Let’s Get Sensual
Ten years ago, while a lonesome and blue undergraduate in Colorado, I got to know the on-campus psychiatrist all too well. One afternoon, as we were looking out from the cozy den that was her office into the cafeteria pathway brimming with students, she said, “You are not alone. Imagine a red light on the forehead of every third student out there. One in three students on this campus is on an anti-depressant.”
The vision of those bright red lights glaring has been with me ever since. I imagine there are more of them now, the glow radiating ever so fiercely and in every venue of society: office buildings, homes, recreational centers, classrooms, conference rooms, etc. Indeed, it is now estimated that more than 175 million Americans1 are on some kind of legal drug at any given time. Some help ease the effects of physical ailments, but many are abused in the pursuit to treat emotional and mental pain. Late last year, heavy medication usage was the subject of a somber cover story in The New York Times, detailing the national psyche increasingly awash in mood-elevating pills.
Americans seem to have wholeheartedly embraced this family of drugs that alter or erase mood, indulging ourselves in the hopes of a chemical release from our troubles. American consumers are ingesting 90 percent of the world's supply of Ritalin.2 And it might come as no surprise to us that the pharmaceutical industry has settled comfortably into its place as the most profitable business in America. Needless to say, its most profitable class of drugs is psychopharmaceuticals.
The question at the heart of this pill-popping, mind-numbing epidemic is: What is it so many of us do not want to feel? “The answer may be simpler than we think,” proclaims Karen Olson, writer and editor of Utne. “We all want to shut out the same thing – the din of modern existence.” She warns: “Once we learn to subdue our senses and shudder out the world, we don’t feel as much pleasure, but we don’t feel as much pain either- in our relationships with other people, other living things and our planet.”3 A similar sentiment is echoed by Andrea Olsen, a dance instructor and author of Body and Earth who has lamented the disassociation from our senses that leads to experiencing additional stress and, eventually, disease.
Thus, the ever-glowing red lights not only represent a growing health crisis in the United States, but also symbolize the denial of our sensorial experiences. In other words: many of us have opted for not feeling the world around us. And instead of reconnecting with our inner senses as well as intuition, we may have chosen a more immediate but less human way to deal with the world, as Debbie Mandel, author of Changing Habits: The Caregivers’ Total Workout aptly puts it4. Intuition, she says, is “our most important line of defense.”
From the time of birth, we are repeatedly taught not to trust our senses - the senses, we were told, are primordial and deceptive. Was this not an all too common theme in our classes at a time when our entire curriculum strived to aspire to the pure and unadulterated reason and logic of Physics? We have been socialized and conditioned into thinking that “truth,” and therefore happiness, can only be reached through a complex set of instruments and formulae, a disembodied domain of numbers, equations, and devices that find their expression outside of the sensorial realm. The world that reveals itself to us through a multitude of our senses - the one that leaps at us and pounds before our eyes, ears, and nose from every conceivable direction - is illusory, we’re told, and ultimately less essential than the realm of materialism and rational thinking. By continuously negating and dismissing the world revealed to us through our senses, we have in the process severed our most intimate connection to the living, breathing planet. Perhaps unknowingly, we have set ourselves up for dis-ease.
If we wish to preserve not only our mental/physical well being but also restore the ecological degradation that is so endemic in today’s world, we must find a way back to our senses – not some time in the distant future, but today. A full participation in this life and world entails tuning your emotional and sensorial experiences into positive assets rather than considering them cumbersome impediments standing in our path to well being. Here are some suggestions on how to embark on a sensory trip:
Indulge in the multi-dimensional world of nature
Think about how much of your time is spent in the one-dimensional world of flat screens - car shields, computer monitors, TV screens, DVD players, video games or your office window (that is, if you have one!). Tasteless, senseless.... well, flat! Abandon the one-dimensional human-made world behind from time to time. Immerse yourself in the wonders of our planet. “Having evolved with nature for five million years or so, our bodies and souls are part of nature,” says Guy Dauncy, ecologist and president of the Sustainable Energy Association in Victoria, Canada, in a report. “There is something within us that longs for the forest and stream. The first remedy for depression should be a zoology lift, not Zoloft.”5
By tasting the wonders of the wild landscape, you can escape the usual relentless assault of noise, speed and pollution. Savor the moments in snow, rain, forest, noticing the scent of the rain, the sound of the wind.
Listen to the voice of your Body
Immersing yourself in nature is a way to foster tranquility within your soul, which is a reflection of the peace embedded in our natural world. Yoga “strives to help people discover this same peace,” says Allison Berardi, Director of YOGASTUDIO Mill Valley in San Francisco. Mindfulness, an essential component of yoga is especially therapeutic for those afflicted with depression. As an embodiment practice, it fosters body awareness, allowing you to pay close attention to the feelings and functions associated with our bones, muscles and organs. So go ahead and take the time to truly reflect on the majestic power of your body and the ‘myriad internal processes that give us life.’ Not only is the act of slowing down and listening to the voice of our bodies healing, but it will also enable you to see the sacredness in each moment. You might get an added benefit: Allison says her regular practice has enabled her to lose eighty pounds.
Neither dwell, nor suppress! Learn to cope with the negative
Re-connecting with your senses also means taking note of the negative feelings seething in you – the anger, envy, longing and of course, despair– and the impression they make on your spirit. Instead of dwelling or denying the many tumultuous emotional landscapes you have lived through, find a grain of truth in any circumstance thrust your way and how the intensity of those emotions has shaped your heart, your spirit.
Move as you were meant to
“When we live unnaturally, overriding our biorhythms with technology such as working in front of a computer for endless hours,” says Debbie Mandel or when we use the ubiquitous automobile to get everywhere, we set ourselves up for stress and illness. “Living a sedentary life, eating processed foods and moving away from nature are recipes for emotional and physical illnesses,” cautions Mandel. Our bodies were designed to move. There are great evolutionary pressures on us to walk, run, climb, dance, lift and play. So, find your favorite place; forest, park, beach …and move that body! Get deeply acquainted with muscles and gravity. Feel the sun pounding at your temples, the pulsating rhythms of your heart and the pearls of moist running down your side as you delight in experiencing the physical boundaries of your body.
Live directly
In our rush to obliterate unhappiness, we’ve sought refuge in the wrong sources: mainly “MDs, TVs and DVDs,” that dictate how we live our lives, observes Mark Walch, a licensed therapist of an innovative addiction treatment program of the New Directions Institute.6 Find every way you can to bypass the world of synthetic devices and outlets that have set us up for more-of-the-same commercial variants. Engage in real tasks, in the real world. Instead of shielding yourself behind faceless cell-phones, make a conscious effort to meet up with a friend. Establish a real connection filled with all the subtleties and unpredictabilies that only a face-to face encounter can bring. Instead of just listening to music, learn the pleasures of hitting those notes yourself – better yet, compose your own tunes. If you are a museum frequenter, try making art. Go out of your comfort zone and feel the real world out there.
Taste the pleasures of cooking
Perhaps there is no profounder enactment of our connection with the world than cooking and eating with the fullest pleasure when we celebrate our gratitude to other living creatures. “Like industrial sex, industrial eating has become a degraded, poor and a paltry thing,” laments Wendell Berry in the Pleasures of Eating. We hurry to the next fast food joint, or devour the billionth microwaved meal at the greatest possible speed, noisily and violently, all with a remarkable obliviousness to the purpose of the body. Cooking can help you modify these habits. Slice, dice, chop, mince and toss up. Let the subtleties of smell and flavors entice you.
The unbearable lightness of nothingness
Perhaps the biggest impediment in reveling in the sensuous experience is the plain agony we feel when our brains are not occupied. Accustomed to the relentless drone of everyday life, our minds galloping at 200 miles an hour, we feel pangs of guilt when there is nothing there to fill the void. But let’s not be so quick to underestimate the value of “doing nothing” and enjoying the silence. Create a simple and beautiful spot in your home reserved solely for meditation, soul-searching, or just plain, old rumination. “Surround yourself in an environment that creates peace and makes you feel good,” advices Michele Williams, natural medicine pharmacist and founder of Aroma Rx, Inc. Add flowers, silk cushions and essential oils such as “bergamot, clary sage, geranium, jasmine, neroli, rose, or sandalwood – all which foster deep relaxation.”7
In our never-ending quest for more options to live life fully, we have come to ignore the treasures that are in plain sight. Our senses and the natural world lie ready to assist us. All that is required is that we stay conscious of our bodies through simple acts. You might be surprised to find that breathing in life through your senses, you’ll find a brighter world, have more vivid memories, and become more receptive to the needs of our planet. As ecologist and philosopher David Abram puts it ever-so eloquently in the Spell of the Sensuous: “Sensory experience, when honored, renews the bond between our bodies and the breathing earth. Only a culture that disdains and dismisses the senses could neglect the living land as thoroughly as our culture does.”
1 National Consumers League
2 The American Prospect, June 2003, AMERICAN BIOSCIENCE MEETS THE AMERICAN DREAM
3 “Tasting the wind, hearing the water,” in UTNE, Nov. 2001
4 Personal Interview.
5 Heealing in the Natural World, Guy Dauncy, Commonground, December 2005
6 Personal Interview. Mark Walch MA, LPCC, is the Executive Director of New Directions Institute and is a licensed therapist who has created innovative addiction treatment programs, utilizing nutrition, wilderness and ecopsychology in New Mexico.
7 Personal Interview. Michele Williams, natural medicine pharmacist and founder of Aroma Rx Inc
