© Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
This is an excerpt from an article in Bonnie’s book, Sensing, Feeling, and Action. You can get a full, free copy of An Introduction to Body-Mind Centering® here.
“Body-Mind Centering® (BMC®) is an ongoing, experiential journey into the alive and changing territory of the body. The explorer is the mind – our thoughts, feeling, energy, soul and spirit. Thought this journey we are led to an understanding of how the mind is expressed thought the body in movement.
Our body moves as our mind moves. The qualities of any movement are a manifestation of how mind is expressing through the body at the moment. Changes in movement qualities indicate that the mind has shifted focus in the body. Conversely, when we direct the mind or attention to different areas of the body and initiate movement from those areas, we change the quality of our movement. So we find that movement can be a way to observe the expression of mind through the body, and it can also be a way to affect changes in the body-mind relationship.
An important aspect of our journey in Body-Mind Centering® is discovering the relationship between the smallest level of activity within the body and the largest movement of the body – aligning the inner cellular movement with the external expression of movement through space. This involves identifying, articulating, differentiating, and integrating the various tissues within the body, discovering the qualities they contribute to one’s movement, and the role they play n the expression of mind.
The finer the alignment, the more efficiently we can function to accomplish our intensions. However, alignment itself is not a goal. It is a continuous dialogue between awareness and action – becoming aware of the relationships that exist throughout our body/mind and acting from that awareness. This alignment creates a state of knowing.”