As sentient beings, our bodies are susceptible to pressure.  Pressure is physically defined as the amount of force exerted over a certain area.   Having bodies, we feel pressure as a bodily state.  There is a difference between feeling pressure as something of a force outside of us, and thus potentially out of control (like gravity, for instance)l, and pressure that we are creating as a response to our environment.   For pressure to meet possibility, in other words, for us to have a relationship to the pressure we may experience, it is essential that we consider that the pressure we experience is something that we may be forming, something that we have control over, in order to reform, and thus relate differently with our world.  I want to elucidate some of the most common ways that we experience pressure, and then explore how it is that we might relate to this pressure differently, or avoid creating it all together.

Pressure experienced “from the outside,” is like a deadline, a friend asking for more than you have to give, your family saying, “Come to dinner!” when you really want to continue working.  Pressure is still a bodily state, a form that we take as a reaction or organization in the face of a request; But it seems to come as a response from something outside of us, something or someone pushing inwards toward our bodies.  The response may be an impulse to push away, but perhaps we don’t, we can’t, so pressure is a form we take.  Take an example of a child when their parents come to hug them in front of their friends.  Mom’s arms extends, the child’s body contracts and pulls in.  This is the forming of pressure in response to something seemingly outside of you.  It is formed in response to the environment, and our bodies are put in a state of pressing-  pressing inward, pressing outward, a holding of the body in a certain way that limits the breath.

Then there is the pressure that builds up inside of you as you think of making “that phone call,” but continue to just look at the phone, and not call.  Pressure when you are about to say something in a group of people, possibly along with anxiety and heart racing, but pressure mounts as you stand there thinking about what you will say, but haven’t said it yet.  The breath shortens, the chest pulls in, you make a form in your body that has a preparedness to it, an attempt to keep your heart from jumping more, or your legs from running you out of the room.  You are organizing yourself for action, but not acting yet.  The pressure builds, pressing into you.  It is like there is an impulse for action that is inhibited.  The inhibition of that expression leads to pressure.  This is how we build up tension, and why some people end up exploding at their partners.  The pressure has to release somehow, we cannot hold it forever.  It is against nature.  Dams break, floods and mountains fall for the same reason.

Lastly, there is the kind of pressure that a request or just the possibility of intimacy can cause.  Interestingly, the Greek root for intimacy is “to press into.”  Someone presses into you in order to make contact, to reach into your heart, to be inside of you, to meet you at least where you are and not where you project yourself to be.  Someone might confront you with a question you don’t want to answer, which is like the pressing into you for contact.  A parent, child or lover extends toward you, expanding outward like a current, wave, or strong tide, and you have a certain reaction.  They may just be asking a question.  They may be pushing on you in order to get a reaction.  For for some reason, you have an impulse to push up against.  If not, you might collapse or disappear (and thereby dodging the pressure).  Or, you are able to respond intimately, and maybe that would free up some pressure, and allow love to flow, allow yourself to be seen.  This is simlilar to the kind of pressure mounted when you are asked to do something you don’t want to do, but there is an inhibited “no, I don’t want to do that,”  like in the first example when the family is ready for dinner but you want to work, finish the show, whatever.  The kind of pressure around intimacy is very similar, but there is fear involved, uncertainty.  Someone wants to know you, and this increases pressure.  There are many good reasons for this that therapy helps us explore, understand, and met with compassion and softness towards ourselves and others.  We have good reason to protect ourselves sometimes, and internal pressure keeps other people out.   It is hard to be with someone who is under a lot of pressure.  Their body says, “stay away,”  in the same way that someone holding their breath is keeping another breath from coming in.

I am curious as to how free you feel right now, reading about the different kinds of pressure I am offering.  Is your body starting to pull in, your shoulders tightening toward your chest?  Are you wanting to push the computer away and not read anymore?  I ask you to wonder how you are doing this.  How, in just reading about pressure, are you experiencing a form you take to push, to press, to contract, to hold down?  How would you undo it?  Do that a little bit before moving on.  Get up, come back, see how to undo those shoulders, give your breath a little more room to breath.  I do not mean to induce pressure on you.  I actually am pretty committed to freeing myself from it, so intend on leading you to how you might give yourself some freedom from the pressures you live with too by the end of this blog post.

Ok, lets continue, a little less pressured.  However you did that, good for you.

“Do you want to go out for a drink with me?”  Says my co-worker.  My chest pulls in, my shoulders push forward, my arms start to tighten for the imagined fight against the person approaching, or at least, something approaching.  With an extention, there is a contraction.  I am making a boundary.  Whether I go or not, it is me living under pressure, and I may not have to live that way.

The pressures of life are not lost on most of us:  deadlines; that urgent, motivated push forward to the finish line.  The aching, searching, shallow breath contraction that makes us smaller, more dense, with less room.  Pressure can feel safe.  More is at stake but I feel contained, unmovable, focused toward the goal.  I might even feel like I am doing something worthwhile when I have the pressure to do it.  Some people need pressure to move forward.  This is because pressure has a form to it that can form action in a certain way.  It can form an action, but it is action formed under pressure.  This can have a use, but it can also be misused, and possibly cause us and our relationships harm, if not our heart.  Hearts under pressure may equal blood pressure.  Seems reasonable to me.

“Life is a pulsation,” Stanley Keleman writes.   What he means is that what creates the life-giving form of movement in a body (breath, orgasm, and digestion, for example) , or in nature as the earth and a riverbed, or the waves in the ocean, all has a pulse to it.  Pulse is an expansion, and then a contraction.  If life and our way of living is a pulsation, than pressure also has some aspect of a pulse.   It may bind or compress, or be stuck in a short spurt of pressurized “I feel like I am about to burst” form of contraction.  Even as I write this I can feel the life-giving need to bust out of that form.  We all need to at some point or another.  That is why alcohol is such an accepted drug–no one would take that away from humans.  It is why sex then becomes the next absolute need for the alcoholic in recovery.  It is why exercise is good for you and why stress otherwise can kill.  We cannot live for long under pressure.  We need oxygen to breath, and we need room to exist.

I wonder what would happen if we developed the value of pressure and were able to create and use it when needed, like to make a  a focused action happen to the completion of a task, but then could turn it off.   I am, for instance, using pressure to continue to edit and form this document.  I am doing that with a focus, my arms tightening toward my rib-cage in order to keep writing.  I also then relax my arms, take a step back into my chair, take a breather, before continuing to write.  In this way I am following a certain pulsation, because I don’t want to take away from my life in order to write to you.  I also know that a bath is ahead for me, so I know that I will allow myself to melt in a little bit.

What would happen as a society if we learned how to de-pressurize, to allow for more fluidity, creativity, and the other forms of existance (like having room to just be, to have freedom of movement, to stretch more when we are also “supposed to be” listening, to allow our loved ones to have some space in the house to scream) to have a place in our school systems, doctorate programs, and business life as a whole, so life might have the feeling of being free and mobile?  Would able to connect with others in a softer or more passionate way?  Would we have more room for each other, would we have more ability for the laughter that is pressed into and stopped, for the love that is held inward as a way to feel safe, to be free to extend toward those that we love?  How could you do that for yourself right now?

I imagine jumping up and down allowing some exhales, moving my arms and shaking them a bit to end this writing, or for you, to integrate this reading.  I imagine listening to how you are breathing yourself, slowing it down, softening the muscles around your chest that are involved with breathing.  Making room for yourself.  Finding space outside, looking up at the sky, allowing yourself to feel held simply by the earth, and letting the pressure you are under to shake and move iteself from the traps in your body.  Finding a way to laugh, and letting your belly loose.  Laying on the floor, giving yourself up to gravity fully.

Pressure has a function.  What is it for you?  Consider the value of pressure in your life.  I’d like to hear about it.