Yoga teacher, writer and founder of Mind Body Solutions, Matthew Sanford, recently lectured to 90 people about how to cross the boundaries between the mind and body. Sanford, who is 39 years old, is paralyzed from the chest down.
“If you think about the boundaries between you and the person sitting next to you – if you were to turn right now and look back and stare at the body next to you, not at their eyes, not where mental consciousness comes up but at their body – things will get suddenly uncomfortable,” he told the audience. ” Your mind would be crossing to their body in a way our social walls don’t.”
Sanford cited examples of the crossing and how it often relates to him. Because of his disability, Sanford said people look at his body and he endures any comments with politeness.
But with children he becomes more patient because they are so honest.
“When a kid asks you a question,” he said, “it comes from such an honest place you can’t give them crap.”
He also discussed the mind-body relationship and its relationship to social and environmental factors. Nonetheless, he focused most on how he integrates his own mind and body.
“My conception of mind-body integration is quite expansive,” he told the audience of VCU faculty, staff and students. “It’s not just personal connections – it’s connections all around.”
Sanford also read excerpts from his soon-to-be-released book, “Waking: A Passage into Body,” and read passages relating to his childhood and rehabilitation after the car accident that left him paralyzed 26 years ago.
Katie Parker, a 26-year-old occupational therapy major, said she attended the lecture to learn more about the holistic side of therapy.
“I am really interested in hearing the speaker because with occupational therapy we work a lot with people with disabilities, especially paraplegia, and we are really holistic (in) looking at the whole person,” Parker said. “I just wanted to get his point of view on everything.”
Sanford said he achieved his current level of mind-body relationship through his experiences since the paralysis.
“I want to get across to you that my experiences with trauma (and) me being paralyzed give a unique window to the mind-body relationship,” he said.
Reading a descriptive excerpt from his book, he described the pain he felt when screws were place in his head to fit him with a halo, which then was the most advanced neck support available.
The yoga teacher said out-of-body experiences should only come from serious trauma, clearly stating that he favors the mind-body connection instead of out-of-body experiences.
“A potential of dislocation within the mind-body relationship was dramatically revealed. The insight, however, was not the ability to (disassociate) – it was the silence that I experienced,” he said. “I live (with) an overt mind-body problem, and obviously you can see that I think we are all leaving our bodies.”
Sanford talked to the audience about his yoga practices explaining that yoga helped him integrate the mind and body.
“I encountered a medical model that doesn’t exasperate me – it makes me worse,” he said. “I lived for 12 years before I went to yoga, trying to overcome my mind-body relationship. And I’ll tell you right now you cannot overcome (it).”
David Vairo, an applied mathematics major, said he attended the lecture to earn extra credit for his religious class. Still, he said he attended for another interest besides the extra points.
“(I came) to see how he does yoga, which is supposed to be (a) very physically demanding activity, with his disability,” Vairo said.
Sanford taught the audience yoga lessons during his lecture. For instance, he asked the audience members to stand so they could perform a yoga move that focused on the inner thigh, which he said is the most forgotten place on the body.
After reading the metaphorical excerpts from his book, the author described his thoughts on the correlation of the lack of mind-body integration to some of today’s social problems.
“Our conception of productivity is not to feel,” he said, because it does not bring people’s bodies to work.
Having this mindframe – this separating mind from body, he said, contributes to obesity and pollution problems. Thus, the goal for his nonprofit corporation- Mind Body Solutions- he said, concerns reaching the right person’s ear with the message of mind and body integration. To do this, his corporation promotes the program called “Bring Your Body to Work.”
“All I am really trying to do is save the world,” Sanford said of the mind-body connection. “It is the root of compassion; it is also the root of self-destruction.”