Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They form a depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. They center on Joyce’s idea of an epiphany: a moment where a character experiences self-understanding or illumination. In one of the short stories entitled “ A Painful Case” Joyce writes “Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body”. Joyce goes on to describe the ramifications of being disconnected like this and my epiphany is that this is a perfect description of how many people live their lives. By being disconnected from their bodies it also assumes being disconnected from their feelings, thoughts, emotions, five senses and everything having to do with who we are. In a situation like this it stands to reason that if we are disconnected from ourselves then we are also disconnected from the world around us…a perplexing, stressful way to be.
So what does this have to do with mindfulness? The core of mindfulness deals with how to reconnect with everything that Mr. Duffy is disconnected from. Mindfulness sees the mind, body, feelings, breath and emotions as the central object of attention in the meditation practice. It sees these things as the doorway into the present moment. So in short, the body is our connection to the present moment. How did we end up living a short distance from our bodies? I think stress has a lot to do with this. One of the most common coping skills used during fight or flight is our ability to disconnect from ourselves during the perceived threat to our survival. We do that to protect ourselves from the anticipated harm that may come to us as a result of the threat to our survival. In the short term this is a natural and effective way to respond to a threat to survival. The problem arises when we get stuck in fight or flight for extended periods of time and end up disconnected as well. All of those stress related changes that happen in our bodies are not able to resolve fully when we get stuck like this. This results in all the stress related disorders that we have come to know through research. There is barely a condition that can’t point to stress as a factor.
The catch 22 is that the longer we stay disconnected the more time stress has to express itself and the more stress expresses itself the harder it is to reconnect. That’s why there can be resistance to mindfulness practice in the beginning. We are looking to reverse a situation that may have existed for a long time. The good news is that if we persevere the body seems to sense that we are reconnecting to it. When it senses that, it seems to interpret it as an indication that there is no more danger to it’s survival and takes the necessary steps to reverse the fight or flight response. As the system normalizes there is less resistance to mindfulness practice and a reversal of the embedded stress responses. As we continue to practice we are able to enter the body more fully and our experience of the present moment deepens. My experience tells me that this process continues to deepen over time and gradually we become more fully embodied and no longer have to live a short distance from our bodies.