Embodied Learning

Written for Formation: Ways of Leaning Through Theological Field Education by Matt Floding.

Published by Rowan and Littlefield, date TBD.

It’s a cold evening in February. I’m exhausted -- really exhausted, in every sense of the word. In fact, I am debilitated in body, mind, and soul.  I am a social worker and spent my day talking to women with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities (I/DD) about their experiences of sexual assault and manipulation. I spoke to an angry, hurting mother about the discrimination and isolation the social services system has inflicted on her son with autism. My day illuminated the harsh realities of scarcity, trauma, and injustice in the world. All of this was the forefront of my day, while in the background I’m missing my family who is far away. I’m worried about paying bills. I’m struggling to take care of myself in the midst of taking care of others. At any moment, I feel like I could fall to the floor in a puddle of anxiety and despair.

There is still two hours left in this day. I am in a room with 80 bodies scurrying around me filled with joy and trauma, stress and relief, anxiety and enthusiasm. It’s our weekly evening gathering where people with and without intellectual disabilities come to eat together, be themselves, and make friends.  I began volunteering here at Reality Ministries when I started graduate school. It was a refuge from my academic, competitive life. A place I could simply be myself, and enter into this mass of vulnerability and humanness. Now, I work here, and it doesn’t always feel like a refuge. Especially today, because today I’ve given myself completely to this place and have been left completely depleted.  But these 80 scrambling bodies don’t know what I’m going through. Everywhere I turn there is another person wanting to talk or wanting my cheery affection. Everywhere I turn there is a person with a problem they want me to fix or a stress they want me to soothe. Even when I turn to walk away, there is a person coming up behind me, grabbing my sides, poking me and squealing in my ear with delight. 80 bodies pressing in on me, and I begin to wonder how much more I can take.

But in a moment of divine intervention, the crowd clears, and I see Jack across the room.

He’s in the corner, looking at the wall, rocking back and forth with his hands flapping at his sides.  His hair is curly, his eyes are kind. I can hear that grumbling, sighing noise that he makes, even from far away. It’s a nice sound. The tenor of it is not panicked or expectant, just a signal that he is there, participating in this community.  I desperately rush to him, and my body collapses in the seat next to him. He shifts his body a little to rock towards me, acknowledging my presence, and grumbles a little under his breath. I feel the comfort of being with an old friend protecting me from the crowd.   “Hi Jack” I say, and he continues to rock. He is quiet, except his low humming. He holds his hand out, and I squeeze it. It is a more intimate communication than I’ve received all day. It says to me “I’m here, you’re here, and that’s enough”. Through the rest of the programming I just sit with him, being in his presence.  He rocks and hums, and holds my hands, and I am able to rest. There is no expectation to resort to words. No expectation that I need to solve his problems, fix anything, or even to give him affection. I can simply be there, and find rest in being together.

We, as a society, have taught and absorbed that friendship is only for people that can intellectually ascend to meet one another.  Have similar interests, have deep conversations, participate in the same activities, and do nice things for each other. Therefore it is easy to act from the implicit belief that people like Jack, that are most often characterized by words like Autism and non-verbal, cannot participate in the basic human function of friendship.  And yet, Jack provides me with a type of deep friendship that is unique: rest from expectations.   The most fundamental thing I need from my friends is for them to acknowledge that I am there, and that is enough. Jack’s way of being fulfills this fundamental need at the forefront of our time together. It does not get swept up in small talk or planning time to see each other or talking about what is happening in our lives.  His friendship holds me, heals me, and is constantly revealing more to me. Here in this moment I am learning, once again, a deeper meaning of friendship. 

So much of mainstream acceptable forms of communication rely upon verbal and written forms of language.  When a person does not participate in such, they are inevitably left out of discussions, connection, and friendships. Part of this is simply that society is so rigid about communication that people literally do not know how to embody other forms of communication when talking is not an option.  It is a long, slow process to unlearn this impulse and let go of our need for talking to connect with one another. This most often begins with teachers of embodied languages.

At Reality Ministries, we embody many types of communication. We are a shuffling, bustling mass of bodies speaking.   So many different shapes, sizes, and colors of bodies, bustling around each other. Lots of hugs, pinches, kisses, poking, tickling, humming, singing, patting, squeezing.  So many bodies together. When I first started coming to Reality, I was so happy for all these bodies smashing and crashing into each other. It was material and real. I was learning to use my entire body to receive and give connection, communication, and friendship. 

 It took me a while to learn to appreciate friendships with people like Jack that necessarily exist beyond the bounds of verbal communication, because my rigid implicit beliefs about what it means to be friends made the silence awkward. I avoided people I couldn’t talk to because I didn’t know how to exist without performing the act of friendship in a particular way.  I was very comfortable with the idea that I could accept these people for exactly who they were, accept their “disability” and offer them my performance, but it never explicitly occurred to me, in the  beginning, that perhaps what they were offering me was a chance to step off this exhausting stage so I could confront all these rigid beliefs, and receive another way of friendship, one that did not rely upon verbal communication.  

We often cannot name why we act, believe, or feel the way we do. Our ingrained values are not often taught using logic and rationale, but taught through the embodied languages of community and relationships.  Our bodies hold so much wisdom, often revealed to us through immeasurable things like love, hope, faith, and joy. When we interact with a person or community that confronts our ingrained values, our souls churn; it can feel like awkwardness and discomfort, or delight and curiosity.  What is happening cannot be necessarily explained in academic terms because it is the body’s wisdom swelling and growing, revealing something new to us. 

As I sit with Jack, a beautiful lesson begins to unfold within me once again.  He is not teaching me something through words or a logical argument.  With his hand reaching out to mine, his steady presence, and the rhythm of body rocking back and forth, he is teaching me that friendship is not an achievement or performance, but a deep recognition between souls. This is the mystery of embodied learning