What's The Score (That The Body Keeps)?

Going Beyond Score Keeping At The Level Of Body

There has been a change in the way we approach emotional change, especially after the rise in popularity of the book The Body Keeps The Score. This is a great advancement, for change happens through the body. For lasting change we must find the place that lights up in the body immediately following an emotionally charged thought. This is the heart of awareness- the body of awareness, of which and through which our experience (and problems) transform.

The renowned Buddhist teacher Stephen Levine said:
"The path of healing is a process of opening our heart to the holdings of the past while maintaining a keen awareness of the present."

To me this sounds like effort- opening, holding, maintaining.
Levine gave a partial image of healing. He may have continued on, saying that beyond this is a necessary investigation into the idea of who heals. What, at essence, are we? He says the path of healing is a process. I’ll dare say, it isn’t a path of healing. What is required is to enter the body as a lab, like a scientist or a newborn baby- earnestly receiving what the process is without memory or thinking of the future.

Many schools of thought about healing are built on the idea of going somewhere through a process.
The misconception here being that there is a process happening, undertaken by me, who is putting in effort to do the process.
In recognizing our true self we directly experience the process without any effort extended by a single person. Breathing does itself, we don’t have to "just do it". It is more of an allowing, a release of a clenched fist. Releasing is the natural state of flow and harmony, not separate from our essence. The most-complete approach to the process of healing is to investigate the ground underlying what we call “me", our essential nature. In this investigation we consider deeply and ruthlessly- “who needs to be healed?” Instead of apathy or a void of luster, we enter the field of possibility. We come to enjoy the freedom which both a scientist and a newborn baby enjoy: life is new, refreshing.

As Levine states, “Opening our heart to the holdings of the past” happens- but not through thinking. Instead it opens via the nervous system. When we say “the body keeps the score”- we mean conditioning is stored as tension in the body. In the Wholeness Work approach to change we go beyond the "score". If there is a score, there is a game. In deep change we can experience what is beyond the game- (the illusions of beliefs and limitations) and how this unveils our natural peacefulness. Transformation happens as a resonance through the heart, a vibration of change. We find through what we call “me” (as it’s tensions flow) that our nature is awake, resounding as harmony itself- not broken and not limited to the body.

The Awakened Heart

A well known message across Buddhist teachings is the concept of the “Awakened Heart” and the “Heart of Awareness”, emphasizing a physical organ- the heart, in the process of enlightenment. How does the heart- the organ, play a part in waking up? Awareness is the distinct sense of being “on” that is always present, however, most do not constantly notice the heart. The Awakened Heart is what remains beyond the game. The score is on a level of needing and becoming, while awakening to our true selves is on the level of being.

In fact, when referring to the heart in this way it is not to an organ but instead to a vibration we all are born knowing. The heart represents that subtle yet nuanced sense of being that is always present and is so easily noticed when we are moved by love. Experiencing the heart of awareness is another way of saying, we’re looking 180° back toward ourselves, being. The feeling of being ourselves instead of thinking of ourselves as an intellectual image- a body-shape, or a heart-organ- shape is experiencing an awakened heart. The heart is a metaphor for being, being.

Experiencing an awakened heart is experiencing being aware of awareness. Experiencing being in this way reveals the nature of self, other, and the transformation of “me”. The body keeps a score on the level of mind, while our true nature holds no limitations of score-keeping.