Counseling psychologist and author Hillary McBride presented her lecture “What The Body Knows: A Clinical and Christian Invitation to Embodied Living” on March 30 at the University of Indianapolis’ “Showers Lecture Series.”
The series was established in 1961 and aims to elicit deep thinking about the Christian faith, according to the University of Indianapolis. It welcomes scholars from around the country to share their work in the realm of theology and transformative faith-based education.
UIndy’s Department of Philosophy and Religion hosted the event, and it was moderated by Assistant Professor of Religion Nathan Johnson. During the event, McBride discussed how faith, faith-based traditions and embodiment can both benefit and harm an individual.
Students and faculty in the audience were presented with information and opinions based on psychological sciences and the Christian faith. McBride provided those present with insights on stress, the value of developing a relationship with oneself, and, above all else, responding to one’s own needs.
The primary takeaway from the lecture was the importance of maintaining a relationship with one’s body. McBride emphasized the importance of being in the body and how to harness that connection to benefit from it.
McBride began the lecture with a story of the first time she felt truly in a relationship with her own body. She recounted an experience at a dance workshop, where attendees were encouraged to move without restraint. She described the discomfort and judgment that she felt during her first few workshops. During her fifth workshop, she experienced a breakthrough. McBride described the way she watched herself move, and how she looked at her hands and feet, feeling embodied by God for the first time.
McBride used this story to defend her main arguments: the body knows what it needs, and listening to your body can tell you what is coming.
“[We connect] to our bodies [by] listening to their cues, paying attention, considering them and noticing things like fatigue, hunger, longing, dissatisfaction, delays and loneliness,” McBride said. “These are all details that matter, where if we stay with them long enough, they tell us about what needs to happen next.”
Listening to the body is pivotal to success and wellness. McBride told a story of her past, about how she was rewarded for denying her body of its needs, and how faith plays a role in many Christians’ relationships with their bodies.
She explained her experience with an acute eating disorder, which people in her circle and those of Christian faith would applaud her discipline in denying herself of her physical needs. McBride discussed further how the Christian faith often discredits the body, believing it to be an obstacle in the journey to eternal life.
It was not the points in her life where she punished herself for having physical needs that she felt in relationship with herself and God. Instead, it was the times when she allowed herself to connect with her body and her physical experiences.
McBride also argued that there is a strategy in being disconnected from the body and refusing the knowledge that our bodies might be attempting to provide us.
“I have to imagine myself in Plato’s or Descartes’ time when illnesses would run rampant in communities, and people would be left dead without any awareness of what happened or understanding of why or what to do about it…” McBride said. “The next time you see someone…who is in grief or joy, when you feed yourself or when you weep the tears that belong to someone else, my hope is that those actions feel like invitations to see that this human being’s bodily experience [is] something beyond the limitations and the story of the sacred.”
