Maggie_Response to Felt Sense

[Sondra Perl]

#696

Reading Felt Sense,I became preoccupied with the idea of where in the body felt sense occurs from page 51. I have become aware over the years that my body seems to have a very orderly–and completely mysterious–system of storing emotions, worries, and memories in specific places. Emotional stresses are stored in the abdominal muscles and worry is stored in the shoulders, while memories seem to head primarily to the lower back. A year or so ago, my dad was giving me a backrub and found a knot somewhere near the bottom of my ribcage. As he started to unknot it, I began laughing and couldn’t stop until he had finished. I have no idea what was funny–I couldn’t actually access the memory–but the laughter was there, stored in a little knot of muscles. So it is a fascinating thought that all of those thoughts and feelings and memories from the past could play a role in shaping something in the future.

Also, on a more mundane and less encouraging note, I realize that, when I write papers, my neck and shoulders usually get very sore. Part of this is the fact that I hunch over the computer when I get excited, which may be a positive manifestation of felt sense, but I suspect that it may also indicate that I am worried about deadlines, research, and critical theory rather than inspired by my topic.

On the other hand, maybe knowing this is what I need to change it. Maybe this is an indication that I, like Cathy Fagan on page 13, can use felt sense to (re)discover my own voice in the cacophony of other voices that are chattering in my head. And in spite of the constant nagging sound of deadlines approaching or being missed.

[Anonymous]

#708

Maggie — The system you’ve described sounds fascinating: “Emotional stresses are stored in the abdominal muscles and worry is stored in the shoulders, while memories seem to head primarily to the lower back.” Your comment about changing the system, or just using it to find your own voice, reminds me of the part of the theory that posits that creativity is a human act, that newness comes from the body’s store of senses and remembrance of situations: “Central to embodied knowing is the human being who speaks back to and can extend the history and culture in which he or she is embedded, using the given language to make newness” (60).

[Anonymous]

#711

Maggie,

I find what you write here very intriguing and interesting to the concept of our bodies storing memories:

So it is a fascinating thought that all of those thoughts and feelings and memories from the past could play a role in shaping something in the future.

It’s curious to think of how certain physical acts imposed on our bodies, or by our bodies, can bring forth a mixture of thoughts and memories that we never question why we’re thinking of them.

I also think that the process of writing when our mind is working and the toll in can sometimes take on us physically is an interesting point you raise. Our bodies, in a way, hurt the way our thoughts feel.

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