Postures of the Soul
SoulWalk seeks to provide you with opportunities to embrace the adventure of life by engaging the spiritual aspect of who we are as people.
In order to better understand the mystery of our souls, it is helpful to grow in our appreciation of how our mind talks with itself.
The following 'postures of the soul' have been developed as a way to explore how our mental health might inform the nature of our spiritual life.
INTRODUCTION
three boards
Some brain-science basics can help us understand how our mind talks with itself.
Our pre-frontal cortex is where we think about our thinking - our WHITEBOARD.
Our limbic system is where our thinking informs what we feel - our SWITCHBOARD.
Our brain stem sends messages to our body in response to our thoughts and feelings - our FUSEBOARD​.​
POSTURE 1
INTEGRATED
Our whiteboard is doing its work of strategizing, imagining, dreaming, adjusting. Our switchboard is receiving this information and connecting it into feelings like determination, longing, focus, frustration and celebration. Our fuse-board enables our body to respond to all of our thinking, and all of our feeling.
POSTURE 2
DISRUPTED
Our mind has stopped talking with itself. Nothing on the whiteboard makes sense. The switchboard is unrecognisable — none of the inputs are working, and the outputs don’t fit anymore. And if the fuse-board is still sending messages, they often don’t make sense, and the body might be losing trust in the way our mind works.
POSTURE 3
RESTED
Here the whiteboard turns its attention away from figuring out the cause of disconnection at the switchboard, and takes time to notice the function of the fuse-board. 'What is my body doing? What kind of messages are getting through? What does my body need right now?'
This is mindfulness - where the whiteboard orients toward the fuse-board to create space for calm and healing.
POSTURE 4
RE-INTEGRATED
Our mind is talking to itself again along new pathways from the whiteboard to the switchboard to the fuse-board.
But it has also discovered a capacity for the whiteboard to notice and listen to the fuse-board — not only as a safety mechanism, but also an enhancement — a reintegration.