My eyes have been tight for a couple of days. I’ve needed to be very focused. There’s just so much is happening in my life and work and politics and planning the future and and and… spinning out of focus my muscles clamp down like a lens re-adjusting to narrow my view even more.
Tunnel vision is a trauma response. The narrowing of focus tunes out the rest world so that we can deal with the immediate threat. Yet, as we know, our muscles can get stuck. What does it cost us when we live from a baseline of vision that tunes out the world?
In somatics, and also in the lineage of deep listening which I have begun learning, working with the contractions around the eyes is an essential practice. When we can loosen the muscles that constrict our vision we begin to open to the world in new ways. And when our eyes soften, it sends a signal to the rest of our body to settle and open as well.
In Sensuous Scholarship, Paul Stoller argues that western epistemologies are over-focused on visual ways of knowing and because of this many of us have inherited a worldview in which we de-value the other 4 senses. To many non-western cultures, vision is not the singular sense that organizes their experience and understanding of life. Sound, smell, taste, and touch are not just auxiliary senses that support us to make observations about what we are seeing; they are in themselves ways of knowing, ways of seeing.
It is a decolonial practice to value, give attention to, and make meaning from the sounds, smells, and tastes of our life and environments, and to let the world touch into the places where our awareness has been cut off.
Pause for a moment and notice your eyes. Are they tight? Have you been staring at the computer too long? Where is your attention pulled? How is the rest of your body?
Try softening your eyes. Try closing them or even massaging the muscles around them. What happens in the rest of your body? What senses or awarenesses open up? What does this make possible for you to see?
Weekly Announcements
I’m still enrolling for the summer cohort of the 10 Week Intro to Politicized Somatics. Are you curious about it but want to know more?
I’m hosting a free info session this Thursday June 8th at 5pm EST. You’ll get a chance to hear about the group, ask questions, and get a sense of somatic practice! It will be recorded for those who can’t come.
And lastly, as requested, I am opening an additional weekly practice group beginning in July! It will meet weekly on Wednesdays from 11am-12:15pm EST. This is a space for anyone who has completed a 10 week course, worked with me in the past, or has equivalent experience with the Strozzi / generative somatics methodology.
There is also still space in the Tuesday night group! Learn more and apply through the link below.