Review of Embodied Peacemaking
by Judy Warner
http://www.journeytocenter.net
http://www.judywarner.com
In our workshops at Aiki Works we strive for simple hints that people can draw upon in times of stress to center themselves. In his new e-book, Embodied Peacemaking, Paul Linden has come up with a great one – the soft tongue. That’s right. Simply take a moment and relax your tongue in your mouth. The result is impactful. Immediately your throat relaxes, your breathing slows, and your shoulders soften a bit. Now isn’t that amazing? And, it is quite discreet. If you want to take the lesson a step further, spend a day or two actually paying attention to what you are doing with your tongue when you are not speaking. I took the time to observe and discovered that at times it seems like my own tongue is in a bit of perpetual motion, beating out a tempo to the latest chaos at the office or dojo. That is an enlightening piece of information about a totally unnecessary use of energy by my body.
Of course, Paul’s book deals with far more than a soft tongue. It is a quite thorough treatise on using your body to repattern how you respond in conflict. Paul promises early on that “You will learn to improve postural alignment, stability, and mobility as a pathway toward calm alertness, power, and love. Then you will practice using this state of mind body integrity as a foundation for responding peacefully to the challenges in the movement experiments” [that he lays out in his book]. You will actually find an amazing number of exercises for you to explore. Paul has been a leader in the mind/body field for many years. An accomplished Aikido instructor, he uses movements from the art to create many of his exercises.
This is truly a worthwhile book for anyone who is interested in mind/body work or teaches workshops in conflict resolution and would like to add some kinesthetic exercises to reinforce concepts.