't know why. I think it's something that we don't do, and I was curious about that. Before we start [00:10:00] unpacking how to do it, why has this been so neglected? Why, why, why is the body, definitely in the Western world, and I'm curious if you know of other cultures where it's less neglected, but this conversation about what your body is telling you or how your body is feeling, this, this conversation with our bodies is really neglected, except when you're really little and you're learning how to potty train.
[00:10:24] Emma Waddington: I'm thinking that's like a moment where we really think
[00:10:26] Manuela OConnell: Or walking.
[00:10:27] Manuela OConnell: how
[00:10:28] Emma Waddington: Or walking, right? Well, or walking or, uh, when you're really small, I
[00:10:32] Manuela OConnell: guess
[00:10:33] Emma Waddington: There's a lot more conversation about how, you know, your body's doing and what it's needing. But as you get older, you stop. And maybe as you get much older, maybe you start having conversations about the potty again 'cause it's kind of talking to you, you know, more loudly, and maybe shouting at you, like you're saying, and betraying you.
[00:10:53] Emma Waddington: But yeah, it does feel like it's a, a missed, something that is lost
[00:10:59] Culture Shame and Puberty
[00:10:59] Chris McCurry: [00:11:00] I, I think, I think about, you know, sort of Western religions and how, you know, the body becomes this sort of the instrument of the devil, you know.
[00:11:11] Chris McCurry: and and yeah, as, as we're learning to walk and potty train, ride a bike, you know, there's, there's all this, you know, paying attention to your body. But then when kids start hitting puberty, adolescence, then there's a lot of finger-wagging and a lot of like, you know, "Don't touch that part of your body, and certainly don't touch other people's bodies."
[00:11:31] Chris McCurry: And,
[00:11:32] Chris McCurry: uh, there's a lot of shame that starts getting introduced into, you know, our bodies, you know, whether it's, you know, doing the wrong thing with it or, you know, my body doesn't look like the societal norms. Um, and
[00:11:44] Chris McCurry: I
[00:11:44] Chris McCurry: I think a lot of stuff gets, gets shoved under, um, because there's just so much, you know, so much messaging around body
[00:11:54] Manuela OConnell: Hmm. I think we live in a Western culture in which [00:12:00] the relationship we have with our body is conditioning in having a body, not being em- embodied. And that's a huge difference because when we are little, and you, Chris, work with kids also, uh, and you, Emma, too, uh, when you're little, your contact with the world is through your body.
[00:12:24] Manuela OConnell: You put things, you know the world, you know what it's happening, you know other people through touching, smelling, uh, the five senses. We live there in a more embodied way. We are living through our body. It's not something we have. But then language starts and culture starts, and then we start having a body like an object that we have, and sometimes it bother us or it [00:13:00] has to be better or looking better or, um, it doesn't have to break nor be ill, and then we get older or we get sick and, well, the body's not functioning, and all the metaphors we start using are like the body is a machine, uh, that breaks or it doesn't, and it's a machine we have that supports our life.
[00:13:30] Manuela OConnell: And even when I'm saying this, it's sad If I think the way, the sort of capitalistic way we treat the body as an object that we have instead of living life through it. And also if we connect to the moments that are really meaningful for us, probably they are [00:14:00] all not a mental idea, but an embodied experience. Like you can feel the smell, you can feel the sense in your body of a meaningful moment
[00:14:21] Emma Waddington: Yeah, it's true. It's so sad. You were describing that sort of way we treat our bodies, and it is quite sad that we, we, we use it as a vehicle to move around the world as,
[00:14:37] Manuela OConnell: our mind, yes
[00:14:38] Emma Waddington: To our u- move our mind, yeah.
[00:14:41] Manuela OConnell: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:41] Emma Waddington: Yeah. And
[00:14:44] Chris McCurry: So
[00:14:44] Chris McCurry: Em- Emma, can I interrupt for just a second?
[00:14:47] Chris McCurry: Oh, there you go. Yeah, there you go. Okay. Uh, y- you need
[00:14:50] Chris McCurry: to lean in a little
[00:14:51] Emma Waddington: Oh, yes. Let me...
[00:14:52] Chris McCurry: seeing any trace
[00:14:54] Emma Waddington: no. Really?
[00:14:55] Chris McCurry: I was, I was
[00:14:56] Chris McCurry: thinking your microphone might have been off, but, uh,
[00:14:58] Emma Waddington: No, it's
[00:14:59] Chris McCurry: yeah. So [00:15:00] you're g- you're gonna
[00:15:00] Emma Waddington: Let me say that again.
[00:15:02] Chris McCurry: lean in.
[00:15:02] Chris McCurry: Okay
[00:15:03] Emma Waddington: Yeah, so I was just saying that, you know, as we think about our bodies as, as simply a vehicle by which we move around the world, it's really quite sad. You're right. It is sad. It feels, yeah, like objects when what, you know, when what incredible What an incredible thing to have a body.
[00:15:28] Emma Waddington: And actually w- when, when bodies start to sort of have problems, we start to appreciate them, you know, more. It's when we have, you know, aches and pains or, you know, if you can't walk for whatever reason, you start to feel grateful. But sort of in hindsight, but it is, it is, it's true. It's a, it's a real loss of, of Of an experience, of an understanding, of a wisdom, isn't it?
[00:15:56] Emma Waddington: That we, we... And I loved your idea, Chris, that [00:16:00] you're right, puberty is probably the beginning, in a way, where we start to be more judgmental. Or as we transition through puberty, we're-- I've been doing a talk about girls and how complicated puberty is for girls. Obviously, it's complicated for boys, but, you know, your body really is changing, and hormonally you're changing.
[00:16:19] Emma Waddington: You know, your body's changing shapes and sizes, and suddenly you're getting attention in ways that, you know, you didn't have, and you don't want, and you, you're not ready for. And so there's this rejection of what your body is doing, um, and anger and sometimes disgust and all those experiences towards our body.
[00:16:36] Emma Waddington: Um, and there doesn't seem to be the right sort of conversations and being had at that time as well because of the soup that we live in, right? We live in the soup in the, in the West, for sure, where you're right. It's about performance. It's about delivering. It's about, you know, being able to do, um, whatever it is that our mind's decided that we need to be doing, and our body [00:17:00] sometimes gets in the way of doing that, of being successful, of looking a certain way, of playing the part.
[00:17:07] Emma Waddington: So there is a lot of judgment towards bodies, unless they do behave, um, the ways we want them to
[00:17:16] Manuela OConnell: Or worse, they look the way we want them to.
[00:17:20] Manuela OConnell: Yes
[00:17:22] Manuela OConnell: So then the body is collapsed into a dimension of image More sadness
[00:17:36] Chris McCurry: Well, I mean, just thinking about, yeah, as you were saying, Emma, you know, puberty is very complicated for both, you know, boys and girls.
[00:17:44] Patriarchy Nature and Objectification
[00:17:50] Chris McCurry: But I think so much of this-- I mean, I think it goes back to, uh, the Garden of Eden, and, uh, we're all blaming Eve for, uh, you know, the apple and enticing Adam. And we've had hundreds and hundreds of [00:18:00] years of antipathy toward, you know, females and female power, uh, you know, burning witches and, uh, all manner of repression. Um, so I'm, I'm wondering how you all, you know, uh, you know, reflect on that and think about that and how that is even manifesting, you know, in our day and age. Here in the United States, we have a lot of discussion now about patriarchy and, uh, misogyny and the manosphere, and we've had some episodes on
[00:18:33] Chris McCurry: this as well. Uh, so h-how does that play into this, you know, uh, separation or even, uh, uh, you know, conflict between, you know, the brain and the body, mind and
[00:18:44] Manuela OConnell: Mm. A lot has been written in the feminist movement, uh, in a way in which knowledge, intuition, and other ways of knowledge that are less mindy and [00:19:00] more embodied has been related with women, and those kind of, uh, ways of knowing, seeing the world, uh, has been suppressed with the body. Um, so, um, some of these writings, uh, talk about, uh, the split, the dualistic split of mind and body as an also a way of dismissing more embodied wisdom, intuition associated with women, um, but also a, an ecological thing.
[00:19:37] Manuela OConnell: Body has been transformed into an object as the nature has been either
[00:19:48] Manuela O'Connell video: There's
[00:19:48] Manuela OConnell: lot of things to relate around how we dismiss the body, nature, treat them as object, and women treated as [00:20:00] object too in a culture
[00:20:02] Chris McCurry: So, so you're talking about nature as in, you know, nature generally. So
[00:20:07] Chris McCurry: this, this gets into, you
[00:20:10] Chris McCurry: know, let's, let's clear cut that forest, let's like
[00:20:13] Chris McCurry: destroy that mountain to get the minerals underneath it.
[00:20:17] Chris McCurry: You know, it's that, ugh, wow
[00:20:21] Manuela OConnell: So it's interesting when, when you read this kind of ideas in which the way we are exploding, um, we're exploding nature, we're exploding, uh, our body, and we're exploding, uh, women
[00:20:40] Chris McCurry: Thanks.
[00:20:47] Chris McCurry: Okay. So, you know, we, we have about a half an hour to, like, solve this problem. Um,
[00:20:51] Manuela OConnell: Yeah, well, like I, I truly think that if we live a more embodied life, it will solve a lot of [00:21:00] problems. Maybe you can call me idealistic, but I, I truly think that, uh, it's very difficult to hurt someone when you're very connected with your body. It's very difficult to hurt nature when you're very connected to your body.
[00:21:20] Manuela OConnell: Um, yeah
[00:21:21] Chris McCurry: Well, it goes back to what you were saying before about safeness and, uh, if you're, if you're not constantly in fight or flight, you're probably gonna manage the world differently, the people in it and nature itself
[00:21:36] Manuela OConnell: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:21:39] Chris McCurry: All
[00:21:39] Training Embodiment in Therapy
[00:21:39] Chris McCurry: right, so how do we do this? How do we get
[00:21:43] Emma Waddington: Yes. Let's learn to be more embodied. Can I just ask a question about the safety? You mentioned right at the beginning that, you know, your body tells you whether you're safe or not safe. What do you mean with that? How does our body tell us that?
[00:21:58] Manuela OConnell: We do have a [00:22:00] biological, um, circuit, uh, that does neuroception. Um, the polyvagal circuit will tell you if you are safe or not. It is, uh, surveilling that all the time That it's one of the things our body does. And we, we know it in a very concrete cues, like we get goose... How do you call it? Like g- m- goose,
[00:22:27] Chris McCurry: Goosebu- goosebumps
[00:22:28] Manuela OConnell: goosebumps. And, uh, and, and you have a feeling that something wrong may happen, and your body tells you that
[00:22:42] Emma Waddington: But it sometimes gets that wrong. Like there is an interaction between what our minds are saying and then how our body
[00:22:49] Manuela OConnell: Exactly
[00:22:50] Emma Waddington: then interprets it. So is that- so, so when you're saying it tells you it's safe or not safe, it doesn't mean that it's accurate. It's just giving you information[00:23:00]
[00:23:00] Manuela OConnell: The body is accurate. The mind is not reading it.
[00:23:05] Manuela O'Connell video: it.
[00:23:05] Emma Waddington: Oh
[00:23:06] Chris McCurry: Well, it, it could also be that, you know, a particular brain, because of their history, has been calibrated to pick out certain stimuli over others
[00:23:20] Chris McCurry: and
[00:23:21] Chris McCurry: perhaps over-interpret or, uh, see danger when perhaps there isn't danger. So I,
[00:23:28] Chris McCurry: I think, you know, that's, that, that may be a factor.
[00:23:31] Manuela OConnell: Yeah, your body can be conditioned obviously to, to feel stuff that... And it's learning and it's, and it is trained too. Still, uh, with this, uh, kind of cor- conversation that Emma was talking about, how we talk with our body in a metaphorical way, we don't usually listen. We are fighting with it, uh, or we don't care, [00:24:00] or we are using it.
[00:24:01] Manuela OConnell: So I, I do think that we can be trained
[00:24:06] Manuela O'Connell video: to
[00:24:07] Manuela OConnell: have a more fluent conversation with our body to really feel the signals, uh, and what it's telling us, and, uh, also talk to our body in some, in some context, uh, in which we are getting anxious. And yeah, uh, there's a way to start like that conversation, and I know that from my own experience apart from doing this with clients.
[00:24:36] Manuela OConnell: Uh, I, I wasn't able, able to talk with my body. I was so dissociated and, uh, apart from it, and it was bothering me, and it started bothering me with the symptoms in a way, and I was in a big fight with it. And, and I decided to start talking and [00:25:00] listening and discriminating sensations and knowing more what was happening, and that gave me a, a, a lot of wisdom not only about myself but about the world either
[00:25:23] Emma Waddington: I'm finding this very exciting actually. Um, thinking about, like it feels like it's a hu- it's a, it's an enormous part of my world that I've neglected, and I... It sounds like, you know, like you're saying, once you're embodied, you can do... It's hard to do harm to others. I'm, yeah, I'm excited. It feels really important.
[00:25:47] Emma Waddington: I need to learn how to do this. I need to learn how to talk to my body and listen to my body better. We had a, a, a great conversation with, um, uh, Howard Schubiner, who's just written a book called Unlearn Your [00:26:00] Pain. So this idea that sort of chronic pain is, um, your body learns to feel pain, and you can unlearn to feel it because the body is telling you something is unsafe when it is actually safe.
[00:26:15] Emma Waddington: But his, and, you know, listeners can listen to the conversation that we had with him. You know, he talks about, you know, your body feels, has experiences, and it can come out as pain, but it could be that it's actually an emotional experience. It's just being expressed as a physical pain. Um, and we sort of neglect to see that because we don't understand the way our bodies work and the way pain works and the way our brains work in many ways too.
[00:26:42] Emma Waddington: So just feels that there's... And that's, uh, uh, that is not how I was taught to deal with chronic pain when I was, you know, trained. It was not about, you know, pain being learned or your body expressing emotions or discomfort, um, in these [00:27:00] physical ways. It was, you know, learning to accept your pain, not to catastrophize your pain, not to sort of...
[00:27:05] Emma Waddington: You know, all about working with the mind, but not getting to understand and, and, you know, become more intimate with those sensations. It's quite the opposite really. It was, you
[00:27:15] Manuela OConnell: was, you know... Well, there
[00:27:16] Emma Waddington: there was some mindfulness, but a lot of distraction too. So let's have this conversation. Let's, let's learn how to be more embodied, um, with you, Manuela.
[00:27:25] Manuela OConnell: very mindy too. Uh, the way we are doing here in Western society is, uh, in Buddhism, uh, the body is the first foundation for mindfulness Oh
[00:27:39] Emma Waddington: True. Well, my mindfulness has always been very mindy, which has meant that I've mostly failed at it, as in abandoned it.
[00:27:49] Manuela OConnell: Oh
[00:27:51] Emma Waddington: but yeah, so t- tell us a bit more. So how would you work with someone to help them feel more embodied? I'm, you know, dying to know
[00:27:59] Somatic Exercises and Textures
[00:27:59] Manuela OConnell: [00:28:00] The first thing is that in therapy or outside therapy, in other, um, context, but I have trained clients in this. I... In start discriminating sensations by the questions we ask, like, uh, "How are you feeling it? Which texture?" I remember a client who was very disconnected with his emotions to start, uh, like having the chance to be more aware of his em- emotional landscape.
[00:28:33] Manuela OConnell: We started a training with textures. So he was... We were bringing different textures, and he was saying this, uh, inner feeling, this emotion is more coarse or more...
[00:28:48] Manuela O'Connell video: more...
[00:28:49] Manuela OConnell: And he was touching at the same moment we were doing thing. It wasn't the idea, of course. It was, it is, it is feeling like this or it's [00:29:00] feeling like this or, or like this.
[00:29:02] Manuela OConnell: And that means a training of noticing physical sensations and then discriminating different physical sensations. And that, for him, also helped him discriminate different emotions in which he was first saying, "I can't feel anything." Yeah. Or I even remember a client that he was feeling a sort of pain, a pain in her, in her skin, uh, and it was difficult to talk about it.
[00:29:37] Manuela OConnell: And when we went into it and start discriminating aspects of that pain, and I'm, y- if you can see, I'm even touching myself too, like feeling that pain in her skin, he, she realized that it was sadness. Sadness felt that way for her[00:30:00]
[00:30:01] Manuela OConnell: How
[00:30:01] Emma Waddington: How did she do that? How did she come to... Wow. So she felt this physical... I b- I mean, that's a bit of the what, you know, this Howard Schubiner talks about. So, and was it, how did you get to sadness? I'm curious. Just through being with the body and slowing down and listening to the sensations?
[00:30:22] Manuela OConnell: Exactly. And seeing in which context those sensations were present and in which they weren't, and how she felt other emotions.
[00:30:35] Training Felt Sense
[00:30:39] Manuela OConnell: But first it start with a very sensitive way of, uh, noticing and learning to feel And we can train and learn to feel in our body
[00:30:53] Chris McCurry: And, and I would imagine some of it involves just, you know, to the extent possible, quieting [00:31:00] the, the chatter in the mind and, you know, the, the narrative. Uh, not that you can ever really get rid of that, of course,
[00:31:06] Chris McCurry: but to maybe let it go slip into the background a little bit so that you can actually hear, so to speak, what the body is
[00:31:14] Chris McCurry: trying to tell you.
[00:31:15] Chris McCurry: And that may come up as an image or
[00:31:18] Manuela OConnell: Um
[00:31:19] Chris McCurry: something that sparks a, a, an aha moment
[00:31:24] Manuela OConnell: Mm-hmm. Yes. On the other hand, we need to teach our clients or people, uh, on how to notice what their body is, because if I, for example, think about or if I wanna sense my hand, most of the people think about their hand or have the image of the hand, but not necessarily they're feeling their hand from the inside out in a way, and that needs, uh, training. Like, if you touch your hand, can [00:32:00] you feel now your hand? If you move a little bit your hand, can you feel your hand? Is there a chance to feel the temperature around it so the hand becomes an experience because it is an experience that it's more than an image of it. It is more like a felt sense experience. But not ... That needs to be trained, and we don't have a lot of context culturally to be trained in that kind of, uh, learning
[00:32:39] Emma Waddington: I
[00:32:40] Emma Waddington: guess 'cause we just don't talk about it.
[00:32:42] Why We Ignore Bodies
[00:32:43] Emma Waddington: I mean, thinking how, you know, when When do we ask, "How does that feel? How does your body feel? How does your
[00:32:53] Manuela OConnell: Hmm.
[00:32:54] Emma Waddington: hand feel in this moment? Where, where are you feeling this?" Only in therapy. Like, nobody's gonna [00:33:00] ask you that in a conversation. That would be really odd
[00:33:06] Chris McCurry: Well, we're
[00:33:06] Chris McCurry: always trying to get to, you know, the solution to the problem.
[00:33:09] Chris McCurry: You know,
[00:33:09] Emma Waddington: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah
[00:33:11] Chris McCurry: problem here, let's get to the solution. We do that intellectually, we do that by solving problems, thinking it through, you know, all those sorts of things. We never like just sit with it for, you know, a minute
[00:33:22] Emma Waddington: E
[00:33:23] Culture and Embodiment
[00:33:23] Manuela OConnell: And also it's very cultural. I come from Latin America, and if you see most of our cultures, they're more embodied. We move our bodies more, we shout, we, we are much more expressive than other, other cultures
[00:33:42] Emma Waddington: Oh gosh, can you give me a second? They've just rang the doorbell and I'm home alone and in someone else's house. So sorry, just put pause. I'll just figure out what's going on here
[00:33:53] Chris McCurry: And we're back
[00:33:55] Emma Waddington: Okay, cool. So, so yes, you're, you're right, Manuela, that [00:34:00] when we think about Latin American or even Spanish, Italian, Mediterranean cultures, there's a lot more sort of, sort of touching, hugging, kissing, crying, more expression of emotion through... But I'm not sure, does that translate to talking about your body in a different way?
[00:34:20] Emma Waddington: Does it translate to thinking about the body in a different way to
[00:34:23] Manuela OConnell: The relation you have your, with your body is different. It's more than you live in a more free embodied, uh, place than in other countries that people are much more uptight and disconnected with their body
[00:34:39] Emma Waddington: Hmm, interesting. Yes. You hug, you touch much more.
[00:34:46] Manuela OConnell: A lot
[00:34:47] Emma Waddington: you're just thinking about the body in that way more, using it to express yourself more.
[00:34:51] Manuela OConnell: Yeah, move your hands, your
[00:34:55] Emma Waddington: Yeah.
[00:34:55] Manuela OConnell: arms,
[00:34:57] Emma Waddington: Yes
[00:34:58] Manuela OConnell: facial expressions [00:35:00] are, mm
[00:35:03] Manuela OConnell: That's
[00:35:03] Emma Waddington: Very true. Very true. Like you can probably know what is being said just by watching someone from afar in Italy or Spain or, you know, France or, you know, you can go, "Ooh, they're having a, an argument." Oh, the Greeks as well.
[00:35:18] Manuela OConnell: Hmm.
[00:35:18] Emma Waddington: or not. They might just be being passionate about something
[00:35:23] Reading Body Language
[00:35:23] Manuela OConnell: When, when I train therapist, I sometimes show videos of therapeutic interaction without the sound, and looking at their body dance, and people can know a lot what it's happening by seeing how they are behaving in a more embodied way. They are communicating
[00:35:51] Teletherapy After Pandemic
[00:35:51] Chris McCurry: I, I'm, uh, I d- I'm wondering, and I do wanna get back to some sort of things that our listeners can do to, you know, reconnect to their bodies [00:36:00] in, in important ways. But I'm j- I'm just curious about how since the pandemic, doing therapy over, you know, Zoom or other, you know, methods, how that's impacted, you know, the therapist being able to tune in to some of these things or the, or just the relationship between therapist and clients over the internet as opposed to being in the room together where you have so many more cues that you can, you can utilize
[00:36:30] Manuela OConnell: There is research around that. What happened, uh, with this more virtual, only this part of our body intervening, but for human beings, eyes, tone of voice, uh, are two very important cues, uh, to know what is happening. Um, of course, gestures and posture, and then the felt sense. There are some cues that, uh, aren't [00:37:00] that available here, but we are adapting to them.
[00:37:04] Manuela OConnell: So at the beginning, it looked like the, it was, um, much more difficult to feel connected in this way. But then as we usually do as human beings, we adapted, in terms of, uh, feeling more like proximity, intimacy, all those kind of things are embodies, uh, connected. When you feel intimate with someone, you say...
[00:37:31] Manuela OConnell: And we use a lot of embodied metaphor for that. "I feel you close," that's an embodied metaphor. "I feel you close. I can, I can feel your skin." There's a lot of metaphors we use that are embodied, uh, with love. "I can see my heart rate," like my heart is, uh, pumping a lot when we feel love for someone. We use a lot of embodied metaphors, uh, when we [00:38:00] talk
[00:38:01] Emma Waddington: But although we, I'm curious about that 'cause although we compensate for it in a way, we adapt, does it affect the quality? Like, I remember seeing some data during, you know, COVID and post-COVID that, you know, teletherapy, I don't know what it's called anymore, but I think it's still called teletherapy, was just as effective
[00:38:23] Manuela O'Connell video: Hmm.
[00:38:24] Emma Waddington: as
[00:38:24] Manuela OConnell: Yeah
[00:38:25] Emma Waddington: And, but I, I feel that I, I really struggle with, with, um, teletherapy. I find it very difficult to do. I really miss a lot of information, um, of the person in the room. Um, I just don't feel as m- you know, I don't feel as connected, but I don't understand. I don't see the non-verbals as much. So I can't see how it is just as effective, but the data suggests that it is
[00:38:49] Chris McCurry: Well,
[00:38:49] Chris McCurry: I used to have kids just like get up and leave the room, you know? It went-- when they're in m- when they were in my office, you know, they were more or less contained. But, you know, when they're in their own bedroom and they get an idea [00:39:00] that, you know, you know, they want a snack or something, they just get up and leave, and it's like, "Timmy, where'd you go?" But, um, but, you know, but then again, you get to see the child's bedroom and, uh, get-- you get some good information as well about what the, the home life is like
[00:39:15] Chris McCurry: sometimes. But, uh, I, you know, I, I never, never liked doing online therapy.
[00:39:22] Manuela OConnell: Hmm.
[00:39:24] Social Media and 2D Self
[00:39:24] Emma Waddington: And with the advent of like, yeah, social media and people, you know, using online methods to, you know, or o- online avenues to get connected, is this just sort of going against your, your narrative that we need to get more embodied, right? It's actually starting to cost us. What are your thoughts? What... How do you feel about that, that we're
[00:39:43] Manuela OConnell: Well, if, if you see mental health problems, uh, related to social media, y- it goes again in the same thesis I'm presenting, like there, the body becomes an image, something we have, [00:40:00] and the like and dislike of images. A lot of, uh, well, Argentina is a country with a lot of difficulties related to body image and,
[00:40:12] Manuela O'Connell video: and,
[00:40:15] Manuela OConnell: and weight and, uh, and, uh, anorexia and bulimia and those kind of stuff, but also a lot of anxiety and depression around being kind of as a human being being are collapsed into an image of us. I think that that i- that is doing a lot of harm. And when we connect with the body, we have a more 3D dimension instead of this 2D, uh, dimension that we become in this, uh, places in,
[00:40:53] Chris McCurry: you lose a lot of c-
[00:40:55] Chris McCurry: you lose a lot of context too when you're just seeing somebody's vacation photo [00:41:00] on, you know, Facebook or something. Um, you know, you don't, you don't know what was happening, you know, 10
[00:41:03] Chris McCurry: minutes earlier or, or what will happen later that evening that they didn't post that maybe wasn't so cheerful or, or beautiful, whatever it may be
[00:41:15] Manuela OConnell: And their inner, uh, landscape while they're showing that outer landscape.
[00:41:21] Chris McCurry: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:41:23] Seven Senses Practice
[00:41:23] Chris McCurry: And, um, so in, in the, in the few minutes that we have left, um, other thoughts on, you know, how people can get started on this path of, of hearing their bodies more clearly?
[00:41:37] Manuela OConnell: Yeah. I would, uh, advise, uh, that first slowing down and paying more attention to the felt sense and sensations. Not only sensations related to the five senses, but we have seven senses, not only five. We have
[00:41:59] Manuela O'Connell video: [00:42:00] interoception and
[00:42:01] Manuela OConnell: interoception and proprioception. Um, interoception let- lets you know how do you feel from the inside.
[00:42:09] Manuela OConnell: Uh, and proprioception, uh, let- lets you know, uh, the volume where you're at in a room and the distance between different parts of your room and if you are lying down or up. So, uh, like tuning into the felt sense and these seven senses. Uh, even though if at the beginning it's kind of awkward, I don't know what I'm feeling, it's okay.
[00:42:35] Manuela OConnell: And having the kindness to themselves and to ourselves that this is a learning process. As, as
[00:42:45] Manuela O'Connell video: more and
[00:42:45] Manuela OConnell: more and more
[00:42:50] Manuela OConnell: and more that you tune in, tune in, tune in, you will learn to feel more
[00:42:55] Chris McCurry: Well, as you said before, there,
[00:42:57] Chris McCurry: uh, there's a lot of relearning that has to happen[00:43:00]
[00:43:02] Manuela OConnell: Hmm.
[00:43:03] Chris McCurry: And that takes time, takes work.
[00:43:06] Manuela OConnell: Yeah
[00:43:07] Chris McCurry: not, oof, it's not linear progress either
[00:43:10] Manuela OConnell: But it can be done with curiosity, and it's an exploration, it's an adventure. An embodied life can be very ecstatic, you know? Like, wow, a lot of things to discover, a lot of other channels in which we can know the world that we haven't tuned in. So it is not only hard work and do your work of tuning into the body, but it could be more an adventure.
[00:43:40] Manuela OConnell: Why not?
[00:43:42] Nature and Intimacy
[00:43:42] Manuela OConnell: Like go ... I, I do that. I go out into nature, and instead of only looking, I'm doing like that because I'm looking at the tree now, and instead of only looking at the tree, I touch it, I smell it, and I have to confess that sometimes I taste them Try it out. What happens if nobody see you and you go out into the world, like touching, smelling, like letting a tree be all over you, being in touch with a tree? Try it out. Maybe the world has much more experiences that we have been tuning in. And of course, I would advise to do the same thing with another human being With a loved one, what happens that instead of only looking at them, you can touch them, smell, feel the texture. Intimacy, it's a embodied experience
[00:44:52] Smelling Your Baby
[00:44:52] Emma Waddington: Gosh, as, as you were talking, I was thinking of, you know, when your, you have your baby. I remember, you know, when I gave [00:45:00] birth, um I, you know, y- I hold my baby and I remember smelling. And I still remember that smell. It smelt a little bit like bacon. But it was like I c- it's still the smell just gives me this sort of, oh my goodness.
[00:45:17] Emma Waddington: I don't know if the smell actually... I don't know if it stimulates oxytocin. I don't know what it does, but I remember
[00:45:25] Chris McCurry: has to be doing something
[00:45:26] Emma Waddington: It's gotta be doing something, 'cause all I wanted to do was keep smelling my baby like an animal.
[00:45:32] Emma Waddington: Um, and I did, and I didn't- nobody told me y- to smell your baby. Nobody said, "Right now you smell your baby."
[00:45:37] Emma Waddington: I remember they put my, my son, 'cause my first was my son, and then all three of them, and the first thing I did was smell him and hold him and touch him and, you know, and he was full of this vernix and, you know, it was really messy. But there was something very visceral about that. And, and, and I noticed that, you know, you do that with your children.
[00:45:59] Emma Waddington: You touch them, [00:46:00] you smell them, you hold them. In fact, when I miss my children, um, I feel pain in my arms because I feel like I should be holding. Like, I feel this physical ache.
[00:46:11] Manuela OConnell: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:11] Manuela O'Connell video: Hmm.
[00:46:13] Emma Waddington: then you don't, as adults, you don't do that. Like, I don't know how someone would feel if I went and smelt them.
[00:46:19] Manuela OConnell: maybe.
[00:46:19] Manuela OConnell: I do. I have a 20-year-old son now, and
[00:46:25] Emma Waddington: Oh, yes. Yes
[00:46:27] Manuela OConnell: at home because of his smell
[00:46:29] Emma Waddington: Oh, of course. Yeah. I
[00:46:33] Manuela OConnell: here you are. But the thing is to start tuning into that
[00:46:38] Emma Waddington: Yes.
[00:46:39] Manuela OConnell: channel that we don't... And to tune, you need to slow down and pay attention, and then start noticing, what do I notice?
[00:46:51] Emma Waddington: Here.
[00:46:52] Manuela OConnell: What's the smell landscape here now
[00:46:56] Emma Waddington: Ah, I love the idea of an adventure. Yeah, me too.[00:47:00]
[00:47:00] Manuela OConnell: Reach
[00:47:01] Chris McCurry: real- I'm really taken with
[00:47:02] Chris McCurry: the idea of the three-dimensionality
[00:47:04] Chris McCurry: of the three-dimensionality of just, you know, 'cause we're always focused straight ahead. But to be aware of the room behind me, you
[00:47:12] Chris McCurry: know, at or even, you know, where I am in my house in relation to,
[00:47:18] Chris McCurry: you know, the upstairs and, you
[00:47:20] Chris McCurry: know, the front and the back, and
[00:47:23] Manuela OConnell: And you can feel that. You
[00:47:25] Chris McCurry: Yeah. You can actually feel it
[00:47:27] Manuela OConnell: You have a sense door to feel that
[00:47:30] Chris McCurry: Yeah.
[00:47:31] Emma Waddington: that. So true
[00:47:33] Manuela OConnell: And you can feel the presence of someone even if you don't
[00:47:36] Emma Waddington: Yes, you can. Yes. So true, isn't it? You're
[00:47:40] Manuela OConnell: that
[00:47:41] Emma Waddington: Yeah, you can.
[00:47:43] Chris McCurry: I like it.
[00:47:43] Emma Waddington: Yes. Yes.
[00:47:45] Chris McCurry: Well,
[00:47:46] Emma Waddington: Let's get practicing.
[00:47:47] Chris McCurry: been fabulous
[00:47:49] Emma Waddington: Yeah, it really has.
[00:47:50] Manuela OConnell: We
[00:47:51] Emma Waddington: Thank you. I'm not sure about the tasting the trees.
[00:47:54] Manuela OConnell: more. No.
[00:47:55] Emma Waddington: Just in case. Just in
[00:47:57] Manuela OConnell: Don't do it. You can [00:48:00] get poisoned.
[00:48:01] Chris McCurry: Yeah, exactly.
[00:48:02] Emma Waddington: what I was thinking. I don't have enough knowledge not to get poisoned, but
[00:48:06] Manuela OConnell: Exactly.
[00:48:08] Manuela O'Connell video: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:08] Emma Waddington: Yes, this is an adventure
[00:48:10] Manuela OConnell: different experience. Flowers, tasting flowers, why not?
[00:48:15] Emma Waddington: Mm. Yeah, that seems more palatable
[00:48:23] Chris McCurry: All Right.
[00:48:23] Resources and Wrap Up
[00:48:23] Chris McCurry: Manuela, thank you very much.
[00:48:25] Chris McCurry: Um, we'll have your books in the show notes.
[00:48:28] Manuela OConnell: Thank you
[00:48:29] Chris McCurry: and if there's anything, uh, that you're aware of in terms of resources or cool articles,
[00:48:36] Emma Waddington: Yes
[00:48:36] Chris McCurry: send us those links, and we'll put those in the show
[00:48:39] Chris McCurry: notes as well to guide people in exploring this further
[00:48:43] Manuela OConnell: Yes, I will
[00:48:44] Emma Waddington: like a,
[00:48:46] Manuela OConnell: something about how, how interoception is very important for mental health, and it's a trans diagnosis process, uh, to work. Then I will probably send some [00:49:00] articles around what happened with pandemia and embodied way of doing therapy, and yeah. If, if I come, uh, if I come across another resource, I definitely will share it.
[00:49:13] Chris McCurry: Great.
[00:49:13] Chris McCurry: Yeah. our listeners can, can find those
[00:49:16] Emma Waddington: I was just thinking, is there like a beginner's guide to embodiment? Like where
[00:49:22] Manuela OConnell: Not that I do have, but there are a lot of it around somatic, uh, work. Yes
[00:49:28] Emma Waddington: Yeah. If you have any links to that, I think that could be pretty cool. We had a, a previous guest who talked about horror movies, and she had her, her sort of startup kit, didn't she? Of how to get started to watching horror movies. I thought that was pretty fun. So like, you know, where do we start? Where do we begin, if there's anything
[00:49:47] Manuela OConnell: Yeah, I will send, uh, the link to a book that it is an embodied embodiment training called Utani. It's not very well known, but I have been doing that for 30 years now, so [00:50:00] yeah
[00:50:00] Emma Waddington: yes. That would be amazing. I'll be
[00:50:02] Chris McCurry: gonna get into that.
[00:50:04] Emma Waddington: Yeah, me too.
[00:50:05] Chris McCurry: Yeah, my, my, my body and I need to, uh, have, have a conversation.
[00:50:09] Manuela OConnell: A conversation.
[00:50:11] Chris McCurry: Yeah, it's
[00:50:11] Chris McCurry: sort of like,
[00:50:11] Chris McCurry: it's
[00:50:12] Chris McCurry: like
[00:50:12] Chris McCurry: stop doing that.
[00:50:13] Manuela OConnell: Mm, yeah.
[00:50:14] Chris McCurry: you know, and,
[00:50:14] Chris McCurry: I--
[00:50:16] Manuela OConnell: Thank you.
[00:50:17] Chris McCurry: Thank you. so much, Mambo.
[00:50:19] Manuela OConnell: Thank you for having me here. Thank you. Mm-hmm.
