We know that Rolfing impacts more than just the physical being. Many of the words we commonly use to describe our work speak to phenomenon that exist at many levels of experience. For example, we can apply ideas such as balance, center, integration, space and lightness to body structure as well as to psychological and spiritual experience. Because our interest is in furthering the evolution of the whole person, it follows that understanding the full implications of ideas such as these can only. contribute to the effectiveness and depth of our Rolfing.

Some time ago, I wrote about “space”, the emptiness or openness that could manifest as a person’s structure softens and becomes more permeable, such as in the course of Rolfing (see Rolf Lines, August September 1986). This writing explores the more down-to-earth subject of “support”.

SUPPORT. In a sense, support is what Rolfing is all about. Ida Rolf realized that if a body relates in a balanced way to the gravitational field, that field becomes a source of lift and support rather than struggle. But our experience of support or the lack of it is not only a physical phenomenon, such as feeling that “my legs don’t support me”. We also experience it psychologically: “I’m feeling a little insecure”. And even spiritually: “I wish there were something in the universe I could depend on”. The issue of support has significance and implications that go far beyond the vertical stacking of body segments.

In fact, support is a central theme for every human life. We must have it to exist, function and grow. If we can’t get it in a natural, easy way from the presence of the “Line”, we must try our best to support ourselves in whatever way we can: with tension, with holding, with rigidity, with our arms, with our backs, with our heads. Most of us have our own version of a compensatory pattern of support, a pattern of holding that serves to make us feel more secure, more supported.

CRUCIAL FOR CHANGE. Support is especially needed for the process of change and so is particularly important for us to understand as Rolfers. Any transformation requires some kind of support for it to be secure and lasting. Unsupported changes or openings are bound to be only transitory experiences if there is no foundation for them to stand or build upon. Many times we cannot easily evolve or maintain our potential level of openness or integrity because of difficulties or uncertainties about our support system; be it our legs, our relationships, or our place in the universe. If this is the case, we are bound to revert back to our old, more “secure” patterns.

BUT WHAT IS IT? Support plays a role at various levels of our experience and in many parts of our lives. We use the concept every day professionally and personally. But do we really know what support is, and are we fully aware of its importance to us?

THEORY IN A NUTSHELL. For the sake of brevity, the following is a condensed way in which to look at the many facets of support. This viewpoint suggests that:

1) There is such a thing as “true support” which exists as part of our essential nature, our beingness, and is often experienced when the Line is present.

2) For the most part, we are not in touch with this part of our being due to our habitual and long term identification with our ego structure (see earlier article about “space” and the development of the ego.)

3) This identification with ego automatically obscures our essential nature, including its supportive components, (as well as the Line).

4) We compensate for this disconnection from our beingness, and concurring loss of true support by attempting to re-create a sense of support for our selves.

5) This effort at creating support can be recognized in the body and is usually the main component of compensatory physical support patterns.

6) These tension patterns, while giving us a false sense of support, also block the manifestation and experience of true support.

7) Decompensating these physical patterns is often extremely difficult, because of the perceived threat of losing what compensatory support is available to us.

Sounds interesting, but my head’s starting to feel a little funny, and what’s this all got to do with Rolfing?

THREE LEVELS OF SUPPORT. In exploring the nature of support, we find three levels or layers of experience. There is “false support”; there is “true support”; and there is “what exists between them”. The most superficial level is what many spiritual traditions call the realm of the ego with its false sense of support. Beneath it is a layer of emptiness, deficiency and the experience of no support. The deepest realm is that of our essential nature, from which springs true support. Understanding each of these levels is necessary in the development and establishment of true support.

FALSE SUPPORT. When our true support is not available to us for whatever reason, we suffer in innumerable ways. We feel unsupported in all walks of our life. We experience insecurities and uncertainties of all kinds. We have doubts. We are anxious and afraid. We are not able to truly trust anything. At some level we feel shaky and unstable. We somehow feel disconnected from what is most real in us.

All of these “symptoms” can be more or less covered or defended against and so not be conscious or obvious. We are all familiar with some of the psychological manifestations of false support such as hardheadedness, rigidity, stubbornness, and willfulness. Regardless of our outer posturing or how we prop ourselves up, a state of deficiency and supportlessness will be present to the extent that real support is missing.

We simply need a minimum amount of support in order to live our lives. If we are cut off from our real support, some kind of compensatory support will be created and is no doubt operating. We just have to feel supported and secure in whatever way we can. False support is the next best imitation when the real thing is not available to us. It is a way that we can shore ourselves up. Though it functions in a similar way to real support, it is not a natural part of our being-ness; it is compensatory, an attempt at creating genuine effortless support. The difference in the true and the false is in the source from which they come. One flows from our core; the other is manufactured by ego and maintained by tension. One is just being; the other is a bracing.

As Rolfers, we see false support all the time, and much of our work deals with this layer of experience. It is the domain of compensations, character armor, holding patterns, contractions, rigidities, and efforting the somatic manifestations of ego identification. It is how we hold ourselves in all kinds of ways to compensate for our lack of real balance. It is not that this kind of support is bad; it serves an important function, but it does so while exacting a tremendous price from us in terms of energy, tension and pain. Our unique patterns of compensations must gradually and gently be unwraped to allow us the possibility of tapping into the Line and the true, intrinsic support which naturally arises with it.

EMPTINESS AND NO SUPPORT. As we begin to let go, we may begin to experience what is beneath the layers of defensive-ness, rigidity, and holding. Here is a realm that feels deficient and empty. As the ego support is abandoned, we will begin to feel the extent of the supportless-ness that is present. This is the gap or disconnection from true support. We invest tremendous amounts of energy in not allowing this empty gap to come into consciousness. In fact, much of the chronic holding in our bodies can be an avoidance of this realm.

It is important for us to understand this transitory space, this limbo area in which there is the experience of having no support whatsoever. Though this level is usually covered by our false sense of support, it will often be exposed during the process of Rolfing, as the chronic tension of the old support system is released. This is a difficult and scary space for us to pass through and is frequently the reason why it is hard to let go, why we unconsciously tend to gravitate back toward the security of an old pattern, and why we often experience so much resistance, emotional reactivity and psychological unrest as the old supports fall away.

In reality, we are only sensing the distance between the false and the true, but experientially that gap feels more like a bottomless abyss, and so a great deal of anxiety may surface. Either consciously or unconsciously there will be tremendous feelings of fear, uncertainty and insecurity; and the instincts of self-preservation will be activated. But these reactions, along with the state of emptiness and supportless-ness which are beneath them, must be faced, must be allowed, must be understood in order to go through them. If we cannot tolerate these empty or “negative” states, we will find ourselves automatically trying to reconstruct some sort of support system for ourselves so as to avoid. the anxiety and sensation of having nothing to stand upon. We will again find ourselves clinging to some kind of false sense of support. On the other hand, if we can stay with the process that is unfolding, we will move through it.

ALLOWING SUPPORTLESSNESS. As our awareness shifts deeper and we allow the feelings of supportlessness and emptiness, after a few moments, hours (or years!), we will begin sensing a third layer of experience which is that of true support. Again, this happens when the compensatory support of ego lets go. There is some kind of giving up; and then we are able to see, tolerate, understand and accept the state of emptiness and complete lack of support. This unfoldment is the result of the natural and spontaneous process of going deeper into the nature of one’s support in a sincere and courageous way. When we really let it happen, true support will begin to manifest, affecting both body and mind in very specific ways. Now we are beginning to realize what is actually there in us, obscured by layers of compensation, reactivity, and misunderstanding.

TRUE SUPPORT. Ultimately, true support is incredibly mysterious. One way to think of it is in relation to space. If space is the basic field within which the universe exists, then support seems to be a subtle force or presence that infuses that spaciousness. It is more than just an experience we have when certain relationships occur in the body. Real support also has a reality of its own; it is something that is actually present in the universe as a natural part of our existence. Sometimes we sense it physically, sometimes psychologically, sometimes in other ways. It is basically the same aspect of existence experienced in different ways, but always having profound effects on our consciousness and our structure by its relative absence or presence.

Ida Rolf tapped into a way of accessing true support. We call it the Line. The Line represents a certain possibility for the physical body. When certain relationships are established in the body, we can let go of our tension and holding, opening a channel of potentiality, a space that can become filled with a supportive kind of presence. It is this presence that is true support.

A FOUNDATION TO LIVE UPON. True support gives us the sense of having a firm, solid foundation to stand on. This supportive feeling is experienced both physically and psychologically. We know where we stand. We are certain in our stance, our hearts, our minds, our lives. Having a foundation imparts a sense of security. Security and support go hand-in-hand. When we are supported we feel stable, solid, relaxed. When we are supported, we are naturally secure and confident. This inherent confidence will be evident in terms of our bodies, our actions, our words, everything. There is an unquestioned sense of certainty, and so an implicit confidence about ourselves and our world.

Support gives the experience of being grounded. There is a sense of being grounded in the world, a feeling of being connected to reality in a very basic, fundamental way. It’s like we and the universe have the same roots. There is a sense of really living in our bodies, of being really present in the flesh in a concrete, definite way. Nothing is abstract; everything is concrete, present, defined, and grounded in the here-and-now. We are connected to and part of existence in a very direct, basic and solid way.

A SENSE OF FLOW. This supportive presence is a firm support, but at the same time it has a sense of resiliency. It is solid and immovable, yet responsive and adaptable. We are planted and grounded like a mountain, but capable of flowing like a liquid. When we move, we flow; and there is a sense of real will that is free, capable, unalterable, yet still flexible and flowing. There is a certainty, an intentionality, and a confidence about the flow, as if it is an aligned force that just moves. There is no stuttering, no hesitation, no fear, no doubt about our actions, our perceptions, our movements. At the same time, there is complete responsiveness to the moment; there is absolutely no rigidity, stubbornness or holding of any kind. There is no effort involved in either the support or the flow. It all happens with no effort whatsoever.

TRUST. Implicit in the experience of true support is a very basic kind of trust. It is a feeling of trusting ourselves, our bodies, our environment without even thinking about them. It is a trust that is ultimately steady, enduring, and unshakable, regardless of external circumstances. We find ourselves simply trusting and being secure in reality, trusting what is happening and what may happen.

EFFORTING AND SURRENDER. Any kind of effort, trying, rigidity or holding will tend to block our natural support. The experience of true, essential support, real connection, real will, etc. happens when there is a giving up of old holding patterns, the old position. It is the ego support, the ego trying, the ego will, the ego rigidity, that both compensates for the loss of our genuine experience of support and blocks it. The real security, the true foundation, the natural flow with all of its positive effects can occur only when there is a giving-in, a letting go, a surrender. This process of surrender occurs somatically, psychologically, and spiritually.

THE ROLE OF THE ROLFER. We have seen that when there is balance in a system, there is naturally a sense of being supported. The more imbalance, the greater need for compensatory support. A key part of ego identification is the feeling of being cut off and separate from our more universal nature. We have turned away from our true support. That disconnection creates imbalances of all kinds. The very existence of ego seems mirrored in our flesh as some kind of disharmony. This imbalance necessitates the formation of a physical and psychological support system for both the body and ego-self. When we look at our body and recognize compensatory patterns involving tension, effort, rigidity, and the like, we are seeing the somatic counterpart of our ego along with its support structure.

This is not to imply that ego is “bad” and should be Rolfed to death! Ego development is an important part of a more long-term process of growth. It is a transitory state, like that of a seedling, containing tremendous potential for future development. Personal evolution is the alchemical growth of that seed into something else.

The main function of the Rolfer is encouraging and assisting in the physical aspect of this process. A central part of that assistance is the transformation of old, compensatory patterns of support into more effortless and effective ones. The old support system that wraps and supports the ego is encouraged to let go, so that a different kind of support (along with a different kind of identity) can emerge. The next time you are really living the Line, look at the different sense you have of yourself as a person. In the final analysis, the issue of support is also a question of identity.

THE DEPTH OF TRANSFORMATION. So we have much more in our hands than a set of crooked legs, a struggling sacrum, a rotated spine or a rocky head. The challenge we face is much deeper than flesh or bones. When we are Rolfing, we are right in there with the person’s very sense of them self, their deepest experience of reality. Our work can guide us from the narrow and separate view of ego with its false sense of support, to a more essential part of ourselves that is forever and always supported by reality it self.

Seen in this light, it becomes clearer that creating support in the human structure involves much more than rearranging tissue. The physical work is definitely essential, but for the transformation to be complete there are deep and universal human issues which must be confronted (either consciously or unconsciously) in the process.

Since so many of the somatic tension patterns we deal with every day can be related to some kind of adaptation or reaction to the absence of true support in our lives, our work can have a terrific impact and can also come up against tremendous resistances. To grasp the extent of the situation is to have more patience and compassion for ourselves and others in the process of development. It’s o.k. to feel like we can’t let go; it’s o.k. to feel empty; it’s o.k. to be afraid; and it’s o.k. to surrender, rest back into and be lifted by the Earth.

Though we have only scratched the surface in this attempt to understand our experience of support, perhaps we can see more clearly the value of continually exploring the further reaches of Rolfing.The Farther Reaches of Rolfing