Wellsprings

Wellsprings: The Sense of Aliveness

Conrad E. L’Heureux

I am interested in a very specific type of subjective experience which I call a sense of aliveness. It is the feeling, both psychological and physiological, which people seem to be referring to when they make statements like, “I feel so alive!” I think of this feeling as an immediate sensation of the flow of energy within the organism. A living organism can be thought of as an energy system, as an entity which takes in numerous kinds of energy from the environment, transforms that energy in a variety of ways characteristic of the specific organism, and then returns energy to the surroundings. The feeling of aliveness is a sensation of the flowing and transmutation of this life energy.

Recently my students and I had the opportunity to become involved in a concert presented by artist-musician Michael Bashaw. The concert was in part improvisational and was intended to create a sacred space in order to invoke archetypal energies of the unconscious in a manner which would not only entertain but also empower and inspire both performers and audience. My students had done visualization exercises in which they accessed some of their own internal imagery which was then given concrete form through drawing. In dialogue with Michael, small groups selected some of these images to be represented in large scale figures (i.e., 20 to 30 feet) made of cardboard and bamboo then appropriately decorated. The making of these figures was itself an experience of aliveness, for an extraordinary spirit of collaboration and teamwork emerged in which the creativity of individuals came together to produce artistic objects of unexpected power and beauty even though most of these individuals did not have any special artistic training. Even more powerful was the concert itself which was more a participatory happening than a performance staged for the benefit of spectators. The cardboard and bamboo figures (many of which had moveable parts) were manipulated or carried by students, some weaving through the seated audience, in an improvised dance responding to the music. In their written reflections on this event, many of the students—without any prompting from me—reported experiences which clearly belong in the category of feeling their sense of aliveness. Many said that they felt they had somehow merged with the symbolic entity which they had created and were carrying so that they experienced an incredible sense of power. They noted that they had a sense of being just a part of something much larger than themselves which embraced the musicians, the music, the audience, themselves, and the figures they had made. Many spoke of intense joy and happiness—a sense of both wonder and pride that who they were and what they had created was here expressing itself in a palpable and moving way. Only one or two actually described the event with the words, ” I felt so alive!” but my impression is that what they experienced was indeed the aliveness arising from the celebration of themselves.

I could understand what my students were talking about because I too have and value such experiences.  It has often been while dancing that this sense has come to me most frequently and most intensely. I have no dance training and I do not try to duplicate any standard steps or moves. I simply allow myself to respond to music in whatever way my body feels like doing. I sometimes have the sense that I am not deliberately choosing how to move but that there is a merging of the energy of the music and my own physical energy that somehow moves according to its own inner forms and rhythms, flows through, and expresses itself. My perception is that this moving energy is identical to who or what I most deeply am. Similar feelings have come upon me in connection with interactions in a Gestalt Therapy group—moments when a facilitator helped me to contact and express dimensions of myself which I had perhaps never shared with others before and indeed did not fully realize even existed. My creative professional work provides other opportunities. When I design and lead an effective workshop or produce a piece of writing which expresses well ideas of deep importance to me, I am able to feel my creativity, my skills, my power as a flowing of my life energy in very specific and rewarding channels. There are many other possible examples of this subjective awareness of aliveness, several of which are mentioned in my article “Being Alive.”

If I try to set out some of the typical characteristics of this feeling of aliveness, I can do so principally on the basis of my own subjective experience. One of its principle elements is the sense of power or empowerment which is perhaps linked to a heightened awareness of one’s heartbeat, breathing and muscular activity. There is also a sense of a physiological “flowing” which might take the form of energetic waves, tingling or streaming sensations, goose bumps moving up and down some part of the body, and powerful impulses towards all kinds of bodily movement. There is a very pronounced sense of one’s individuality and uniqueness: this is me. And this “me” has a strong impression of being all-of-one-piece, whole, integrated and unified so that the metaphor of being completely “in touch” seems particularly appropriate. Yet paradoxically there can be a sense that what is flowing here is more than me; it is part of and one with a much larger universal flow. So while what I am experiencing is me, I have a clear impression of receiving the energy and the experience from a mysterious source that is more than just me. This aspect of the experience can produce a deep sense of thankfulness which sometimes elicits tears of gratitude. These experiences, finally, are self-authenticating. That is, they are felt as a direct sensing and contacting whose reality speaks for itself and does not need to be validated by rational argument or the approval of some authority.

One might ask whether the sense of one’s aliveness which I am trying to get at might not be identical with some other intense positive experiences. One could think, for example, of Joseph Campbell’s concept of “following your bliss,” or Abraham Maslow’s “peak experiences,” or M. Csikszentmihalyi’s “flow” experience. Other possible analogues might be the unitive experiences of mystics, the athlete’s occasional sense of being “in the zone,” or the jazz musician’s entering into “a groove.” Or, to go even further, one might wonder if what I am talking about is not quite simply a particularly intense example of having pleasure and being happy. My response is that all the above (as well as other states, including some which are not ordinarily judged as positive in nature) could potentially include a sense of one’s aliveness, but that is not always the case. What is crucial for me is the vivid sensing of one’s own vital energy. I understand this as a phenomenon of sensation with a very concrete physiological basis. There is, of course, no evidence of a particular nerve ending which would function as a special sensor of life energy. What I am talking about seems to be a composite of sensations corresponding to a large number of different specializations in the afferent nervous system. There are the various sensations of touch at the periphery of the body, sensors of pressure within deeper tissues; specialized organs which detect the degree of contraction in muscle tissue or the relative position of bones at the joint. In addition to the sensations which can be linked to specific nerve endings, there are all kinds of subjective somatic sensations of more complex origins available to us: tingling, swelling, contracting, softening, to name just a few. It is the conscious awareness or paying attention to all these quite bodily sensations which produces the overall sense of feeling one’s life energy or aliveness. This direct sensory contact with oneself is the decisive factor which might make the sense of aliveness more specific than the other personal experiences mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph.

More theoretical speculations: Wilhelm Reich

The central importance of the life energy and our ability to experience it was highlighted in the writings of Wilhelm Reich who, while a young man, became an associate of Sigmund Freud and a vigorous contributor to psychoanalytic theory. Because of his eventual divergence from Freudian theory and also because of his very activist social and political involvements, Reich was forced out of the Freudian psychoanalytic movement and worked in a number or European cities until he came to the United States in the 1940s. In his later years he espoused positions which most of his colleagues regarded as bizarre. His early clinical and theoretical work, however, continues to inspire many psychologists today.He held to the existence of an instinctual life-energy or bioenergy which was the dynamic principle in all living organisms, including human beings. All the psychological issues in people’s lives could be understood in terms of the conflicts which arose between the instinctual demands of the life energy and the frustrations arising from the physical and social environment. In addition, Reich vigorously opposed every kind of body/mind dualism and insisted that the physiological and the psychological were functionally identical. Both the phenomenon of aliveness and the dysfunctional disturbances of well-being could be observed in terms of their somatic manifestations. Especially important was his idea that muscular armoring, chronic contractions of the musculature, constituted the means whereby the individual’s vitality was curtailed in response to fear stimulated by environmental factors. The present day movement towards various body-oriented psychotherapies receives much of its inspiration from Reich (e.g., A. Lowen, J. Pierrakos, R. Kurtz and many others)
. One of Reich’s most controversial ideas was that the life energy, which he came to designate as “orgone,” was identical with the fundamental energy of the cosmos and that this was an independently existing and measurable reality (like electrical energy or kinetic energy) which could be studied scientifically and even be collected in a device which he built and called the “orgone accumulator.” In this, Reich was like a number of philosophical thinkers often given the label “Vitalists” because they maintained that the life force or life energy was an independently subsisting objective reality above and beyond what are normally understood as physical and chemical phenomena. My own inclination is to shy away from this view. What is most important for me is our ability to have a subjective sensory experience of our life energy. I suspect that what I am referring to is a composite of various kinds of energy which are scientifically recognized (such as kinetic, chemical and electrical energy) as they work together within a living organism. This is of greater practical and experiential importance than whether or not there is some kind of mystical, metaphysical, or even scientific reality such as Reich’s orgone.

One Person’s Experience

As my teaching style evolved over the years, I came to place a high priority on creating opportunities for students to have the kind of experience I have been discussing.  One of the most effective ways of doing so employs what I call “psycho-physiological exercises,” that is, some form of movement combined with an inwardly focused sensory awareness inspired by Gestalt Therapy. An especially powerful such exercise is the Dynamic Meditation of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who was also called Osho. A musical background is provided on tape or CD for a series of movements each lasting about ten minutes.  The first is a rapid chaotic breathing through the nose. This is  followed by a period of free movement and cathartic vocal expression. Then participants jump continuously in place while shouting “hoo” with a compression of the abdominal muscles which pushes the sound into the pelvic floor. Finally, a period of silent meditation is followed by joyful dancing in celebration and gratitude. One of my students shared with me the journal reflections which she wrote shortly after doing this exercise in my course on the inner journey:

I feel so fucking awesome right now after [the exercise] in Inner Journey class. I saw a man on the way home who was riding his bike and saying, “Oh yeah…Oh yeah,” with a big smile on his face. I smiled back thinking, “I know!”

I have never felt such a love for my body. During the free dance of thanksgiving and celebration I was entranced by how my body felt and the ways in which it could move. I swayed my hips and felt good being a woman with such broad hips. I shrugged and moved my shoulders, feeling every muscle involved. I felt my butt jiggling as I jumped up and down and just thought, “That’s my butt–it’s part of me!” I swung my arms all about me, and I reveled in the fact that little me, little woman, was making herself big, huge, and I loved that my body was taking up so much space.

I yelled, “I don’t want to do that!” because I never say it. I screamed. I Whooped. I yelled, “I’m alive!” several times–to make up for all the times I forget. I screamed, “Yes!” to affirm myself. I screamed, “No!” to all the people who just don’t get it. I yelled “Fuck!” just because I could. It felt good. I laughed like a fool, like a child, like me.

I felt a controlled energy during the “feel your body” time. Like I could like down or I could go run a marathon–the choice was mine. I felt satisfied physically. I felt like I had just had sex…during the “hoo” section of the exercise, I felt like  I was having a sexual experience, but with myself. I don’t know why or how, but that’s how I felt. Like I was feeling my sexual energy become aroused for whatever reason.

I have never felt so attuned to both the physical and mental dimensions of myself. I also felt a rush of acceptance for everything that I was: I didn’t censor any feeling, any thought, any movement. For me, the greatest part of that exercise was feeling, for perhaps one of the first times since early childhood, a complete acceptance and love for my body. I was mesmerized by my body and my movements. Instead of feeling my stomach or butt move and thinking, “I’m so fat, there’s so much of me here,” I thought, “This is me, this is  my stomach and my butt and the rest of my body and isn’t it amazing the ways in which I look and move and be.” It was truly an incredible discovery.

It’s all there: the sense of power and the affirmation of her own aliveness; feeling the energy and knowing “This is me!”; joy “like a fool, like a child, like me;” attunement to self and acceptance of self (especially of her body); the freedom felt when the life energy flows without being blocked. This young woman was also aware of a sexual dimension to her experience. Indeed, as both Freud and Reich recognized, the life energy is quintessentially erotic. Genital excitation and discharge constitute only one locally concentrated expression of this energy. The energy of aliveness is more like the polymorphous eroticism of the small child in which every reaching out to explore and make contact with self and the environment generates diffuse sensual pleasure in all parts of the body. Just being alive is innately pleasurable and joyful.

From the Wellspring

We have within us rivers of living water, the source and wellspring of aliveness. Our difficulties arise because we fail to trust this life-giving source and struggle against  it, impede its free flow, and look for something outside of ourselves which might give us energy and direction. A more helpful orientation towards healing and vitality is pointed out by these words from the book of Proverbs, which, admittedly, I am quoting completely out of context:

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.

Only by going to the wellspring can we drink that water which will truly satisfy our thirst. Only by going to the source will we be able to give back to the universe that which it is uniquely ours to give.

This article, by Conrad E. L’Heureux, is copyrighted and was originally published in June of 1996.