Body Mind Unity Initiative

Body, Mind and Emotions Unity

Body Mind Unity is an initiative, which shares awareness about the interconnectedness of the body, the mind and our emotions, consciousness and spirit, health and illness, and humans and nature. We perceive this unity and its fundamental impact on the wellbeing of human beings, society, civilization and humankind as a whole. We base our belief on evidence brought by modern, postmaterialistic science. We support the vision of a healthier and more compassionate society and a holistic approach to both physical and mental health.

Interconnectedness of the body and the mind

Interconnectedness of the body and the mind means that our thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions, beliefs or attitudes (conscious or unconscious) influence our biological functioning and our physiological state and processes, that take place in our bodies (including those that lead to illness). And it is valid vice versa. The state of our nervous system and other systems in our bodies have a direct influence on how we feel, what emotions arise, what we think, what we believe. The result is a complex intradependence between mental and physical processes and states, which, in the end, can not be referred to other than Unity.

“Bodymind” and psychosomatics

Candace Pert, an American neuroscientist, started using the term „bodymind“, which describes this unity, already in the 1990’s. Her research led to findings proving that practically all diseases are of a psychosomatic origin, or they at least have a distinguishable psychosomatic aspect. Body and mind are not one and the same, however, it is impossible to understand them if they are to be examined separately.

The impact of the environment

Our brain, nervous system, endocrine and immune apparatus, all our body organs and all our emotional and mental states have a common chemical language and they communicate with each other at all times. The nervous systems of individual humans communicate with each other, too, and they also react to what is happening around. Just like our mind and body are connected (creating unity, oneness), in the same way our individual „bodyminds“ interact with the „bodyminds“ of other people and with the surroundings, from the moment of our conception to our death. What does it mean that they all communicate and interact? Among others, it may mean the onset of processes, which may, years later, result in the development of an illness – physical or mental.

What we think and feel has influence on the body

To a similar conclusion as Candace Pert arrived also a physician and trauma expert Gabor Maté, and many others. Regardless of how sophisticated our mind is, the baseline is that its fundamental content – what we think, what we believe on conscious and unconscious levels, what we feel or what we are not able to feel – influences by a significant manner our body, be it in a good or bad sense. And the other way round – what our body experiences right from the moment of conception will impact the way we think, feel, perceive and how we behave, as Gabor writes in his book The Myth of Normal.

It is all proven and evidenced

Why do we have to scientifically prove thousand-year old wisdom?

The above is not an intuitive belief, feeling or intuition of just some people. Past decades have witnessed an explosion of scientific research and studies, which helped to explaining why our mental and emotional states may have such a profound impact on our health. Findings of studies in neurobiology, psycho-neuro-endocrino-immunology, epigenetics but also quantum physics and other scientific fields support conclusively the interconnectedness of the body and the mind and the undisputable role of surrounding factors on health and wellbeing, origin of illness and psychopathologies – however, the mainstream medicine for the most part ignores them. It is not without a sigh to pose the rhetorical question though why it is necessary to scientifically prove wisdom, that has been known to humankind for thousands of years.

Interconnection or Unity?

It is psycho-neuro-endocrino-immunology that maps the dráhy of the body mind unity, explores the connection between emotions and the nervous and immune systems and explains how stress triggers illness. „Even „connection“ is a mesleading word: only entities distinct from each other can be connected, whreas reality knows only onness,“ writes Gabor Maté in his new book The Myth of Normal. The internationally hugely popular and highly acclaimed book, The body keeps the score, in which famous psychiatrist and neurobiologist Bessel van der Kolk decribes the fundaments of trauma origin and its healing, is, in a way, about nothing else than the absolute indivisibility of the body and the mind.

Mind ≠ Brain

It is not just Gabor Maté and Bessel van der Kolk, popular scholars for some but condemned by others, who tirelessly bring the news about hundreds and thousands of researches proving the connection between the body and the mind and who point to the blindness of the mainstream medicine. A Georgetown University Psychiatrist James Gordon, who founded Mind-Body Medicine Centre, says: “It’s important to note that “mind” is not synonymous with brain. Instead, in our definition, the mind consists of mental states such as thoughts, emotions, beliefs, attitudes, and images. The brain is the hardware that allows us to experience these mental states.”

Evidence all around

With that would also agree an eminent scholar, neurobiologist and psychiatrist Dan Siegel, whose books about consciousness and interpersonal neurobiology have had a significant influence on the global discourse, and have been published in dozens of languages, including Czech. He would perhaps add that the hardware for experiencing is not just our brain, but the whole body, including the body of the collective MWe, as he refers to the living entirety on this planet, of which we are all an indivisible part. A say in the body mind unity topic will have also the neuroscientist and psychologist Stephen Porges, author of the Polyvagal theory, who will be one of the main guest speakers at our Body Mind Unity Congress in spring 2025. A new film Source about the work and research of Dr. Joe Dispenza is rife with scientific evidence about body mind unity from the beginning till the end. “Science is the contemporary language of mysticism,” echoes through the movie, and thus connects the latest science with spirituality.

Body-Mind Unity and Interconnection – historical perspective

Separation of the Body and the Mind

The awareness of the connection between the body, the mind and the spirit is nothing new, it is no new finding or discovery. Practically every culture and tradition perceived it, in the medical, social or spiritual field. And saw human beings as such – as a whole. Sometimes around the 17th century though, with the onset of the era of enlightenment, the Western world began to see body and mind as separate entities, and emotions were belittled into intangible nothings, which are after all not so important (the spirit would not be shunned as yet, as the first modern scientists were still stern Christian believers … but gradually even the spirit would give in to strict materialism). The rationalists, who identified the mind with the reason and the brain and put them on the pedestal as the only arbiter of cognition, began to consider the body as a mere machine, made of separated, independent and dispensable parts, disconnected from the mind.

The consciousness and emotions were not a subject of research

The separation of the body and the mind enabled much progress in the fields of surgery, pharmacology and many other areas of medicine and other scientific fields. However, it also significantly reduced the scientific study of human emotional, mental and spiritual life, human consciousness and also the inherent ability of human beings and human communities to heal.

Emotions are crucial for developing a sense of self

But without emotions felt in our bodies, we are simply not human, we are not able to really think and make decisions. A major influence in understanding this had a prominent scholar Dr. Antonio Damasio, author of the famous Descartes‘ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. For the first time, Damasio really showed that “you can’t shut off all the emotions from rational decision-making.“ Neuroscience has since converged around the idea that emotions are central to cognition – and thus survival. In his second book, The Feeling of What Happens, Dr. Damasio concludes that emotions and feelings were crucial to the evolution of consciousness and, along with it, a sense of self.

I think, therefore I am or I FEEL, THEREFORE I AM?

Neuroscience has since converged around the idea that emotions are central to cognition – and thus survival. In his second book, The Feeling of What Happens, Dr. Damasio concludes that emotions and feelings were crucial to the evolution of consciousness and, along with it, a sense of self.

Small steps for the Body-Mind holistic medicine

Without denying the Enlightenment era of the undisputed contributions to the development of secular science and to the progress of human society, the separation of the body and mind, symbolized by the famous Descartes‘ “I think, therefore I am”, can not be counted towards them. It was this separation that eventually contributed to the escalated materialism and strained individualism of today’s culture when humankind found itself entrenched in a self-destructive paradigm of separation and competitiveness. The French philosopher René Descartes (who, no doubt, meant no harm) and his dualism have been challenged since by many significant scientists. Without feeling, thinking is not possible. Why? Because first, our emotional apparatus develops, and only long after that and based on it, thinking becomes possible.

Holistic Medicine

During the 20th Century, this approach began to very slowly change, however, the pioneers of the body-mind unity, or scientists, who studied consciousness and spirit, did not have it easy. Despite the findings of scientific research, medicine based on the undisputable inseparability of the body and the mind is until today considered marginal or alternative and what is really worrisome, is that research around this topic may – even for top scientists at the most prestigious universities like Harvard – present a threat to their career. Holistic physicians are few and far between, they are often laughed at and they have to tread very carefully so as not to upset the “system”.

Raising awareness goes slowly

Obviously, the idea that our bodies and minds are interconnected is not shockingly new. If something, then it is shocking that somebody actually had the idea to separate them, the society bought into it, and it went as far as today. Be it wise doctors like Gabor Maté or Dan Siegel or modern spiritual teachers, they agree on the following – regarding health, connectedness and meeting real human needs, we live in the dark ages. Scholars and healers are no longer burnt, but the media, academic structures and the system of mainstream medicine know how to ostracize and defame. Regardless of their real belief, most doctors follow routinely the ‚separateness‘ angle of view. And despite all that, a huge amount of common people with common sense intuit that what they experience, what they think, what they feel, and how their body is doing is somehow connected.

Our vision and mission

We share awareness locally and connect internationally

We organize live international events from scientific and expert congresses and conferences to experiential and practical workshops, which help the new post-materialist paradigm become more visible and prominent in the public discourse. We invite experts and scholars, both world-known and local, who are able to present this new point of view, in their own way, and in the field, in which they excel. We want to be a platform – locally and internationally – for people who think, feel and perceive things similarly and believe in a healthier and more compassionate future of humankind.

The disconnection from authenticity

At the root of practically all human ailing and suffering at both individual and collective levels, we see the disconnection from our authenticity, true nature and essence and the dislocated way of life in a society and culture, which tragically do not meet basic human needs of communality, (inter)connection, attachment, respect, acceptance, agency, fulfillment and sense, and, on the contrary, look up to individual achievement, competition, status, and material success.

Every human has a value just because they exist

We also acknowledge that every human have their value just because they exist, and the way they are, without having to prove it or strive for it. We perceive the bio-psycho-social-spiritual fundaments of our existence as human beings and acknowledge the influence of culture, society and civilization on our lives. We are one of many such initiatives around the world, similarly determined to help heal the wounds that arise from the mentioned disconnection and separation (which is nothing other than the essence of trauma).