Wu-Wei: A Physical Approach to Letting Go

TRE, or Trauma-Release-Exercises are a rather new topic in the field of stress and tension release. Tough they resemble a physical, neurological approach to these issues, they are in complete accordance with ancient philosophical concepts. Seen in that light, TRE can be seen as philosophy in the flesh, as will be shown. 

pic from here

Everyone who has a dog and has watched it react to a thunderstorm or a similarly scary event will most likely be able to recall the dog shaking and trembling during or after the event. As mammals, we share this reaction with our pets as a means to reduce stress and tension. Fear or anxiety, elicited by a stressful event brings the nervous system into fight-or-flight mode, mobilizing a lot of energy in anticipation for a strong survival response of either running or fighting. Are both of these choices impossible however, as may be the case with a thunderstorm for the dog or with a person being held at gun point, mammals tend to choose option three, which is the freeze response. Here, the built up tension and energy potential is not released, in an effort to increase the chances of survival. The organism remains in its alarmed state. The normal reaction to this would be to do like the dog does. Shaking and trembling releases the tension held in the muscles and calms the nervous system, convincing it that the danger has passed. So..why don't we shake more often?

ENTER civilization

In situations of very strong arousal and threat to the organism (e.g. an earthquake or car accident) people still tend to shake and tremble with fear afterwards, sometimes accompanied by crying. Yet what do we do, we think we need to "calm this person down" and console them so that they stop shaking. Surely people should be consoled, yet what we seem to have misunderstood as a culture, is that the tremor mechanism is not in itself pathological, but rather that it is the organism's attempt to release excess tension and restore normal functioning in homeostasis. This misunderstanding quickly becomes an issue when traumatic events or even just stressful life circumstances keep compounding without giving the organism the opportunity to release the pressure and tension accumulated in its naturally evolved way, by shaking. We, however are urged to "suck it up" and "get on with it", without ever letting the organism resolve the stressful event. Since the organism is always oriented towards restoring well-being and full aliveness, it will repeatedly try to resolve the unwanted tension and the symtoms associated with chronic stress in mild cases or PTSD in severe cases will keep reappearing as part of a neurological cycle to process and progress past the stressor. If we can restore our basic human function of pressure release via shaking and tremoring however, it seems that we can complete the neurological cycle and relax the muscles associated with the fight or flight response, mainly the psoas muscles and further up the spine the levator scapulae muscles in the neck and finally the jaw muscles. In the freeze response these muscles contract so as to protect the organism from impact. This is fine, but when we block the relaxation part we start running into trouble. All this has been developed and popularized by Dr. David Berceli who is still looking to spread the word on TRE (or Trauma-Release-Exercises which are simple exercises designed to induce and recover the ability to shake out trauma) and is also conducting multiple studies to solidify its use for PTSD and stress in general. More information on TRE can be found here and here. Also, here's a rather simple yet informative video about this:

STAR Groups - Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) from HolyCow Creative Agency  on Youtube

This first part was the scientific one, the following will embed this in the broader context of life and philosophy. As sword master Miyamoto Musashi once wrote "if you know the way broadly you'll see it in all things." Now, with all this neurological talk what are we really saying? We are saying that as organisms we have evolved on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years and are, as any animal is, respectively adjusted to life on this planet. Hence, it is not surprising that well-adjusted reactions to common stimuli have also evolved. One could say that "equipped" with thousands of years of evolution, we are rather well taken care of within the natural environment, since it allowed us to not only survive but also to thrive. But somewhere along the line we have lost not only trust but also contact to the very things that make us human as movement teacher Ido Portal has also referred to. In our modern culture we have lost contact with the body, with physical movement and with our animal being. In the case of TRE this means that we distrust our own regulative efforts (the tremor response) and try to shut them down out of fear of ourselves, very much as if we weren't the organism but something controlling the organism like a master controls his puppets. This imagery is still very popular in our culture, talking about "self-mastery" and focusing on discipline and subjugation of the body to the will of the mind. In a broader sense, the distrust and dissonance we feel with our bodies is the same issue as feeling separate from nature, just a little more zoomed in. It becomes more and more clear however, that resisting ourselves and with that nature, as if we were separate from it, is both futile and destructive since it means indulging into illusion.

The other way would be to realize that one is the body and that one is not separate from nature. The Daoists understood this around two thousand years ago. It is well exemplified in the concept of wu wei which can be translated to mean something like not forcing. This doesn't mean laziness, this doesn't mean passivity, it means do not force. Do not unnecessarily expend energy, resisting what cannot be resisted or what should not be resisted. Philosopher Alan Watts has called it the art of sailing as opposed to the art of rowing. The Martial Art of Judo is based entirely on this principle and includes beautiful examples of its application when done right. The seemingly most futile conflict one can imagine may be the one of a person trying to fight himself. Who is fighting whom here and for whose benefit? Let's say I want to go left and just go left. Easy enough. But now let's consider wanting to go left but your left foot is trying to go left and your right foot is trying to go right. Not so easy anymore. Similarly, imagine the organism wanting to rid itself of excess tension and stress, yet you trying to "pull yourself together" so as not to lose face or whatever. Not so easy, not so healthy. Resisting ourselves all the time is a great waste of both potential and energy and leaves many of us exhausted. Of course, a lot has been said and written about "letting go" and most of it is probably bullshit, yet there is an undeniable benefit to trusting ourselves which means our nature and us as organisms. Because only if we trust ourselves, can we really let go into the shaking we most likely need. As Alan Watts says, "to the degree you swim with a stream, you are at rest." Being at rest does not mean being static, it means being in touch with the fluid world and moving with it. Fighting nature, fighting ourselves that is where we'll find pain. Again, Alan Watts summarizes it beautifully:

The Secret of Happiness - Alan Watts from Let's Get Social With Mr Blue on Vimeo.

"...and then, you can feel free to have that pleasure in the most gutsy, rollicking, earthy, lip-licking way. One's whole being taken over by a kind of undulative, convulsive ripple which is like the very pulse of life itself. This can happen only, if you let go."

Now where have we heard that before..

Towards the end of the video the final point of this whole thing is revealed: "..they don't carry burdens around, they're free."