“We lie with our body from morning to evening — both to others and to ourselves”

Psychologies: Do we even feel our body as part of ourselves? Or do we feel the body separately, and our own personality separately?

Marina Baskakova: On the one hand, each person, in general, has his own individual relationship with the body. On the other hand, there is certainly a certain cultural context within which we relate to our body. Now all sorts of practices that support attention to the body, to its signals, and capabilities have become popular. Those who deal with them look at it a little differently than those who are far from them. In our Christian culture, especially the Orthodox one, this shade of division into spirit and body, soul and body, self and body still remains. From this arises what is called the object relation to the body. That is, it is a kind of object that you can somehow handle, improve it, decorate, build muscle mass, and so on. And this objectivity prevents one from realizing oneself as a body, that is, as a whole person.

What is this integrity for?

Let’s think about what it is. As I said, in Christian, especially Orthodox, culture, the body has been alienated for thousands of years. If we take a broader context of human society in general, then the question was: is the body the carrier of the individual or vice versa? Who wears whom, roughly speaking.

It is clear that we are physically separated from other people, each of us exists in his own body. In this sense, paying attention to the body, to its signals, supports such a property as individualism. At the same time, all cultures, of course, support a certain unification of people: we are united, we feel the same thing, we have a lot in common. This is a very important aspect of existence. Something that creates a connection between people of the same nationality, one culture, one society. But then the question arises of the balance between individuality and sociality. If, for example, the first is excessively supported, then a person turns to himself and his needs, but begins to fall out of social structures. Sometimes it becomes lonely, because it becomes such an alternative to the existence of many others. This always causes both envy and irritation. For individualism, in general, you have to pay. And vice versa, if a person refers to the generally accepted “we”, to all existing dogmas, norms, then he maintains a very important need for belonging. I belong to a certain culture, a certain community, bodily I am recognizable as a person. But then a contradiction arises between the individual and the generally accepted. And in our corporality this conflict is very clearly embodied.

It is curious how the perception of corporality differs in our country and, for example, in France. It always amazes me there when someone, having come to a conference or to a secular company, suddenly comes out, saying: «I’m going to go make wee-wee.» They take it as completely normal. It’s hard to imagine this in our country, although in fact there is nothing indecent in this. Why do we have a completely different culture of talking about the simplest things?

I think this is how the split into spiritual and bodily, into up and down, which is characteristic of our culture, manifests itself. Everything that concerns “wee-wee”, natural functions, is located below, in that very culturally rejected part. The same applies to sexuality. Although everything seems to be about her already. But just how? Rather, in terms of object. I see that couples who come to the reception still have difficulty communicating with each other. Although there is a lot of what can be called sexualization around, it does not really help people in close relationships, but rather distorts them. It has become easy to talk about it, but, on the contrary, it has become difficult to talk about some feelings, about their nuances. Still, this gap persists. Just turned over. And in French or, more broadly, Catholic culture, there is no such ardent rejection of the body and corporality.

Do you think that every person adequately perceives his body? Do we even imagine its real dimensions, parameters, dimensions?

It’s impossible to say about everyone. To do this, you need to meet with everyone, talk and understand something about him. I can tell you about some of the features that I encounter. Quite a lot comes to the reception of people who do not have a clear awareness of themselves both as a person and as a person embodied in the body. There are those who have a distorted perception of their own size, but they do not realize it.

For example, an adult, large man says “handles”, “legs” to himself, uses some other diminutive words… What can this be talking about? About the fact that in some part of him he is not at the same age, not in the size in which he is. Something in his personality, in his personal individual experience, is more related to childhood. This is commonly referred to as infantilism. Women have another distortion that I also observe: they want to be smaller. It can be assumed that this is some kind of rejection of their size.

Psychologists talk about how important it is to be able to hear the signals of your body — it can be fatigue, pain, numbness, irritation. At the same time, in popular publications, we are often offered a decoding of these signals: a headache means something, and back pain means something. But can they really be interpreted that way?

When I read this kind of statements, I see one important feature. The body is spoken of as if it were isolated. Where are the body signals? Body signals to whom? Body signals in what situation? If we talk about psychosomatics, some of the signals are intended for the person himself. Pain, who is it for? In general, me. To stop doing something that hurts me. And in this case, the pain becomes a very respected part of us. If you take fatigue, discomfort — this signal refers to some neglected, often ignored part. It is customary for us to not notice fatigue. Sometimes a pain signal is intended for the person in a relationship with whom this pain occurs. When it is difficult for us to say, it is difficult to express our feelings or there is no reaction to our words.

Then the psychosomatic symptoms already say that you need to distance yourself from this, do something else, finally pay attention to yourself, get sick. Get sick — that is, get out of a traumatic situation. It turns out that one traumatic situation is replaced by another, more understandable one. And you can stop being too hard on yourself. When I get sick, I feel a little less ashamed that I can’t cope with something. There is such a legal argument that supports my personal self-respect. I believe that many illnesses help a person to slightly change his attitude towards himself for the better.

We often hear the phrase «The body does not lie.» How do you understand it?

Oddly enough, it’s a tricky question. Body therapists often use this phrase. She sounds beautiful, in my opinion. On the one hand, this is true. For example, the mother of a small child very quickly finds out that he is ill. She sees that her eyes have dimmed, the liveliness has disappeared. The body is signaling change. But on the other hand, if we recall the social nature of man, then half of our bodily existence consists in lying to others about ourselves. I’m sitting straight, although I want to droop, some kind of mood is not right. Or, for example, I smile, but in fact I’m angry.

There are even instructions on how to behave in order to give the impression of a confident person…

In general, we lie with our bodies from morning to evening, and ourselves too. For example, when we ignore fatigue, we seem to say to ourselves: “I am much stronger than you are trying to show me.” The body therapist, as an expert, can read the body’s signals and base his work on them. But the rest of this body is lying. Some muscles support the mask that is presented to other people.

What are the ways to feel better in your body, to be better aware of it, to understand it, to be friends with it more?

There are great opportunities: dance, sing, walk, swim, do yoga and more. But here the important task is to notice what I like and what I don’t like. Teach yourself to recognize those very signals of the body. I enjoy or somehow keep myself within the framework of this activity. Just like/dislike, want/don’t want, don’t want/but I will. Because adults still live in this context. And it helps a lot to just get to know yourself. Do what you ever wanted to do. Find time for this. The main question of time is not that it does not exist. And the fact that we do not single it out. So take and in your schedule to allocate time for pleasure. For one it is walking, for another it is singing, for the third it is lying on the couch. Making time is the key word.

The interview was recorded for the joint project of Psychologies magazine and radio «Culture» «Status: in a relationship» in April 2017.